Creating a Better User Experience for Your Website
Businesses can increase efficiency online, but not if their site provides a bad user experience. In our latest article, we tell you how to improve your UX.
Have you ever visited a website looking for one simple thing and felt lost and confused? Clicking through page after page to find a “book online” button or contact form is frustrating, isn’t it?
Here in the industry, we call that a bad user experience—or UX to get technical. This nightmare scenario might even be occurring on your site right now, and it could be driving away potential clients or customers.
Signs your site offers clients/customers a bad user experience
- People call or email instead of completing an action that could be done on your website.
- In GA4, your conversion rates are low.
- Your customer service team often answers questions your website could answer.
- You’ve been told, “I couldn’t find it on your website.”
If any of these indicators are true for your business, you probably need an overhaul. Fair warning: This process takes a bit of time, but it will be completely worth it when you see your conversion rates (and, as a result, sales) jump.
Steps to Bettering Your Site’s UX
Evaluate your information architecture.
- An information architecture is a visual representation of how content is organized on your website. Mapping it out will help you evaluate the relationships between pages and determine if content needs to be moved, removed, or replaced.
- Start with the main sections on your navigation bar and map out all the pages under it. Then, think about a first-time user coming to your website. Where would they look to find the information? And once they’ve found it, is there a clear call-to-action (CTA)?
- If you’re beginning a new site or are committed to a complete content refresh, you could also use the card sorting method. Often favored by web designers, this method involves writing down bits of information or ideas on individual cards and then asking someone outside your organization to sort and group them.
Check your Core Web Vitals.
- Aside from content, factors like website load time can influence your users’ experience. Google recommends that your pages load in 5 seconds or less to keep your audience engaged instead of frustrated.
- Luckily, Google introduced Core Web Vitals to identify usability issues, such as a slow-to-load site. You can also view your site’s interactivity and visual stability through your Google Search Console account. If you’re unfamiliar with these metrics or need help tracking them, we recommend contacting us for more information.
Write for an online audience.
- We’ve seen client websites with 10-sentence paragraphs and over a thousand words for an “About Us” section. And while it’s hard to tell them to take a hatchet to the hours of work they poured in, we have to do it—web content has to be concise.
- The simple truth is that website users are usually just looking for answers. If they cannot find them quickly, they’ll either go somewhere else and/or resent you for making them sift around.
- Our content writers recommend keeping paragraphs short, breaking up sections with imagery, and utilizing subheadings for different topics. If you need an example, just look at this blog 🙂
Here’s the big takeaway:
Creating a good experience for your site users requires extensive testing, research, and more testing. But in today’s digitally driven world, you must do it.
If you have questions about refining your web design or content, reach out today we look forward to start you off with an audit!
