You could spend 15 months trying to build a perfect website but the truth is that your viewers might give it just 15 seconds.
It’s a competitive and ruthless world out there and if you don’t work to improve user experience with each change you make, you’re going to lose your visitors. For companies whose websites power their profits, this is a real problem.
Here are some of the most important ways to improve the user experience on your site in the mobile era.
Build Strong Calls To Action
Ultimately, your customers have come to your site to perform one of a handful of actions. If you’re running an eCommerce site, they want to shop. If you’re running a site for a restaurant or a dentist’s office, people want to book a table or an appointment.
Make these things easy with strong calls to action. Use bold colors and buttons that your customers want to click. Use clear language that lets them know that you’re there to help.
If you’re writing a blog, make sure that every single post ends with a call to action. Every page should start with that aforementioned call to action and end with another type of call to action if the subject matter on that page differs.
Either way, don’t expect your visitors to want to dig for what they’re looking for on your site. They’ll be frustrated if they spend more time than they want to try to perform a simple task.
Test and Monitor Your Site Regularly
With every single browser update, take a quick peek at your site. Pages designed more than a few years ago may not hold up to the standards of the latest browser changes.
If you’re deploying an entirely new site, run some user tests where you can monitor people using your site live. Have them narrate their experience and watch the metrics. These can ensure that every change you make to your site is fruitful rather than frustrating.
Don’t forget to test mobile optimization on your site as well. If your site can’t run well on phones and mobile devices, it’s not worth deploying. With mobile traffic outpacing desktop traffic three years in a row, mobile is the future you need to invest in.
Make it Responsive
Your site doesn’t need to just look good on a variety of devices, it has to shape itself to fit the device. When you focus on responsive web design, you create experiences that are optimized for use.
For sites that are reading or text-based, make sure that they’re easy to read and that text blocks are optimized. When an article or blog post is clicked, the page should reconfigure on small devices to make the font readable and for the text to take up the screen.
Panning and scrolling should conform to the standards of devices and not the other way around. While you might think it’s valuable to do things in a new way, new methods can interrupt your ability to communicate clearly with your audience.
Technology is meant to help your business, not get in the way.
Social Media Matters
What social media apps do your customers use the most? How often do you update your social media profiles? If you’re not on top of this information and aren’t updating on a daily basis, it’s time to start.
This requires you to come up with a content strategy. It’s hard to come up with interesting content for your site or social media profiles every day. It’s much easier if you have a strategy that allows you to draw in other media channels.
Find a few writers or digital sites that post about the news that matters to you and your customers. Along with your own original content, pepper in a few posts from them each week. If your staff is creating 2-3 posts per week, you can fill out the other 2-4 days of the week with posts from those channels.
Find new diverse ways to share that information. Use videos and story functions. Use Medium and LinkedIn to share longer posts and stories.
The more people understand who you are as a brand, the more they’ll be invested in working with you.
Talk To Your Users
If you’ve been in operation for a few years, it’s likely that you’ve got some dedicated or committed customers who use only you for their services. Work with them to make your site work the way they want.
It might start with a survey or an outreach email. When you’ve built a relationship with customers, they’ll want to tell you how they feel about what you do and how you do it.
They might stick with you because they like your products and services. They’ll appreciate that you’re trying to do things even better.
Make a list of potential types of benefits that users can get from the apps they use. Rank the value they get from each benefit and how it contributes to their overall happiness with you as a company.
Build their feedback into data that you can show your project managers and C-level executives. They’ll appreciate the clarity and continue funding work that connects with users the way your site does.
Improve User Experience Through Listening
If you want to improve user experience, the biggest thing to do is to listen to what users want. Every market for every product has preferred devices, preferred types of apps they use, and what they want from their service providers. If you’re not working to ensure user satisfaction, you could possibly lose out on potential sales.
To keep up with the latest design trends, check out our latest guide.
