7 Ways to Improve Your Website’s User Experience

06/10/19 | by Terrnekia Collier | Website

When you open up a search engine like Google and click on a website, you expect to have a user-friendly experience after entering the site. You should also want your clients to have the best website experience when they enter yours. Whether that includes easy navigation, fast loading, great content, or all of the above is completely up to your design.

A good website should make them want to keep coming back. You must have visitors in mind when creating your site and incorporate website basics that will keep them on your page for a longer amount of time. The longer they’re on your site, the more time they have to engage with your content, see what products and services you have to offer, and potentially book an appointment.

Your business website should be efficient, functional, and aesthetically pleasing to visitors so they get the most out of the time spent on your site.

We want you to generate as much engagement as possible, so we’ve broken down some of the most important user experience best practices for your site. Here are 7 ways on how to improve your website’s user experience.

1. Design For Your Audience

As you create your site, you must consider who your target audience is. Are you a healthcare professional attempting to attract new clients to your practice? If so, research your target demographic and keep this in mind when choosing the design for your website.

If you are not appealing to the audience you want to reach, rethink the structure of your website. Understanding a very specific audience means you are considering age, location, gender, and other specifications as you design.

How easy is your site to navigate? What is the best typography to use? Which layouts should you choose? All these questions can be answered when you know what your targeted users want and value from a business.

For example, if you are targeting senior citizens, you should pick fonts that are larger and easier to read for them. Do not choose fonts that may be difficult to see as older users tend to have more sight problems.

This is just one of the many design tips to keep in mind as you build your site. The more you know about them, the better your design will fit all their needs.

2. Accessible Navigation Bar

Finding their way around your website should not be a challenge to visitors. If they can’t find what they’re looking for, this will deter them from staying on the site (you don’t want that). Creating a navigation bar that is easily accessible from every web page is the goal.

Navigation bars are most often placed horizontally at the very top of the web page so users can easily see it and locate exactly what page they’re looking for. Whether you would like a fixed bar or one that moves down with the page is up to you.

The bar should include clear categories that allow visitors to find all the information they need about your business. Home, contact, and about us pages are customary for most websites, but feel free to add whatever categories best suit your user’s requirements.

3. Faster Page Speed

When a user clicks on your website, how long does it take for the page to load? Your page speed can either make or break your ranking on Google. Due to the influx of technological advances in recent years, most people have very short attention spans. In fact, most users expect websites to load in two seconds or less. That’s right, two seconds!

This means that you don’t even get a full ten seconds before they click out of your web page. If they have to sit there and wait for the website to load for long periods of time, then they’ll just find a site that has been properly optimized.

In order to avoid slow loading times, you can reduce image sizes, avoid pop-ups, use external hosting services for your larger files, etc. Getting your page speed to a time that you and your users are satisfied with can be challenging, but definitely not impossible.

If you want to know where your page speed is as of now, run a speed test with all your plugins activated. Then, run another one with all of them turned off. This process allows you to see the difference in loading times and adjust your page accordingly.

4. Content is King

If everything else on your website is top notch, why shouldn’t your content be? Creating quality content that is relevant and useful will attract more prospective clients to your website.

Visitors will spend more time on your site if they’re reading or watching content that contains valuable information that they can utilize. Having industry specific blogs, videos, interviews, and other content that can be shared on social media platforms will also boost your visibility.

Think about what would interest your target audience the most and build a content strategy around those topics.

5. The Power of Imagery

We know, we know, it’s a cliché. But a picture really is worth a thousand words! Including visuals on your website that interest your audience is a good way to keep them on your site. Choose relevant imagery that will draw prospective clients into your business and show them what you do.

For example, if you own a veterinary office, people would love to see images of you and your staff interacting with animals. If you think that they would also like to see graphics or other forms of media, add those as well!

Images also help to break up the text of any copy you have on your web pages. Most people don’t want to just scroll and see nothing but plain text. Spice it up by adding that special touch of personalized images to piqué their interests.

6. Mobile Compatibility

One of the most important features that should absolutely be part of creating the best user experience is mobile compatibility.

More than half of any searches are done via smartphone. That means if you do not optimize your website to work not only on desktops, but also mobile devices, you are alienating a huge percentage of potential clients.

In order to make sure your site is compatible with mobile devices, account for responsive design (formatting for all screen sizes) and loading times on smart devices. Consider how all the content and information you include on your site will transfer on a smartphone.

You don’t want the desktop and mobile version of your website to have a totally different look and feel to it. Which is why a responsive design can help eliminate any major differences.

7. Updated Contact Information

After browsing through your entire site, what is your objective for a visitor? You want them to purchase a product or service from you, right? And the best way to do that is to make sure all of your contact information is up to date on your website.

Your office hours, email, address, and phone number should all be accessible on this page so that your clients can easily contact you with any questions they have regarding your business.

User Experience

When you make a good first impression on new website visitors, it keeps them coming back to gain new information, purchase more products, or book another appointment. They should have an easy time navigating your site and locating what they need.

Successfully designing the best website you can for your targeted audience will give you the upper hand you need to reach every objective you’ve set for you and your business!