The Importance of User Experience (UX) in Digital Marketing: How to Improve Your Website’s UX to Increase Conversions
We start the year on the ADvantage blog with an interesting topic that probably keeps many awake at night - the importance of user experience in digital marketing.
Some swear by how important it is, for others UX is just another vague buzz word in marketing. What does this term even mean and why should you care what the user experiences, after all, you're not their psychologist, are you?
For your website user experience to be up to par, you need:
- a pinch of intiution;
- a dose of knowledge of human psychology;
- part creativity.
And at the end of that formula are results - more time spent on your website, more conversions, more basket value, more returning customers.
If we've piqued your interest, keep reading below to learn more about the importance of user experience in digital marketing and how it can increase your conversions and fuel your business success.
What is user experience (UX)?
It's happened to everyone - you come across a website that interests you. You start browsing the products, adding them to your cart, looking for information. And somewhere along the way, things go wrong. Nothing is where you expect it to be, it's not easily accessible, the processes are not intuitive. Will you come back to this site again? If you have another choice, probably not.
💡Good UX is made with the user in mind - with the idea that they should be comfortable and enjoyable to browse and shop on your site.
User experience covers many aspects from design to website functionality to content (text and visual). The user plays a central role in its creation and their needs and expectations are taken into account so that they can easily and quickly find the solution to their problems.
In fact, the explanation for the importance of user experience is very simple: we live in a mega fast-paced world where most people have neither the time nor the mental capacity to delve into everyday activities like ordering a face cream or paying their electricity bill online. That's why the term "user-friendly" is important - keep it user-friendly, make it easy for users, and they'll come back again and again.
Why does user experience matter for digital marketing?
Because if your website is bad, no one will buy anything from you. Imagine your online store as a physical one. If the floor is dirty, the goods are strewn across the shelves without any logical arrangement, the salesperson is in a bad mood and unwilling to advise you, what are you going to do? You will leave and never come back.
The same is true for the online consumer experience, where competition in some industries is even fiercer than in physical stores. In this case, UX serves to create a positive experience when a user encounters a particular digital product. It is important for the subsequent attitude towards the product in question and the time spent using it.
📈Customer experience in digital marketing is often overlooked in favour of more clearly measurable and easily controllable aspects of marketing strategy such as SEO, PPC advertising, email marketing, social media and more. But the truth is one thing, and for some it can hurt - no matter how much traffic you bring in through the channels listed, you'll have a hard time keeping it with your messy inventory and pushy salesperson.
The user experience encompasses elements as diverse as:
- Design;
- Functionality;
- Content;
- Usability.
Key features of good UX
Easy to use
Features such as intuitiveness and simplicity are valued here. Logical structure and navigation are important, as is fast loading speed and formatting content in a way that makes it easy to read. Large buttons, highlighted text and eye-irritating colours are also important elements of a good UX.
Accessible to all
Responsive and adaptive design that adjusts to the size of the screen being viewed is a must. Translation of information into other languages or the possibility of automatic translation is also a nice addition, as well as accessibility for people with disabilities such as special fonts, the possibility of using voice commands, etc.
Useful
Offer the solution your users need and make sure their path to it is smooth. That means making sure important information is prominently displayed and the order completion process has no unnecessary steps to complicate it.
Attractive
Vision is important. Find yours and keep it consistent. This means creating your brand identity and not taking sides if you want consumers to recognize and trust you. This includes all the visual elements from your logo to colors through the photos and graphics you'll use to create a memorable design. 🎨
Hopeful
Minimize the risk of errors and broken pages on your website. Make sure your copy is clearly written and impactful. But perhaps most importantly, don' t have typos and spelling errors that affect the perception of credibility of the information.
12 UX improvements that will increase your conversions
Read our tips for UX improvements to consider. They'll make your website users' experience more enjoyable and rewarding. You'll undoubtedly see the results in your marketing metrics like number of new customers, number of conversions, average order value, and more.
1. Easy navigation
Organize your website with engaging and intuitive visual hierarchies. Drop-down menus are a great way to display all your pages and categories for your users to access with just one click. Try to shorten their path to order completion if you want to increase your conversions.
