A Great User Experience!

Your website is the digital window to your business and with COV-ID19 affecting our daily lives for quite a while now businesses have had to be more engaging, interactive and informative with their websites. And with more of us spending our time on-line it’s never been more important to create a fantastic user experience for your customers.

The thought of redesigning your website, resource and cost implications can put a lot of businesses off taking action but now more than ever it’s important that we make the most of our digital offering. To help you get the best out of your website we’ve put together some simple ways that you can make your website instantly more appealing, more engaging and ultimately providing the kind of user experience that will make them want to come back for more.

Space

White space is essential to good design, making your content more readable, helping it stand out and enabling the user to focus on the key points of your business. White space around text increases user attention by 20%, provides a fresh and modern feel and helps you communicate your messages clearer to your audience. However, the one downside to white space is it can take up a lot of your website so the key is to find the balance between your important communication messages and images.

Speed

Speed is most certainly of the essence! One of the most frustrating things for a user is having to wait for a page to load. In the age of on demand we want access to information quickly and If they are waiting too long your bounce rates will increase! In fact an extra five seconds of page time load can increase your website’s bounce rate by more than 20%!

The first thing to combat this is to get your page speed score. This can be accessed from google offering a free service and with suggestions on how you can improve your load time on mobile and desktop. You can also improve your page speed by compressing your images before uploading them to your website as image file size is one of the main causes of a slow loading.

Action

Call to Actions are extremely important for your website and investing some time in understanding the psychology of colour for your buttons can increase business! Indeed a study carried out by Maxymiser, researchers highlighted that they achieved an increase of 11% in clicks to the checkout area of the Laura Ashley website, by testing colour variations and action messaging!

Colour is extremely powerful on call to action buttons so choose them wisely! Blue for example symbolises trust, loyalty and confidence, whilst Red represents power and is effective for impulse purchases.

Another thing to consider is the words you use for your buttons. The words should include an action word that excites the user to do something. Choosing the right words or psychological triggers is highly determined by the level of emotional identification that word prompts. No emotional connection means no action. So make your words bold, time sensitive and action oriented.

Hyperlink

Links are a great way of getting your users to click through the website but make sure they are easily identifiable with different colours or underlined text so that the user knows they need to be clicked. Studies have shown that Blue is often perceived as the best colour for this and the most successful. In addition make sure your links are not too long for example to view our products click here is better than view our products here.

Bullet point!

Provide your user with key information quickly by bullet points. These can include benefits and key features of your product or services. In addition add icons that add to the message visually. These will stand out and help your users resonate with your key messaging.

It’s All About the Images

It’s easy to use stock photography with many free sites offering a range of photos and images. However, recent case studies have shown that companies are increasing conversions by simply replacing their stock imagery with actual images of their product, business or team. The main reason for this is that it creates a connection between the user and the brand, which a stock image simply cannot.

GREAT Headings

Include keywords in your title and make them stand out in size and colour. This is extremely important for message targeting and works well for search engines. In addition headings help your user to flow through the website and find content that matters to them.

Be consistent

Make sure your pages are consistent, font sizes, colouring, button styles, spacing and design elements are themed to make sure they are joined up throughout the site. This will give your visitors the best User Experience as they’ll know they are in the right place! Poor design choices and an inconsistent website can lead to confusion from your user and will inevitably increase your bounce rates.

404s.

When a visitor to your website encounters a link or an image, they are expecting this link will take them to the next place they wish to go. Therefore, encountering a 404 error page annoys your user, and makes them rethink about spending their time on your website and can often result in them going elsewhere for a faster solution. In addition a slow page load time, running into 404s is another highly frustrating event for a user and it completely disrupts their journey throughout your website.

You can check if you have any 404s on your website by setting up Google Webmaster tools on your website and check crawl errors.

Responsive

With more and more users consuming information via their phones, tablet and smart devices its never been more important to ensure that your website can be accessed across multiple devices. And with Google penalising  websites that aren’t optimised for mobile devices, responsiveness is crucial if you want online longevity for your business.

 

If you would like to know more about the digital services we offer get in touch with 10Digital.