The User is King: Humanizing Your Website

When getting technical in creating your website, it’s sometimes easy to forget who the audience is – a human being. A strong user centric focus, in conjunction with other important steps, will do wonders for the online success of your business. These suggestions are designed to help you get back to basics and ensure that your website reflects your attitude – that customer experience comes first.

First Impressions

The primary goal of your homepage ought to be attracting, not confusing visitors. The first question your visitors will ask themselves is “does this site have what I want?” Realistically, they won’t hang around to decipher complicated text and jargon to find the answer, they will simply leave.

To pique the interest of your audience, and drive down your bounce rate, state your purpose boldly, succinctly and in layman’s terms. A detailed account of the intricacies of your services belongs elsewhere – it’s the job of your homepage to persuade them to stick around to read it.

The User is King - Humanizing Your Website

Robots vs. Humans

SEO is of course vitally important for driving traffic to your site, and although web crawlers have developed and now reward reader-centric content while penalizing older methods such as keyword stuffing, it’s still all too easy to get blindsided. When writing copy, the desire to show the crawlers all the right signals can often betray the sincere tone appreciated by real users. With engaging and naturally written content, you kill two birds with one stone – when relevant, the necessary keywords are likely to appear anyway, and it will retain your audience, in itself boosting SEO.

Style and Substance

It’s perfectly natural to want your website to look stunning, but always stop to consider the fine line between an attractive design and an overwhelming one. In other words, your design should complement the message you’re trying to get across, so avoid bombarding your users with visuals, which may be distracting.

Furthermore, be wary of Flash designs. Although they can look impressive, they can so easily damage your site’s usability: slower computers struggle to load them, Apple products don’t support them; not to mention the fact that they’re not SEO friendly either. Instead, utilize a more ergonomic, classy design to impress users on the basis of your substance rather than party tricks.

Make it Easy

The user experience should be as painless and stress-free as possible, especially with respect to the speed and ease of navigation. One simple step towards this is to use a reliable web host such as 1and1.com, for without a solid foundation, any on-page measures will be in vain. Then, take great care to layout your website so that the most vital content and information, such as contact details, are obviously accessible with a minimal number of clicks. For instance, suppose you’re an online retailer – it’s firmly within your interest to make the customer’s journey from finding what they want to payment as short and direct as you can.

Of course, these tips aren’t exhaustive, but by taking them on board, you’ll be well on your way to a more human-friendly website, which is so vital to success. Your users will thank you!

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