Having a website is the bare minimum for businesses these days, but gaining site traffic, winning awareness, and attracting more leads or customers requires some intentional designs. If you’re not seeing great results from your business website, a poor user experience may be to blame. These are 5 things that kill your website user experience.
Let’s Discuss Your UX Goals
UX Killer: Slow-Loading Webpages
Long gone are the days of waiting hours for a file to download or minutes for a website to load. Faster is better when it comes to loading speed on your website and studies have shown, people expect a website to load in seconds. Because of this expectation (and our dwindling attention spans), speed is one of the more important ranking factors that search engines consider.
UX Improvement:
One of the easiest ways to improve the speed of your website is to use a WordPress plugin like Elementor or WP Bakery. These plugins make it easy to compress images, minify HTML, and optimize for speed and caching, making your site load at lightning speed, especially for returning users.
WordPress speed optimization services are a great solution if you’re worried about handling the technical aspects yourself.
UX Killer: Mobile Un-Friendly Design
Mobile website traffic has increased by 222% in the last seven years and shows no signs of stopping. This trend is particularly true for search engine traffic which has about 60% of all searches occurring on a mobile device.
If attracting new customers with your website is one of your business goals, having a mobile-friendly design is key.
UX Improvement:
Websites used to be designed for desktops only, then came the days of making websites mobile-compatible, but we are now in the era of mobile-first design. Nearly every website can benefit from taking redesign steps that make the mobile experience better. This can mean everything from small changes like changing how buttons and menus appear to major shifts in layout and functions.
If your website hasn’t been redesigned in a few years, it may be time to consider developing a new mobile-first WordPress website.
UX Killer: Having an Outdated Setup
The internet has changed a lot in recent years, especially when it comes to security and best practices. Some of the most common issues that can harm the user experience of your website include not having an SSL certificate, using Flash, or having a site that only functions on outdated browsers, like Internet Explorer.
Additionally, having other signs of a past-its-prime website, like a lot of broken links, will also hurt your search engine ranking and on-site UX.
UX Improvement:
Improving the technical setup for your website can be a lot easier than you may think. SSL certificates are easily added by purchasing and following directions from your hosting company and removing broken links and removing flash can be done with a little manual work and a plan for replacements. Those who aren’t very familiar around the backend of a website can benefit from affordable monthly WordPress maintenance service.
UX Killer: Poorly Planned Content
Not only should your website be written and created in a way that makes it easy for a human visitor to understand what you do or sell, but it should also be easy for search engine robots to get this information. The content of your website, down to the specific words you use on the page, determines how a search engine sees your site and when it will recommend it to searchers.
It’s important to carefully consider how each page can add to the picture that is presented to search engines and to review this content to make sure it continues to fit as your business grows.
UX Improvement:
One of the best ways to get a feel for the overall tone of your website pages is to use a word cloud maker. Simply paste in the URL of your webpage and you’ll get an understanding of which words are most prevalent in your text. If the words are not relevant to what the goal of that page is, then it is likely time for a content refresh.
UX Killer: Weak or No Branding
Branding can refer to a lot of things, but in terms of your website, it can be understood as creating a consistent look, feel, and tone that users expect from your business. The design and tone of your website should match the industry or type of product you offer, a mismatch between these can cause confusion or low conversion (a sign of poor UX).
UX Improvement:
Make sure to have to website theme that fits your industry and add in details to brand it specifically to you. Having a logo, using a set color palette, adding a favicon, and matching the typography to the feel of the rest of the design elements will help to create a unified, but uniquely “you” design that customers will remember.
Need more help in creating a WordPress website with a great user experience? Contact us today for a quote on a new custom-designed website or check out all our web development, SEO, and other services to find the digital solution that’s right for you.
