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94% of first impressions of your business relate to your site’s web design. That’s how important your website is. Even if you have the best product in the world, customers will unlikely to stick with your brand if your website is dull and uninspiring. Your website is your digital shop window and first impression to potential customers, so it needs to be striking.
Improve your WordPress UX to make a lasting impression on your visitors. Learn how to create an engaging and user-friendly website with these techniques.
Why is website user experience important?
The aim of website UX is to satisfy users’ needs and create a pleasant experience for them, and when it comes to business, there’s nothing more important. By giving your audience a smooth and positive experience on your website, they become loyal to your brand and are willing to pay for premium services. Here are some more benefits of good WordPress UX:
- Improved SEO rankings
SEO is essential because it lets Google’s algorithm know if your website’s content suits users. That is why SEO prioritization is one of the tips for making your WordPress website successful. Your website will appear early in search results if the SEO is good. Therefore, with higher SEO rankings comes enhanced discoverability on the internet, and good WordPress UX helps you achieve that.
- Sales boost
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Making your checkout and payment process easier for customers can increase sales. Cart abandonment issues arise from account creation requirements before checkout and a long/complicated process. In other words, with good WordPress UX design, more consumers will complete their purchases, leading to more sales for your business.
- Better conversion rates
When two websites offer the same product or service, but people prefer one over the other, it’s usually due to the user experience. In other words, a good website’s UX will attract your target audience to your products and services, leading to reasonable conversion rates.
9 Tips for creating a more engaging WordPress website
Now that we’ve established how a good website UX positively influences your business let’s discuss how to boost your WordPress website’s UX.
1. Explore the benefits of card sorting
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There are many benefits of card sorting when it comes to UX research. Research is the first step to discovering the elements that will satisfy users in your niche. And while there are many ways to do this, one of the best is card sorting. This technique will allow you to understand how users visualize, process, and categorize information on a website. This way, you can find out what potential users expect from your website and create the perfect website for them.
The end goal of card sorting is to help you build a website with good information architecture. In other words, it enables you to arrange every element on your website exactly how your users want it.
2. Fast website speed
We all agree that there’s nothing more annoying than a slow website, which gives poor UX and severely affects businesses. Consumers have always admitted that page speed affects their buying decisions. A slow website gives a wrong impression about your business and increases your bounce rate.
Here’s how you can boost website speed in WordPress:
- Limit WordPress plugins: Too many plugins will deplete your server’s processing power, leading to slow website loading speeds.
- Deploy caching: This will help your website load faster for visited users.
- Use good hosting services: Website hosting services are like high-speed storage devices, so they make your website perform better and faster.
- Subscribe to a reliable Content Delivery Network (CDN): This will allow your users to download static files faster, leading to faster website speed.
3. Make navigation easy
Your website must be simple to use, even by kids. There’s no crime in using the typical website designs that users love, especially if they can easily access various parts of your website. The good news is that WordPress has many resources that enable you to build a seamless navigation system, which is one of the reasons why it is the best option for content-rich websites. Check out these simple elements that will ease your website’s navigation:
- Breadcrumbs: This secondary navigation support helps users understand their location on a page and allows them to trace their way back to the point of origin.
- Sitemaps: it’s a list of URLs that lead to every page on your website. It allows users to instantly access any page on your website by clicking on the correct URL.
- Categories: Users will visit your website for various reasons, and you can add these ‘reasons’ to your navigation sidebar as categories.
- Search tool: This is vital if you own an online store. It lets users find products directly on your website, which is way better than searching through product categories.
5. Improve content readability
The point of a website is to display visual and written content to users. So, you must make the written content on your website easy to read. Making your website’s written content easy on the eye is a surefire way of keeping your audience engaged. Begin by researching common formatting tips, especially on websites in your niche.
Here are ways to improve your website content’s readability:
- Keep your paragraphs short and meaningful
- Use italics for emphasis
- Choose fonts that are readable in every size
- Bolden words and phrases for emphasis
- Use left-to-right alignment to make written content more legible
- Use narrow letter spacing for headings, subheadings, and large fonts
5. Use simple designs
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How would you feel if you wanted to order a TV set, but the website displayed irrelevant, stylish content before directing you to the checkout page? That’s how many users feel when websites are crowded with too many designs, colors, animations, and whatnot that make them difficult to use.
Your website’s purpose and efficiency in fulfilling this purpose should be your priority during the design process; everything else, including aesthetics, is secondary. So, always maintain your website’s functionality for aesthetics. It often leads to lousy UX, which could be better for business.
6. Mobile Optimization
Properly optimizing your website for mobile phone users is arguably the biggest mistake you can ever make as a website designer. Over 60% of consumers use mobile phones for online shopping, and you must make a good user experience for such a large number of people. Yes, WordPress already optimizes websites for mobile phone users, but you can do even better by following the tips below:
- Enable Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs)
- Refrain from using full-screen popups
- Remove unused CSS to reduce page size and make it easily loadable for mobile devices
- Optimize images for mobile users by resizing and compressing images while loading them
7. Deploy negative space
Negative space or whitespace refers to regions on your website that contain no content, and having a reasonable amount of such areas makes for better UX. It allows users to see items on your website with clarity and breaks up web pages to let readers focus on the website’s main point, even if it contains other content. Combining line spacing and paragraph margins with negative space also helps boost the readability of your website content, which is great for user experience.
8. Use clear and personal CTAs
Have you ever left a website without a clear directive on accessing its products and services? Well, that’s the job of CTAs, and the website’s UX designers probably didn’t place them in visible areas. However, you must understand that interested visitors will look for a button or command that tells them how to access features on your website. Therefore, it is up to you to place it where they can easily find it.
9. Include informative content on your homepage
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A website only takes a few seconds to grasp a visitor’s attention and ensure that they explore its features. While several elements could make a visitor stay, information is arguably the most powerful.
When users visit your website, they typically need to know the products and services you offer and how to access them. Sometimes, they may need motivation to buy your products, such as data that suggests your brand is the best in the business.
You must include all the information they need on your homepage or landing page and use creative infographics to pass the message. That way, they instantly know what your brand does, how they can access its features, and see proof of its efficiency. The user experience is similar to that.
Be deliberate about your WordPress UX
Creating a website for your business is a valuable way to promote and market your products or services. Unfortunately, many websites are bland and, sometimes, outrightly terrible, giving the user an unpleasant experience. Using time-tested tactics to make yourself stand out intentionally would be best.
You can create a more engaging WordPress website by using card sorting, improving the speed of your website, making navigation smooth, and adding readable content. Others use simple designs, mobile optimization, deploying negative space, transparent and personal CTAs, and including informative content on your homepage.
Moyofade Ipadeola is a Content Strategist, UX Writer, and Editor. Witty loves personal development and helping people grow. As she’s fondly called, Mo is fascinated by all things tech.