While the overall look and design of your website are important to your brand and to establishing brand recognition, how your site works is far more important. Does it load slow? Are there broken links? Is the content up to date and relevant? All these are reasons that will cause users to leave your site and not give it another look. Here are a few tips on how you can maintain a user friendly website.
  1. Make Your Site Responsive On ALL Platforms We live in a world of technology. More than 50% of online searches are from mobile devices. Having your website responsive to all platforms will make for a positive and easy online experience for your users. An estimated 90% of users expect experiences to transition flawlessly across platforms.
  2. Make Sure Your Content Is Relevant You don’t want to skimp on information on your website but also be aware of the content and relevancy. It is rare that consumers actually read everything word for word. To have the best of both worlds, it is best to make sure all information pertinent to your company is present, but also that it is worded clear and concisely.
  3. Make Sure Links And Menus Work Properly This should go without being said, but broken links, images and non-working menus will hurt your websites performance. If these elements are not working properly, this will cause your consumers frustration. Also make sure all images used are high quality.
  4. Menu Organization All crucial information should be easily accessible through the main menu of your site. These menu items should be easy to find as well. Try to organize information in to drop down menus by category so all items are not all in the main menu which will make it look cluttered and hard to navigate.
  5. Make Sure Users Always Know Where They Are And Where To Go Next To make navigation easier and to increase their engagement with your site, always make sure the menu option they are on is highlighted or the name of the page is the main header. It is also a good idea to add links or call to actions to steer users to what their next step should be on your site. Examples are a link to another page that will further their knowledge about what they are looking at or a link to call, email or request more information.
These are just a few of the main pieces of advice we have to make sure a site is functional and meeting needs of users. Not sure if your site is following these rules? Contact us today for an analysis and to get your website updated or redesigned to these specifications!