How can good UX on your website translate into profits for your company?
Internet users who visit your website have specific expectations. Among other things, they want the site to load quickly, to be able to easily find relevant content and products, and to have a sophisticated search engine at their disposal. If you do not pay attention to the UX of your website, you can only lose out.
By designing your website with the user in mind, you will meet their expectations, increase your chances of making a sale, and improve your image.
See also: Online store design.
- Poorly designed website UX can effectively discourage users and prevent them from making purchases or obtaining important information about the company.
- A well-thought-out website layout gives users satisfaction, evokes positive emotions, provides necessary information and thus creates a positive image of the company.
- The website is visited more often and the company is remembered.
- Slow website loading costs retailers over $2 billion in lost sales annually.
What is website UX?
UX is, of course, short for user experience. UX-oriented website design means that you focus on the internet user who visits your website. The idea is that the recipient who browses the site does not close it after a while and, at the same time, has positive feelings about it.
In fact, many elements are important in website UX, such as content, photos, material location, website loading speed, and responsiveness. All of this ultimately leads to user satisfaction, which in turn means that users will enjoy using your website and will be happy to return to it. Well-designed UX translates directly into a lower bounce rate and higher conversion rates, which has a measurable impact on the business effectiveness of your website. In the design process, it is worth using recognised methodologies, such as Nielsen's heuristics, which are a set of 10 principles for website and application usability. Regular testing and optimisation of UX, for example through A/B testing, allows for continuous improvement of the user experience and adaptation of the website to the changing expectations of the audience.
Why is it worth investing in UX?
Nowadays, it is not enough to just set up a website – it has to be as good as your competitors' websites, and preferably even better. Imagine that you used a website of a brand in a given industry and it made a good impression on you. Out of curiosity, you also checked out a competitor's website, where you had trouble finding the information you were looking for, the content was of poor quality, and on top of that, the site loaded slowly and displayed poorly on your smartphone. You are unlikely to return to such a site, even if you found a more attractive offer of services or products there.
According to data from Jacob Nielsen Research, allocating 10% of your budget to UX can increase conversions by up to 83%! After all, the highest possible conversion rate is one of your business goals – you want more enquiries, product orders or newsletter subscriptions, so you should take care of your website's UX.
Other studies show that investing one dollar in UX brings in as much as $100 in return. Take a look at the results of various analyses that demonstrate the importance of good UX for websites, applications and other solutions:
- Companies lose $62 billion due to poor customer service.
- 70% of interested customers give up on purchases due to bad experiences with a company.
- 13 per cent of those who reject an offer share their negative experiences with 15 other people.
- Slow-loading web pages cost retailers over $2 billion a year in lost sales.
- 62% of customers share their thoughts on website usability with others.
These are sample statistics collected by the Intechnic portal. As you can see, there is no need to think twice – good website UX simply pays off.
How does UX affect your website?
Still wondering what UX can bring to your business? There are numerous benefits to be gained by refining your website to meet user expectations. These include:
- increased sales,
- more enquiries from internet users,
- longer time spent on the website,
- lower bounce rate,
- increased basket value, i.e. the value of a single order,
- positive brand image,
- more internet users who will add their address to the newsletter.
Remember that in many ways, designing a website to meet the expectations of the audience is consistent with Google's search engine recommendations. This has a direct impact on the website's SEO, which means that such a website has a chance to develop its visibility in organic search results. This is another benefit – a website tailored to the needs of internet users can translate into more traffic on the site. Remember that in the UK, over 95% of internet users use Google.
How can you achieve better website UX? You can do this by researching user experience. Start with an audit to find errors and shortcomings. You should go through the path that the user goes through and analyse what needs to be changed. Of course, drawing accurate conclusions is not easy, so it is a matter that should be entrusted to a specialist and continuously tested.
