Where website design is concerned, User-Experience (UX) is one of the most important components necessary to encourage engagement with your brand online. User-experience is commonly understood as the quality of a web user’s overall experience while browsing a given website, particularly as it relates to the ease that is enjoyed with that use. How pleasant of an experience are your users encountering when they visit your website? That’s the question website designers should want to tackle when designing business websites today. If not, the brand in question has a big problem on its hands. If a website user/customer cannot efficiently and effectively navigate the various pages of a particular website, for instance, chances are they will leave the site in frustration. (Learn some of the most common website design navigation mistakes to avoid.) It’s almost a given, then, that that user will decide to no longer revisit the site for information about the company or to purchase its products. Failing to immediately engage and facilitate a pleasing user-experience on your business website can be the death knell for many brands’ hopes of web traffic (particularly e-commerce brands).
Just think about how a customer’s experience can impact online reviews. A recent Pew Research study concluded that over half of adults routinely check online reviews before buying a product.
The goal of any business-driven website design strategy is to develop a platform from which customers and clients can educate themselves about your industry, brand and services or purchase your products with as few obstacles as possible. You want to make their online experience vetting your offerings as effortless as just a few points and clicks. Web designers must also ensure that their site designs are visually enticing while still functional in pointing the user to their intended topic/product.
One problem commonly part of the user-experience conundrum is the practice of eliminating direct telephone numbers on a business website. In what is an obvious business decision to funnel all communication with the company through electronic communications (e.g., email or live/virtual chat) to improve efficiency and eliminating the number of telephone calls received, the practice of not including a contact phone number for your business can easily frustrate the end-user. When a decision to contact the brand is made, users simply want to do it in a way that is quick and easy. Therefore, eliminating the phone number from your call-to-actions online can negatively impact the user-experience of someone browsing your website with intent to connect with your brand. As a result, your bounce rates may increase and your search engine ranking may decrease. And, again, a once frustrated, online customers can be very fickle toward repeat engagements with the brand.
Building a functional, visually appealing website is essential for securing and maintaining an engaged customer base and for ensuring the site’s Google search rankings remain competitive. The task of the web designer is not an easy one, but if emphasis is always given toward ensuring a great user-experience, all the components of the website seem to come together seamlessly to expertly serve the needs of the user. And that spells conversion any day of the week.
If you’d like to learn more about how creating a pleasing user-experience can enhance your brand’s performance online, call Proctor Digital at 773.664.5819. We love helping brands stand high above the crowd in the digital marketplace.