Use the Next Page Path report in Google Analytics 4 to find out which pages your usersvisit most often after a homepage. Then, make sure the pages they prioritize are at the top of your menus.
One last tip - try to keep the navigation simple and clear. This is not the place to be creative, but we'll get to that later.
2. Fast loading
Speed matters. You have about 5 seconds on average to impress your users, so make sure there's nothing in your website's code to slow it down. Otherwise, there's a good chance you'll send most of your users to your competition before they've even had a chance to load your site.
3. Responsive design
Mobile traffic is growing steadily and is currently estimated at around 60% of the total. This means that if your website isn't using responsive design that adapts to screen sizes, you're losing money every minute.
For the mobile version of your website, opt for bigger buttons, larger and more legible fonts and forget about Adobe Flash and pop-ups.
4. Clear calls to action
Your calls to action buttons deserve special treatment because they are the most direct path to order completion and checking off a successful conversion. Pay attention to their position, size, colour and message.
5. Basic information at the top
The top of a website or the so-called "fold" is extremely important and could be defined as the tipping point where the user will ask themselves, "To scroll or not to scroll?"
There you can put a CTA button, an impactful headline, a customer testimonial and/or an inspiring graphic element. Whatever you choose, keep in mind that this is the first step on the path to a completed order, so try not to trip your customers up at the start.
6. Special landing pages for the ads
Everyone wants to click on an ad for a product and see it on the page that will load. Unless you're doing a brand awareness campaign, in most cases it's not a good idea to have your ads lead to homepage. Don't waste your users' time by making them search for what you're advertising - on the contrary, try to show them the most direct path.
7. A/B test
If you're on the fence about a particular element of your website, an A/B test is a good way to make a decision. In it, a group of people will see one version of your page, and another group will see a second version. This way you can find out which version leads to an increase or decrease in conversion rates.
8. Trust signals
These can be:
- Customer reviews. Nothing sells better than social proof. We're most likely to trust other people with similar problems and needs to our own, so gather positive customer reviews and give them a central place on your website.
- Secure payment symbols. There are still people who worry about shopping online because someone might steal their card details. Label the secure payment systems you use to give them peace of mind.
- Absence of problems that reduce the credibility of your business such as spelling mistakes, broken links, bugs and terminology errors.
9. Impactful copywriting
Pay special attention to the texts on your website. Yes, they need to sell, obviously. But for that to happen, your words need to match the problems and needs of your target audience.
Find out where it hurts and offer them the remedy. Or create content that shows your expertise in a particular area - this will increase their chances of trusting you.
Whatever text you write, whether it's a blog post, copy for a landing page or a product, be sure to format it in a way that allows users to read it quickly and easily understand the essentials.
Enumerating with dashes or bullet points is a good way, as is splitting the text with subheadings, which is also important from an SEO perspective.
10. Beautiful visual elements
Opt for high-quality graphic materials such as photos and graphics. And remember - white space is not boring, on the contrary it allows the other elements on your website to breathe. This will make it easier for your users to focus on the goal - adding products to their cart and paying for them.
11. Customer path
Using tools like Google Analytics 4 , map the path your customers take from entrance to exit. That way you'll discover if you have a weak spot somewhere. For example, if you notice that you 're losing a lot of traffic at any step of the checkout process, there's probably some issue there that needs to be addressed to increase your conversions.
That way you can find anything that's stopping your customers on the way to payment - broken links, pages that don't load or load slowly, confusing text, and more.
12. Analyses, audits, feedback and regular changes
UX improvements aren't something you do once and then forget about. Like most things in digital marketing, you need constant monitoring and analysis.
Auditing from UX professionals and gathering feedback from your users are also useful steps to help you make sure your website design and functionality is always up to par.
User experience (UX) is an exciting and vast topic that is paramount to your marketing strategy. Do your best to build your website with the user in mind and it will show in the results, such as the number of conversions.
For maximum impact, it's important to drive targeted traffic to your website, which can happen through multiple communication channels such as email, social media or PPC advertising. If you'd like to give it a try, get in touch with ADvantage Digital Agency so we can work together to create successful advertising campaigns that will achieve your dream results.