Having a strong user experience is crucial for your website’s success—after all, the whole reason you have a website is so users will use it, right? Well, if your website has poor usability, your current and/or potential clients won’t take advantage of it, meaning your website won’t fulfill its purpose.
So what makes for a good user experience? There’s a lot that factors into a site’s usability and it’s important that your users’ experience is at the forefront of your website’s design. Here, at Key Web Concepts, the user experience is vital to each website we create, so we’ve compiled a few tips for you to ensure that your website has the best user experience it possibly can.
Create Easy Navigation
Simple navigation allows for your users to browse through your site with ease. They can access the information they need quickly when the menu is well-thought out and simplified. Overloading menus with too many options will cause your menu to seem cluttered which could negatively affect your user’s experience. Simple and clean menus will allow for easier navigation.
Another thing to consider is a well-organized menu. If I’m looking for the cost of your services, I wouldn’t expect to find it on your “About” page. Instead, I’d look for it under the “Services” or “Investment” pages. Be sure that your users won’t get frustrated hunting down information by creating a simple, clean, and well-organized navigational menu.
Use Call to Actions
Call to Actions are buttons or sections that prompts users to act. You see these CTAs everywhere: typically they prompt you to participate or engage with the site by saying something similar to “Call now” or “Get a Quote.” Call to Actions allow you to highlight and make important information stand out for your users while also giving your site a strong layout.
CTAs also help break up text so that your site isn’t overloading information onto your users. They are especially useful for mobile device users because they are easy to scroll to and find. CTAs make for excellent user experiences because they allow users to quickly engage with your site.
Make Sure Your Site is Mobile Friendly
We just posted a whole blog post dedicated to the importance of mobile friendly websites, but here’s a quick summary for you: the majority of your users will be on a mobile device. And if they can’t use your site easily, they aren’t going to use your site.
Use Bullet Points
Most users don’t read websites anymore—instead, they skim. Your users skim the headers, the bullet points, and shorter paragraphs to get the information they’re looking for as quickly as possible. So if there’s important info related to your business that you want your users to obtain then you should make it stand out, perhaps with a bullet-pointed list. Plus, bullet points make it easier for search engines to read your site, meaning you could rank higher on Google if they’re used.
Check your Links
Make sure that all of your hyperlinks are not only noticeable for users to click on but also that they are working. Broken links will only frustrate your users, so make sure you check your links before launching/posting and check them often. Plus, search engines might rank you lower if your links are broken, because it views the site as abandoned.
Another idea is to make sure your links for other websites open in new tabs. Not only will this keep your website opened for your user, but it will also make it easy for your user to get back to exactly where they were on your site before exiting.
Find the Right Images
The user experience takes more into consideration than just the text of a website. No matter what kind of photos you’re using (stock photos or your own) be sure that they take on the vibe of your project and/or business. If your brand is directed towards children, use photos of children that give off a happy and playful vibe. If your brand is directed towards assisting those who have been abused, use images of hope and change.
Images can completely change the way your user feels when he or she uses your site. Make sure that your brand is protected and reinforced by using images that strengthen your brand’s identity and energy.
If you aren’t sure if your website has a strong user experience, then test it! Better yet, get someone who has never used your site before to test it. If you find that these first-time users are getting confused, aren’t finding the information they need in a timely manner, or don’t quite understand your brand, let us know. We can help make your website’s user experience the best it can be.
