Is your website fast, organized, and easy to use? If not, your business could suffer.
About two in every three people prefer reading beautifully designed content. In fact, page design has a 75% influence on your credibility. Without credibility, consumers might struggle to trust you.
They might choose another business over yours instead.
Even slow-loading pages can impact your bottom line. In fact, slow websites lead to a $2.6 billion loss in revenue each year.
Meanwhile, 88% of consumers won't return to a website after a bad experience. You could leave a bad taste in their mouths as well.
Before that can happen, consider updating your website with user experience design trends. Not sure where to start? Here are the 11 tips you need for success.
With these tips, you can improve your website and keep visitors engaged. Then, you can generate more leads and sales than ever before.
Set your business up for success! Learn more about the user experience design process with these tips today.
Before rushing to contact user experience design firms, take a moment to consider your goals. Your website should help you accomplish your marketing and business goals. Otherwise, it could impact your company's success in the future.
Your website can act as a hub for other marketing campaigns, too. For example, you can use your website for:
Without user experience design, your entire digital marketing strategy could suffer. Instead, determine how you'll use your website to accomplish your goals. Establishing your goals can help you determine what web design changes you need to make.
For example, maybe you want to:
You can use different design elements to accomplish each of these goals.
For example, let's say you want to generate more leads this year. Consider adding a chatbot to your site to engage visitors. You might want to update your forms as well.
If you want to become a thought leader in the industry, focus on your blog content. You can use SEO to increase traffic, leads, and sales, too.
Understanding your goals will help you make more informed decisions throughout the rest of this process.
Before starting the user experience design process, gather research. The more you know about your customers, the more likely you'll appeal to their interests. Otherwise, they'll choose a brand that better understands their needs.
Segment your overall target audience into distinct buyer personas.
For example, you can group customers based on age. Maybe you're targeting people in different locations. Consider their marital status, household income, and gender, too.
Otherwise, look into their buying behaviors. Where do they already shop? How much are they willing to spend?
Gather information about how they already interact with your website as well. You can use session replay or heatmap tools to learn:
Only 55% of companies complete user experience testing. Meanwhile, 70% of online stores fail due to bad usability. Gathering research can help you improve your website with your customers in mind.
Consider talking to your recent customers, too. Ask them about the issues they face when using your site. They can help you make more informed decisions about your page design.
Consumers interact with brands twice as often on mobile devices than desktop devices. In fact, mobile conversion rates are 64% higher than desktop. About 40% of consumers even compare prices while in a store.
Google uses mobile-first indexing when determining search engine rankings as well. If your website isn't mobile-optimized, your ranking will drop. Your customers will see a competitor's website before yours during a search.
As you work through the user experience design process, make sure your site is mobile-optimized.
First, run your site through Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. If it's already optimized, great! If it's not, consider working with an experienced web design firm.
Consider looking at your Google Analytics, too. Check the Audience section to determine how many of your visitors are mobile users.
If your website isn't mobile-optimized, mobile users will leave. Your bounce rate will increase as a result. A high bounce rate can hurt your search engine rankings further.
Your pay-per-click advertising quality score could drop, too. You might have to pay more for your ads.
Look at how your web pages appear on smaller screens. Make sure your content is easy to explore and read. Pinpoint which areas are difficult to engage with on mobile devices.
You can work with user experience design firms to ensure your site is optimized.
A one-second delay in mobile load times can hurt your conversion rate by up to 20%. If your site is slow, visitors could get frustrated. They might leave without clicking around, increasing your bounce rate again.
Run your website through Google's PageSpeed Insights. Determine what's causing your site to lag.
You might want to run your site through Google's Core Web Vitals, too. The Core Web Vitals are a series of ranking factors. They ensure you're creating a positive experience for users.
The Core Web Vitals include three main components, including Large Contentful Paint (LCP). The LCP considers how long the largest piece of content takes to load. Try to reach an LCP score of 2.5 seconds or less.
You can improve your website's load times and LCP by reviewing your:
Faster load times will encourage website visitors to explore your content. They might decide to convert into a lead on the page. If your pages load slowly, however, they'll leave before converting.
Take a look at your page content. Does your content appear cluttered? Is there too much on a single page?
