If you know about our history, you know it’s rich in building apps and supporting them with sound marketing strategies. As app developers and digital marketers, our team has raised a tech startup from the ground up, connecting university students with local businesses across the globe. We’ve also built financial, medical testing, and tech enablement apps for small and enterprise clients.
We’ve got a lot of technical chops around software and have translated the most critical growth and success factor from app development to web design: stickiness. Stickiness is traditionally applied in app development through features and enhancements that drive customers to return to your app. Generally, the longer someone engages with your business, the more likely they will convert. That includes website, app, or any parts of your business.
Below are five web design techniques derived from app development that can build stickiness for your website and brand:
1. Web Design That’s Personalized for Customers
Oftentimes, we believe that we know what customers want from a website. If you get this wrong, you’re asking for rework on your website. So, before you do anything else on your website, understand your customers and their pain points. This knowledge is extremely important for both app development and web design, and comes from a bunch of sales conversations with customers and asking them why. Your goal is to identify your customers’ root problems and interest points to unlock the general direction of your website. Once you’ve got the direction down, the next question is, how do you know whether you’re getting it right with customers?
Qualitatively, you can ask customers what they think. Quantitatively, you need analytics. With any website design and development, integrating analytics is always a must and can uncover the following:
- Visibility into what customers are doing on your site.
- Which pages are popular, and which are not?
- Are your headlines, imagery, and/or overall content doing well?
With this information, you can determine the weaker content areas of your website that need to be fortified. Additionally, you can identify content buckets that can be elaborated through new articles, videos, and web pages to build a stickier website.
2. When it Comes to Web Design, Stick to Simple
Have you ever heard of paralysis analysis? It’s when you’re presented with too much information, which prevents you from taking action. With apps, you avoid paralysis by reducing clutter and showcasing their core functionality. Similarly, web design should do the same with content and the associated call to actions.
As such, we suggest the Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) methodology for web design. KISS dumbs down web design complexity and simplifies concepts. There are a few ways to achieve KISS web design:
- Make your headlines succinct – confirm that people can get the gist of your article from just the headlines alone. If you don’t have many headlines, add them!
- Trim the fat around your content without sacrificing SEO – get to the point fast and use tools to improve and grade your writing.
- Use bullets and sections when possible – your goal is to organize your content. Customers and search engine crawlers love organized content, which speeds up interpretation and decision-making.
- Use images that support your story – it’s easy for web designers to pick avant-garde images for web placement to make your website pop. The challenge is making sure those images support your story without being too distracting.
These four points are a great starting point for simplifying and creating sticky designs. For help with KISS web design and a stickier site, contact the Uplancer team for a free consultation!
3. Reason to Return with Web Design
Related to any digital experience, users will return if they have a reason to return (RTR). An RTR is entirely true for applications and websites. You want people to spend as much time as possible with your brand because again, more time corresponds to a higher likelihood of purchasing. For apps, users are encouraged to return through the following:
- Gaming apps offer free rewards and scoreboards for returning users.
- Social media apps display new user-generated content and trending topics.
- Banks and productivity apps send notifications and reminders to their clients.
For websites, the RTR is slightly nuanced. There are a few ways that RTR can be achieved for website visitors:
- Newsletters keep customers in the loop with your latest industry information.
- Irresistible promotions and discounts keep users on the lookout for your next email/message.
- A dynamic website with new content will engage customers better. Recall the times you’ve visited a website with a copyright date from years ago or a very dated web design experience! We certainly do and are less likely to return to those stale websites.
Although the above RTR examples can work, they won’t work if your marketing team isn’t built to support them. RTR requires a ton of strategy, planning, and use of technologies like CRM and other MarTech platforms. Therefore, there is a good chunk of work to set up an RTR and requires heavy automation to maximize the stickiness of your website.
4. Track Your Website Visitors and Don’t Let Them Forget About You
Depending on your lead generation methods, your web designer and developer can help you uncover insights through analytics tracking. With it, you’ll distinguish customers who’ve visited your website and who are ideal to pursue. After you’ve identified these details, it’s a matter of keeping your brand and website at the top of mind for your customers.
This concept opens the door for retargeting or remarketing. Traditionally, customers must interact with your brand at least seven times before they remember you, whether through ads, commercials, marketing collateral, or other mediums. Digitally, you have more options:
- Search Engine Retargeting – how this works is search engine advertisers, like Google Ads, discreetly serve your ads to your recent website visitors. The retargeting occurs within their own search engine results pages and partnership websites. As a result, you increase the number of times your brand interacts with customers, increasing the likelihood for them to buy your product/service.
- Social Media Retargeting – this leverages the same principle as search engine retargeting but for popular social media networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Once a customer has visited your website through one of your social media ads, they will be served your retargeting ads. The retargeting occurs on the social media platform and through their partnership network sites to increase your brand’s visibility.
- Email Retargeting – believe it or not, email can retarget website visitors too! You can build a profile for customers you want to retarget based on their interaction with your email and website. Email retargeting is incredibly powerful since you gain insights into the company that shows interest in your products or services, allowing you to build out two things: 1) look-alike companies and 2) an updated target list with similar roles from your prospect company as new targets. Apollo and Bant are great options for email retargeting.
The above are a few examples of digital marketing retargeting. As stated, retargeting requires tracking integration from your web design team. It’s a great way to enhance your stickiness for your brand and website. Have your web design team confirm that your website is integrated and set up correctly with your retargeting campaign.
5. Invoke Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is an overused term, but it does work for web design. Like apps, websites can leverage thought leadership within your industry to build stickiness among your customers. There are many ways to do this, one of which could be through short videos.
Related to short videos, when we first heard about TikTok in 2017, we thought it couldn’t compete because of how Vine unfolded. So, how could TikTok compete? Fast-forward to today, and TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms with 1 billion+ users. YouTube, Facebook, and even LinkedIn simulate the same experience through their own versions and reels.
Video content is consumed quickly on the internet and is one way to establish thought leadership as a business. With the right strategy, planning, and execution, you can carve out thought leadership as a lead generation tool. Like any social media strategy, you can’t stop once you start. You must be consistent with your efforts to drive the results your company needs.
The Bottom Line / TLDR
For apps and websites, stickiness is the key to sustained success, fostering repeat engagement, and increasing conversion rates. Achieving stickiness involves curated websites tailored to customer needs, KISS web design, and providing compelling reasons for users to return. Tracking visitor behavior and implementing retargeting strategies can amplify engagement and brand recall. Additionally, through consistent, high-value content, such as videos, thought leadership can establish authority and expand reach for lead generation. By combining these strategies, your website and digital brand can be the cornerstone for growth and customer retention.
Connect with Uplancer today for help making your website even stickier website!
