Key Elements of a User-Friendly Website

When it comes to running a website for your business, the easiest way to increase your clientele is through a user-friendly website. Having your website be user-friendly ensures your potential clients have an effortless way to learn more about your business and how to reach you. It also leaves your audience with a positive impression from the experience.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE A USER-FRIENDLY WEBSITE?

A user-friendly website should be simple to use on any device and contain easily digestible content. Include four key elements into your design: mobile accessibility, readability, navigation, and loading efficiency. Doing so will improve your SEO ranking (making your business easier to find via online search) and streamline the customer journey. Here are actionable steps you can take:

FOUR ASPECTS EXPLAINED

You’d be surprised at how much incoming traffic and clicks comes from mobile phones now instead of computers. For your website to be easily pulled up and remain understandable, the website needs to be optimized for smaller viewing screens. This is done by having a simple design consisting of large type, clickable buttons, and a navigation system that is simple and straightforward.

The first thing people do when looking through a website for the first time is scan through the page. Within this couple second scan, users should be able to find valuable information about your business. Many times websites being created get caught up in the aesthetics of it rather than the information of it, but no matter how aesthetically pleasing your website may look, users will become overwhelmed and disinterested if the information is not easy to read. The actual typography within the website needs to be clear, easy to read, as well as creates contrast with the background of the page. Along with the typography, the actual content within the page needs to consist of simple written language to make it understandable to all interested in your website. To make your website easy to scan and understand, you can break up your information into: 

• Headers
• Subheadings
• Bullets
• Short paragraphs
• Relevant images/graphics

Here are two layout examples used within our current website at Dabrianmarketing.com

First Example

Second Example

When a client clicks onto your page, they shouldn’t have to put in excessive effort to find the information they are looking for. They should be able to find key elements and information about your business right off the bat. Adding a navigation bar is one element that will help clients and benefit your website. By having a navigation bar, users can look for specific information, as well as it breaks up the website information into categories. Implementing breadcrumbs* within the navigation bar is another effective way to help users easily navigate your website with ease. Breadcrumbs within a website shows where the page you are currently on lays within other pages. Having the information broken down into categories lets viewers find the exact information they are looking for,  resulting in them spending more time within your website, ultimately leading to increased interest.

Above: Example of breadcrumbs being used on dabrianmarketing.com

Above: Example of a poorly designed navigation compared to a successfully designed one.

Above: Header layout implemented into our own design at dabrianmarketing.com

4. LOADING EFFICIENCY:

If your website takes more than 4-6 seconds to load, it's too slow driving customers away. With today's technology, users are used to having things happen at the drop of a hat. When a website takes too long to load, they become disinterested and often leave looking elsewhere for faster, more reliable websites. A common cause of websites loading slowly is caused by large images/files within the page, try compressing them for faster optimization, as well as perform regular maintenance within the website to stay above any errors.

THE IMPACT OF A USER-FRIENDLY WEBSITE: 

User satisfaction is key in growing businesses and gaining clientele. The more satisfied a user is with the website, the longer time they spend looking through the information, as well as the chances of them returning back increases. Along with them returning to your website, the conversation rates increase, leading others to also view your website, not to mention how it plays into your SEO rankings.

Having a low bounce rate because of a user-friendly experience, and high conversion rates from being satisfied indicates to the search engines that your website is informative and has valuable information. It’s a well-known fact that a high number of people don’t look past the first page of search results, so your SEO rankings must be high, which having a user-friendly website will contribute to.

WANT TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE YOUR WEBSITE MORE USER-FRIENDLY?

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