User experience is the term used to describe how well a customer interacts with a product or service. It is an extremely important part of any design process and could mean the difference between success or failure.
Often overlooked, user experience in digital marketing is now one of the most important factors when using or building a website or app. The term “everyone’s a critic” is thrown around a lot these days, but in this digital age, it rings true. With the amount of information available to us daily, whether you see it or not, user experience is in our everyday lives, and the opinion of who’s seeing it is what ultimately counts.
So, having a website that looks good and more importantly works well on both desktop and mobile has never been more important. Especially as Google’s new page experience ranking signals are set to roll out in May 2021.
Below are five quick wins you should be implementing into the design process of your website/app to improve your user experience and, ultimately, boost your conversion rate!
5 quick ways to improve user experience
1. Make your CTAs stand out
Your goal is to help your user’s journey, so you need to make sure that it’s as easy as possible for them to navigate your website.
Using attractive and noticeable call-to-action buttons throughout your web pages is crucial. These will help the user know where to go next to complete their goal. When designing, it’s best to use bold colours that fit with your branding but stand out enough for the user to instantly understand it is a button to click on.
2. Responsive web design (Mobile UX)
There are over 5.11 billion smartphone users worldwide. Adults in the US spend an average of two hours and 55 minutes on their smartphones every day. These stats cannot be ignored when designing your website for any user.
With more and more people using their smartphones to find the information they need, it has never been more important to implement and improve mobile user experience and make your website responsive with all screen and device sizes.
Search engines, such as Google will soon be moving to mobile-first indexing, and you won’t want to fall behind when that happens.
These days, most website builders can help you build a website that works well on all devices; automatically changing image and heading sizes, layout preferences… the list goes on. But when doing so, always make sure you put yourself in users’ shoes to give them the best experience possible.
3. Use white space
While white space appears empty and is sometimes perceived as unused real estate, it is essential to good design. We’ve all heard the old adage ‘less is more’, and when it comes to helping a user’s experience on your website, that couldn’t be more true.
The use of white space will help your website in different ways. It will make it more legible while also helping them to focus on other aspects of your design such as images and calls to action.
White space can help increase the user’s attention, but it also helps your website to look clean, fresh and up to date. Of course, you want to get as much information as possible on your pages without them looking too busy. The key is to find the balance between what your message is and how you’d like to present it, on all screen sizes and devices. Always take white space into consideration.
4. Stay in control of your 404s
Imagine you’re the user, you click on a CTA to get to where you want to go only to be greeted with a 404 (page not found) page…
You’d become annoyed and instantly deterred, much like your user and they will be much more likely to leave your website, looking elsewhere to find what they are in need of. Something you’d very much like to avoid!
Today, there are ways to give the user a better experience if they were to land on an elusive 404 page. You can even create custom 404 pages to help reduce your bounce rate.
But preventing any of this from happening in the first place is your top priority. Stay in control of your error pages. Check out free tools like this one to help battle them and stay one step ahead. Remember if you are running any paid advertising to a page ten then breaks to pause your campaigns and preserve your ad budget.
5. Test, test, test!
When it comes to optimising your product or service, you need evidence. Evidence that what you are doing is working to reach your goals. Evidence to ensure that your user’s experience is a better one!
Once you have a well-designed, responsive website with well-placed calls to action, great use of white space, amazing images and compelling text. You are ready to start testing to make it even better!
“Design like you are absolutely right. Then optimise like your were wrong from the start”
Jordie van Rijn
Overview
There you have it – five quick wins to help give your website the edge over others. Your users will be very happy to see that you’ve implemented these practices, they’ll just never know it!
UX isn’t a race; you’ll constantly find better, more user-friendly ways to help your customer towards their end goal. But keep it up, keep testing to find what works best for you, and start creating amazing looking websites that translate well across all devices.
Happy optimising!
Do you need some help with your website’s UX? Why not request a FREE user experience audit today!
2 Responses
Really good points here, Tom. Especially with use of white space – something that can make a great amount of difference in the overall user experience.
Thank you, Andrew. I’m pleased you agree. The fast-paced evolution of user experience is definitely one to keep a close eye on!