Dorian HermosaWhen you create a website, your aim should be to keep your visitors happy. This benefits both you and them. If they're satisfied with the experience, they may come back. They may even become regular visitors or customers.
It also helps with SEO, placing your website higher in the rankings. This will improve your online visibility, helping to attract more visitors.
That said, you should be aware of the key elements that influence user satisfaction. In this article, you'll discover these elements and the best ways to improve your website's performance.
The difference between sites with and without a good user experience
Imagine this: a user is frustrated because he can't do anything on your website. He's had to wait a long time for it to load. Then, once it's finished loading, he discovers that the layout hasn't been well thought out. He can't find the information he was looking for. What's more, the layout keeps changing, and the buttons aren't responsive.
What do you think this user would do? He'd leave your website, and you'd get nothing out of his visit. In fact, he might not even wait for the site to load fully. This will affect your bounce rate, which can reduce your website's ranking.
If the user experience on your site is like this, it means that your score in Google's Core Web Vitals is also low. This will place your site even lower in the SERPs.
Now let's think about the reverse. The loading time took just 3 seconds. What's more, the buttons and links are responsive, and the user interface is intuitive. Your visitor will appreciate this. They could visit your various pages and even buy products or send inquiries. In this case, your website is effective.
Key Factors in Improving User Satisfaction
Wise Usage of Images
Website visitors prefer to avoid being confronted with huge blocks of text. You should use images to enhance the visual appeal of your site. By making the site more visually pleasing, you can improve user satisfaction.
However, you should limit the number of images per page. If you add too many, your website will be slowed down. In addition, you should compress your images so that browsers can download them more quickly. You should also define image dimensions to speed up loading time and avoid multiple layout changes in milliseconds.
Developing good site architecture
Site architecture refers to the structure and layout of your website. This includes the placement of buttons, content and links. Site architecture also covers the way pages are linked together.
You should develop a good site architecture. Group similar pages together. Use drop-down menus to minimize the number of buttons on pages and the number of clicks needed to reach certain pages. Place links and buttons where users expect to find them. All this will improve the user experience.
Minimize layout changes
Sudden layout changes can confuse visitors to your website. Although they can't be completely avoided, you can minimize them. One way to do this is to reserve space for each element. Images, videos and advertisements should have their own dedicated space. That way, they won't displace other elements when they load. Defining their dimensions also helps, as web browsers don't need to readjust their sizes during loading.
You should also bear this in mind when using web fonts. Web fonts are more attractive than system fonts. However, browsers don't use them when loading a website. They first use system fonts, then replace them with your selected web font.
The web font may be much larger or smaller than the system font. This will result in layout changes when the browser replaces them. So choose a web font wisely.
Another thing to do is to use transitions. Certain elements can take users to another part of the web page when they interact with them. The sudden change in what's displayed on the screen could confuse users. Use something like a scrolling animation to make the transition more fluid.
Optimize your website speed
The speed of your website is one of the, if not the, most important factors. theThis is the biggest factor affecting user satisfaction. Users will quickly abandon slow websites. Therefore, you should optimize the speed of your website.
Here are a few actions to speed up site loading times:
- Remove unnecessary scripts and code.
- Take advantage of browser caching and delayed loading.
- Choose a proven and trusted hosting service. Although they tend to be a little pricey, it's well worth it. Take advantage of Black Friday & Cyber Monday offers for quality services.
Use of content distribution networks
Your website may be fast in one country and slow in another. The reason is that server location also affects speed. That said, you should use content distribution networks (CDNs). They store your website on different servers located around the world, ensuring that it's fast, wherever the user is.
Conclusion
Search engines analyze various factors to rank websites. Similarly, visitors decide whether to stay or go based on their experience.
Therefore, it's wise to optimize several elements of your site to improve your rankings and user satisfaction. This includes your website's visuals, its speed, and much more.
SEO is not an easy task. It's not something you can finish in a day and with little effort. The best way to approach SEO is to seek help from agencies like Daware. The agency will help you develop effective strategies and implement them. With Daware at your side, first place in the SERPs is guaranteed.
Contact Daware now to improve your website's performance.
