How to Create a Website That Converts Like Crazy With Powerful UX
Having spent over nearly two decades designing and developing websites for highly technical sectors and organisations, we understand the importance of well-considered Design, User Experience (UX) and User Journey.
I've experienced first-hand the success of a website redesign that fully focuses on clarity of design and experience, one that makes every visitor feel like your website was designed just for them.
While User Experience is a tricky concept to quantify and is perceived in different ways by different people, it's imperative to consider your Users Experience at every stage. When considered alongside Creative Design, Information Architecture and a User Journey, UX can dramatically improve your conversions.
Conversion means getting the visitor to your website to do that one thing you want them to do on that page – fill in a form, download a PDF, buy a product.
Considering your audience at all stages will result in a better experience for them when they visit your website. Thinking about UX means you need a clear understanding of who your audience is, for many businesses will have more than one audience type. Appealing to multiple audiences (visitors) is a challenging process.
Your website needs to speak to and engage these different audiences. To do this, you need to develop a clear User Experience strategy. You need to know what is motivating your visitors, at what stage of their journey are they at when they visit your site – discovery, research, affirmation or final action.
Clear consistent design
Companies Brand Guidelines guide many websites designs. While this is important, many Brand Guideline documents don't include specifics for website design. When creating your website or adding new content being consistent with all design elements helps your visitors understand where they are and what to do to move forward. Consistent link styling, consistent buttons and tone-of-voice together with well-designed graphics all give your visitor a sense that the site is guiding them along. Visitors need to be clear about how they get the information they want.
A consistent design also taps into emotional factors – aesthetics, effective and experiential feedback between the screen and human, difficult to measure but play an important part in engagement and conversion. An experienced web designer will work with you to create a clear and consistent visual style for your website and provide you with guidelines for you to use on your new content.
Create a website style guide (example Style Tiles). When a visitor gets to know, or instinctively understands your design, they will be able to focus more on your content and offering rather than finding their way around. You need some level of consistency with web standards.
You need some level of consistency with web standards. There are certain things that everyone expects to happen when they visit your website – the 'don't make me think' scenario. If they have to untangle how to move around your website they are likely to click away to a more familiar place.
Thoughtful navigation
Navigation is a critical part of the Users Journey, a high proportion of visitors abandon a website due to confusing navigation. You need to give serious thought about how you plan and structure your website. Depending on a visitors task they may use a variety of navigation elements to find their way around. Ideally, these all need to be considered before you add any content. Your content can fall into a range of content types – categories, audience information, tasks, user types, etc. Keep navigation labels clear and use words that your audience will be familiar with and that make sense to your business sector and offers.
People are used to seeing certain navigation structures and menus, so it wi worth retaining a similar structure, so your visitors don't overthink how they find their way around. Clear signposts, visual and well-designed signs and feedback will guide your visitor to their destination and your required goal. Many sites don't make their links obvious, having a clearly designed link strategy helps your visitors identify what is a link – consider like colour, size and font-weight can be defining factors. These should be included in your website Style Guide.
Consider careful use of Breadcrumbs, hover areas, related links to deeper information, back to top and any graphical elements that link.
Website layout
A clear page layout and a logical story will help with your conversion and visitor experience. Visitors don't always land on your homepage first. From search or other inbound links, they can end up deep within your website. Every page should have a clear way to get to other key parts of your website. You can lead them to your website, encouraging them to take the journey you most want them to and to meet your business goals.
Each page needs a clear Call-to-Action and a defined purpose. Make it simple for your visitor to find the information they need and provide them with the 'next move'. They may not know what to do next unless you tell them. Plan your content away from the computer before diving into site planners and wire-frames. Information Architecture – quickly sketch on paper your site structure or use sticky notes on a blank wall or whiteboard so you can easily move pages around to create the perfect structure.
When you are happy with your structure, move to wireframing each page. Create a screen blueprint of the page. A visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website. This helps you to focus on the core elements before working on colour, type, images and graphics. Wireframing helps you to quickly define your page content hierarchy and highlight areas for functionality or features.
After wireframing, you are ready to integrate design, brand and colour to bring the page to life. You can then be ready for user testing and feedback.
Writing for the web
Writing for the web is a specific technique that accounts for the way users read content online. Very often visitors will first scan your content quickly to find that relevant piece of information that they were searching for. Writing for the web includes techniques such as;
- Subheadings
- Short paragraphs
- Bold/highlighted text
- Lists
- Pull quotes
- Box outs
- Front-load key facts or conclusions
- Breakout summaries
Don't forget to include your target keywords and phrases within your copy, especially in headlines, lists and links. Planning your Keyword Strategy before you write your page content is a priority. You need to get your content found in search, so if you don't include keywords, your content won't be found. Consider your tone-of-voice, this should be outlined in your Brand Guideline document. When visitors to your website feel you are talking directly to them, in a language they understand, they are more likely to trust and engage with your business, product or service.
Don't forget to let your content breath. White space is your friend. Cluttered and squashed content is hard to follow and understand. Giving your layout and copy sufficient space to breath will engage your audience and prevent any overwhelm. White space can add tempo and provide natural separation of information.
An experienced SEO and web copywriter will take the time to understand your audience, get to know your tone-of-voice and take into account your SEO Keyword strategy. A great copywriter can increase conversions considerably and are well worth the investment.
World Leading Website Consultants to Biotech
and Life Science Markets
Being specialists in your sector enables us to rapidly understand your unique needs enabling us deliver powerful results quickly. Saving you time, stress and money and delivering the best ROI.
UX for Life Science and highly technical niche markets
Having a well-designed website User Experience gives you the competitive advantage you need. The nature of Life Science websites and websites for highly technical niche markets requires the expertise of someone that understands the requirements of complex products and services and can interpret them online, bringing clarity to complex concepts.
You will have multiple audiences – customers, stakeholders, peers, investors – your content needs to speak to and reflect these audiences. Make use of well-designed content 'clusters' to group information. Make use of graphics, graphs, charts, infographics, diagrams to break up your content. Well designed graphics quickly clarify complex data, which is perfect for those who are scanning your content before reading the in-depth areas they need.
To create an agile website you need to put processes in place to be able to quickly create new content. Content that is timely or newsworthy. If you are serious about gaining a competitive advantage with a well-designed website and User Experience, then email me design@arttia.co.uk and let's get started.
The Takeaway
Creating a website that converts like crazy with powerful XU doesn't have to be a challenging process. With the right structure, research and attention to detail your website can transform from an underperforming online brochure to a powerful business driver. User Experience is a difficult concept to quantify. Think of it like a jigsaw, when all of the pieces are unconnected and scattered. They don't make a clear picture until they are correctly put together. I sometimes think of Pointillism when it comes to UX. All the tiny dots of planning, design, data and testing, come together to make a beautiful work of art.
World Leading Website Consultants to Biotech
and Life Science Markets
Being specialists in your sector enables us to rapidly understand your unique needs enabling us deliver powerful results quickly. Saving you time, stress and money and delivering the best ROI.