Have you ever clicked on a website, felt that warning alarm go off in your gut, and quickly navigated away hoping that you haven’t contracted a computer virus? We’re with you. The last thing you want is for your own website to set off warning bells for potential visitors. Keep your visitors from running the other way by improving the user experience and layout of your site.
Keep it Simple
Maybe you just started with a couple cool images on your site to make it more interesting. But now, you’ve got banner ads, pictures, text, and links fighting for space. Take a look at your web pages and decide whether you need to de-clutter. Should you remove some images? Do you need to realign your items? Aim to keep your layout clean and simple, and never underestimate the power of white space.
Make It Speedy
Most of us have more similarities to that girl screaming “I want it NOW!” at the chocolate factory than we’d care to admit. You and your visitors probably wouldn’t wait too long for lavish graphics and widgets to appear five pixels at a time. There are a few ways to improve your site speed, such as optimizing your website by compressing large files, and using efficient CSS coding. We’ve written a few articles on how to improve site speed, and you can check them out here.
We love Google Page Speed as well: it will evaluate your site performance and give you some tips on how to improve its speed.
Make Sure Information is Up-To-Date
If your website is for a company or business, make sure your operating hours are accurately listed. Also remember holidays hours and exceptions. Most importantly, if you’re offering limited-time only promos or holding an event, be sure to take down the information when the event has passed. You always want to give off the impression that you have a great team working to keep your content accurate, current, and trustworthy.
Pay Attention to Your Stats
In particular, look at your top entry and exit pages. These can be vital clues on whether your site is grabbing attention and enticing visitors to stick around. You can use Google Analytics to analyze your website statistics. For our cPanel server clients, there is a built-in analytics tool to make this step even simpler.
Make Your Logo Your Beacon
This might seem like a little thing, but a logo that links back to your home page can boost the credibility and user experience of your site immensely. It is now the professional standard to have a clickable logo, ready to teleport visitors home.
These are five simple tips to improve the credibility of your website! Just keeping the user experience in mind can prevent you from scaring off visitors with a poorly thought-out site. Overall, you want your website to be as professional, user-friendly, and trustworthy as can be.