Building and maintaining a website for your business is about so much more than merely the technical. One of the most important things to consider is the overall UX - or User experience - of your site and how it's impacting your business.
The goal should always be to keep website visitors on your site for as long as possible, ensuring that their navigational journey is a positive one that results in your end goal - whether that's making a purchase or booking a service.
But how can you be sure that you're offering the best UX possible for your clients?
The key features of a positive UX are accessibility, usability, efficiency and visual pleasure. All of these features together will help to create a great UX for your client which will go a long way to ensuring that your business stands out as one to value.
Here are some tips to help you along.
*Market Research
Spend some time getting clear on who your ideal customer and conduct some market research into their website preferences. This will help you to create a design that appeals to the sort of customer you're trying to attract. The first thing a user will notice is the design of your website, so its crucial that is created inline with the style and preferences of your ideal customer in mind.
*Keep It Simple
Research shows that internet users tend to have only an 8 second attention span when it comes to visiting new websites, so its important that you lure them in quickly and effectively as once they x out of your site they are likely gone forever.Keep your homepage fast loading and focused - with clear, concise information about what you offer. Any further information should be presented via links to secondary pages to avoid overloading your user. By the same token, try to avoid pop up boxes which can act as an irritant and can encourage users to leave your site if they get in the way.
*Consider outsourcing
As with anything in business, if this is not your strong point and you'd rather be dedicating your time to the aspects of the business that you excel at then its well worth considering outsourcing the responsibility to an expert in the field. There are lots of companies around who specialise in UX design, helping organisations to improve their customer engagement and retention whilst reducing costs and maximising profit. It's also worth considering signing for online UX events which aim to educate and inform businesses on best practises and inside tips for UX creation.
*Keep It Visually Pleasing
A great header image can go a long way toward grabbing the interest of a visitor to your site so ensure that you're using high quality visuals, with eye grabbing design and color palettes, as well as easy-to-read text and bright imagery. Avoid clutter and ensure that there's a visually pleasing amount of white space between your content and visuals to keep things easy to process at a glance. A cluttered home page is an overwhelming one to your users.
*Remember To Prioritise Above The Fold
Years ago when creating newspaper designs, editors would always be sure to keep the most important information above where the newspaper would be folded in half - so that this key information was immediately visible even before the reader had opened out the newspaper. This is where the term "above the fold" comes from and its just as relevant today - keep your key messaging above the fold, AKA above the line of visibility before a user scrolls down.
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