Every little aspect of your website matters, and influences your user experience. Some business owners make the mistake of only emphasizing content, social media, or email marketing. And while these are all vital components of a website and marketing plan, putting thought into the details that seem small are also important.
According to the Society of Digital Agencies, the most prominent weakness identified by agencies during their work with clients is a weak user experience. To truly combat falling into such a negative statistical trap, it’s important that you pay close attention to the tiny features and details that actually do make a difference.
Here are a few of them:
Your Search Box
A search box is crucial for businesses and publishers. Websites with great search engine capabilities are more likely to get a conversion. In fact, conversion rates through site search can be nearly 50% higher than without. Having a custom site search takes that feature an extra step further. Custom searches allow you to create your own search engine, which is perfect for ecommerce businesses with a large volume of product. You decide what the rankings will look like, and you can configure to show page results in a variety of different ways.
You can work with third-party companies – like Instant Search – who can take care of the heavy work for you. These custom search engines have the ability to use deep learning to better the search functionality and experience, and the more you can connect your customers with the most relevant products, the more likely you are to increase your revenue.
Your CTA
A call-to-action, as many webmasters know, is just a little clickable button that encourages the visitor to take action. This might be signing up for a newsletter, requesting a sample or trial, or opting in for product updates. And while it may seem simple and standard, your CTA actually matters. It plays a big role in the user experience and has the power to impact your conversions.
Among the best tips for creating an effective CTA is to establish your unique value proposition. Keep in mind, the content before the CTA is also necessary to hook the visitor into clicking. Your USP helps users understand what’s in it for them. Is there a free consultation involved? A promotion that ends after the weekend? A discount code for signing up? Always be thinking about the user.
The design of your CTA matters, too. It’s important that it simultaneously stands out, while still matching with the aesthetic of your website. For example, the Evernote “Sign Up” CTA is simple, clean, and to-the-point. The header above the CTA reads “Remember Everything.” And the content beneath it reads, “Modern life can be complicated. Simplify it with Evernote, the app to manage it all.”
This appeals to their target audience – millennials. These are the people juggling social lives, home duties, and careers all at once. And alongside their CTA are sample to-do list graphics that relate well to their CTA. This is a great example of how to match your CTA with what matters to your target audience. Here are a list of other CTAs that hit the mark.
Your Navigation Menu
According to one visibility report, 50% of site visitors will use the navigation menu to orient themselves with a website. If your site isn’t easy to navigate, your visitors won’t engage. Your navigation menu may seems like something you can’t get wrong, but it happens all the time. Users aren’t clear about where to find the information or products they’re looking for, and leave to the next best option.
Plenty of online case studies demonstrate how a navigation redesign helps improve the user experience. For example, Zen Windows, a retail company in Ohio, found positive results after a redesign that created clear click paths and made it easier for the visitor to navigate. This resulted in a 2.95% conversion increase.
Your Security
If you’ve got a search box on your website (and you should), you’re going to need an SSL certificate – at least if you want to be considered safe according to Google search engines. Last year, the company announced that websites that collected data from visitors (which includes search box content input) would be required to have an SSL certificate to prevent a “Warning” label on search engine results pages.
Sites without HTTPS will be officially marked as unsecured beginning October 24th, 2017. Up until this point, only sites that were compromised or had broken security were displayed in red. And because users put so much trust in Google, a seemingly small certificate that adds an “S” at the end of your HTTP will go a long way, and make a huge impact on whether a Google user will actually click on your link in search results.