Does your brand create an instant user experience that benchmarks the initial bonding stage between consumer and brand? When it comes to designing websites, an exceptional digital experience should be the number one thing on your strategy list.

Getting your brand to be engaging and memorable has everything to do with amplifying the user journey online and focussing on human behaviour.

Here are five things you need to do in order to make customers want to bond with your brand the first time around:

1. Find out exactly what they want

Intuitive design is real and knowing what your audience wants before they do is not a skill, it’s a design strategy - and it could save your bottom line. Intuitive design is quite simply, a matter of meeting your online customer’s needs seamlessly, without an interrupted experience.

The idea of answering all your customer’s questions before they ask is key. Ask yourself: what is the task, and can my customer complete it effectively?

2. Don’t make them work for it

If you're running a bookings business, and your objective is to sell as many tickets online in a short space of time, remember to make the process as easy as possible for your customers. 

For instance, airline and accommodation brands like travelstart.co.za and Airbnb.com have improved their digital brand experiences with an easy flow experience that makes browsing efficient, the price comparison experiences simple and ensures customers feel secure and at ease from check in to check out.

3. Only talk 'responsive' after the third engagement

Sadly, the term 'Responsive Websites' in business has become misunderstood. The term means cross-screen compatibility, not cross-screen user-journey.

The proverbial ‘cookie cut’ desktop approach is a failure in web design. Just because your site is ‘responsive’ across mobile or tablet devices doesn’t mean it meets the needs of the consumer.

The truth is, you can’t have a responsive website without a memorable customer journey. They need to exist together. If you want your customer to land on your website and stay, then your aim should be able to have a ‘mobile first’ strategy in mind from the get-go to support your responsive website.

Consider this: if there are 3.7 billion unique users online globally, and 49.7% are attributed to webpage viewing, then you cannot purely rely on desktop stacking your website design.

Design your website with compelling a mobile user experience in mind first – this needs to be a design strategy that mirrors the same intuitive experience across all devices.

4. Spice it up

The digital design strategy is key for brand engagement effectiveness. Here's how to keep your user from straying:

1. Your overall web design should be simple, balanced and align with your brand CI.
2. Choosing a typeface that is easy on the eye and has a clear weight hierarchy is a must.
3. To increase your brand’s chances, make sure to include visual imagery and video too.
4. Whatever you do, do not include user interface animation just because you think it looks or sounds cool. It needs to be created for the purpose of enhancing the user experience, and not just for art’s sake.

5. You have three seconds. Go

Quality, appeal and good conversation pretty much sum up the Richter scale of the brand relationship 'wants'.

Your brand only has three seconds to convince the customer to stay or stray on the site. Your landing page should load and lure your user in within three-seconds – telling them that they’ve landed in the right place.

Too much guesswork on this one and you’ll risk losing them to Joe Soap in the adjacent tab. With an average of 200 ads being served to a user per day, disruption is the new digital disease and makes for a highly competitive landscape to play in. We recommend keeping your three-second game plan strong.

Don’t let your plans of www domination stop at design. All things considered, the user journey should be high on the list when it comes to strategising in the online space.

For more information, visit www.sointeractive.co.za. You can also follow So Interactive on Facebook or on Twitter