While doing research, I bumped into this largely cool content holding the King, the other the Queen, captioned “Content is the King, Usability is the Queen”. What do you think? Do you agree?
When it comes to content, if you ever thought of evading it or slacking, do the following mind experiment: If you removed the content completely from your website and left the images and an empty cascading menu- people would just leave. Period. Even if you sell paintings. You need text.
Moreover, in order to keep your audience coming back, you need to constantly update it and be relevant. The easiest way to achieve that (not the cheapest, mind you) is via social media and blogging, which boosts both your content and SEO.
Back to the user experience (UX). What makes a website user-friendly and why is it so important?
To answer these, we’ll ask another question: have you ever fled the website because you weren’t able to locate the information you needed? How long have you stayed on the page though?
This is it: you may have fantastic content and the perfect design, but people may still find it confusing and difficult to navigate. Whatever is the goal of your website, it has to be user-friendly, and not only for tech-savvy people. So on top of being usable, it has to be accessible to people from all walks of life.
How do you achieve that? Well, you have to stop thinking that you are the same as your users, on many levels: your mission, vision, tech skills. Most people are in fact on the opposite spectrum. Just remember: your user is not you and vice versa.
When thinking of a website, this is what people find important: more than 70% think that the most important website feature is how easy it is to find information, compared to only 10% of those in a #teamdesign. We know that the friends over there from a web design company in Houston know the trick and are a good example of how to produce comprehensible content on top of functional and easy-to-navigate websites that make your business grow.
The Secret of a Great UX
It’s detailed planning and testing that help remove the possible issues.
While creating a website, a good digital agency always has users in mind since they know that the only way to keep them loyal is to keep solving their problems.
The website doesn’t have to be the flashiest out there but it absolutely has to be the best at solving the users’ problems. Think of it as the front desk of your company- it has to have all the answers and make the first impression.
But don’t forget that people don’t always land on your homepage, so any page can turn into the first impression. Make all of them count- your whole website has to be fast, reliable, easy-to-navigate, and good-looking. Contact information has to be the easiest to find.
So, it’s not the beauty pageant, but it’s the competition in greatness.
Also, keep in mind not to use over-the-top professional jargon, complex structures, nor acronyms. When we say keep it simple, keep it simple all the way. Spelling and grammar are non-negotiable.
If you want an effective website, you need to make your audience effective as well- ask them to do something, otherwise, they’ll just leave. Offer something- a downloadable e-book, a podcast, an updated newsletter. Ask them to join your community, to follow you across social networks, share the article. This should be an easy step and it’s important because it pumps the site traffic and influences on your ranking. Yet, don’t put more than one CTA (call-to-action) per page.
Another way to lose an audience is a complex form with way too many fields to fill in. Don’t ask for more than bare necessities. Make it logical. Make it flow. Show the message they successfully completed the action.
Lastly, when it comes to SEO, among myriads of rules and suggestions, here’s one to follow: be aware of the real people and the real words they use while searching. Optimize the content accordingly. So rather than putting “click here“, link anchor text instead. Make it obvious if they get redirected to a completely different website.
Conclusion
Creating an effortless and trouble-free website that offers a great user experience (UX) is really an art. What you need to do is analyze the behavior of your online customers and adjust accordingly.
A difficult website makes people go to your competition; an easy website makes them stay. If people cannot find important information easily, it’s not user-friendly. If it’s user-friendly, your business will soon feel it.
Obviously, there is a reason there is a book on usability called Don’t Make Me Think.
Author Byline: Liam Collins is a tech pundit and Web enthusiast working at TuiSpace.com. He spends most of his time reading and writing about the current affairs in the world of information technology. When he isn’t working, he likes going for long bike rides and walks in nature.
