Your web­site is the face of your busi­ness and often the first point of con­tact for future cus­tomers. You want to make sure that the web­site user expe­ri­ence is pos­i­tive, and that it encour­ages your cus­tomers to con­tin­ue to come back. Repeat cus­tomers could mean repeat busi­ness, and a web­site store­front is one of the most crit­i­cal steps to ensur­ing that your cus­tomer user expe­ri­ence is a stel­lar one. 

With all the hype about web­site cre­ation, you may be won­der­ing how to improve a web­site. The way a cus­tomer engages with your brand can make a huge impact on how your brand is received and how prof­itable it is. 

Mak­ing sure that cus­tomers who vis­it the web­site find nav­i­ga­tion easy and seam­less makes your brand more appeal­ing and cus­tomer friend­ly. If they find it poor­ly con­struct­ed, dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate, or too slow, they will quick­ly leave and not come back. It is in your best inter­est to take a quick look at some tips on how to help you improve your web­site user expe­ri­ence and keep your cus­tomers com­ing back below. 

Designing a website for success

  • White space

We know this is some­what coun­ter­in­tu­itive, but ade­quate white space brings your infor­ma­tion to the fore­front, mak­ing it more leg­i­ble and orga­nized. It focus­es the user’s eye on what you intend­ed them to look for in the first place. 

In fact, accord­ing to a study con­duct­ed by Crazy Egg, white space around text increas­es user atten­tion by 20%. Using white space ade­quate­ly makes your web­site feel more open and modern. 

  • Page speed

A page that takes too long to load will cause you to lose poten­tial cus­tomers imme­di­ate­ly. Since mobile devices are fre­quent­ly used to research and find busi­ness­es, fast and instant access to con­tent will keep your cus­tomers engaged. 

Do you know your page speed? It may be a good idea to check out Google’s free ser­vice where you can find out what your web­site page speed is and get advice on how to increase it. 

  • Calls to action

These visu­al cues, also known as CTAs or calls to action, should be easy to find and clear­ly marked. CTAs allow users to deter­mine what infor­ma­tion is impor­tant to them and act on it. 

When cre­at­ing them, make sure to pay close atten­tion to the use of col­or and words used. Phras­es like “Sign up Now” and “Get Start­ed” are great CTAs that prompt the user to move to the next step of engag­ing with your business. 

Inter­est­ing­ly, dif­fer­ent col­ors gen­er­ate dif­fer­ent feel­ings and will trig­ger dif­fer­ent reac­tions. How­ev­er, if no emo­tion­al con­nec­tion is made, no action will be tak­en. You want your cus­tomers to take action while on your website. 

  • Use images

Pic­tures tell a thou­sand words, but too many or gener­ic ones can be con­fus­ing. When upload­ing images to your web­site, it’s impor­tant to use per­son­al pho­tos that dis­play what your brand represents. 

Using stock pho­tog­ra­phy can decrease trust in your brand. The idea of includ­ing pho­tos on your web­site is to increase the con­nec­tion between you and the poten­tial cus­tomer. Per­son­al pho­tog­ra­phy will achieve this.

website images

Keeping customers engaged

  • Mobile friendly

As men­tioned before, being able to find your busi­ness eas­i­ly on the web from a mobile device is cru­cial. How many times have you looked for your favorite brand on your phone? Think of your own busi­ness in the same way. It should be opti­mized for mobile devices so locals can eas­i­ly find you. 

  • Keep it consistent

Main­tain­ing web­site con­sis­ten­cy makes for a pleas­ant expe­ri­ence. If pages are dras­ti­cal­ly dif­fer­ent from each oth­er, your cus­tomers may feel lost and confused. 

Design themes, col­or­ing, illus­tra­tion, and pho­tos should be coher­ent and an appro­pri­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of your brand. Dras­tic changes can make your brand appear of low­er quality. 

  • Use bullet points

Using bul­let points helps your cus­tomers access the infor­ma­tion they need quick­ly and eas­i­ly. Whether you are list­ing ben­e­fits, prob­lem-solv­ing tips, or key fea­tures of a product/service, list­ing them in bul­let form is an attrac­tive way to keep cus­tomers engaged.

Don’t be afraid to get cre­ative with bul­let points. They are a great way to iso­late the infor­ma­tion you want your cus­tomers to see. 

  • Use smart hyperlinks

When you want to instruct your cus­tomer to click some­where on your web­site, make it stand out. Visu­al cues that are easy to iden­ti­fy are more like­ly to get clicks! 

A recent study shows that web­site links that are under­lined and in blue are con­sid­ered to be links that should be clicked. Also, longer hyper­links are eas­i­er to iden­ti­fy. Don’t try to rein­vent the wheel, but take advan­tage of user expec­ta­tions that are already established. 

  • Well designed headings

Includ­ing head­ings with key­words ensures that you are tar­get­ing the right audi­ence. Search engines give more weight to web­site head­ings than web­site con­tent, so it’s in your best inter­est to make sure your head­ings act as an effec­tive guide through­out your web­site. Remem­ber, you want your users to eas­i­ly find the con­tent they are look­ing for on your website. 

  • No 404s

Have you ever vis­it­ed a web­site and received a 404 error page? What did you do next? That’s exact­ly how your cus­tomers feel when they see this on your website. 

Find­ing a 404 error page on a web­site will annoy your cus­tomers and send them pack­ing. Next to a slow load­ing page, 404 errors are frus­trat­ing and dis­rupt easy nav­i­ga­tion. Dou­ble and triple check for 404 errors on your web­site and fix them. 

A user-friend­ly web­site increas­es con­ver­sions. You want your cus­tomers to stay on your web­site, look around, and make a pur­chase. These are a few tips on how to improve your web­site expe­ri­ence and keep your cus­tomers returning. 

At Rosy Strate­gies, SEO is what we do and we would be more than hap­py to answer any ques­tions you may have about opti­miz­ing your web­site. If you’d rather leave this to the experts, give us a call today, or reach out to us on our Face­book page.