How to Create a Website With Good User Experience
Having a website for your business will make it easier for people to learn more about your products and services. In fact, a website is one of the most critical aspects of search engine optimization (SEO). Without a website, it would be far more difficult to appear in search engine results.
Google and other search engines prioritize websites within the search results based on a number of factors. Site speed on desktop and mobile, content quality, the layout of your website, the age of your domain, and your domain’s authority are all examples of aspects Google considers when serving up search results. Good user experience (UX) is perhaps the most important aspect of all.
What Is Good Website Design?
There are a number of things you can do with your website to ensure good UX. The following five website aspects are very important.
Good site speed. Simply put, websites that load slowly generally offer poor user experience. If your site has issues loading content, especially on mobile, then you will suffer in the search engine hierarchy. This is especially true after 2021, when Google began implementing its Core Web Vitals scores. Future blogs will discuss Core Web Vitals in more depth.
Quality content. Website content can include written text, photos and videos. If you have poor content, such as content that is difficult to read or interpret, your website’s rankings will likely suffer. Keep your content at a 9th grade reading level. Use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. Make sure your site’s metatags are filled out and descriptive of the content on each page. Ensure you make use of proper title hierarchy. Never leave broken images anywhere on your site. Duplicate content can also hurt your scores.
Few to no site errors. Certain types of site errors cause bad UX. For example, 4xx errors will lead people to a broken page on your site. Broken internal and external links can also hurt your site’s ability to rank.
Easy to navigate. Make sure your website is easy to navigate. Site visitors should have no issues determining what your business offers. In addition, it is crucial to have working contact information and a navigation bar. There are additional tricks you can use to simplify navigation, such as linking pages that discuss similar topics to each other. You can also increase conversions by linking contact forms and contact information closer to the top of your homepage and across your website.
Optimized for mobile. Mobile UX is very important and has been for many years now. You should make sure your site is responsive to a large number of mobile and desktop devices. Formatting and site speed errors will hurt your ability to rank.
How to Pull User Experience Analytics From Your Website
You can identify certain types of site errors by using Google Search Console or analytics platforms like SEMRush or Ahrefs. In some cases, Google Analytics can also clue you in to certain website issues. For example, a high bounce rate on a single page where it would not be expected could signal you have issues on that specific page. A quick and large drop in traffic across multiple channels could also warrant investigation.
Google Search Console will show you Core Web Vital statistics if your site receives enough regular traffic. Otherwise, you can use free tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTMetrix. Make sure to use a Chrome Incognito window while running these tests.
You can also use Chrome Dev Tools to look at your website as it would appear on various mobile devices. Future blogs will show you how to perform these tests on your website.
Get a Free Website Audit
Want to learn more about what makes a good website? If you want TriLux Digital to perform a site user experience test on your website, then reach out to us via our contact form. Co-owner Dale Wooddy can perform a free audit and send an analysis on the findings within less than 24 hours.
