First Impressions: Usability

Advanced Digital Blog Series, Responsive Web Design, Search Engine Optimization | posted on July 8, 2016

Chances are your website provides customers a first impression of your business. Is the website clean and organized? Can products or services be found easily? Many of us are visual people and you form an opinion of a company from what you see first. For example, if an e-commerce website is unorganized and the website looks outdated, you will probably go elsewhere for the same product. The messy layout and outdated look is going to lead you to believe the company is old, the factory is disorganized and it may take you longer than you want to receive your item.

When your potential customers come to your site, they essentially want everything laid out for them above the fold. Much like when eating at a buffet, you’d like everything set out before you so you are able to pick and choose what you would like. Put simply, the easier you make navigating your website, the lower your bounce rate and higher your conversation rate.

Key Components To Keep in Mind

Some key components to keep in mind when it comes to the usability of your website:

  • Are the services or products your website offers easily identified and accessible from your home page? Potential customers should be able to tell what services you offer and what your business is about by your menu, slider (or hero image), call to action buttons, etc. Various heat maps of websites show users tend to put all of their focus on the top of the page, as you go down the page users are clicking fewer links.
  • Are your web pages loading at an appropriate speed? You don’t want users to feel like they’ve traveled back to the dial-up days. Choosing the right host, reducing ads, enabling cache and compressing images are just a few of the things that can help speed up your website. Slow page-loading times could increase your bounce-rate and result in the loss of a conversion.
  • How are website errors handled? Instead of having a 404 Not Found page only stating, “404 Not Found,” you may want to offer them other options. Latest blog posts, service pages, about your company and most importantly the contact us page. Like we stated earlier, you potential customers want everything laid out in front of them, they could become increasingly frustrated with the usability of your website.

Is your website user friendly and attracting potential customers?

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