Your website is at the core of each of your digital marketing initiatives. Whether you are focusing on SEO, SMM, or PPC, you ultimately want people to visit your website or landing page.
But what if your digital strategies bring people to your website, but most of them just bounce off within a few seconds? Chances are, the user experience of your website is not very impressive.
According to Taylor & Francis Online research, it only takes about 50 milliseconds or 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website.
If they are not happy with what they see, website usability, speed, content layout, or just unable to find the product or information they are looking for as quickly as possible, they will leave and move to another website.
But there are some easy and effective ways to improve the user experience of your website. Here is a list of the top 8
1. Start with Engaging Content
Gone are the days when people were just happy with purchasing products online. They now expect every website they interact with to provide a lasting experience. Unique and engaging content is one of the most effective ways to provide an improved experience to your website visitors.
In fact, according to a BlueSpark report, 82% of consumers are more likely to trust your business if you have custom content on your website.
| Engaging and helpful content allows you to build a lasting connection with the visitors. Once people are more familiar with a brand, they’ll be more confident about their purchases from their website. |
2. Be Consistent with the Visuals and Typography
As we are talking about content, another great way to improve user experience is to be consistent with the visual and typographical flow of your website and web pages. The content text should distinguishable for improved visibility and readability. The typography will mostly involve 3-4 levels, including title (H1), headings (H2), sub-headings (H3), and body text.
| Use the same typographic hierarchy across your website to ensure that everything is consistent and uniform. The most important part of the text could be larger, darker, or bolder to attract the readers’ attention. |
3. Use White Spaces
Your website is your digital real estate. You’d definitely be encouraged to use as much area of your digital property for advertising your business. But this might not always be the best option. A study by Dr Dyi-Yih Michael suggests that white spaces between paragraphs improve comprehension by as much as 20%.
| While the empty white space will surely consume more area of your website, it will help improve the effectiveness of your content and make your website and content look neat and fresh, increasing visitor engagement. |
4. Be Strategic with Website Layouts
When working on a website layout, always try to imagine how a particular layout will make it easier for your visitors to understand the information available on your website. Your target audience can also help you with most elements of your website, including the layouts.
For instance, if you are targeting youth, you can be more experimentative with the colours, designs, and shadows. You can also consider the brutalist website design that is currently very popular among the youth. But if you are aiming for corporate clients, try to keep things simple and concise.
| Sketching your layout before moving to the design phase can help you bring more clarity based on how you want the user experience to be. |
5. Optimize Page Speed
Nothing annoys a website visitor more than waiting for a page to load. According to research by Section.io, the bounce rate of a website can increase by up to 20% for the extra 5 seconds a page takes to load. Page loading speed across devices is also a critical search engine ranking factor.
| Google offers a free tool where you can test the speed of your website. The tool also offers suggestions to help you improve page speed. |
6. CTAs are the Key
According to research by SmallBizTrends, almost 70% of small business B2B websites do not have a CTA on their homepage. When you are more concerned about big-picture stuff like your website’s feel, look, and design, you can easily forget something as critical as calls to action.
But any webpage without a CTA takes you farther away from achieving your digital objectives.
When working on your website, ensure that every page has a clear and compelling CTA, like a form, link, or button that redirects the visitors to the next step you want them to take.
| CTA text plays a crucial role in increasing the click-through rate. Direct CTAs such as Book Your Event or Add to Cart or Give it a Try – Free Trial for 30 Days can bring more results than boring and vague CTAs such as Learn More, Go, etc. |
7. Be Responsive and Mobile-Friendly
More than 50% of the internet traffic now comes from mobile phones. Needless to say, your website should be responsive and mobile-friendly for improved digital visibility. But just having a mobile version of your website is not enough. You should also ensure that your website functions, looks, and feels as amazing across handheld devices as it does on desktop.
| Selecting the right font size, using a mobile menu, reducing form size, image compression, and speed optimization are some of the ways in which you can improve the user experience of your mobile website. |
8. Encourage Visitors to Leave a Feedback
To succeed as a digital marketer or business owner, it is necessary to listen to what the website visitors and customers are saying. The feedback provided by them is a simple and effective way to improve your website and align it to their expectations and requirements.
| Consider adding a short survey on your website asking the visitors about their experience on your website. Based on their answers, you can then add new elements or improve the existing ones to provide an upgraded user experience. |
Improving User Experience for Improved Website Performance
Your job as a digital marketer, website designer, or business owner is to make the experience of each of the website visitors worth their time. Improving the user experience of the website is one of the most effective ways to achieve this objective. Now that you are aware of some of the easiest ways to improve website user experience, start working on them to see how they help your website.
Alternatively, you can also consider a reputable digital marketing agency for working on your website and providing you with the expected results in the least amount of time.
