Brand promotion and marketing are two of the essential facets of growing your business. Who doesn’t want a business with a large audience? The merits of having a large customer base are truly fulfilling for your business goals, but take note that it takes a great deal to get there.
If your business has its own website, you might want to pay more attention to its user experience (UX) design.
What Is UX Design and Why Is It Important?
Essentially, UX design aims to fulfill a user’s needs while browsing and navigating a particular system. Meanwhile, user experience refers to how you feel while interacting with a device.
Now, why does it matter to your brand? Since user experience dictates a customer’s experience as they communicate with your business, this experience will determine if they’ll remain loyal to your products and services.
When online users visit your website, it’s paramount to give them a positive user experience through the following ways:
Understand Your Users
Before implementing any UX design approach to your website, getting to know your users should go first. Regardless of how elegant or intricate your website design is, it won’t matter if they won’t be able to appreciate it. Thus, make sure to understand your user’s needs and preferences first, which you can do as you browse around this site.
Taking your time to understand your user’s needs is key to satisfying them. By identifying your user’s needs, it’s not only your website design that’ll benefit, but it can also help improve your products, services, customer support, and overall company.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Almost four billion people own smartphones today, with 69% of them using their smartphones to search for a product or service online. If they encounter your website using their phones, your website’s UX design must deliver a seamless, mobile-friendly experience.
A website’s design from a larger computer screen (with a landscape orientation) is significantly different from the smaller screen of a mobile phone (with portrait orientation). This is where UX design elements should be even more effective.
Here are some tips when designing a mobile-friendly experience for users:
- Avoid using popups and text-blocking ads.
- Ensure that text and buttons are on the right size–not too big and not too small.
- Avoid using Flash.
- Prioritize your website’s loading speed as users tend to leave within 10 to 20 seconds.
Keep A Sleek But Intuitive Website Design
In website design, it’s always ‘the simpler, the better.’ Websites have no room for fancy design elements. Oftentimes, these will only distract your visitors as they won’t know where to click. Also, too many design elements can slow down your site’s loading speed.
When optimizing the visual aspects of your website, always value the combination of aesthetics and usability. Your website shouldn’t only be pleasing to look at but it should also deliver a pleasant and intuitive experience. The first tip about knowing your users well also contributes to this purpose of designing an intuitive website.
To achieve a sleek website design, take a look at these tips:
- Take advantage of white space.
- Divide content into separate sections.
- Be consistent in your layout and color scheme.
- Utilize visual hierarchy.
- Offer different types of navigation, especially a search bar.
- Make use of high-quality multimedia content, such as images, GIFs, and videos.
Utilize Effective Calls-To-Action (CTAs)
As you lead your users into your website, what are the next actions you want them to do? While it’s essential to let your customers decide themselves, using call-to-action keywords can further power your online business. They encourage customers to take actual steps towards brand engagement.
A call-to-action stands between a lead and conversion, and it should be able to push potential customers down into your marketing funnel.
The CTAs in your website should be concise and straightforward, something which will immediately tell your users what to do next. To make your CTA keywords more fun, effective, and convincing, here are some foolproof tips:
- Use striking, action-packed keywords (e.g., Sign Up Now!).
- Make them large enough to see but not too large to be off-putting and intimidating.
- Show urgency (e.g., Order To Get 5% Off Today Only).
- Categorize your customers (Order Again For 20% Off for returning customers; Try Me Out For 10% Off for new customers).
Key Takeaways
User experience has an enormous power to differentiate a good website from a bad one, so prioritize it to achieve the former. A seamless and immersive user experience can take your online presence to a whole new level–increased conversions, sales, profits, and a more extensive customer base.
Most importantly, if you’ve followed these web design tips to improve user experience, don’t forget to regularly update your website design to ensure its consistent quality and performance.
