There is nothing more frustrating than visiting a website
and struggling with navigation, either because the site is slow, difficult to
use, or virtually incomprehensible. Truth be told, a bad user experience inevitably
leads visitors to leave the site, which can lead to unwanted results,
especially if your business is entirely on the web.
According to a study conducted by Wed Design Company in
Pakistan, 75% of online consumers would prefer to leave a site for that of
a competitor rather than tolerate posting delays. She also revealed that 88% of
online consumers would never return to a site after a bad experience. This
means that you can lose a customer permanently due to small technical issues.
The good news is that building a user-friendly website
doesn't have to be a difficult task. So, if you think your site can benefit
from some touch-ups, consider the suggestions in the points that follow.
1. Facilitate navigation
When you are sketching out your website, your first goal should
be to make it as easy to use and understand as possible.
Here are some tips to help you with this.
Name Each Page Appropriately: When naming your pages,
it's best to be fairly straightforward instead of trying to be witty and risk
falling flat. If this is a registration page for a particular service, name it
accordingly.
Make sure the navigation options are visible:
Whatever page your visitor came to your site from, that visitor should be able
to find what they are looking for almost instantly. In most cases, a navigation
bar near the top of the page should suffice. If you have several different
pages, consider adding a secondary navigation bar (usually located at the top
right of the page). Navigation hints can also be useful, especially when it comes
to helping people understand where they are on the site.
Add a search bar: If your visitors are looking for
something on your site, make it easier for them. This is especially important
if your site has many pages and a lot of content.
Use call-to-action links: If you want your visitors
to go to a specific page, consider adding a call-to-action link with words like
"Buy Now" or "Find out more".
2. Optimize content
When a visitor lands on your home page, they should quickly
be able to get a good idea of the nature of your business. A few sentences
summarizing the benefits of your business should work well. What's more, you
can provide additional details on a separate page. Adding additional content
that uses terms specific to your industry presents you as an expert in the
matter; however, do not bombard Internet users with jargon they may not
understand. Use keyword research to find out what terms people are looking for
and try to understand their reasoning.
3. Increase display speed
Studies show * that a site's bounce rate increases by 100%
when a page load takes at least four seconds and by 150% if it lasts at least
eight seconds. However, there are a few ways to speed up the posting process.
Use small images and files: Using large images,
videos, and Flash animation files can produce a more elegant site, but it won't
be fast. Consider compressing these files or deleting a few. If these are
images, you can change the dimensions in Photoshop before uploading them to
your site.
Redirects are great, but not always: Sometimes
outdated pages are modernized, but links from external sources to those pages
are not. Internal redirects help redirect people to the right pages, but if
there are too many of them, they can cause unnecessary slowdowns. If you notice
this problem, consider reducing the number of redirects on your site.
4. Limit restrictions for your visitors
Internet users should have no difficulty signing up for your
services or purchasing your products. Here are some ways to make your site
easier to use.
Be Accessible: Not everyone is good at going through
a long list of frequently asked questions. Include your phone number, email
address, or both so your customers can ask you for help directly if needed.
Be clear about the site's limitations: If you want
your web users to fill out a form, make sure they know how to enter specific
information. For example, if you want them to enter their phone numbers without
dashes, tell them! The same principle should apply to unavailable usernames,
shipping restrictions, etc.
5. Subscribe to mobile
The mobile market is booming. In Canada alone, there are
currently over 29 million mobile device users *. An incredible 80% of website
visits * are from a mobile device. This means that a good proportion of your
potential Internet users will discover your site from a smartphone. Make sure
the site they find works well on all devices.
Don't forget to run some tests!
After doing some touch-ups, make sure that real internet
users are testing. The worst thing to do is to cause more harm than good. Let
people test your updates and fix them if necessary.
There are a multitude of technical aspects involved in
building a website. Whether you are looking to build a site from scratch or
improve an existing site, the specialists at Yellow Pages can help.
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