In today’s digital age where there is a multitude of options available to web users, businesses of all size, including small business to enterprise-sized organisations are implementing creative techniques and strategies to attract and retain customers.
One such strategy is by ensuring a superb overall user experience, and understanding how to improve website user experience in areas that may be lacking.
Web user experience simply known as UX is an overall assessment of a web user’s time interacting with your site, product and/or services. It is also an indirect and important factor when it comes to your SEO campaign.
Although several factors determine the overall web user experience, it mainly revolves around the usability and accessibility of your site.
It sounds important, because it is. Want to feel the importance of a user-friendly experience? Try out User Inyerface. You’ll end up coming back for these tips – we guarantee it.
The overall experience of web users on your site remains a major factor that can either foster or suppress your chances of success, and is an indirect ranking factor when it comes to SEO.
An effective tactic to make a web user convert from a one-time visitor to a repeat viewer is to improve your overall user experience.
User experience on your website starts right from when they arrive on your landing pages, browse through different sections and exit.
The overall experience of a user on your website is one of the topmost factors that they will use to subconsciously examine and evaluate the quality of your services.
Your website is the first point of contact between your enterprise and a potential customer. This means that how well your website performs in regards to being responsive, accessible and easy to use is of utmost importance.
Since your website is your digital sales representative with no days off, you have to ensure that adequate measures are put in place to guarantee complete user satisfaction 24/7.
To help you with this task, we have put together some top tips you can use to help you improve website user experience
Contents
#1. Use a Strong Call to Action
A call to action (CTA) is primarily a button or a short message written in bold letters and striking colors that prompts a web visitor to make a purchase, take an action or move on to the next step.
If it should be clicked, make it obvious. The deal is the people that are usually on your website have a mission and are always in a bit of hurry.
So, they want to get what they want without wasting a single second.
And, the goals of the website are met when somebody takes action, which in our case is by clicking on a link or button. Hence, you want to make it easily noticeable and obvious.
Web-users are browsing the internet for a reason. They are looking for answers, solutions, and a varying degree of products and services.
Web users are also visual-oriented, this means that you can fine-tune your call to actions using colorful buttons and strong words that make them eager to do something.
You want to ensure that once a web user arrives on your landing pages, they are being guided by definitive messages on what to do and how to do it.
Every page on your website should begin with a clear call to action that captures the user’s attention and guides them all through up until they leave.
Also, the content of your call to actions should be written using clear language that is easy to understand.
A definitive call to action can help guide a web user to a specific section of your website that contains what they want and will improve website user experience.
#2. Be Mobile-Friendly
Optimizing your website for mobile devices is something worth investing in. With mobile traffic gradually surpassing desktop, it means that more people are using their mobile devices to access the Internet.
Web users are constantly looking for products and services on their smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches.
Your website has to fit into the category of portable accessibility and vice versa or else you will lose a significant amount of web traffic.
It is not enough for your website to be mobile-friendly; it should also be functioning at optimum capacity.
To determine if it is, you can use some online tools that can check how well your website is performing in the mobile department.
These tools will run a thorough assessment of your website and provide you with a detailed report. You can then use this report to improve areas where you may be defaulting on.
If your website is mobile-friendly and easily accessible on any type of device, not only will you improve website user experience, but you’ll also be satisfying one of Google’s top-ranking factors.
To be on the safe side, your website design should be in a way that its layout and content can automatically fit into the screen dimensions of any device whatsoever.
#3. Display Security Badges
Securing your website is also an important strategy for improving web users’ experience using your platform.
Your users will build trust in you if they have an assurance of the safety of their payment details saved on your website. With robust site security, you can easily guarantee an exceptional browsing experience to the users.
By displaying the security badges of the web security service provider, you have an existing relationship with, you are assuring users know that they are protected from data theft or breaches using your website.
With this in mind, they will be willing to share more personal details and feel at ease using their credit or accounting information to pay for goods and services on your platform.
This is essential for eCommerce websites and my other blog post discusses the importance of displaying SSL secure badges on your eCommerce website.
This way they have a great experience, where they can get what they want with little or no worries over their safety transacting with you.
#4. Choose and Use Images Wisely
“A picture is worth a thousand words”, as it helps communicate a message much better than written words do. Images are effective but they won’t do any good if they have not been created well and optimized further. When using the images, try to choose ones with the highest resolution.
High quality and unique images can attract the attention of a web user, pass on a message, and explain difficult terms more easily than words. This is a major reason why web users are so drawn in by images.
You must choose original images that are relevant to your industry and can also stir up the interest of your readers.
Other than choosing the right images, its placement is also of crucial importance.
