According to a Walker Information report, by 2020 customer experience will be more important to your business strategy than price or product.

Your website is key to creating a strong customer experience, and that’s why it’s more important than ever to ensure your site meets – and exceeds – expectations.

So, what make a good website? Here are our six top tips.

1. Simplify the design

Resist the urge to clutter your homepage with too much company information. Instead, focus on expressing your value proposition in a few succinct sentences and set out a step-by-step process with a specific call to action. This is web design best practice, and will ensure your customers understand what you offer and how they can work with you.

2. Revisit the content

While publishing regular content with the right keywords is helpful for increasing your search engine ranking, remember that content is about more than blog articles alone. Use explainer videos, infographics, SlideShare presentations and webinars to complement your text-based content and boost customer engagement.

3. Update the imagery

There are many stock libraries that provide free images under creative commons licences. However, investing a relatively small amount of money into professionally shot images will go a long way to modernising your website. And it’s often more visually effective to use one large hero image than a series of less impactful smaller shots.

4. Optimise for mobile devices

The rise of smartphones and tablets means your website must be optimised for use on mobile devices. You’ll need to speak to your web developer about mobile optimisation. Or if you take a DIY approach, site-building tools like WordPress and Squarespace offer plug-ins that will help you create a mobile version of your website.

5. Set up live customer chat and payment gateways

There are several live-chat apps on the market that you can use to communicate directly with your customers while they’re on your website. This gives you the opportunity to instantly answer any questions they have. If you’re entering the e-commerce marketplace, make sure your site is transactional by creating a payment gateway. This allows customers to conveniently make a purchase without leaving your page.

6. Monitor its performance

Open a Google Analytics account and add the supplied code to your website. This will enable analytics tracking that will reveal how people are interacting with your website. Pay particular attention to your bounce rate, which shows the percentage of users who leave your site after visiting just one page. A high bounce rate is indicative of an unengaged audience.

Ensure your website uses a clean, modern design with multimedia content and updated imagery. Also focus on optimisation for mobile devices, real-time customer support and analytics tracking. Do all this and your website will quickly become your most valuable sales tool – for now and into the future.