Over 4 in 5 consumers in the UK buy things digitally. So, now more than ever, people are checking out businesses online before ever stepping foot in a brick-and-mortar shop. In order to stay competitive, every business needs an online presence that is appealing to users and easy to use.
With so many sites out there, knowing how to improve website UX must be on your priority list if you want your business to grow.
Below are 5 quick UX tips to help you improve your site and beat out the competition.
What Does UX Mean?
UX stands for user experience and defines a huge topic. UX boils down to how users feel when they interact with your company. In terms of web design, this means creating a space that is easy to use and entices customers to your business.
Why is User Experience Important for Websites?
User experience is important to a business as websites are shop windows. Out there in the wide expanse of the internet are thousands of other businesses offering the same products and services as you. If you improve website UX and stand out from the competition, you will likely have better conversion rates and get more business.
Good website UX can also improve your overall ranking on search engines like Google. The closer you are to the top of a results page, the more people will click on your website. A slick, well-designed site that offers a better experience to users will also improve engagement with your brand and help you build trust in your chosen market.
5 Tips to Improve Website UX
Improving a whole website may seem like a big issue to tackle, but there are simple things you can do. These user experience tips will put you on the right track to creating an effective online presence.
Simplify Navigation
One of the most important parts of a website is how users get around. If your site is full of blind alleys, non-working pages and pathways that make no sense, then potential customers are going to look elsewhere.
Intuitive website design means that it is easy to use. It can be unremarkable and unnoticed, but that’s what makes it work. Clearing away clutter and minimalizing your website can make all the difference. Space is your friend in web design, and simplicity allows users to navigate your site easily.
Clear menu labels provide clear signposts for frictionless navigation. Having the labels contrast against the white spaces of the site will make them stand out. Menu labels are important as the foundation of your site and make it more accessible – reaching a wider audience and being more inclusive.
With simplicity and minimalism in mind, it’s important not to overcrowd your site with menu items. You shouldn’t have more than 7 or 8 categories on your menu bar. Otherwise, everything might start to look messy.
Incorporating a search bar can also be helpful, especially when it comes to an e-commerce site. Beyond browsing, users can find the thing they need quickly.
Employing website navigation best practices is a good place to start when it comes to improving the UX of your site.
Speed Up Your Load Time
When it comes to a lot of people using the internet, speed is the key. The impact of speed on user experience cannot be overstated. Users expect to click and be transported to the page. A slow and laborious load will mean a high bounce rate for your site and decrease engagement with your brand. This is especially true in times when users are shopping, and there is heightened competition. For example, when you’re trying to convert Christmas shoppers! A site that takes ages to load can also make you seem backwards and computer illiterate, causing users not to trust your company.
A slow website will also affect your ranking in search engine result pages, meaning fewer people will be able to find you. You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, which is free, to see how fast your website is. Besides offering a score from 0 to 100, it will also give suggestions on how to improve your score.
Large image files can be a big part of a slow website. By compressing images, you can reduce their size and improve load speeds without losing any of the quality. Browser caching is another quick fix. It’s a technique where some of the files and information from your website are stored on the user’s browser. This means that when users return to your site or new pages, the same files don’t have to be downloaded again. This significantly cuts down on loading time.
Mobile Optimisation
In 2022, over 60% of the internet population used a mobile to go online. Having your website optimised for mobile will improve website UX, and page load speed and be easier to use for customers.
A more minimalist design and easy navigation are perfect for the small screen. You should focus on typography as it will matter more in a smaller space and use that white space. For a site to work on mobiles, it’s important to plan the design with this in mind.
Mobile optimisation is especially important for your ranking as Google has adopted a mobile-first indexing policy, and they favour sites that are optimised for this purpose. Not having a mobile responsive web design will impact your SEO and result in a high bounce rate.
Incorporate Clear Calls-to-Actions (CTAs)
A call-to-action is where you encourage users to take the step to become a customer. It’s an important aspect of lead generation that turns into a conversion.
CTAs are a good way to guide user behaviour, measure the success of your web pages and encourage exploration on your site. Your CTAs need to have clear, action-orientated language – being specific and capturing users’ attention makes them more likely to act.
Having multiple CTAs on every page means that people won’t just breeze past them. Having the CTA where users don’t have to scroll to find them is useful, as well as employing appropriate colours that contrast against negative space. Red can imply an urgent action – green can point towards a sign-up page.
Gather and Utilise Customer Feedback
Knowing how customers feel about you and what could be better is integral to success. Feedback is important to your branding, helping you build trust, find new customers and improve website UX.
Methods of gathering feedback like surveys are great ways to gain insight into your customers. Especially to improve your website, tools like a heatmap can help. Here, you can see what customers are doing on your site – where they’re clicking, how far they’re scrolling and what they are avoiding.
If you get all this feedback, you must sort and analyse the data. With insights gained from this process, you can prioritise the changes that need to be made and plan it all out. At that point, it’s up to you how you implement changes – do you go for a softer launch, testing out new features or dive head first in?
Get Help to Improve Website UX Now
Hopefully, our quick UX tips have given you an idea of how you can improve your website. Any improvement should come from a customer-first perspective – UX is about how others interact with your company.
Maxweb Solutions offers support and answers to all your web design problems. Our work speaks for itself – we have helped numerous businesses become more effective in the digital space and grow. For more information, call us now on 0151 652 4777.
Posted on Friday, October 20th, 2023 in Web Design.
