Improving Your Website’s UX Can Make You More Money
Search engine optimization involves more than simply addressing technical challenges or building out a well-designed content strategy. One of the most critical aspects of website design is user experience.
While legacy media platforms like television or radio are built for passive consumers, web users are active agents that determine what content they receive, in what order and for how long. This means that by studying how your users interact with your website, you can learn a great deal about how to improve it, and optimize the experience of your users.
Ultimately, improved user experience will boost the success of your business.
What is User Experience?
In the context of web design, user experience encompasses all the elements of a user’s interaction with your company, including your brand, your website, and your products and the services you offer.
Good UX will be easy to use, simple to understand, and give customers a good impression.
UX Best Practices
Start with the basics
A high quality website design will depend in large part on a thorough understanding of how your website will be used by your customers. When optimizing the UX of a site, it helps to take into account how you want your website to be used by delving into some basic questions.
Is your website essentially a digital business card, with nothing more than basic business and contact information? Do you need an E-Commerce component to sell products online? How will your potential customers navigate the site and find the information, products or services they need?
Clarity and simplicity
No matter what your business is, the content on your site will need to be organized, the layout will need to be clear, and the site should always be as easy to navigate as possible.
Because the goal is to provide a pleasant and easy browsing experience, the font, text size, color and image placement should also make sense from a usability perspective. Don’t make it hard for your users to find the action buttons they need to get what they want. Always simplify, and never underestimate the power of negative space in a design.
If things are not clear, and if the design is muddled, website visitors will vote with their feet, spending less time on your site. Less engagement usually leads to lower profits over the long term.
Provide value
Peter Movile, a pioneer of the fields of information architecture and user experience, once explained that the core of UX is providing value to customers. He notes that for there to be a good user experience, the information on your site must have five core characteristics
Useful: The content on your site should be original and fill a need
Usable: The site must be easy to use
Desirable: The design elements should evoke emotion and appreciation
Findable: Information should be easy to locate and navigate through
Credible: User should be able to trust the information you give them
DID YOU KNOW? MORE THAN HALF OF ALL MOBILE USERS WILL LEAVE A SITE IF IT TAKES MORE THAN 3 SECONDS TO LOAD
How Will a Better UX Improve My Business?
An improved user experience can provide a host of benefits to any brand.
Happier customers
By anticipating the needs of your customers (or by retrofitting your site to better suit their needs), you will encourage greater interaction and improve the customer experience.
Lower costs
Lowering friction lowers costs. If customers can find the information they need on your website easily, if they can book appointments without calling a receptionist, if they can purchase from you without requiring any human interaction, then costs are lowered dramatically.
Lower bounce rates
With the right design elements in place, your users will easily navigate themselves around your site, and with clear pathways to information and services, visitors will stay on your site longer.
Higher Google rankings
Every year Google’s algorithm changes, but user experience has always been a core ranking factor. Along with quick loading speeds and a strong technical foundation, positive UX indicators like a lower bounce rate, greater scroll depth, longer page sessions and more user interactivity will lead to higher rankings on Google.
How Can I Improve My Website’s UX?
Search engines reward websites that users will find useful, and vice versa: a great website will be shared, bookmarked and linked to, boosting your search ranking –and your business.
However, improving UX is a complicated affair, and most often the most cost-effective way to improve your site’s UX is to reach out to a group of SEO experts to help you. They will be able to guide you through the optimization process, and engage the right professionals for each part of the job.
How does it work?
A team of SEO professionals will often start with user behavior research, with data analysts collecting and interpreting data to better understand your customers. They will also spend time studying the usability of your site along with the current web architecture in order to improve the way your site is organized and structured.
Also important is a focus on possible design and interface improvements, making sure that users’ needs are always being met, and that all design changes are aesthetically pleasing and on-brand. Of course, there are many elements that add up to an improved UX, and each case will be different.
Get in touch!
If you’re curious about how your website’s UX might be improved, and how those improvements will turn into dollars and cents, get in touch with us! We have a free consultation, and a few simple steps could level up your business and help you discover new customers.
