What is UX?
UX, or user experience, refers to how users experience and interact with a product, system, or service. In the case of your business, that usually means your website. This includes someone’s perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency while on your site. Today we’ll discuss why UX is important and some small steps you can take to significantly improve how users experience your business’s website.
Why Does UX Matter?
Providing a seamless and pleasant user experience on your website is crucial to getting customers to stay on your site longer and, many times, return more than once. At the end of the day, you want to drive conversions. Whether it’s a purchase, a form submission, button clicks, or an app installation, a solid UX strategy can help you drive those results.
Steps to Drastically Improve Your Website’s UX
There are hundreds of different steps you can take to improve your website’s UX. Below are just a few that will make a significant difference!
1. Regular page speed optimization
Websites aren’t a set it and forget it endeavor. They need regular maintenance to ensure they’re running smoothly and not causing users problems when navigating. One standard periodic maintenance task is page speed optimization. Research by Portent found that a site that loads in 1 second converts up to 3x more visitors than a site that loads in 5 seconds. Keeping load times tight is critical when doing regular site maintenance. You can test your own site’s current performance for free using Google PageSpeed Insights.
2. Keep it short and sweet
With the exception of blog posts, website pages that are too wordy will usually prompt users to click off rather quickly. Most times, it’s best to keep your messages short and straight to the point. Attention spans are getting shorter, and it’s important to adapt to these changes. Coming up with a strategy that uses SEO-boosting keywords often but naturally, without making your pages text-heavy, will help improve your search rankings while keeping users engaged and not overwhelmed with information.
3. Use images and videos
Images and video keep people engaged far longer than text alone. It’s also important to note that research consistently shows that the vast majority of information transmitted to the brain is visual, making visual content one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. An added bonus of incorporating videos and images into your website strategically is that it can and will help your SEO.
4. Be responsive and mobile-friendly
There’s nothing worse than visiting a website on your phone and realizing the developer didn’t adapt it to be mobile-friendly. Ugh!
When over 60 percent of global web traffic now comes from mobile devices, you can’t afford to build your business’s website without mobile in mind. Thankfully, most website builders such as WPBakery and Elementor on WordPress have settings that allow you to preview how your website would look on other devices and tweak it accordingly before you publish. You can also run your site through Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test to see exactly how it performs on handheld screens.
5. Stay consistent
Consistency across your site in terms of branding, wording, tone, layout, and flow will make for an overall smoother experience for users navigating your site from page to page.
Your Website UX Is an Investment Worth Making
A strong website UX doesn’t just help drive conversions and boost your SEO. It prompts users to return and recommend your business to others. At the end of the day, improving UX is one of the most impactful pillars of any inbound marketing strategy.
A great website experience also depends on reliable technology behind the scenes. If your business needs an IT partner to keep your infrastructure running smoothly, protect your data, and support your team, WheelHouse IT’s managed IT services team is here to help. Give us a call at (954) 474-2204 (Florida) or (516) 536-5006 (New York), or contact us online to get started.
