The current business environment has become significantly dependent on online traffic. Thus, most businesses engage their customers through their web content. It increases the need for web designs that promote user experience and satisfy client inquiries. Some websites achieve this. However, if your website isn’t easy to use, you might lose customers and revenue.  

Your website’s usability can affect your ranking in search engine optimization (SEO). Additionally, it can determine its online traffic. Most SEO agencies, for instance, Amplifyed, recommend observing vital usability best practices. These practices, in detail below, can include your page’s navigation, familiarity, and responsiveness and help your site get better visibility, boost its usability, and improve its user experience.

Ensure It Is Multi-Device Responsive And Optimized

The technological age is advancing daily. Thus, there are various devices that your target customers use to access your website. These can be smartphones, tablets, or personal computers. These devices also undergo regular software updates.  

Traveling customers can require you to view your website on the go. Therefore, your website must be accessible from various portable devices. Furthermore, multi-device optimization is not a one-time exercise. The frequent updates mean that your website might not work across all software versions manufacturers roll out. Thus, it’s essential to carry out regular tests to ensure the website is still responsive on all devices.  

Making your website accessible on multiple devices can help open your business to a more extensive customer base.

Make Your Navigation Familiar And Simple

You might be tempted to have complex navigation panels to make your website pages unique. However, this can become confusing to your online visitors. Its complexity can also involve too many steps and clicks to get the right page. It can frustrate users and lead to page abandonment. Thus, it can result in less user engagement.  

Therefore, ensuring your website has a familiar navigation panel is essential. For instance, most websites have a navigation panel at the top of the page. This panel can show content categories on the website, with links built into them. Other sites can also have a side panel. Adopting such navigation layouts can ensure familiarity.  

Additionally, it’s essential to note that your online visitors aren’t necessarily tech-savvy. Therefore, rolling out a conventional web design is crucial. For instance, some designers can put the word ‘home’ at the top of every web page. It’s vital to guide the visitors if they want to return to your home page. However, if you incorporate it only in your logo, some users might not be familiar that clicking the logo takes them to the page. Overall simplicity and familiarity help improve your website’s user experience, thus, boosting its usability.  

Focus On Good Readability

It might pay to have a multi-device responsive website. However, it should also be legible and readable. Poor readability can lead to page abandonment. Thus, losing your potential customers and revenue.  

The paragraphs and font on the website should be consistent throughout all its pages. In addition, proper formatting and layout of headings, subheadings, and images can help improve your page’s readability. Good use of white space is also essential. It can help boost the visual experience of your site’s visitors. Even with captivating content, if the pages aren’t visually appealing, you can still experience page abandonment. Therefore, focus on making the page have an attractive content layout and maintain consistency throughout the website.  

Improve Your Page’s Load Speed

Research shows that most online visitors will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. If this is your page, you lose potential clients to your competitors. You may have call-to-action from other sites or your social media platforms. Thus, you don’t want to pitch quality on these platforms only for the website to load longer than necessary. Once they abandon the page, your target customers might not return to try again.  

Some search engines provide load speed tests. Thus, utilizing these tests would be best. Generally, a page with a load speed above 90 is fast. Scores between 50 and 90 are medium. However, if your website scores a load speed below 50, it’s slow, and you should thoroughly revamp it. Therefore, taking the necessary steps to boost your page’s load speed is essential. For instance, ensure you optimize your images. These can include reducing the size without affecting the quality.  

You should test the loading speed of each page individually. These include the home page, category, subcategory, and blog pages. Furthermore, re-testing the page after adding new content or subcategories would also be best. It can help ensure consistent loading time for your site’s visitors.

Ensure Relevant And Clear Call-To-Actions

Call-to-actions (CTAs) help direct a visitor on what you need them to do next. The CTAs on your website should be relevant to the current page. Otherwise, they might seem distractive, thus, prove ineffective. Additionally, the CTAs should be clear, precise, and not excessive. Ensuring your CTAs are an excellent guide can help visitors anticipate what’s behind each CTA.   

Conclusion

The growth of e-commerce and technology means that you mainly engage with your customers through your website. Therefore, its user experience is crucial. You can achieve this by improving its usability. The above points can help boost your website’s usability and increase online traffic.