Offer them a cup of tea. And other website user experience observations.
Let’s talk about the user experience (UX) on your website.
I bet no one has said that to you before. Because, for some reason, marketers don’t talk about UX.
Put simply, it’s the consideration of how easy it is for someone to use your website.
There are some fundamentals that you’ll expect a website and won’t even think about, like:
✔️ Clicking the logo takes you to the homepage.
✔️ A main CTA button is in the top right corner.
✔️ The top menu is ‘sticky’ so as you scroll you can navigate to other parts of the site without an arduous scroll back to the top (I mean, your thumbs have enough to do these days)
These all make for a great user experience on a website.
Generally, small business owners won’t engage a copywriter, a designer and a UX person.
So responsibility usually falls in the designer’s camp. Which is fine, as long as the designer knows what they’re doing.
But often they don’t 🙀
Neglecting your UX is a bit like not thinking about your client’s experience when they come to your office for a meeting. The decor may be chic, but if you don’t offer them a cup of tea, coffee or Chardonnay, they’ll remember that.
So, I wanted to share some really basic website UX tips, with a copy slant (of course).
🔥 People take in info in an F pattern.
Often websites will have a main headline on the lefthand side, an image on the right and a subhead underneath on the left. That’s how the eye scans the top of the page - in an F pattern.
An easy way to use the F pattern technique with your copy is in headlines. If you need to split your headline over two lines, cut it so an important or impactful word is the first word on the second line.
🔥 Make your pages scannable.
People scan first, then go back and read, so you have to consider subheadings all the way down your page. And ‘Why us’ or ‘Our process’ won’t cut it.
Make these subheads benefit-driven. So as someone scans your page they’re taking in all the benefits you offer. Then they’re more likely to stay on your page, go back and read the whole thing. A win for conversions and a win for SEO
🔥 Give your writing some style and rhythm.
The experience for the reader is going to be much more interesting if the writing has a flow. Mix up sentence lengths. Use full stops to emphasise points. You CAN start sentences with ‘because’ ‘and’ and ‘but’, because people do in real life. And we’re trying to talk human here.
Use sensory language - for example, studies showed that engagement levels rise when we use colours as describing words. For example, instead of ‘she’s new’ we say ‘she’s green’
So here’s your three user experience tips:
Consider the F pattern
Write benefit-driven subheads
Give your writing rhythm
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