When you enter a brand’s website, what is the first thing you notice? Have you ever entered and then immediately left a site because you couldn’t easily find what you were looking for? Do you appreciate it when a site is navigable? Does this make it easier (or more convincing) to purchase from this brand?
When it comes to user experience (UX), it doesn’t matter if you have outstanding content and a great website design if users can’t easily access the information they’re searching for. Making a user-friendly site is the first step to creating a positive customer experience while encouraging them to make a purchase and building trust or brand loyalty.
When it comes to website usability and accessibility, there’s a lot to consider. Many brands often ignore these features for fear of “technical baggage” associated with these terms. But there’s no need to fear: Creating a user-friendly website that will boost sales and brand loyalty is easy to do with the help of a comprehensive digital marketing agency like Zero Gravity Marketing. Our design and development experts offer website development solutions with UX as a first priority.
Here we’ll walk you through the process of understanding what usability actually means. These seven characteristics of a user-friendly website will help your brand better understand what it should look like so you can build pages that are navigable and support a positive UX.
What is User Experience and Why Is It Important?
User experience design involves the process of improving users’ overall experiences when they interact with your website or app to achieve your objective of providing maximum customer satisfaction. UX is founded on the idea of keeping customers in mind and creating the basic skeleton of any website. With navigability at the forefront of UX, site design teams work to make brand websites a positive experience for users to help boost conversions.
The idea is to make the experience of using a particular website as easy, smooth, and enjoyable as possible. In the end, a user-friendly website should be intuitive, efficient, and relevant to the user. UX design is important because it tries to fulfill users’ needs. It’s intended to provide each visitor with an experience and impression that keeps them loyal to your brand. Additionally, meaningful user experiences enable you to define a customer’s journey that is most conducive to your brand’s success.
Benefits of Designing a User-Friendly Website
The more user-friendly your website is, the happier your customers (and the search engines) will be. Here are a few things you can look forward to with a site that promotes a positive UX:
- Increased activity on your pages
- Converting leads into sales
- Savings from future costs and long-term expenses by building a site that’s evergreen and relevant
- Boosted search engine optimization (SEO)
- Building trust with your audience
Seven Things Every User-Friendly Website Needs
To make all these benefits (and more) possible, your brand will need to get to work either internally or through a digital marketing agency to start building a user-friendly website. Either way, here are a few things you’ll need to incorporate into your site to see the return on your investment.
Mobile Compatibility
More and more customers are using their mobile devices to shop. With this in mind, it’s imperative to optimize your site for mobile so users from a variety of devices can share the same positive online shopping experience.
Clear Structure, Navigation, and Page Names
Most users will likely arrive on your homepage, but it’s important to remember they can actually be directed to any page on your site based on their point of access (a Facebook ad, Google search engine results pages, or even an email promo). Make it simple for them to get around on their own by ensuring your navigation and page names are intuitive. The easier your site is to navigate, the better.
Readable Content
When you curate content, it needs to be clear, concise, and formatted in an easy-to-read format. Make sure you use headings and subheadings so you’re not showcasing walls of text that will scare your readers away. Short paragraphs and bulleted lists also enhance your content’s readability. Don’t overwhelm a user with too much text; find that happy medium and a perfect balance between text, graphics, and white space so your site is easy on the eyes.
Fast Load Times
If you’ve ever visited a site that takes too long to load, you already know how annoying it is. Slow load speed is actually one of the pivotal reasons people leave sites as soon as they arrive. Most shoppers have a super short attention span, and long load times could translate to a higher bounce rate. Your site needs to load within four seconds (but even faster is preferred) to ensure good usability. Mind you, the search engines are also paying attention to your load speed, as it will affect bounce rate.
Puts People First
You may have grand ideas about what you want your site to look like, but your brand really needs to focus on understanding the people who will visit these pages first and foremost. Simply put, factor in your audience’s needs and wants, behaviors, intentions for using your products, and demographics. All this information can help you design a site that appeals to your target audience(s).
Clear Calls to Action (CTAs)
The most powerful sites are those that are actionable. Your site’s CTAs need to be just as user-friendly as the other elements of your website, combining a compelling selling point with an obvious next step. Make your CTAs short and sweet, and adding a bold touch that draws the eye doesn’t hurt, either. Direct users to your CTAs with an eye-catching pop of color, for example, to draw them to this next step, whether it’s “browse,” “add to cart,” “continue shopping,” or “checkout.”
Usable Forms
Forms are a critical component of lead generation and consumer feedback. If you want to garner this information, make sure your forms are as simple to use as possible. They should also be accessible to everyone. Encourage users to leave feedback about their experience on your site so you can learn straight from the shopper’s mouth exactly what needs to be improved!
Partner with the Design and Development Teams at ZGM
Are you ready to build a beautiful, robust website that’s designed specifically with user-friendliness in mind? Zero Gravity Marketing is here to help you make your site a user’s dream come true. To learn more about our digital marketing services, contact our team.
