Focus on UX and you will get more conversions

As users become more dependent on their devices for business interactions, we’re seeing a change in expectations. Customers now want companies to provide frictionless digital services that integrate into their lives seamlessly and are put off by website experiences that don’t live up to the mark. Today’s digital consumer is a fierce beast that does not tolerate interruptions in service or tricky website design. It’s got to be right first around.

User experience, or UX, is a catchall term that describes the emotional response that customers have to your company. UX with regards your website describes the feelings or experience users have when interacting with your web pages. Ideally, you’d like the UX to be a positive affair, with customers smoothly navigating your website, finding the things they want, and enjoying the beautiful graphics on the way. But, of course, this isn’t always how it goes. Your website might not be optimised in the way that you’d like, and your customers might not have a great experience.

Why UX is critical for getting conversions is a deep and profound subject, but on a superficial level common sense tells you that customers are less likely to buy from you if they don’t enjoy interacting with your website. With so many options available to them, customers can easily switch to some other site or platform and get what they want more easily.

UX used to be a secondary consideration for getting conversions, but in today’s digital landscape, it’s fast becoming the most important tool available to digital marketers. Here’s why it’s so critical to getting conversions for your website.

It Helps You Make The Case For Your Products

When a new customer arrives at your website, data suggest that you have only a few seconds to capture them, influence them, and get them interested in your products. Today’s internet consumers expect websites to load quickly, be intuitive, have easy navigation, and for payment to be seamless. Slow loading times will instantly put the majority of people off staying on your site, and you could hemorrhage customers fast.

But there’s another reason UX is essential: it helps to build trust and brand recognition. Users who arrive on a website that fails to load quickly or is difficult to navigate will begin to distrust the company behind it. They will suspect that they are dealing with an amateur organisation. They will reason that if the company cannot get its website right, then perhaps it can't get its products right either.

To avoid this train of reasoning, developing exceptional UX from the outset is imperative. Experts like Robert Pressman, author of Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, suggest building websites from the ground up, focusing on UX from the start. He says that every dollar spent in the design stage reduces the costs of making corrections by tenfold during development and one-hundred-fold after launch.

It Helps Make It Easier To Find Products

Why else might a customer switch off from your website? One important reason is that they cannot find the product that they want. Products buried in difficult-to-find, non-intuitive menus require more effort to find and buy. Wading through a cumbersome website navigation system makes conversion more difficult. Customers want to click and buy, not have to solve puzzles on the way.

It Produces A Positive Emotional Response

UX isn’t just about doing things efficiently: it also refers to the ability to elicit a positive emotional response in website visitors. Making customers feel as if they are having a good time on your website through some kind of UX tool can be a significant driver behind the purchase decision. In short, the happier a person is on your site, the more likely that they are to part with their money and buy your product.

Generating happiness through your website is a creative process. Yes, you want to get the basics right, like intuitive navigation and the use of plenty of white space, but today’s customers expect that. To impress and please them, you need to think of new things that will excite and engage. Try using entertaining video snippets, humour, or things that are unexpected.

It Creates Appeal For Startups

Building a brand is a challenging process. Not only do you have to get the word out about the quality of your product, but you have to convince your audience that you can do things better than your nearest competitor.

For startups, the challenge is particularly severe because most are unknown to customers before their first interaction. Websites are a critical tool for startups to showcase their expertise. The better the experience that a customer has on a startup’s website, the more likely they are to trust in the company and its products. And the more trust that can be generated the higher the rate of conversion.

It Allows Better Integration With Other Marketing Funnels

Savvy digital marketers know that the best way to succeed online is to try to capture customers from multiple sources and feed them through a “conversion funnel.” The idea is to take customers from social media, search, the company’s website, and other location on the internet and send them through a carefully choreographed process that will encourage them to buy.

It sounds good in theory, but if there are weak links in the chain, then it can interrupt the conversion process, leading to a lower rate of conversions. A company, for example, might have a great UX for customers who go direct to its website, but if it is poorly integrated with other digital sales funnels, then many people will have a negative experience.

UX, therefore, shouldn’t be considered something that is confined solely to the company website: it also spreads out to all external nodes that connect to the site online. Social media channels, blogs, podcasts, and video channels should all integrate seamlessly with the firm's website, allowing users to skip between all of them seamlessly.

In conclusion, UX is an excellent tool for giving companies - especially startups - a strategic digital advantage. The better the UX, the more likely a company is to get conversions.