The Internet is a fiercely competitive place at the moment, and it’s only getting bigger and better as time moves on. So what can you do to make sure you stand out in the crowd?

A butterfly flapping its wings can cause a tornado on the other side of the world.

It really is the little things that can make a huge difference in life. We’re all aware of the Butterfly effect, but how can this relate to our online presence? Well……

Take for example a standard e-commerce website; let’s say (for arguments sake) that they sell Peanuts. They have a couple of competitors on line who they have identified, but they believe that they are the best out there, and that no one else can sell Peanuts like they do. They’ve got what they think is the perfect domain, and their website looks OK. It hasn’t been tweaked since it was made 10 years ago, so it consists of the obvious textual clutter, the odd animated logo, and their payment gateway links off to a 3rd Party, using no house styles to maintain a friendly, consistent feel. They can’t understand why people aren’t purchasing peanuts from them through their e-commerce section.

With the Internet growing at such a pace, it’s crucial that website owners keep things fresh and up to date. Think of a website like a car sales showroom. If you walked in, and it looked 10 years old, you’d instantly think “this looks a bit old”. Before the salesman has even had his chance to flog you his newest motor, you’re instantly thinking “that Garage round the corner looked much nicer than this!” Not good, is it?

Of course, changing the entire look and feel of your website is not a good thing, by any means! But simple changes, like ensuring your payment gateway is user friendly (spending time analysing and implementing a good user experience on e-commerce websites can significantly increase sales) can make all the difference. Users look for consistency and accuracy across a website, mostly subconsciously.

So what small changes could Mr Peanuts make to his e-commerce site to improve the users experience? Well to begin with, if using a 3rd party payment provider, at least attempt to style the payment gateway so it looks familiar. Of course, don’t mislead the user, let them know that your payments are being handled by a secure provider, but also let them know that it’s still Mr Peanuts. Tell them what stage they are at through the process, what they’ve completed, and what they’ve got left to complete before they successfully purchase their peanuts. Don’t take anything for granted. If the user gets confused, or worried that they’re not doing something right, chances are they will go stop, and probably go elsewhere.

What about these animated GIF’s that Mr Peanut so dearly loves? Well, let’s say for arguments sake that they are 20kb in size, and he has 10 of them on his homepage. That’s 200kb of animations being downloaded. Of course, his site is 10 years old, there’s no funky caching going on here. His homepage takes a lifetime to load (by a lifetime, I mean a matter of seconds (5 > 10), but in this day and age, who waits!?). For Mrs Jones on her 56k dial-up modem, Mr Peanut’s site is just too slow. She doesn’t need to see those animations to buy her peanuts, she knows what the she wants, but yet she has to wait for them to download every time she visits. Mr Peanuts competitor has a slick site, which loads super quick for Mrs Jones. In this scenario, the competitor wins.

Ok, so these scenarios are farfetched, of course, but the point I’m trying to make is that it *really* is the small things that can influence your users. User Experience and website analysis may seem like a fad, and sound like an expensive con, but it really isn’t.

Spend the time investing in your users, doing your research and planning your user journeys. Your users will thank you for it.