What is UX, and how can it boost your website?

We’ve all been frustrated by websites before. Whether it’s distracting, bright colors, slow page loads, disorganized content or any number of other factors, businesses need to design their website with UX (user experience) in mind first and foremost. The reality is that, as you can probably personally attest, people don’t have a lot of patience for a bad site. If it doesn’t immediately address a user’s needs, then he’ll leave and search for a competitor within seconds.

Here are a few ways in which you can improve the user experience on your site, which can reduce bounce rates and increase leads and customers.

Establish hierarchy of information

If you simply dump a bunch of text on your homepage, people won’t read it. The nature of info on the Internet is concise and fast-paced. Clarify your business’ mission in a few words on the homepage, and pair it with an enticing image. Ideally, it should be compelling enough to encourage the user to scroll down below the fold to read on. You can also increase font size of your headers, and even use different colors to emphasize them; just don’t over-do it. Make the distinction between header and body text clear without being distracting.

Make navigation intuitive

Have you ever visited a website, but not known where to find relevant info, products or services? This is an example of poor UX. Users should always understand where to look on a particular page, or which page title to click on. You want to make the experience of searching your site as easy as possible. To increase navigation, you can also include internal links to other content, as well as outbound links, as long as their URLs open in a separate tab or window. If the new website loads in the same window, the user will probably get annoyed for being directed away from the previous page.

Use variety of media

People have come to expect a multi-media experience when searching for information. Increasingly, Google has included video in its search results, and images on websites are proven to attract more visitors than text alone. Give people what they want and provide a healthy dose of visual content. Helpful, how-to videos, for example, can explain a product or service to someone who may be interested but not quite ready to commit.

To further increase UX, you should also offer video subtitling. Speechpad can transcribe your video content into text, providing more ways for users to engage with your website. If they prefer reading to watching, or just want to corroborate information from the video, transcription is key. Additionally, using extra text is an opportunity to boost SEO, especially when it contains relevant key words and phrases.

Make text readable

With people scanning content more and more, and with the smaller screen demands and increased usage of mobile devices, you should use large font throughout your website. Headers, in particular, should be big and bold. You can also consider using wide design, which takes a minimalist approach to websites, emphasizing simple, small chunks of text and big images. The exception to all of this is your blog. Statistics shows that blog posts ranging from 500 – 1,000 words improve organic SEO rankings.

When all is said and done, the more a user feels that they can connect with your business or get something out of what is on your site at first glance, the more likely he will be to learn more about what you offer. After all, the customer is always right, right?