Does Your Website Consistently Meet Your Audience’s Expectations?

If you want consumers to see your brand as reliable and trustworthy, you need to focus on consistency and presenting your website and brand identically across every platform. Over time, your customers may come to expect certain things from you. The ability to meet those expectations can mean the difference between keeping a customer and losing one.

Consumers who have never visited your site before may also come with certain expectations. Knowing your target audience and their general habits helps you figure out how to meet those expectations and gain new customers.

When a brand delivers consistency, their average revenue increase is about 23 percent, and the brand is more visible to potential leads. However, it isn’t always easy to know what your audience’s expectations are and how you can consistently meet them. Here are eight areas to look at to remain as consistent as possible and meet or exceed what the customer expects.

1. Study Why People Visit Your Site

Take time to figure out why visitors come to your site in the first place. Study analytics, poll current customers and put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Once you understand the reason most people come to your site in the first place, it becomes easier to deliver on expectations those site visitors have.

Once you have an idea of why people come to your site, you can meet those expectations head on. If they come seeking information about your industry, present them with articles and videos that answer typical questions. On the other hand, if they come looking for a product, make it easy to find those popular items by placing them on the front page of your site.

2. Provide Predictable Aesthetics

While it is OK to change up the look or layout of your site from time to time, users likely expect to see certain elements every time they land on your page. Perhaps your brand is known for using a specific color palette across all marketing. If this is the case, you won’t want to stray too far outside of that expected palette. People base 75 percent of their opinion of your site’s credibility on its aesthetics.

Most people associate Mountain Dew with a bright green-and-yellow logo. Note how they repeat that look on their website. First, they include their familiar logo in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Next, the colors of the grid panels reflect these same colors. In some, it is a splash of yellow or green, and in others, most of the background is green. This approach works well for brand association. Sticking to the same color palette is also visually pleasing.

3. Keep a Familiar Layout

If you’ve always kept the login button in the upper right of your website, don’t suddenly move it to the bottom of the page. Visitors who come to your site day after day expect to see things exactly where they were on their last visit. When you do need to change an element, try to stick to one or two changes at a time and let your regular visitors know about the change with redirects, arrows pointing out the change or a quick email to your subscriber list.

In addition to keeping the layout you’ve always had, consider typical placement for items. For example, the navigation bar on most sites is near the top of the page. Users expect the logo to be in the upper left-hand corner, and for a click on that logo to take them to the homepage. Consider these common elements in your own layout, and try not to step too far outside the norm.

4. Hit the Gap Between Expectation and Reality

What your site visitors expect and what you can realistically deliver may be two different things. For example, site visitors might expect free shipping all the time, but it just isn’t feasible to offer free shipping for orders under a certain dollar amount. One way to overcome any letdowns after purchase is to point out the flaws in your product or system before the customer discovers them, which helps level the playing field between expectation and reality.

T K Maxx — the UK branch of American retailer TJ Maxx — points out some of the challenges of shopping at their stores, but then goes into the possibilities. By admitting some of the drawbacks up front, but showing why the benefits outweigh those, T K Maxx rides the line between expectation and reality and prepares customers for shopping in their stores. Sharing your flaws lessens their impact when consumers encounter them in reality.

5. Create Consistent Messaging

The message you give should be consistent from the way you present your website, the specials you offer and even emails you send out to your loyal customers. Consistent messaging requires knowing your goals as a brand and what you stand for. If your plan is to provide high-quality clothing at a low price, you won’t suddenly push expensive shoes on your website.

What do you stand for as a company? Is there a cause you’re passionate about? Does that cause align with your other messaging and overall branding? Figure out what your goals are as a brand and how you can share that information with site visitors, and stick to it for the long haul.

6. Put the Customer First

Put yourself in your customers’ place. What do you want from your favorite brand? If you visit your local coffee shop every day and they always get your order perfect, you aren’t likely to visit the chain coffee shop where they always mess up your order. Your website should deliver similar customer experiences, always putting the customer experience first. Think through potential problem areas and fix them before they escalate.

Everlane has spent time developing a customer-centric approach. They present their company as offering “exceptional quality” and “radical transparency.” They’ve identified what matters to their target audience — ethical factories. Those who buy Everlane products are committed to ensuring they only buy clothing from ethical manufacturers who don’t exploit human labor. By putting customers first, Everlane has created a niche in an overcrowded industry.

7. Track Performance

What elements on your website aren’t working well? Those impact the overall user experience. Look at heat maps. Are there any areas that aren’t getting attention? Do you really need those elements on your page? Studying internal statistics shows you where your visitors are headed once they hit your landing page. Consider whether this is where you want visitors to go, or if you need to make some adjustments to funnel them to a desired location.

Tracking performance also shows flaws in your website over time. Perhaps placing special sales on a slider worked for a bit, but site visitors have grown bored with that placement or offering. Once you see popularity for that element has decreased, replace it with something fresh and new.

8. Develop a Branding Style Guide

To consistently meet expectations, your site and any marketing materials should be predictable. A branding style guide helps create an environment where everyone working on your website and marketing is on the same page. Your style guide should include the proper use of your logo, color palettes, typography and general writing style guides and photo styles.

Consistency Matters

Once you realize users come to depend on your brand for certain things, it becomes clear why consistency is so important. It’s worthwhile to make sure everything from the look of your site to the way you deliver on expectations matches what consumers are looking for. If you can provide consistent quality, you’ll beat your competitors every time.

About the author:

Lexie is a freelance UX designer and writer. She enjoys conducting A/B testing and sending off prototypes to clients. She manages Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.