In the age where technology has taken over pretty much everything, your website is the key selling point of your business. Customers enjoy a good website; they’ll instantly trust you more if your site is professional and well-constructed. It’s essential, too, that your site is easy to use and you get across what you want to say clearly. If it takes more than thirty seconds to find what you’re offering or where the contact button is, users are likely to just give up. There are a lot of things out there to look at, after all! To help you out, we’ve put together a little guide to help you improve your user experience and keep your customers happy.
Lightning Speed
Everyone knows how frustrating it is waiting ages and ages for a site to load its content – technology has made us very impatient. This is definitely something you want to avoid. You can test your page speed on Google for free to see how you’re doing and if you need to change aspects of your site to make loading quicker. If your page is slow, it’s a good idea to ensure that elements such as your logo will load faster than the rest. This will let users know that things are happening and your content will catch up soon.
Short and Sweet
Your audience aren’t going to want to read through reams and reams of information and waffle before getting to the point, so make it simple. If you do make your content too lengthy, people just aren’t going to be as interested in reading it. Instead, entice your audience at the beginning of your content with a hook that makes them want to read what you have to say, then stick to the key points. Perhaps, give your readers the chance to ‘read more’ about certain topics, but keep the main bulk pretty concise.
Use Original Images
Those stock photos you’ve got up of a friendly, smiling team of workers aren’t fooling anyone! Your audience will immediately recognise if you’re using generic stock images, and it can come across as un-personal and a little bit tacky. Instead, upload images of your real team doing real work, or customers using your products, or whatever you want, as long as it’s real! It will help your customer to understand and connect with your brand, and build up trust.
Keep Things Consistent
There’s nothing worse than an inconsistent website; one that makes you wonder if you’re even on the same page you were when you started browsing. Not only will this leave users confused and somewhat irritated (especially those with a keen eye for the little details), it’ll also cause them to lose trust in you. Make sure all your font, font sizes, header sizes, button styles, colouring and word spacing is the same throughout your site.
Making your website easy to use and, well, not annoying is key to expanding your audience and hooking customers. Don’t skimp or cut corners – it just won’t be worth it in the end! Invest in your website and watch the difference it makes to your business.