User experience (UX) has become a buzzword of sorts in the last several months, because Google has started to really focus in on how websites serve their users. However, users should always be the primary focus of a website. They are the people who are your prospects and customers, who create the revenue that keeps you in business. Therefore, when designing or updating your site, the first priority should be on how you can make your site easier for users to navigate and find what they are looking for. Let's look at how you can improve your website for better user experience once your user has landed there.
Once a person is familiar with how the internet works, it should be fairly intuitive to navigate any website. However, the truth is that many websites are difficult to navigate. You have to do a lot of work and spend a lot of money to get someone to your site. Once there, you definitely want to make it easy for them to find what they are looking for, whether that is information or the product they want to buy. There are many tools you can use to test your site's navigation and usability. You can also ask total strangers to try to find various pages on your site and see how they do.
Speed is important for keeping your users interested. It is important to remember that not everyone will access your site from an optimal connection. If your site is slow on a good connection, imagine how slow it will be from a mediocre connection on a mobile device in the field.
Mobile search has overtaken desktop search. That means that more people are looking for and landing on your site from mobile devices. Does your site offer them optimal presentation and navigation from their device? You can test for mobile-friendliness using this Google tool. It will give you an assessment as to how you are doing, and what needs to be fixed.
Writers and artists are quite familiar with the idea of white space. However, many business people are not. In order to keep the reader focused on your content, you need to have white space surrounding it. Artists call this area negative space; in other words, it is the space that is not filled with stuff. If the page is too busy, then people can't really see anything and it all blurs together. White space separates each section of content into bite-size pieces that the eye and brain can digest.
Bullet points and numbered lists like this one are similar to the idea of white space. These sections are ordered and separated, making it easy for a user to see, even on a smartphone.
A picture paints 1000 words and can tell a story as well as text, but only if you pick the right one. Images should fit your pages properly, be absolutely crystal clear and illustrate your point uniquely. Also, make sure to include alt information in the code to make the image searchable.
People know how to click on a link to get to the next page. But they need to be told where that link is. You want your content to point out where they need to take the action, so tell them blatantly in words, graphics or color. If your user sees text in blue and underlined, they know that is a link. If you want them to click, call or email, put a big, fat arrow next to the CTA to tell them what action to take next.