A well designed website is an important feature for many businesses to attract customers and visitors. Whether you are a retail company, a services business, or an information provider, it’s important that you have a high-quality website for online users to visit.
There are many ways that you can provide a positive experience for your users by having a well-designed, attractive website. If you are using one of the top five website builders, such as Wix or WordPress, here are just some useful ways that you can create a great website that online users will want to visit time and time again.
1. Use clear, user-friendly navigation
Online users need to find the information they are looking for fast, and this means they will want to use websites that have a clear, user-friendly navigation. Some useful website navigation best practices to consider are how long it takes for your users to get to a certain page on your website.
Your website navigation should be clear and easy to use so that users can reach the page they want to be on as easily as possible. It’s important to think about what users want to achieve when visiting your site. For example, when visiting a website providing a service like iGaming, users will want to be able to navigate to the casino games they want to play as easily as possible. Or for a fashion retailer, it’s important that users are able to quickly find the brand or type of product they are looking for; featuring these key parts of the website in the main navigation is usually a good idea.
There are also many other factors that can impact user experience such as fonts, headlines and form design. Make sure that you have unique features that will enhance the user experience. If your layout is straightforward and easy to navigate, many users will keep coming back to your website.
2. Think carefully about your colour choices
When designing your website and branding, one of the most important factors to consider is the colour palette that you are going to use. The colours that you choose for your website can impact user experience in both positive and negative ways. For example, an attractive, well-chosen colour scheme that matches your brand perfectly might make users stay on your website for longer. However, choosing colours that clash or are hard to see on your website, won’t make users want to stay on your website for very long.
It can be useful to do some research into the psychology behind colour in web design to choose the right one for you. For example, using blue in website design conveys trust, calmness, and loyalty, but could also convey sadness.
3. Think about device compatibility
Another aspect of website design that you should consider is how compatible your website is with different devices. Nowadays, online users and potential customers might want to access your website on desktop, mobile, or tablet. However, if your website is not compatible with mobile then this can have a big impact on user experience. To enhance user experience, it’s beneficial that your website design can be displayed well across various resolutions, browsers, and screen sizes. As more and more users are accessing the internet via their phones, it’s now more important than ever that they can easily access your website on a mobile device.
4. Make sure that your website is consistent
According to Hubspot’s guide on tips to improve website user experience, another factor that you will need to consider is keeping your webpages consistent. Whether it is your spacing, button styles, font choices, or colouring and photo choices – be consistent.
Every page should be of a similar theme and style so that they flow well for your users to navigate through. Having pages that are too different to one another can confuse online users and lead to a negative experience on your website.
5. Keep your website load time in mind
One very important factor that can impact user experience is the load time of your website. Many online users are used to accessing fast internet, therefore they also want to access fast websites too.
The load time of your website heavily determines how many internet users it can attract and maintain. Hubspot highlights that slow page loads are an interrupting experience for users and many will simply not have the time or desire to wait. This could lead to users leaving your website early and finding another quicker website to use instead.
Ensuring that your website loads fast can help to provide your users with a positive experience and will help them to stay longer to browse through your content, services, and products.
