While raising awareness for your brand via social media, blogging, and other marketing strategies helps boost traffic, your hard work will be all for naught if you’re showing off a website that’s locked in the digital Dark Ages. To avoid the calamity that comes with missed conversion opportunities, here are five crucial tips that can help improve the user experience for customers visiting your site.
Place a Premium on Site Navigation
The basis of any good on-site experience starts with being able to actually navigate the page. As Daniel Kosir of Search Engine People points out, if your website’s navigation and layout looks more like a jumble of links and less like an actual page, don’t be surprised when your viewers head over to the competition. Focus on creating a proper, logical structure for your site layout and navigational tools.
Content Relevancy and Context Come Next
Making sure your content actually connects with relevant search queries comes next, Kosir says. While hitting on keywords and sneaking up the result page rankings for a little while is nice, once browsers start sifting through your on-page offerings, it won’t take long for them to lose interest in unrelated content. By closely monitoring your content for continuity and strong connections with related search terms, you can improve the site’s user experience substantially while also engaging in some appropriate search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
Incorporate Social Reviews
Sometimes, the best way to promote your products and services is by simply letting someone else do the work for you. As Rohan Ayyar of Social Media Today notes, letting user-generated reviews and social plugins tell the story of your brand can help add a powerful peer-oriented element to your page’s user experience. Obviously, ensuring the quality and factual nature of these opinions requires a little extra work on your end, but few additions to your site can enhance the user experience quite like an organic and engaging consumer-based discussion.
Expedite the Checkout Process
Another smart tip, again coming from Ayyar, focuses on improving the user experience via an expedited checkout process. Online shoppers hate jumping through hoops, so if your checkout system leaves plenty to be desired, don’t be surprised when your abandonment rate meets and exceeds the 68.06 percent average reported by the Baymard Institute. Cutting down on security features is taking this advice in the wrong direction, but any other streamlining and cuts definitely warrant a second look as you optimize the purchasing process.
Listen to Your Customers
Of course, the best way to improve the user experience is by simply listening to your audience and following their collective lead. As Johnathan Rubin of the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies explains, posting surveys and other responsive offerings allows your users to register their thoughts on your page. From here, this feedback can help shape a plan that’s sure to enhance the user experience moving forward.
Naturally, you still need to work hard to get visitors to your website. However, by getting your user experience in order, you can rest easy knowing that once all of your SEO and other digital marketing efforts kick into high gear, the site you present to the masses offers all the tools necessary to turn this interest into serious conversions.
4 Step Studio is an online marketing agency that specializes in website design and redesign, SEO, social media and more. Our team of experts focuses on helping small business get found online, while educating them on what will make them successful in the digital world. To learn more about what we can do for you, visit our website at www.4StepStudio.com
Get the Latest Online Marketing Trends in Web Design, Social Media, Blogging, and More. 
Don't Be Shy, Leave a Reply