You’ve developed some great content you feel will add some real value to your users’ lives and keep them coming back. But your content is only as good as how well you utilize it. How well your site runs, your knowledge of your user base, your planning, your first impression, use of content formatting and writing tools, use of summary content blocks, and your level of focus all play a role in your user’s experience. Enhance user experience with these seven tips.
Ensure Your Website is Running Optimally
It won’t matter how great your content is if your website is performing poorly. Make sure your site loads quickly, your navigation is easy to use and understand, your important information is easy to find, your text is easily readable, your color scheme and visuals are appropriate, and your mobile site is accessible. This last point is especially important; 60% of your traffic will come from mobile devices. You really don’t want users getting frustrated because they are viewing your desktop layout on their mobile; get with the times.
Know Your User
Get to know as much about your user base as you can. You need to know what your users are like if you are going to create an experience they will enjoy. Create buyer personas, which will help you better understand your users, so you can develop a targeted experience. Once you have this knowledge you can tailor your content and layout to their preferences.
Be Strategic
It pays to think ahead. If you plan things out ahead, keeping your purpose in mind, you’ll have a much greater chance of avoiding delays and mistakes. If your process runs along smoothly, it will definitely leave your user feeling better about their interaction with you.
Make a Good First Impression
You never get a second chance at a first impression, and it’s especially important online. Google tells us that a new visitor to a webpage judges it based on visual complexity and its comparability to other sites within 50 milliseconds. That’s actually faster than it takes someone to blink. Since people’s brains are making these quick judgments based on conventionality and novelty, it’s necessary for your site to be both. It sounds more difficult than it actually is. Try having a relatively conventional layout, but using novel language and images.
Use Content Formatting and Writing Tools
Having a nice clean layout, along with well-written and edited content, will give users an impression that you know what you’re doing and are worth their time. Remember to keep all your text clear, concise, and well placed. Here are a few tools to get you started:
#1. Studydemic – You can find helpful content formatting guides and tips here.
#2. Essayroo – A useful online formatting tool, recommended by Bestaustralianwriters.
#3. Boomessays and AcademAdvisor – These guides can help you with general writing and editing issues.
#4. Ukwritings – You can check your content for plagiarism with this handy tool.
#5. My writing way and Australianhelp – Use this resource for your content editing and proofreading needs.
Use Summary Content Blocks
It’s important that you avoid turning out long form content. Though you may be tempted to, since you have valuable information, resist doing this since your reader could become bored. You will avoid this pitfall if you use summary content blocks. Summary content blocks are generally 2-5 sentences long and are written in italics. The user scrolls down, reading the summary points at the beginning of each paragraph, and decides if they will read it or not.
Have a Focus
Try and focus user attention on the most important aspects of your website. Keep your content pieces to a single topic and you’ll find users are more receptive to your point. Present a limited amount of content pieces at any given time. Your site’s landing page should be focused and direct users only at a few high quality pieces. “Consider inserting a “start here” page or signifier to guide users; look around and figure out where confusion might occur. Giving users an appropriate piece of content to start at will make them more likely to get into your stuff, rather than pick something better viewed later in the sequence and get turned off”, – explains Richard Bitting, a UX professional at Academized and Simplegrad writer.
Conclusion
There are a lot of ways to enhance user experience, and also a lot of ways to diminish it. How much your content is valued depends on how well your site runs, your knowledge of your user base, the extent to which your site is planned out, the first impression your user gets on your landing page, your proper use of content formatting and writing tools, your use of summary content blocks, and how focused your content and delivery are. Follow these seven tips and enhance your user’s experience with content marketing.
