Three tips for better user experience

There’s no denying that the way consumers shop has changed recently due to high street stores being closed. E-commerce has seen a massive boom (just ask the guy who carries Jeff Bezos wallet around for him). However, the rise of Amazon isn’t solely related to the high street lockdown. The simple facts are that they just do things right, starting from the basics. They make it incredibly easy for their users to get what they want, they’re always online (even on Black Friday) and everything is super fast.

I’ve chosen three basic areas; all of which can be applied to your website and can be done with relative ease to make sure your users keep coming back and complete the task they set out to complete.  It’s important to be aware that these don’t only apply to e-commerce, they’ll work for any transactional or content consuming experience.

Usability

Everyone wants a great-looking, cool website but what use is it if people can’t use it easily and find what they’re looking for quickly? I’m a firm believer in the K.I.S.S principle – Keep It Simple Stupid. You want customers to have as little pain points as possible so the only thing they’re thinking about is the new pair of trainers or content they’ve just ordered.

People can spend time researching a product they want for months (I know because I did it when I bought a new TV) but when they’ve made their decision, the last thing you want is a painful journey to the shopping cart.

Give users as much flexibility as you can, whether that’s a wide range of ways they can pay or them not being forced to create an account to make the purchase. If in the case users must create one, you’ll need to be sure the process is fast and easy to do. You’ll need to also make it easy for users to gain access if they’ve lost their details.

For example, if a password cannot be reset, do you think users are going to wait until your support team is in the office the following day? No of course not, that ship has sailed. Remember, K.I.S.S.

Speed

We live in a world of immediacy; fast food, instant video streaming, so why should shopping online be any different? Website speed is one of the most important factors when it comes to keeping potential customers through to order completion. If a page takes more than a handful of seconds to load, users automatically think that there is a problem with either the website, their computer or their internet connection.

Whilst you can’t help if something is wrong with your users, connection or computer you can make sure that your website is firing on all cylinders. Like servicing your car, there are many ways you can give your website a tune-up, many of which don’t cost a penny.

Cloudflare, for one, is one of the biggest Content Delivery Networks (CDN) in operation today. Their free plan offers its impressive caching service among a whole host of security to protect your website from harmful traffic.

The speed and security offered by Cloudflare are so impressive, every site we build and host here at Tall runs through Cloudflare, no matter what. I encourage you to make this one of the first things you implement on your route to a more efficient website.  You can test your website’s performance either at GT Metrix or Google Page Insights. Do this before and after and be prepared for some very impressive results.

Delivering a speedy website is a surefire way of keeping your customers, potential and existing on the site until the transaction is complete.

Reliability

Nobody wants to pay more than they should for anything in life but there’s a fine line between a bargain and poor service or product.  One area worth its money is quality web hosting.  How many times have you gone back and used a website that stopped working while you were browsing it? Yeah, not many.  Server uptime is key for giving users confidence in your website. All it takes is one slip up and it’s all been lost.

That’s why here at Tall, we’ve invested in the very best web hosting for the websites that we build and specifically for the software that runs them. WP Engine is second to none when it comes to hosting WordPress websites, their entire business has been built around making the most widely used content management system (CMS) the very best it can be from both a performance standpoint and ease of maintenance. Having spent many years working with WordPress we know a thing or two about what makes it tick but the service from WP Engine has far exceeded our expectations.

You can bet your bottom dollar that if there is a problem on their network, they’ve fixed it and reported back to you why their service(s) were down and for how long, sometimes before you have a chance to notice yourself. They even report to you about service outages that are out of their control, just in case you use other services to run a website.

All of this means you can rest assured that your website uptime is in very capable hands. Giving you the brain space to focus on other important things.