Is your website drawing visitors in or pushing them away? The design and messaging on a website should create a positive emotional connection with visitors. This can be a hard quality to define because it occurs on an unconscious level. However, if you master this, visitors are more likely to engage on the site and to remember the experience even after leaving.
Here are the top factors to consider for creating an emotional connection:
Know who you are connecting with. First, you need to understand your website visitors or you’ll never be able to tap into what appeals to them. If your design, navigation, and content cause confusion and frustration for a visitor, then you are creating a negative experience and your business will be memorable in the wrong way.
Don’t be afraid to take a risk. In order to grab a user’s attention, your website needs to stand out. Having a custom design that matches your branding is a good start. Next, don’t be afraid to add humor and go outside the box with the design and content.
But don’t go too far. There’s a balance in taking risks on your site. If you create a site that has a navigation flow and elements visitors have never seen before, they’ll just get lost and frustrated. Balance a customized design and messaging with best practices such as avoiding long paragraphs of text, overwhelming visual animation, and confusing navigation.
Make it personal. To reach a visitor on this emotional level, you’ll need to show there’s a person behind the business and site. Photos of your leaders or team members, fun facts about the business, and recognitions in the industry or community are great ways to spark a level of familiarity with a visitor.
Be consistent. Another aspect of this emotional experience is authenticity. If a visitor detects incongruent messages on the site, this can unconsciously create distrust. The messaging and portrayal of your business online should match the offline experience as well. Small details will either build upon this emotional connection or start to undermine it.
Remember you can continue to work on this emotional engagement outside of a full website redesign. Small design tweaks and content changes can make a big difference. If you aren’t sure if your website is drawing in visitors, contact us HERE for a free website consultation to discuss.