Is Your Website Meeting The Millennial Expectations?

When considering website design, it’s important to consider your target demographic. Who is going to be visiting your site and buying your products? Every company has its own variation of the ideal customer. Your ideal customer could be a college student from Utah or a beach bum from the West Coast. Whoever it may be, one fact is clear: the Millennial Generation is growing into the most prominent consumer in both today’s market.

Millennials are those born roughly between 1980 and 2000. They are a dialed-in, tech-savvy, social-media-oriented generation. When it comes to website design, Millennials are looking for an intuitive, user-friendly interface. Millennials value relevant information, and they want that information as accessible as possible. So, make sure you include blogs, forums or testimonials on your website in clear view.

Social media is important to Millennials. Maybe you’re just a ma-and-pa shop somewhere in Utah that doesn’t think social media is consequential, but social media is a big deal for Millennials. The 2013 Millennial Impact Report stated that 82 percent of Millennials have greater trust in companies that have a social media presence. In your website design, make sure you include social media emblems that link to your company’s social media accounts.

If you don’t have accounts on social media yet, go sign up right now — Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. That should be a good start. You’ll be glad you did. If your website design caters to the growing Millennial consumerism, that effort will eventually translate into business growth for your company.

Millennial decision making relies heavily upon customer reviews, so be sure to make those readily available on your website. If you only have bad reviews, don’t hide them. Hiding will only snuff out the Millennial’s interest like a cold Utah winter snuffing out a single match, except in the end it’s your business that is extinguished.

In reality, it’s not likely that your company has only bad reviews. Even if this is the case, the solution should be to recognize what is wrong and make the necessary changes. Once the customers are happy again, post their reviews on your website.

Supporting a noble cause and promoting that cause on your website is another tactic that attracts Millennials. Whether it be a clean water initiative in a poor country or cancer research in Utah, Millennials want to feel that they are making a difference in the world. Through your website design, help the Millennials help the world. It’s a win-win-win.

Joshua Valdivia writes for Fusion 360, an SEO and content marketing agency. He writes for many other clients as well. Follow on Twitter.