Making Your Website Work for You
Beyond SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the holy grail for many companies. But it shouldn’t be the only website design metric you pay attention to. Good SEO can only help potential customers find your site. It can’t make them buy from you.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers incredible data about your website, but it’s only useful if you do something with it. We recommend creating specific, measurable goals that go beyond SEO placement. Depending on your needs, you might consider setting goals around bounce rate, downloads or video views. Then, use that data to narrow down potential pain points for your site’s visitors.
For example, if traffic from mobile devices is high but also represents your highest bounce rate, it’s possible your site’s mobile experience leaves something to be desired. Review which specific pages visitors are bouncing from and make changes as needed. Check your progress by continuing to monitor this category. Use your website data to listen to your users, demystify their behaviors and see what is (and isn’t) working for you.
User Experience
Good user experience (UX) is subjective. What’s good for one person may be terrible for the next. According to Adobe, however, there are a few traits that sites with good UX have. One approach is to use Peter Morville’s User Experience Honeycomb, which outlines the core principles of good user experience:
- Is your website useful to visitors?
- How usable is your site?
- Is your site desirable and interesting?
- Is the information or content on your website easily findable?
- Is your site accessible enough that all users and ability levels can enjoy it?
- Is the information on your site credible, and does it feel safe?
- Does your site offer something valuable to your customers?
Using the qualities above and your website analytics data, review every part of your user experience, from copy to button placement. Remember, no amount of good content can overcome a poor user experience. But by measuring your site against these principles, you can hone in on problems and quickly address them.
Planning for the Future
Allow yourself room to adapt your website to new needs and trends as time goes on. What your users want today may not be true for tomorrow, so be flexible in your approach. If your web traffic starts shifting toward mobile, prioritize your mobile users by giving them a world-class experience they won’t find anywhere else. At a minimum, you should ensure your mobile site has feature parity with the desktop version.
While looking to the future is always a great idea, remember to plan for how your visitors interact with your site right now as well. With so many companies shifting to remote work, the pandemic showed us that even though you should design for mobile first, desktops and laptops are here to stay (at least for now). Everything from virtual doctor visits and online schooling to exercise classes was conducted this way.
As of April 2021, 49.37% of all web traffic in the United States came from desktops and laptops (source: Statcounter GlobalStats). And mobile isn’t far behind. During the same period, 47.06% of all web traffic in the United States came from mobile devices.
A Smarter Website Starts with a Good UX
An effective digital marketing strategy can help drive potential leads to your website. However, it doesn’t always mean that once they get there, they’ll convert, especially if a frustrating UX is to blame. Armed with the strategies we’ve outlined above, you can design a smarter website that works for you and your visitors.