An introduction to user friendly websites & why it’s important

Gojart Sejdiu

mins read

Regardless of a company's niche, a strong online presence is a top priority. If you want a successful website that’s engaging and attractive then building a user-friendly website is essential. A website that is complex and difficult for users can have a negative impact on your business. This article aims to explain the significance of having a user-friendly website.

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What makes a website user-friendly?

A user-friendly website should cater to users' needs, enabling them to find what they're looking for in a short period of time despite the device (laptop, tablet, smartphone). User research allows web designers to understand user behaviour of consumers, it provides an insight regarding what to avoid and what should be focused on.

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Below are some tips for building a successful website, this includes intuitive navigation, strategically created content, and a well-designed layout.. It is essential to grab visitors’ attention and to also provide the freedom for them to search for info they need. In addition to these tips, the following factors are also crucial:

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Responsiveness – Up to 70% of traffic comes from mobile devices so it’s important to optimise the site for smartphones.
Well-planned content – sorting traffic into certain logical wholes is a very important step in planning, so the visitors can easily find the info they need.
Speed – Slow website speed is one of the most common causes of visitors leaving sites. Ideally, site speed should be 4 – 6 seconds, not only because of the visitors but for good rankings on search engines.

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User-friendly sites increase website traffic.

From experience, two-thirds of consumers don’t have a positive attitude about websites and mobile apps that are not user-friendly or take a lot of time to load and start.

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The more you work on improving website performances, and making it accessible to consumers, the higher the increase of site visitors . A user-friendly site experiences frequent visitor returns.

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When websites don’t meet visitors’ expectations, customers are discouraged from visiting through feeling – annoyance, frustration, anger, and other negative emotions. After this, customers often turn to better performing competitors’ websites to get the experience they need. Some of them never come back or lose trust in the website and brand as well. To prevent this from happening, it is important to tailor the website experience to its users and their needs.

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Customer Centric Solutions

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Successful businesses and their websites are always customer-oriented. If you manage to solve at least part of your customers’ problems via content, their trust in your brand grows as a reward. Website experience should clearly lead to the solution of a user’s problem in the most efficient way.

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There are many examples of websites that weren’t initially ranked well on the internet, but their continued enhancement led to success. Let’s take Google as an example; at first, Google wasn’t the first or best search engine on the market but over time, due to its improved user experience it became a top choice.

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Creating a user-friendly website

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There are key things to take note of when creating a user friendly website and these can be clear indicators of the sites performance in different areas

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Hidden information

Transparency is important if you’re selling products online, as it encourages trust in your brand by showing openness to communication. For example, hiding product prices, or hiding contact information, causes customers to flag a business as shady and repels them. This also applies to having vague information on sites.

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Old-fashioned look

You’ve probably commented that someone looks old-fashioned. Imagine someone saying the same for your website because your website was built a long time ago and doesn’t look modern. When it comes to the online world, incorporating design trends in a way that complements your brand as it aids site traffic and contributes to your online success. Content optimization, responsive web design, modern look, and functionality are necessary if you want to keep the visitors on your site.

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