Millions of websites are operating on the Internet as of now. Do you fear that your brand’s website might not be noticed among the crowd? Unfortunately, that has been the case for numerous businesses. Many companies either revamped or closed down their entire web presence because of no or low traffic. Not all websites manage to attract enough users, after all.
Now, the main question: What makes a website successful? The success of a website is measured by the number of its visitors and their conversion rate. What can you do to bring more traffic to your website? Well, the answer is quite simple; provide your users a great experience!
This blog first describes user experience and highlights its importance. Then it covers how a good user experience drives traffic to your website. Finally, it explains the process of ensuring an effective UX design. Let’s get started.
What is User Experience (UX) Design?
User Experience refers to the overall experience of a user when using your website. UX Design means a website design built to enhance user satisfaction. Satisfying users requires an in-depth analysis of what they need or value, how they interact with your website, and how they feel over each interaction.
User Experience (UX) is often confused with User Interface (UI). However, users do not just need an interactive digital interface for a good experience on a website. There are various other aspects involved, like visual design, information architecture, content strategy, and usability.
Why Does It Matter?
Would you revisit a website if it takes too long to load? How about websites that have confusing navigation or low-quality graphics? Nobody likes to deal with such poorly designed websites.
People nowadays have very short attention spans. They abandon a website immediately if it fails to appeal to them within the first few minutes of their use. Even search engines like Google do not index such websites anymore.
Therefore, websites with slow user interfaces, difficult navigation, or average content do not survive in the market for long. It’s high time for businesses now to level up their user experience game.
How Does User Experience Design Increase Traffic?
User Experience Design is all about ensuring a worthwhile experience for your users. People will definitely revisit your website if they have a positive experience the first time.
Let’s see how the elements of UX design attract people and convert them into actual customers.
1. The First Impression
The first few seconds after a user clicks on your website are crucial. Users will only continue further if the landing page loads quickly. Plus, the home page content (including text and graphics) needs to impress them at the first glance. You have to make the best use of typography, expressive images, colors, fonts, etc. Users explore a website further only when the landing page is quick, readable, and attractive.
2. Mobile Optimization
Gone are the days when people had to use a PC to access the Internet. Now almost everything happens on mobiles! People mostly surf the Internet on the go. Therefore, your website will lose maximum traffic if it’s not optimized to run on mobiles. The better your website looks, feels, and performs across different screen sizes, the more traffic it generates.
3. Engaging Content
Content is truly the king of the digital world!
Nothing can save a website with dull and boring content. Users never revisit a website if they do not like the content there. Websites with interesting articles, impressive info-graphics, catchy images, and meaningful videos definitely receive the highest amount of traffic.
Improved content is also a crucial factor for search engine optimization. The better your content is, the higher it ranks on the search engines. A higher rank on search engine pages leads to higher visibility amongst your target audience.
4. Smooth & Simple Navigation
The audience doesn’t bother using confusing websites. They abandon a website the moment they feel that it’s difficult to move around. In fact, most user complaints are related to navigation issues. This proves the fact that a website’s performance also depends on smooth and simple navigation.
5. Search Engine Optimization
An effective UX Design means better SEO for your website. But how do search engines determine the ranks of the websites? They check the website’s relevance in terms of the user interface, user experience, customer support, and content. If a website performs well in all such aspects, it automatically ranks higher on the result pages. And a better rank on search result pages automatically drives more traffic to the website.
How to Ensure an Effective UX Design?
To provide an exceptional experience to your users, you first need to know them closely. Research about your target audience and develop user profiles. User profiles will help you create experiences that relate to their emotions.
Then experiment with different user interface designs. When you have a few suitable alternatives, test them to see which one is more effective. Tools like Google Optimize allows you to test different interfaces and see which one performs better.
Do not forget to include your users in the design process. Take their feedback to know what they would prefer to see on your website. You can use surveys, interviews, polls, or suggestion boxes to gather valuable user insights.
Make flowcharts of how you expect your users to move around the website development agency. Then compare how they actually navigate through the website. Use tools to track their movement and then make relevant structural changes based on that data.
Finally, think about the sitemaps, style guides, design patterns, wireframes, and prototypes for an effective UX design.
Conclusion
Your website’s traffic highly depends on what the users feel when they use your website. A good UX design is necessary to attract new visitors and convert them into actual customers. More people will use your website if it’s easy to navigate, SEO optimized, and quick to load. Plus, engaging content also plays a vital role in generating more traffic to your website. The better the UX design of your website is, the more traffic it receives.
