All too often, those heavily invested in UX test and create products that combine simplicity and utility with beautiful design, but the quality of the experience means very little because it’s not moving the user towards a predetermined business objective.
From initial lead generation to customer retention, UX design plays an essential role in goal conversions. For companies that offer subscription services or products, UX makes a significant impact on customer attrition. A great website is one that uses beautiful design and intentional functionality to provide an exceptional, seamless experience for customers while building towards your business objectives.
How User Experience Affects Conversion Rates
To ensure your design helps you reach your business objectives, track goal conversions with Google Analytics. Good UX design will encourage users to a predetermined end, whether you’re an ecommerce website (which means sales) or you’re looking for more registered users or subscribers. Define what KPIs you’re designing for, and think of how you are moving the user towards those goals.
Once you have a grip on what your KPIs are, determine baselines and set targets. You can design experiments and test improvements to demonstrate their effectiveness. Better design encourages more trust in your brand and encourages users to return.
You can track usability metrics to see how a user has engaged with your website, but there are also some observations that you should make when reviewing designs to improve user behavior against your business objectives.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are your chance to make a significant impression on a new or returning user; they are also a great place to A/B test your designs. If you’re looking for ways to improve user experience on a landing page, consider using video instead of text. With video, it’s much easier and efficient to communicate your value proposition, and successful video communicates that value while encouraging your user to complete page goals.
When designing landing pages, consider including reviews and testimonials for social proofing of your product or service. Social proofing removes a barrier to entry to your product by showing that other people have used and enjoyed what you have to offer.
You should also avoid false-floors that make it look like there is no more content below the fold, and encourage scrolling either with buttons, arrows, or text that spans the fold. Make sure your landing page is designed to convert by including obvious calls to action to keep users engaged with your website.
CTA buttons
Deciding where and when to place a CTA button is a skill and an art. The prominent display of important call to action (CTA) buttons make it easy for users to understand what they’re clicking on, why they’re clicking on it, and what to expect after they click it.
UX designers that work on websites with enough data coming in can test whether goal conversion rates are dramatically affected by changing the placement of a CTA button. However, a Google study showed that the user drop-off caused by the fold was 66%, so aim to deliver important buttons above the fold or try to encourage scrolling to get users to move down the page.
UX Copywriting
UX copywriting improves user experience by providing users with a frictionless pathway through your website with clearly labeled actions and steps. It varies slightly from the skill of UX writing, which keeps text clear, concise, and provides useful, valuable information to the user to improve experience.
UX copywriting aims to encourage action; the job is perfect for more marketing-inclined writers because the purpose is to grab the attention of a user and encourage them to take action.
Text and Typography
When it comes to on-page content, you want to make it easy for users to read the words on your web pages. Follow responsive design best practices so that content will adjust appropriately to different screen sizes (desktop, tablet, mobile). Make sure your text is big enough to easily read and consider users with color blindness or who are visually impaired.
This will also help make your website ADA compliant which has many benefits: you’re allowing more users to access your content, avoiding lawsuits, and improving SEO. By improving your content for the deaf and HOH, you help search engines crawl and index your content. By following best practices, not only do you make your site more accessible, but there’s the potential added advantage that your content will be better prepared for voice search features (think Alexa) that give auditory responses straight from websites.
Navigation
Awesome website navigation begins with great information architecture. Navigation is how users make their way through your content, finding what they need to and completing actions that are important to them and your brand. Navigation on your website’s header should be simplified so that the page looks less cluttered and high-value actions appear more prominent.
Well-designed site navigation should be backed by a site search function, which also relies on the awesome information architecture you’ve designed, that users can use to quickly find exactly what they are looking for across your website. User interface design should make complex processes appear simple to the user, yet highly functional on the back end.
Site Speed
Consumers expect prompt, fast websites. A slow website is not only bad for user experience but sends the wrong message about your brand – that you’re not professional. Studies show that if you have a longer than two second load time on your page, 47% of consumers will leave. The same study also found that site speed is vital for online shopper loyalty; 79% of online shoppers who experience a disappointing visit are less likely to buy from the same site again.
Page speed is one of Google’s primary metrics to rank your website. It’s important to improve site speed to improve your organic traffic and ensure users can find your website. Test and improve your site speed for better organic rankings and an improved user experience.
Improve User Experience in Real-Time
Websites are becoming more personable, and live chat functions or chatbots allow users to communicate their needs or issues in a very immediate and direct way. By adding live chat to your website, you reduce the friction users might feel when they can’t find the information they are looking for. It turns your website into a conversational sales experience.
Successful site chats improve the user’s engagement on your website by giving them a personable experience that meets their actual needs, but there’s another opportunity to use them. They can be implemented as a way for users to provide feedback on your site’s design and functionality, which would flag immediate issues and allow you to act on usability issues in an ongoing, sustainable way. Prompt users with a question, like “how are we doing?” and use bots to push questions that will provide actionable items to work on.
How a user interacts with your website is paramount to meeting your business objectives, so consider investing in UX and hire a web design agency that specializes in UX design.
