How Can You Improve User Experience On Your Site?

User Experience Honeycomb Design by Peter Morville.
User Experience Honeycomb Design by Peter Morville.

User experience can make or break a site. The user experience honeycomb design above puts things very simply if you’d like to take a closer look at the user experience expect of your site. If your site checks all the boxes, it’s good to go. But more often than not, it won’t.

For many of us, we only look at 2 of the elements listed above – findable and usable –  and disregard the rest. As long as our site can be easily found on search engine results pages and the features on it work as they should, we think our work is just about done. But that’s not the case now, is it?

Google has been increasingly harping on user experience these past couple of years. Everything is important, from the point a user clicks your online store’s link on SERPs to the time the same user exits your store.

A few user experience related questions could be asked about this process. Some of them include:

  • Did the users click your link because you did a good job in writing compelling and accurate page titles and descriptions?
  • Was your website design well thought-out so users were able to navigate your site with utter ease?
  • Did the tools and features available on your online store contribute to visitors’ decision making process in a positive manner?
  • Was your on-site information sufficient and targeted at closing sales?
  • Was your customer support prompt and efficient?
  • Do you think visitors thought well enough of their experience on your site to share it with their friends and family? Do take note that visitors are more than willing to share bad experiences on a site as well.

Why is user experience so important? Well, everyone wants to be on the first results page but there are only so many results (8 to 11) that search engines display in that limited but coveted area. So search engines like Google want to make sure that only those pages that are truly deserving are the ones that show up there. Of course, Google does make a boo boo once a while and lists crappy sites but that should be a thing of the past as they continue to tweak their algorithm.

But overall, user experience is a better way to see if a site is an accurate match to a search query as a whole. Theoretically speaking, over optimized junk sites which used to out rank your site should start to fall off the charts using this standard. Improved user experience could also lead to better sales and better customer retention.

For more information about the user experience honeycomb design, click here.

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