How giving your user a good experience can increase your income.
When coming up with a digital marketing strategy, small details are often overlooked but can more often than not play a big part in the overall success of your campaign.
A PPC campaign can be generating thousands of clicks a day, but if a user clicks through to your website or landing page and it’s outdated or hard to use, then the majority of them will opt out.
Throwing money at PPC or SEO will help improve traffic to your site, but nailing your user’s experience (UX) will help increase the number of people who will follow through and buy your products.
So how can you ensure your UX is on point?
System
With all of the technology that’s around nowadays, the world at the click of a button, people have become impatient.
A big factor in whether someone stays on your site before they even see it is how long it takes to load. If your site is full of huge image sizes or flashy videos it will take a long time to load and most users won’t wait longer than a few seconds for it, especially on mobile.
In fact, as Bruce Lawson points out in his talk on Responsive Images (1), even for a giant like Google, a 0.5-second delay can cause them a 20% drop in traffic.
Talking about mobiles, in this day and age a greater number of people view websites on their phones than they do on a desktop browser – and your website needs to move with the times. Literally.
It’s all well and good for your website to look pretty and work on a desktop, but you have to consider how it will adapt to tablet and mobile platforms.
There are a lot of services out there now such as WordPress, Weebly and Squarespace which offer fully responsive layouts in order to ensure that your business is represented in all of its glory across a multitude of platforms.
Visuals
90% of the information our brains take in is visual (2). We can use this to our advantage when it comes to digital marketing.
Imagery plays a massive part in how a user perceives your business. Clients have a habit of supplying images which they haven’t really thought about properly and it can have a negative impact on their user’s experience.
Everything your business puts out onto the internet is giving the consumer an idea of what you are about. If you are putting out badly shot images you’ve taken on an iPhone, anyone visiting your site is likely to be sceptical.
Well-thought-out images can give the user a reason to stay on your site, and give your brand a better image in the long run. A well shot, well-thought-out set of photographs can have a huge impact on your reputation and conversion rates.
Another crucial thing to consider is keeping your website looking fresh and up-to-date. If you are selling a high-cost product or service and your website looks outdated, a user isn’t going to give you their bank details because the aesthetic of your site will cause them to lose trust.
If you are expecting people to part with their money you need to convince them that you are worthy, and a website that looks like a pop-up ad isn’t going to make anyone open up their wallets.
Content
People skim read. It’s how our brains process huge bodies of information. If you need to put a lot of content onto your site then make sure your headings are topical and informative. It is what is going to stick in your user’s mind and project your message across.
Another way to ensure users take in your information is to utilise space and the weight of your fonts. Make any key point within the text bold or break up large paragraphs. This will make the information less daunting to the user and easier to digest whilst they skim-read your site.
Another thing to consider when adding content to your site is the way your user is thinking. If you are selling a service, then your site is going to have to follow the trail of thought of “What are you selling?”, “Why should they use your service?”, “Why should they trust you?”, “How much will it cost them?” and “How do they go about buying your service?”.
Understanding your consumer’s mindset will ensure your marketing efforts can’t fail to be successful.
Navigation
Navigation is such a key part in terms of UX, and making your navigation simple and clear will make the user’s journey smoother and more pleasant.
Simplifying your navigation is easy. As humans are creatures of habit, small things such as placing the navigation where the users are going to be looking for it, and using consistent contrasting colours for buttons and hover links throughout the site will make the layout familiar.
This will ensure that the user will be able to easily identify where they can click and where they need to go to reach another section of your site.
If your image is being used as a link to another page, make it obvious. Applying an action or an effect to the image will make it obvious to the user that something is going to happen when they click on it.
If your image is simply an image, make sure that it’s static when it’s hovered or you will confuse the user and they will think that it’s a broken link.
Another great thing to look out for in terms of navigation is linking up your site to all of your other online presences.
Not only will this increase your brand’s exposure online and increase the success of your social media, but it will also help drive traffic to your online presence. This will allow the user to navigate easily throughout your social media presence, as well as your main website and products.
Calls to Action
Calls to action are a big part of an online strategy, and I know that it’s tempting to spam your site full of them – but be very careful! It obviously makes it easier for the consumer to buy whatever it is you are offering, but there are a few rules you should bear in mind.
Don’t overdo it. If you have a pop-up on every page asking your consumer to fill out a form or give you their details, it’s going to irritate them and completely put them off using your service. Strategically placed buttons or links will have greater effects.
Once the user has clicked through to your form, keep it short and sweet. Only ask for information you actually need. Nobody wants to spend hours filling out a form to buy a new toaster, and it’s likely going to cause them to lose trust and put them off going through with the transaction.
For any help with UX or your digital marketing strategies feel free to get in touch with us, we don’t bite.
References
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Ao058RMJA
- http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33423/19-Reasons-You-Should-Include-Visual-Content-in-Your-Marketing-Data.aspx#sm.00001lyd05pkjd0k10263lv1oboxa
