Manor Quarry Blog

Friendly User Experience

So, you have made your web site, got it up and running and hopefully getting visitors onto it, but then what? You need to make sales, convert perspective buyers to actually make a purchase. There are a number of ways to boost your chances of making sales, most noticeably, by giving the visitors to your web site the best experience and service possible. If it is hard, for instance, to navigate around the site, and find what is being looked for, shoppers will not hesitate in leaving and more than likely spend their money on your competitors’ sites. The majority of internet shoppers are inpatient, if something is not there in front of them immediately or obviously, they will search somewhere else, and more than likely not return in the future. Is this what you want?

Make sure you keep on top of your web site. Over time your site can become out of date and unmaintained and these can create usability issues for the users.

Follow the simple steps below to make your visitors’ stay on your site enjoyable and easy, and ensure they will come back and shop again.

1. Keep the navigation consistent

Ensure that the navigation elements on each page are the same. This consistency makes it easier for your visitors to navigate, and so don’t waste time trying to find their way around. Make it as easy as possible for them to get to and find what they want.

2. Use clear language in the menus

Don’t make visitors guess what certain menu/navigation items mean. Use clear, concise language for them to understand, and that tells them what is behind the link.

3. Different ways to navigate

Increase the amount of ways visitors can move from page to page, by including links in the text, links in images, breadcrumb trails (hierarchal link system where the viewer can see where they have been, and a useful way of going back to pages previously visited) and extra menus where you see fit.

4. Add new content

Try and regularly add new content to your site, to give visitors a reason to come back time and again. Content that becomes stagnant and old can be a turn off to a visitor who has read it before. Also make sure wording is grammatically correct and spelling is error free, and as concise as possible.

5. User tailored content

Add content specific to the region/geography that are reading it, to make it relevant and appealing to them.

6. Product ratings

Try and include, where possible, ratings of products that you are selling. This will give the visitor an idea on the quality of the product, and what others have thought of it. This rating could be generated from product feedback forms that previous buyers can fill in, or by you if it is a third party item.

7. People who bought this also bought

This is a very useful indicator for perspective buyers, so they can see what other people interested in the same product also bought. It allows greater exposure of your products also, getting them in the public eye, and therefore greater sales.

8. Use Contextual Links

Include links in the actual text on the page to help your visitors find contextually relevant, detailed information.

9. Check to make sure the links work

Making sure both internal and external links still work is extremely important. Broken links are really frustrating, and can soon ruin a visitors’ experience on your site. Ensure links reach contextually relevant pages.

10. Check for broken images

Run a check on every page to ensure that all images load correctly and are in the correct place. Out of place images will have a knock-on effect on the layout of the rest of the page, and can ruin a nicely designed page.

11. Check your contact form works

Make sure it is useable, includes the relevant fields, and works! Link to it from every page, ensuring visitors know how to get in touch should they wish.

12. Links to the home page

It is common practice to use your company logo in the header of the page as a link home. Try and have multiple visible links back home, to prevent visitors wasting time searching for them.

13. Include a site map

Map your web site out in the form of a site map. This will give an overview of every page on your site, allowing a clear and simple navigation to any page should a user wish to use it.

14. Try your site in different browsers

Believe it or not, different browsers read your site differently. It might look great in one, but the formatting may not work as wished in another. Prevent visitors having a bad experience in certain browsers by making sure the site works universally, including in the varying versions.

15. Check your site search history

As the previous post explained, check to see which keywords are being searched for, and make sure you cater for these words. By learning from previous searches, eradicate ‘no results found’ results pages. Also if something is being searched for and you want it more visible, take the relevant steps to make it more in the users’ eye line.