User experience is key to keeping good traffic flow and to make sure the users spend more than just a minute on your website. Websites should be a place for users to feel welcomed, comfortable and find valuable information about your business and services. Four questions that you should ask yourself are as follows:
- Does my website load quickly?
- Do I have good responsive design?
- Do I have redirects or redirect loops?
- Is my site aesthetically pleasing?
How Quickly Does Your Website Load?
Having a website that loads quickly from the point the link to your website is clicked to the point at which it loads, is a very important factor to keeping positive user experience. Studies have shown that if a websites loads slower than 3 seconds, you could have up to 40% of the users abandon your website.
Search engines will actually penalize your organic search result rankings if users are bouncing from your website to others will more valuable and relevant information.
There are many reasons you may have a slow load time. One of those reasons would be that your website could have un-optimized images. It is important to optimize any image to get rid of the extra data that might be contained within the image file; be sure you’re using the right image-type (JPG, PNG, GIF, etc.). Additionally, a slow loading speed could be because of excessive JavaScript and CSS files that can be condensed. Some of our favorite recommended plugins to install on the content management system, WordPress, are Scripts to Footer, Minify JS and Super Cache. Read our post discussing the Do’s and Don’ts of Images.
Do You Have Good Responsive Design?
Responsive design is defined as having a website design that will automatically fit the screen of any device that the user is using, whether it is a laptop, iPad, Smart Phone, etc. According to some studies, 2.87 billion people are currently using a smart phone. Many users enjoy having the freedom to view websites on their phone. If a website is not mobile friendly, the user then has to zoom in to read information about the services your business provides. Without a responsive website, you may find your bounce rate has increased and your organic rankings have decreased. Overall, it is important to have a website that will be user-friendly on any device and not just on a computer screen or smart phone screen.
Do You Have Redirects?
Redirects can have a negative impact on websites but they could also have a positive impact. When a user clicks on a link, they expect to be on the same website that the link displayed and not redirected elsewhere. Redirects could be positive as well if it is an updated version of the previously existing page. If you’re redirecting to another website, adding a notice to explain the reason for the redirect could help the user.
Is Your Site Appealing To The Eye?
Having a site that is visually appealing will enhance user experience. You want the user to remember how it looks and trust your business. The majority of users tend to choose a more appealing design over any bland, neutral or outdated design. An appealing website could also convey emotions. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” With images on your website, you can trigger many different emotions such happiness or even sadness. Memories could also be triggered and the user would remember the website that awoke those memories that were pleasing. Read our post about color psychology.
The users of your website should feel comfortable and be able to trust your business’ website. A responsive, appealing and quickly loading website with any required redirects will provide your users with a great user experience.
Our team frequently creates blog series, ranging from First Impressions, Back to Basics (the basics of web design or search engine optimization), to our current series, 12 Days of Christmas.
In our First Impressions series, we discussed content, usability and visual presentation. Take a look back on these posts and keep an eye out on our blog in 2017 for more series!
First Impressions Introduction
First Impressions Visual Presentationa> The visual presentation of your website can convert potential customers or send them looking for your services elsewhere. Our team offers tips to help the presentation of your website to users.
First Impressions Usability Accessibility, loading time and errors are all important factors in the usability of your website.
First Impressions Content We’ve all heard the phrase, “Content is king,” but what does your content say about your company? Content should be professionally written, proof-read and have a voice. We offer a few tips that will help with search engine optimization as well.
As we’re nearing the end of our 12 Days of Christmas series, we look forward to creating more series in 2017 and offering additional information to the web design and search engine optimization industries. Stay tuned to our blog, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to keep up to date on all of the latest posts and fun things our team takes part in.
As 2016 is quickly coming to an end, the Advanced Digital Inc. Team thought we’d share with you our Top 10 favorite resources of the year. These range from specific articles that spoke to us, to tools that helped us create some of our web design projects this year and achieve our search engine optimization goals.
1.) Smashing Magazine’s post from August 17th Photoshop Etiquette For Responsive Web Design is one of our favorite articles from 2016! For almost 10 years, Smashing Magazine has provided quality articles and resources for programmers and designers.
2.) Dreamstime is one of the many stock photo resources our team uses. Conveniently, customers are able to either purchase subscription packages or pay by the photo.
3.) By using Lynda, our team is able to expand their knowledge, learn additional skills. As SEO is constantly evolving and there are many layers involved in it, it is important to keep on top of skill-sets.
4.) We all have our routines and our Friday’s usually start off with a White Board Friday video from Moz and a cup of coffee. Each video is packed with great tips for our search engine optimization team. One of our favorites is 8 Rules for Choosing a Domain Name.
5.) Keyword research is a large part of search engine optimization and one of our favorite tools to use to help with this is, Google Keyword Planner. If you’re planning on running an Adwords Campaign, all of your keywords can be saved to use at a later date.
6.) With over 1,000 fonts to choose from, Google Fonts make choosing fonts and pairings easy for all of our web design projects.
7.) Adobe Color has analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound, shades and custom rules available. Easily create a custom color palette for your design or marketing materials. Check out our blog post from October on Color Psychology!
8.) GetHub is a large depository for programmers. The open source community allows programmers to contribute their skills, follow other projects and more.
9.) Bootstrap is our favorite way to program responsive websites for all of our clients. The easy framework is set up with 12 columns that collapse for tablets and mobile devices.
10.) Lastly, WordPress is our choice for a content management system. With 1,000’s of plugins and themes available, this content management system is customizable to any business and is perfect for our clients.
Do you have a favorite resource? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow us on social media!
A blog is a great way to create content, build a following, share relevant information for a business’s industry and create link building opportunities. You should not just stop at creating the content, by commenting on blogs in the industry, it allows you spread your business name and establish your business as a leader in your industry and more!
The Benefits of Commenting on Blogs
Credibility – Posting knowledgeable comments on blogs can help create a credible name for your business. Comments similar to, “Great post, keep it up.” could damage your name instead of help. Comments should spark a conversation, so add to the key points of a blog post.
Visibility and Exposure – After leaving comments on blogs, you may notice an increase of traffic on your own website. Commenting consistently on fellow industry blog posts, you present the image of being engaged in your industry out side of your own company. For many, this would read as your company valuing customer service and genuinely showing a passion for what you do.
Creates Opportunities – Once you have established yourself as a leader in your industry, you may find you have guest blogging opportunities. It is important that your guest post has valuable information and does not read like an advertisement. Add calls to action to follow you on social media platforms and leave comments on the post.
Increases Traffic – Becoming a credible leader in your industry, increasing your visibility and exposure, and taking advantage of guest blogging opportunities, you’ll find the traffic of your website and social follows have increased.
Let us know in the comments if there are additional benefits you experience after commenting on blog posts. Follow us on social media for additional holiday fun this December!