As you improve your user experience design, consider your content's readability as well. If your content isn't easy to read, people won't read it. They'll leave your site, causing your bounce rate to rise.
They'll likely turn to one of your competitors for the information they need.
Instead, make sure your content is easy to skim read. Otherwise, messy, cluttered pages could overwhelm your readers. They might not know where to look.
Messes, either in-person or on the web, can cause stress. In fact, messy web pages can:
A negative user experience can frustrate visitors, causing them to leave your site.
You can improve the content's readability by giving your content more breathing room.
First, remove any unnecessary elements on a page. Add more negative space between blocks of content.
Then, run your text through HemmingwayApp.com. Make sure your content is easy to skim read. You can also use headings and subheadings to organize long content blocks.
Try using shorter sentences and paragraphs. When you can, organize ideas using bullets or lists as well.
Improving a page's readability will encourage people to read to the bottom of the page. You can increase your dwell times, causing your bounce rate to decline.
Consumers are becoming more aware of who they trust with their private information. If your website isn't secure, they might leave. Make security part of your user experience design process this year.
First, look at your URL. Does "HTTPS" appear before the domain name? If not, add an SSL certificate to your website.
Without an SSL certificate, you could leave customers vulnerable. They might decide not to trust you if you can't protect their data. Hackers might steal their address, phone number, or credit card information through your site.
Adding an SSL certificate to your website will give your customers peace of mind. If they can trust you, they might start shopping.
Make sure your privacy policy is easy to find, too. You can add a link to the footer of each page.
An important component of your user experience web design is the site's navigation. If your navigation isn't organized, people won't explore. If they don't click around, your bounce rate could rise.
Instead, you can improve your clickthrough rate by reviewing your navigation bar.
Make sure your pages are organized in a logical hierarchy. Otherwise, visitors might struggle to find the pages they need.
Try to focus on your website's most important pages. Consider which pages consumers are most likely to search for. If you're linking to too many pages in the navigation bar, you might overwhelm them.
Consider adding a bright call to action button at the end of your navigation bar. You can direct visitors straight to converting into a lead.
Otherwise, use a chatbot to ensure they can ask for help when they need it.
Try to avoid adding intrusive elements throughout your site. For example, pop-ups and ads might annoy your visitors. They could struggle to navigate through your content if they're closing multiple pop-ups.
Type site:"yourURL" into Google. You should see all the pages of your site that Google has indexed. Look for any strange or unfamiliar pages.
If Google displays any strange zombie pages, consider which ones you can remove. For example, these pages can include:
Determine which pages you no longer need. Otherwise, zombie pages could confuse Google.
Google wants to provide its users with content that matches their search intent. If your pages aren't helpful or informative, it won't display your content during a search.
Removing zombie pages could improve your site's performance as well. Meanwhile, you can improve the user experience by removing unhelpful content.
Google considers two versions of your site: http://yoursite.com and http://www.yoursite.com.
Google will crawl and index both before determining your search engine rankings. However, Google doesn't rank duplicate content.
Review both versions of your site and find unnecessary duplicates.
Otherwise, look at the "HTTP" and "HTTPS" versions of your site. Does one redirect to another? If not, consider running a 301 redirect.
You'll want to direct visitors to the "HTTPS" version to ensure they have a secure experience.
Broken links can frustrate your visitors as well. Remember, consumers want to find what they need with ease.
Make sure all the links across your website work. You can use a tool like Broken Link Check to find any broken links on your site.
Make sure the content you link to is relevant and up-to-date, too. For example, maybe you're linking to research within your blog content. Choose external links that are recent.
Otherwise, outdated research might frustrate your visitors.
Take the time to resolve any indexing issues on your site, too. Otherwise, your site won't rank on Google search pages. You could struggle to generate traffic as a result.
You can also improve the user experience on your site by maintaining brand consistency.
If a visitor clicks between two pages and sees a completely different design, they might think they're on another site. Brand consistency can help awareness and recognition grow. Use the same recurring elements (font styles, color palette, etc.) across each page.
User experience design trends can encourage visitors to explore your content. Then, you can convert more visitors into leads and sales. Without a positive user experience, however, you could scare customers away.
Improve your website's design with these 11 simple tips today.
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