As the digital storefront of your business, your website is often the first interaction potential customers will have with your brand. By ensuring an exceptional website user experience (UX), you will not only capture visitors’ attention but keep them engaged, which will ultimately lead to them converting and becoming potentially loyal customers.
At Absolute, we understand the pivotal role that UX plays in the success of your website, helping to provide a seamless experience for your customers. Here, you’ll find five top tips on how to improve website user experience, drawing on our extensive experience in website development and design. This will help you to transform your website into a user-friendly, visually appealing, and highly effective online platform. Whether you’re a business owner looking to revamp your website or a startup seeking to improve your online presence, we can help as a full-service digital marketing agency.
So, want to optimise your website’s UX and unlock its full potential? With the following tips, you’ll have a clearer understanding of what’s involved and how we can help you enhance your online presence to achieve your business objectives.
Designing a website that caters to the needs, preferences, and expectations of your target audience is crucial. Just as you’d tailor a physical store’s layout to suit your customers, your website should be designed with your online visitor’s journey. Your website’s design, content, and functionality should align seamlessly with the wants and needs of your users.
Conduct User Research – Effective user research is the key to unlocking valuable insights into your audience. You should start by gathering data on your current website’s performance, and consider using tools like Google Analytics to understand user behaviour. You can conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gain a deeper understanding of what your audience seeks when they visit your site. For example, 85% of users want a mobile experience that’s as good as the desktop version, so you’ll know that the mobile UX needs to be responsive.
Create User Personas – By creating user personas, you’ll have fictional representations of your ideal website visitors, complete with names, backgrounds, and demographics. If you craft detailed personas, you’ll be better equipped to tailor your website’s design and content to specific user segments.
Tailor Your Content and Design – Armed with user personas and research insights, you can now fine-tune your website’s content and design. Ensure that your messaging speaks directly to your target audience’s pain points and interests. Additionally, your website’s layout, colour scheme, and navigation should resonate with the preferences of your users.
Website speed is not just a technical concern; it’s a critical part of UX. 70% of customers say that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from a website, so visitors today expect websites to load swiftly. When they don’t, frustration can set in, leading to higher bounce rates and potential loss of customers.
Image Optimisation – Having oversized images is a common culprit for slow-loading websites. Compressing and properly formatting images can significantly reduce page load times without compromising quality. Our web development experts can assist in image optimisation techniques to ensure your site’s visuals load quickly and beautifully.
Efficient Coding – Behind the scenes, the quality of your website’s code plays a vital role in speed. Bloated, inefficient code can slow down page rendering. Our experienced developers write clean, efficient code to keep your website running smoothly and swiftly, identifying unnecessary code that could be adding to the slow site speed.
Page Caching and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) – Caching mechanisms and CDNs can drastically improve load times. Caching stores static elements of your website, reducing the need to fetch data from the server with each visit. CDNs distribute your website’s content across multiple servers worldwide, ensuring that visitors experience minimal latency and fast speeds.
Mobile devices are the go-to method for most people’s online browsing, so ensuring your website is mobile-responsive is no longer an option if you want a positive user experience. As many as 80% of mobile users will leave a website if it doesn’t display correctly on their device, so your website must adapt seamlessly to various screen sizes. Failing to do so can lead to frustrated users and lost opportunities.
Responsive Design Explained – Mobile responsiveness, also known as responsive web design, involves creating a flexible and fluid layout that automatically adjusts to fit the screen it’s viewed on. Whether your website is accessed via a desktop computer, a smartphone, or a tablet, a responsive design ensures that content remains readable, and navigation remains intuitive.
Improved SEO and User Engagement – Search engines like Google and Bing will prioritise mobile-friendly websites in their rankings, so mobile responsiveness can boost your SEO campaigns. Users are more likely to stay and interact with your site if it’s easy to navigate on their mobile devices.
Consistency Across Devices – A major advantage of mobile responsiveness is that it provides a consistent brand experience across all devices. Your users should recognise your website’s identity and functionality, regardless of whether they access it on a laptop or a smartphone. The design from the start should consider the layout and sizing on a mobile device and think about readability as well as image and button formatting.
Navigating a website should be a seamless and intuitive experience for visitors. A well-structured and user-friendly navigation system is essential for keeping users engaged, helping them find what they’re looking for with ease. 70% of users will abandon shopping carts due to poor UX, so when looking at how to improve website user experience, navigation is a key area.
User-Friendly Pathways – Think of your website’s navigation as a roadmap for your visitors. It should guide them effortlessly through your content, products, or services. When users can’t find what they need quickly, they’re more likely to leave your site in frustration.
Organise Content Effectively – Start by organising your website’s content logically. Create categories and subcategories that make sense to your audience. Use descriptive labels for menus and buttons so that users can predict where each link will take them.
Utilise Clear Menus – Menus are the primary means of navigation on your site. Use clear, concise menu labels that accurately represent the content they lead to. Avoid overwhelming users with too many menu items too – simplicity often leads to better UX.
Implement Breadcrumbs – Breadcrumbs are a secondary navigation tool that shows users their current location within your website’s hierarchy. They provide context and make it easy for users to backtrack if needed.
Creating content that captivates and resonates with your audience is a pivotal aspect to improve user experience on your website. Engaging content not only keeps visitors on your website longer but also encourages them to take desired actions. Ensuring it’s accessible for all users is essential too. Here’s why content matters for UX and how to make it engaging and accessible:
Captivate Your Audience – Engaging content isn’t just about text, it encompasses everything from compelling copy and visually appealing graphics to interactive elements like videos and infographics. It should tell a story, solve a problem, or offer valuable insights that connect with your target audience.
Prioritise Accessibility – Accessibility means making your content usable for everyone, including individuals with disabilities. It involves considerations like providing alt text for images, using semantic HTML markup, and ensuring compatibility with screen readers. An accessible website not only broadens your audience but also demonstrates inclusivity.
Consistency and Quality – Consistency in tone, style, and branding across your content helps build trust and familiarity with your audience. Regularly updating and maintaining your content ensures that it remains relevant and valuable.
Call-to-Action (CTA) – Each piece of content should have a clear purpose and a well-placed call-to-action (CTA). Whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or sharing content on social media, CTAs guide users toward taking desired actions. Read more about how to optimise content for search intent here.
With these five key tips on how to improve website user experience, you’ll be able to review your current website and identify where improvements are needed. It’s important to recognise that an intuitive, visually pleasing, and accessible website isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. Google’s Core Web Vitals help to provide a guide for website owners to follow to ensure your website is in the best shape in terms of site performance.
At Absolute, we’re committed to helping you unlock the full potential of your online presence. Our expertise in web design and development, coupled with a deep understanding of user-centric principles, helps us to improve and create websites for our clients that not only meet but exceed their visitors’ expectations.
Ready to take the next step in enhancing your website’s UX? Contact us today to explore how our services can elevate your online presence, engage your audience, and drive real results for your business. For more helpful insights, please visit our Absolute Insights page.
