5 Ways To Make Sure Users Will Love Your Website

You’ve invested a lot of time and money into an effective website with great traffic.

But, is your steady stream of users sticking around or are they being chased away by your luminous font and labyrinth like navigation? You don’t want the latter. The latter means that your website isn’t doing its job.

Here are FIVE ways to make sure that your website is an easy and enjoyable rather than frustrating and tedious experience for users.

1 – Keep Loading Times Quick

Bandwidth

We’re living in an age of instant access – people don’t like waiting.

Scratch that. People don’t wait.

So, if your website is taking more than three or four seconds to load that means your users will most likely give up and leave.

The best way to ensure a quick loading time is to get a good web host – one with lots of bandwidth. Always ask about bandwidth.

Images and Plugins

Another way to speed up loading times is to make sure that your images aren’t too big.

Those high resolution pictures of your staff absolutely loving their day-to-day grind are great, but if the image is too large it will take far too long to.

1024×768 is the size you should aim for.

Also, if you’re developing in WordPress keep the plugins to a minimum, because they also contribute towards slow loading times

2 – Navigation Must Be Obvious

The creatively designed navigation menu that your graphic designer put together is confusing your users.

As soon as you force your users to figure out how your website works you’ve lost them.

Your navigation has to be obvious. A top navigational menu will be what every user will be expecting.

Also, make sure to use simple page titles so that users can quickly find what they’re looking for.

3 – Don’t Forget About Mobile Phone Users

There are more mobile device users visiting your site than you think

If they have to zoom in or continuously swipe left and right to centre the page they will run for hills. So, always test the usability of your website on all devices.

WordPress is a great source of beautifully designed responsive templates.

4 – No More Clicking

Sites like Facebook and Twitter have introduced us to infinite scroll.

In fact we’ve become so used to it that we instinctively scroll down expecting the page to go on forever on every new site we visit. As a result, however, clicking has now become an inconvenience.

Don’t be afraid to load your homepage full of info. Let your users wear out their computer mouses’ scroll wheels. They’ll prefer it over having to click on every link just to find what they’re looking for.

5 – Easy To Read Content

Keep your writing simple

Don’t get too technical with your writing.

Don’t use large, technical words and phrases in an attempt to impress visitors. Over the past few years successful publications have admitted to “dumbing down” their content to grade three level in order to attract larger audiences.

Keep paragraphs short

Do your best to avoid long paragraphs.

Large blocks of text can be intimidating and unpleasing to the eye. Four to five sentences per paragraph is great.

The more you break up the text on your site the more manageable it looks and therefore visitors will be more likely to read it.

Black text on a white background is best

Black text on a white background is the easiest to read.

Try incorporating your company colours by using images and graphics rather than background colours. White writing on a coloured background causes eye strain and will discourage users from reading.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to make your website user-friendly.

All you need is to know who your users are and why they’re visiting your site. You’ll be surprised at the difference these changes can make for your site.

 

If you need some professional advice and assistance Shift One Digital is offering you a free website usability test. Make sure to book by 10 December 2014 and they we will schedule you in as soon as possible.

www.shiftone.co.za

info@shiftone.co.za

021 554 2498