Is your website making the right impression?

We all know that users expect your digital experience to be easy and intuitive. But sometimes, instead of making things easier for people, we make them more complicated by adding too many options and features that aren’t meaningful or necessary.

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Have you ever visited a website and immediately thought, “What a mess!”? Look at most sites, and you’ll notice a few things in common: most are too slow, lack a clear value proposition, and have too many moving parts.

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Make sure it’s fast

Even in 2023, site speed is still a massive issue. Studies show faster sites have lower bounce rates, but many sites still need to load faster, especially on mobile. If your site is too slow, your users will leave. No matter what, that’s a lot of frustrated users; even worse, if you are paying for those visits, that’s a lot of wasted ad dollars. Multiple free tools are available that measure your site performance and provide detailed recommendations for improvement. Since it can take time to work through the recommendations and develop a process for avoiding issues in the future, an excellent stop-gap solution is to implement a speed optimization tool.

Make sure it’s compelling

Many of our clients are surprised when we show them exactly what their users see when they first land on the website. Often, it’s a big image with no call to action, especially on mobile. Upon landing, there needs to be a compelling message immediately in view. Yes, your users know how to scroll. That is not the problem. The problem is that your users don’t want to scroll. You gave them nothing. Remember, you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention online—you need to be laser-focused on what you want them to know and make sure you say it in a way that resonates with them. Don’t know what would convince them or what they might need? Then you need to conduct user research. In the meantime, make sure there is something to read and interact with immediately upon landing.

Make sure it’s easy

You’re likely familiar with the saying “less is more,” which also applies to your digital experience. Providing too much information or too many options on your website can overwhelm users and lead to frustration. We get it--your website has existed in some form for a few decades. Over this time, it will become a complex network of pages and paths added by different stakeholders to achieve various business goals. Yes, a website can serve multiple purposes, but you should have clear internal alignment on its primary objective. Another reason websites can become overly complex is when you do not understand your users’ journey and what they need along the way--especially from the digital experience. Any new content or features should be added with purpose and not detract from an easy-to-use experience that gets them what they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. A short-term fix is to ensure at least the path to your primary conversion is easy to find, and only 1 or 2 clicks away. 

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It’s essential to make a good impression, especially if it’s a first impression. Make sure your site is fast, has a compelling message and call-to-action immediately in view upon landing, and the path to conversion is easy. Over time, continue to improve the user experience by conducting user research to create more compelling messages and to help simplify your digital experience by discovering what they need and expect from your site to convert.

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Need help? Magic Layer has years of experience in user research, and we’ve partnered with hundreds of other companies to help them make the most of their data and analytics. Schedule a meeting with us today to discuss your specific needs - we’re excited to hear from you!

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