Why improving your user experience can help your brand
Your website is one of the most important tools to showcase your brand, product or service, so you want to make sure it’s performing at its best right? That’s where user experience or UX comes into play, as this can have a huge impact on how people perceive your brand.
By definition, the user experience means ‘the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.’ By making your UX easy and aesthetically pleasing, users are more likely to convert into customers and return again, compared to those who have a bad experience (around 88% of online users are less likely to return to your site after a bad UX experience).
Why is UX important
With many products or services you need to ensure you’re putting your user at the heart of everything you do - this includes within the design and experience of your website or app aka your user experience (UX).
A good user experience understands your users and aims to fulfill their needs throughout their journey with your product or service, by creating a seamless experience you will leave a long lasting impression on your end user and therefore create happy and loyal customers for your brand.
Why UX can help improve your brand
We’re sure you’re wondering why you need to invest in UX design or how it can help improve your brand exactly but there a number of benefits that come from improving your user experience such as;
Boosting brand loyalty
Increasing engagement and conversions
Defining a users journey on your website
Let’s take a closer look at each one of these points.
Boosting Brand Loyalty
When a user has a good experience with your product or service, they’re going to build likeability and trust for your brand and in turn, you’ll start to create long lasting relationships with these customers. By creating a seamless and easy user experience, you’ll begin to build brand loyalty through user retention.
Once you have captured their attention and converted them to a client, UX experience and design helps to retain and nurture your existing customers and continue to build trust.
Not only will it build brand loyalty amongst your existing clients, but it will help with word of mouth marketing. If one user has a great experience with you, then why wouldn’t they tell their friends or family about your product or service? So it’s key to creating an UX experience that is seamless to help attract and grow your business.
Increasing engagement and conversions
If the journey on your website or app isn’t clear for your users then your bounce rate is likely to be high, as customers / clients get frustrated and decide to leave your site. However, by investing in UX design, you’ll be able to capture your users from the beginning and drive engagement (whether that is sharing a recent blog post or downloading an e-book / report) and conversion (when they finally become a customer or client).
One way of increasing engagement and conversions is by defining a clear pathway for your users to take, which leads us onto our next point.
Defining a user’s journey
By being able to define and shape the users journey on your website, you’ll create an easier route for them to becoming a loyal customer, which leads back into increasing conversion. If the structure of your site is confusing, users won’t be able to find the information they’re looking for, so creating a clear structure is important to guide your user.
4 ways to improve your UX
Here are some quick and simple ways to start improving your UX and create more customers for your business.
Invest in UX Research
One of the first steps you’ll want to take to start improving your UX is investing in UX research so you can really understand what your customers are doing when they land on your website - this data will then be used to inform your UX design. Check out our recent blog on why you need to be investing in UX research for more information.
Our consulting team have worked with multiple clients on their UX needs, including Liberty London and are able to perform UX research such as; eye tracking, surveys and A/B testing - get in touch today to find out how we can help you hello@rare.consulting
Check the speed of your website
The loading of your website pages should take no more than 2 seconds to load, anything longer and you’ll begin to lose your users. Humans are impatient, so anything that takes a long time to load will ultimately lead to a high bounce rate and affect your brand's perception.
It’s important to check the speed of your site regularly and identify anything that could be slowing its speed down.
Make sure you have CTA’s on all pages
Adding clear CTA’s (call to action) buttons on each of your pages to help navigate your users through your site and your sales funnel as well.
Your CTA’s should be eye-catching and stand out on the page, so your users can easily see what the intended action would be when they click, however, make sure that the button doesn’t overwhelm the page or distract from the rest of your content.
Optimise your website for mobile
More and more customers are using their mobiles to access information rather than their desktops. It’s said that over half of web traffic worldwide is now done through mobile devices with the first quarter of 2021 seeing 54.8% of global website traffic alone done through mobile.
Users are 5 times more likely to leave if your website isn’t optimised, therefore, optimising your website for mobile is one of the most important things you can do to ensure you capture them from the moment they land on your site. This will require doing research into how people search and use their mobiles for information e.g. do they use both hands or one.
Final Thoughts
User experience is key to driving your businesses growth as it allows you to create a clear, easy and enjoyable experience for your users, which ultimately leads to more conversions and loyal customers. Not only does a good UX help strengthen your brand but it makes your customers' lives easier, so it really is a win-win situation.
