These days, people are picky, and why shouldn't they be when they have countless options to choose from?
So, instead of waiting for more than 2-3 seconds for your website to load on their smartphone, your visitors will simply bounce right off and go to your faster competitor.
A similar thing can happen, if you don't pay too much attention to the aesthetic appeal of your website; you should know that 94% of negative website feedback is design related.
Even seemingly small elements, such as colour, can make a big difference – a particular shade of blue used for links brought Bing an $80-million increase in annual revenue.
UX matters more than ever, and these five steps can help you improve it.
Shift Your Website Performance into High Gear
We've already established that your visitors have become increasingly impatient which means that they won't settle for a sluggish website.
Besides negatively affecting your conversion rates, the number of visitors who go back to the SERPs after spending only a couple of seconds on your website, are red flags to Google that there's something fishy going on. If this happens frequently, your rankings will go down.
To determine whether your speed might be the culprit behind this issue, use Google's Page Speed Insights.
This tool will analyse your website, tell you how it performs on desktops and mobile devices, and suggest you what elements require fixing.
Some of the tactics for speeding up your WordPress website include:
-Image optimisation. Reducing the size of your images can significantly increase your website speed. This process doesn't have to compromise on quality, and plugins like Optimole or WP Smoosh will help you automatically optimise your images and improve the speed of your website.
-Lightweight themes. While elaborate WP themes are tremendously visually appealing, all those attractive elements, sliders, buttons, and gimmicks will take their toll on your web server performance and speed. Using WordPress' default themes can prevent this issue.
-Minify CSS and JS. Bulky and inefficient code can slow down your website. The process of minifying will remove unnecessary whitespace, formatting, and code thus improving your loading speed. Another option is combining your multiple CSS and JS files into one – WP Rocket is a useful plugin which can help you with that.
Perk Up Your CTAs
Clear and highly-visible calls-to-action will easily capture your visitors' attention and tell them what exactly they should do once they land on your homepage, landing page, or any other portion of your website.
The point is that people who come to your site are searching for a solution to their problem, and that might be your blog post, product, service, or any other resource.
So, don't let them scroll up and down in search of a button that will take them to the answer they need – make your CTA stand out among other elements on the page.
Here are a couple of guidelines that will help you with this.
-The size does matter in this case, as large and prominent elements are more important.
-Place your CTAs above the fold, as that's how you'll make sure that a visitor has spotted it even if they don't scroll down.
-Use a clear message and strong action verbs to encourage your visitors to do what you tell them to and convert. Imperatives such as download, buy, click, join, or watch always perform well.
-Pick the right colour for your CTA. Although there are numerous debates trying to figure out what colour is the best in terms of conversions, the truth is that it all depends on your overall colour scheme. The trick is to use a contrasting colour which will distinguish your CTA from the rest of the page.
Format Your Content Properly
According to a well-publicised and frequently disputed Microsoft study, our attention span dropped from 12 to 8 seconds since 2000.
The digital lifestyle apparently makes us less focused than Dory from Finding Nemo, which is why the content on your website has to be easily scannable and digestible.
Nobody wants to read chunky paragraphs packed with elaborate sentences.
KISS is the new mantra of content marketers – keep it short and sweet.
David Ogilvy said, "On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy."
This means that you have to craft catchy headlines if you want to get your visitors to read the rest.
Gutenberg is an effective and intuitive WordPress editor which simplifies the whole process by allowing you to insert, rearrange, and edit rich and multimedia-heavy content even if you're not tech-savvy.
Don't forget to A/B test your content and see how it performs. You can, for example, create two versions of the same blog post with different headlines, or you can use a different CTA, or you can see whether an infographic would be a better option for a particular topic.
Leverage Chatbots for Meaningful Conversations with Your Audience
Chatbots are all the rage at the moment.
No wonder when these smart algorithms will soon revolutionise customer support and data collection.
Moreover, by 2020, more than 85% of customer service interactions will be handled without a human agent. Some would even go so far as to predict that by the same year we'll have more conversations with these intelligent robots than with our spouses.
Our concerns and ethical issues aside, this technology can do wonders for your UX.
There are two main reasons for this:
-Unlike human customer support reps, chatbots are available 24/7/365 and can answer your prospects' questions immediately and without delay. This removes potential obstacles and friction from customer experience and given that 83% of online shoppers need assistance during shopping, it's clear how chatbots can improve your conversions.
-AI-powered chatbots are capable of collecting and processing huge volumes of customer data which can later be used for different marketing and sales purposes. For example, chatbots can create a database of frequently asked questions, as well as personalise communication with your prospects by memorising their preferences and interests.
Optimise Your Website Navigation
Time.com improved its bounce rate by 15% by adopting continuous scroll.
You don't have to switch to a single-page website, but what you should do is optimise your website navigation which will help your visitors find what they're looking for without having to browse back and forth.
Although nowadays, many web developers believe that the three-click rule is a myth, it's still a good idea to keep the number of mouse clicks necessary to find any information within your website low.
What you should also limit is the number of items in your navigation menu to 7.
Another way to make the whole browsing experience as easy and enjoyable as possible is by linking your logo to your home page so that your visitors can always return to the start of their search by clicking on it.
Finally, drop-down menus are an effective element of web design, but according to a rule of thumb, you should avoid them if there are fewer than five and more than ten options to choose from.