You need to place any image that supports your content in the right position that allows the users a visual break from the text.
Images can help to improve user experience because you are saving them time by making it easy to acquire and obtain the information they need.
#5. Improve the Speed of your Website
Page speed refers to how fast or slows your website loads, responds to a request or an action taken by a web user.
Page speed plays a crucial role in the overall experience of web users on your site. This is because a fast loading website saves your visitors time and they will be eager to browse through your website.
On the other hand, a slow website will frustrate a visitor and make them more likely to use the exit button. Slow-loading web pages can negatively impact your page views, increase bounce rate, reduce conversions and reduce revenue.
If your website loads very fast, web users are most likely to view more pages because their actions proceed smoothly without the need to wait.
This ultimately makes it easy for them to find a product or service and in turn, increases the likelihood of the users making a return back to your website.
Because of the expectations users have on how fast pages should load, it has become a top-ranking factor for search engine result pages and social media platforms that display links to their users.
A great tool to use is PageSpeed Insights to find out areas of improvement.
#6. Utilise Live Chat
Live chat allows users to easily interact and communicate directly with your brand’s customer care or help desk for support or technical assistance.
Utilizing a live chat tool that replies to a user within a short time frame will enhance their experience because they can easily get clarification about certain features, receive vital information on an offer and directions on appropriate steps to take.
#7. Pick and Use the Right Colours
Colours have a psychological effect on web users and play a key role in their overall experience. You need to research and choose perfect colour combinations that create a connection between your brand and web users.
One of the most important considerations when designing a site is what colors to use.
If you pick your website’s color scheme at random, chances are the results won’t look as good as they might if you took your time with this design decision. Poor color choice can negatively impact your site’s overall usability.
Certain color tones can either attract or detract a web user as well as stimulate or discourage them. Since colors have an effect on users you have to associate your brand with colors that depict authenticity, credibility, quality, reliability and any other characteristic that presents you in a positive light.
When it comes to web design, colours shouldn’t be an afterthought. Even if your pages are stunning, you’ll need to use the right colours to ensure that each element captures your visitors’ attention.
A case study undertaken by HubSpot revealed that the red button CTA had increased conversions by 21%.
Relying on instinct alone can sometimes lead you astray, so we recommend taking a more analytical approach.
#8. Use Incentives to Stimulate Action
The word ‘incentive’ is defined as a ‘positive motivational influence’. You need to explore the different kinds of user behavior that can be encouraged with incentives.
When you offer web users something in return for an action they take, it stimulated them to make a prompt action rather than hold on.
This improves the user experience because you make them feel that they are being appreciated for proceeding with an action that can either be an order, booking, or subscription.
These incentives could either be free shipping, coupons, free service consultations, free upgrade, buy one get one, loyalty points, etc.
Offering something in return is a win-win situation for both sides. You will also foster promote loyalty to your brand and this makes them most likely to patronize you when they require a product or service.
Just remember that any incentive you offer will cost you time, energy, effort, money, or resources, so make sure that the incentive you offer relates to the item you’re selling and gets prospective customers to make a purchase.
This all comes down to interaction with your users, and how to do it.
If you’re interested, check out our pull vs pull marketing post that might provide some insight as to how to cater towards your users.
#9. Highlight Customer Testimonials
Testimonials are a type of review and social proof. They serve the same purpose (guiding potential customers and helping overcome objections), but they’re different in one big way: Testimonials are sought and selected by you.
This means you have full control over which testimonials are used, as well as where and how they are displayed.
Customer testimonials are recommendations from your previous customers who are satisfied with the quality, performance or value or your products or service.
To accomplish this, you can simply utilise a tool that allows you to request and receive testimonials from satisfied customers.
Subsequently, you can highlight and display these testimonials to convince new customers that you can truly deliver on any claim you make concerning your products or services.
The below testimonial is definitely real – but it highlights why it’s important to have them on your website with how much weight they could hold.
In Conclusion
Any business with an online presence desires to ensure high conversion rates and that can only be done if you improve website user experience.
An effective way to achieve this is to make sure that every single user has a superb experience utilising your website.
Do A/B (split) testing: test different variations of the same page (change text, colours, organisation, etc.). While doing so, you’ll figure which variation works better and how you can further improve.
Just remember that if you are conducting A/B experiments, you’ll need to use 301 or 302 redirects depending on the type of research you’re conducting.
If you want to continually do well, you need to start optimising your website, keep testing and see what works the best.
As the first point of contact between your enterprise and potential customers, your website has to deliver in terms of accessibility and usability.
To accomplish this feat, you can take into consideration and apply the above tips which are straightforward, affordable, and efficient in its ability to enhance and improve website user experience.
