Before the days of Amazon and e-commerce, consumers searched for and purchased products differently. Rather than researching and buying online, we would actually go into a store to purchase something. Crazy, right?
When walking into the store, you’d be greeted by a friendly employee. Moments later, you may be welcomed by the same employee or another asking you if you need help finding anything.
This is where you would inquire about the product and pick the employee’s brain. If you made the decision to purchase, you would then take the product to the counter where an employee would ring you up, ask you if you found everything all right and ensure you had a great experience.
Fast forward to now and we can get anything our heart desires with the click of a button. But how do you compete in such a fast-paced environment, an environment where you don’t even get a chance to tell consumers about your product?
Just because everyone is online doesn’t mean you can’t delight customers! We are experiencing a revival of traditional buying habits but through a different platform. We can still talk to customers in real time; we just do it on websites, chatbots, live chat, and social media.
The personal touch of conversation is one way that online user experiences are evolving.
It’s no longer just about having the best product or the prettiest site, but rather it’s about making people connect with your product and engage with your brand. It’s about communicating with people — like people!
Can A Chatbot Improve My Website UX?
The truth is, a chatbot might not be the best feature for every business’s site. A good way to determine if your site could benefit from a chatbot is to do user research or write a user story, which includes discerning what type of user visits your site, the solution they are seeking, and why they are seeking it.
Once you have established that foundation, ask yourself the following three questions:
1. "Could this process benefit from automation?”
2. "Can I position my product in a way that having a conversation about the product would drive sales?”
3. "What can I do with a chatbot to make my users’ lives easier?”
Once you answer all three, you should have a solid answer of whether or not a chatbot will help you capture leads, save time, and drive sales.
What’s The Future of SEO?
For years, we’ve been laser-focused on keywords and SEO. And while those are still important to search engines and searchers, we are seeing a shift in how users search for products. Site architecture has already drastically changed and you can’t just stuff your site with keywords and expect to show up at the top of page one of Google Search Results.
With voice search becoming increasingly popular, the web will be dominated by people asking questions like “Where can I get a new car?”; “What is the quickest way to Central Park?”; and so forth? It’s predicted voice search will make up 50% of all online searches by 2020! A quarter of all American households already own a smart speaker, too.
Whether you are a fellow marketer or a business owner, we must be ready for this change. And we need to ensure our content can answer our users’ questions — easily and quickly.
How To Put A Chatbot on Your Site
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, dozens of sites are already utilizing chatbots. If you are ready to add a chatbot to your site, here are a few tips on how to get started.
1. HubSpot recently released a video series called “How to Be Really Good at Marketing in 2020.” Your first step should be to check these out. Every day, more people are interacting with chatbots to learn more about products/companies. HubSpot’s guide can help you prepare for 2020.
2. Next, add a chatbot service to your website or even Facebook page. If you are a HubSpot partner, I recommend getting HubSpot’s bot tool, which allows you to set up quick and easy conversational lead capture bots for your website or Facebook page.
3. Next, create a database of shared knowledge. Building a database of shared knowledge enables your bot and your support/sales team to have the same answer to a question that may be asked.
4. Finally, write conversational content for your bot. Remember these are real people that are looking to connect; they’re not robots.
Right now a lot of businesses websites aren’t really talking, they are just screaming into the void of the search results and endless content. Hoping that someone would hear them and be enticed to buy their product.
Are you tired of screaming into the void, waiting for someone to hear your message? As a StoryBrand Certified Agency, we can help you clarify your message so your customers listen. Check out our case study and find out how StoryBrand has transformed businesses like yours.