So, instead of waiting for more than 2-3 seconds for your website to load on their smartphone, your visitors will simply bounce right off and go to your faster competitor.
A similar thing can happen, if you don't pay too much attention to the aesthetic appeal of your website; you should know that 94% of negative website feedback is design related.
Even seemingly small elements, such as colour, can make a big difference – a particular shade of blue used for links brought Bing an $80-million increase in annual revenue.
UX matters more than ever, and these five steps can help you improve it.
Shift Your Website Performance into High Gear
We've already established that your visitors have become increasingly impatient which means that they won't settle for a sluggish website.
Besides negatively affecting your conversion rates, the number of visitors who go back to the SERPs after spending only a couple of seconds on your website, are red flags to Google that there's something fishy going on. If this happens frequently, your rankings will go down.
To determine whether your speed might be the culprit behind this issue, use Google's Page Speed Insights.
This tool will analyse your website, tell you how it performs on desktops and mobile devices, and suggest you what elements require fixing.
Some of the tactics for speeding up your WordPress website include:
-Image optimisation. Reducing the size of your images can significantly increase your website speed. This process doesn't have to compromise on quality, and plugins like Optimole or WP Smoosh will help you automatically optimise your images and improve the speed of your website.
-Lightweight themes. While elaborate WP themes are tremendously visually appealing, all those attractive elements, sliders, buttons, and gimmicks will take their toll on your web server performance and speed. Using WordPress' default themes can prevent this issue.
-Minify CSS and JS. Bulky and inefficient code can slow down your website. The process of minifying will remove unnecessary whitespace, formatting, and code thus improving your loading speed. Another option is combining your multiple CSS and JS files into one – WP Rocket is a useful plugin which can help you with that.
Perk Up Your CTAs
Clear and highly-visible calls-to-action will easily capture your visitors' attention and tell them what exactly they should do once they land on your homepage, landing page, or any other portion of your website.
The point is that people who come to your site are searching for a solution to their problem, and that might be your blog post, product, service, or any other resource.
So, don't let them scroll up and down in search of a button that will take them to the answer they need – make your CTA stand out among other elements on the page.
Here are a couple of guidelines that will help you with this.
-The size does matter in this case, as large and prominent elements are more important.
-Place your CTAs above the fold, as that's how you'll make sure that a visitor has spotted it even if they don't scroll down.
-Use a clear message and strong action verbs to encourage your visitors to do what you tell them to and convert. Imperatives such as download, buy, click, join, or watch always perform well.
-Pick the right colour for your CTA. Although there are numerous debates trying to figure out what colour is the best in terms of conversions, the truth is that it all depends on your overall colour scheme. The trick is to use a contrasting colour which will distinguish your CTA from the rest of the page.
Format Your Content Properly
According to a well-publicised and frequently disputed Microsoft study, our attention span dropped from 12 to 8 seconds since 2000.
The digital lifestyle apparently makes us less focused than Dory from Finding Nemo, which is why the content on your website has to be easily scannable and digestible.
Nobody wants to read chunky paragraphs packed with elaborate sentences.
KISS is the new mantra of content marketers – keep it short and sweet.
David Ogilvy said, "On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy."
This means that you have to craft catchy headlines if you want to get your visitors to read the rest.
Gutenberg is an effective and intuitive WordPress editor which simplifies the whole process by allowing you to insert, rearrange, and edit rich and multimedia-heavy content even if you're not tech-savvy.
Don't forget to A/B test your content and see how it performs. You can, for example, create two versions of the same blog post with different headlines, or you can use a different CTA, or you can see whether an infographic would be a better option for a particular topic.
Leverage Chatbots for Meaningful Conversations with Your Audience
Chatbots are all the rage at the moment.
No wonder when these smart algorithms will soon revolutionise customer support and data collection.
Moreover, by 2020, more than 85% of customer service interactions will be handled without a human agent. Some would even go so far as to predict that by the same year we'll have more conversations with these intelligent robots than with our spouses.
Our concerns and ethical issues aside, this technology can do wonders for your UX.
There are two main reasons for this:
-Unlike human customer support reps, chatbots are available 24/7/365 and can answer your prospects' questions immediately and without delay. This removes potential obstacles and friction from customer experience and given that 83% of online shoppers need assistance during shopping, it's clear how chatbots can improve your conversions.
-AI-powered chatbots are capable of collecting and processing huge volumes of customer data which can later be used for different marketing and sales purposes. For example, chatbots can create a database of frequently asked questions, as well as personalise communication with your prospects by memorising their preferences and interests.
Optimise Your Website Navigation
Time.com improved its bounce rate by 15% by adopting continuous scroll.
You don't have to switch to a single-page website, but what you should do is optimise your website navigation which will help your visitors find what they're looking for without having to browse back and forth.
Although nowadays, many web developers believe that the three-click rule is a myth, it's still a good idea to keep the number of mouse clicks necessary to find any information within your website low.
What you should also limit is the number of items in your navigation menu to 7.
Another way to make the whole browsing experience as easy and enjoyable as possible is by linking your logo to your home page so that your visitors can always return to the start of their search by clicking on it.
Finally, drop-down menus are an effective element of web design, but according to a rule of thumb, you should avoid them if there are fewer than five and more than ten options to choose from.
Steps to Improve Your Website User Experience
Reviewed by I
on
March 28, 2019
Rating:
Reviewed by I
on
March 28, 2019
Rating: