User experience (UX) on a website is the equivalent of customer service at a brick-and-mortar store. It has plenty of sway on who stays and who leaves and defines your website’s reputation in the long run.
However, achieving the perfect user experience is not as easy as it is made to look. Unless conceived and executed by a professional web design company, UX is an often misinterpreted process that many web owners can struggle with when building and running their websites. This article will help you navigate the intricacy and create a site that even the pickiest user will enjoy and appreciate.
1. Optimize for mobile
Out of 4.48 billion active internet users, a whopping four billion browse on mobile devices. Your website should be as responsive on mobile as it is on desktop if you want to create a fair playing field for yourself. Many web designers have adopted a mobile-first strategy, where a website is built with mobile screens in mind then adapted for PC. You might want to consider this if you are building your website from scratch.
2. Optimize your page loading
Page load speed is a top 10 SEO ranking factor and greatly influences user behavior on a site. Statistics show that 87% of users will abandon a site if it takes more than two seconds to load. You want to keep yours below that limit and ensure all new content is added with load speed in mind. Tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights can help you determine if your site delivers well across PC and mobile. It will also reveal the exact points where you are getting your design wrong and even suggest tweaks for enhanced speeds.
3. Eliminate your 404s
404 errors are a major turn-off and can keep a user from ever getting back on a site. Even just one 404 can drive a potential lead out of your site for good..
4. Make your site interactive
Interactive content can keep visitors on your site longer and increase the prospect of them coming back. One way to achieve this is to make visual and textual content subtly change in color or even size when a user hovers their cursor on it. You can also incorporate polls, visual storytelling, and quizzes in your articles. Visual storytelling is particularly useful as it elicits an emotional connection with the user and makes them part of your website’s narrative.
5. Allow white space
White space enhances the visual appeal of your website and makes it easy for skimmers to spot key information within your content. It gives your site room to breathe and portrays you as organized in the eyes of choosy users. What’s more, it saves your web page a lot of weight, increasing your page load speeds in the process.
6. Add relevant images
Images make web pages visually interesting. However, they can also hurt your site if they don’t add any value. You should avoid stock photos whether you download your images or get them from a professional photographer. They might seem professional but then vacuous, impersonal, and irrelevant. If you run a logistics business, for instance, show photos of your branded fleet. If you offer a service, upload pictures of your team at work, your offices, etc. It would also help to align the photos with the headline instead of the theme of your site as a whole.
Endnote
Use the above tips for an improved user experience on your site. A reputable web design company can help with the technical aspects.
