Nowadays, it is important for a business to have a strong online presence in order for it to thrive.
However, having a beautiful website up and ready is not enough. You also need something that is robust and easy to use. Otherwise, you are less like to keep your site visitors’ attention.
Want to learn how to create a website that is user-friendly? Listed below are seven helpful tips that you need to know:
1. Speed up your website
Users expect a website to load at lightning speed (within two seconds, to be exact), even on mobile. Otherwise, they will abandon your website. In fact, one of the common reasons a visitor leaves a website is because of its loading speed.
Speed matters if you want your site visitors to stay so that they can keep on making business with you. This does not only affect your website’s usability, but it can also have an impact on your search engine results ranking.
That said, you have to make sure that your website loads within two seconds or less. Good thing, there are tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights that allow you to monitor your website’s loading speed. And then you can get recommendations on how you can speed things up for your website.
2. Make sure it’s responsive
According to SimilarWeb’s State of Mobile Web 2015, about 56% of consumer traffic to top US websites are from mobile. That said, it is important that you have a mobile-responsive website.
According to a post on Sage Blog, “A responsive website gives every user a flawless online experience whether they’re viewing your site from a desktop, tablet, or mobile device.”
You can start by using free or paid WordPress themes that are mobile responsive. That way, it will be easy for you to make your website mobile-friendly even if you lack the technical know-how.
On the other hand, you can use CSS and HTML to help resize, hide, or downsize your content to make it look good on any screen. You also need to take your non-responsive website layout into consideration. That way, you will know where to make the changes on your CSS code to create a responsive site.
3. Simplicity is the key
Simplicity is often referred to as the fundamental principle of User Experience (UX) design, and it is for a reason.
When your website is complicated, that would mean your website is difficult to navigate. If it is crowded, it will be difficult for your website visitors to consume your content. Either way, it is not user-friendly.
However, simplifying your website does not tantamount to oversimplification. The latter can result in a loss of original idea and dried out UX.
This explains why some website owners would opt to redesign their website after a couple of months or years. This is not just to rebrand but also to improve their website’s UX, as based on their analytics and audience research.
4. Add your contact information
The reason a person peruses the Internet is to look for immediate answers and information. If you are hiding your contact information, then you are not making it easy for your site visitors to connect with you.
In addition, you risk losing your site visitors’ trust. According to a 2015 B2B Web Usability Report, 51% of people believe that many websites have incomplete or missing contact information.
That said, it is important that you beef up your contact information. If users have more means to contact you, the more credible you will look like.
Keep in mind that people who are looking for ways to contact you have commercial intent. If you do not provide your contact information, then you are more likely to miss the golden opportunity of converting your site visitor into paying customers.
5. Produce relevant content
Content is what helps your website rank, as well as what keeps your visitors on your website. However, what makes content important is the fact that it can help you convert site visitors into paying customers.
The content you present is the information they will need in order to make an informed decision about your products and services.
If you are going to make it difficult for them to find this information, your site visitors will think that you are trying to hide something. Worse, they would assume that you are not the service provider that they need.
Other than that, you should also consider how your content is presented. According to Courtney Boyer, “Your website should present information in appropriate sections so visitors can navigate to what they are looking for with ease.”
Otherwise, your site visitors will hit the back button and would continue on their search on other websites. You would not want that to happen, would you?
6. Implement precise CTAs
As mentioned earlier, content is what can help you convert site visitors into customers. But in order for that to happen, you need to nudge them to take the next step. This is where calls to action (CTA) comes in.
Here are some quick tips on how to create a CTA that converts:
Use a color that pops
Write something simple but action-driven
Make your CTA easy to locate
So, do you have a strong CTA placed on your webpage somewhere sensible?
7. Keep Miller’s Law in Mind
Back in 1956, cognitive psychologist George A. Miller published a paper entitled The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.
According to Miller, an average person can only hold 7 pieces of information, plus or minus 2. This is now referred to as Miller’s Law. But what does it have to do with web design and development?
Information chunking is one of the critical elements in making your website user-friendly. The rule is to always organize information elements preferably about five chunks, but not larger than nine.
Keep in mind that a human has limited working memory, especially if he is a first-time website visitor. Thus, a huge block of text might overwhelm him, making your website less user-friendly.
Is Your Website User-Friendly?
Websites are no longer just a bunch of text on a page that you published online.
Today’s generation of Internet users expects web content to educate and entertain them. Hence, it is important to have an intuitive and user-friendly website.
If your website is not user-friendly, then you are sending the wrong message. It’s as if you are telling your site visitors that you do not need them.
Lucky for you, the seven tips mentioned earlier can help you to easily make your website user-friendly.
