The Role of User Experience (UX) in Small Business Web Design

User experience (UX) is the process of facilitating user navigation at every step of the way on a web design.

Microsoft, Tesla, Amazon, and even Starbucks provide an excellent user experience. Sure, the product matters a lot but the presentation makes a customer feel important. This is called positive customer experience. This is more so the case for small business web designs, user experience refers to the overall experience of using a website. This includes everything from the website’s layout and navigation to its content and design.

Your business website’s objective is to turn your visitors into customers. Therefore, knowing the role of user experience(UX) in web design will not only help you gain more customers but will also be valuable to raise your brand awareness. 

Indeed, there could be several reasons to give customers an excellent user experience, but we will discuss here the most important reasons for your small business.

Let’s get started!

Enhanced Engagement

31% of people think an engaging user experience should be the top priority of a web design. However, creating an attractive and engaging web design for a small business where every customer counts is mandatory. 

A great user experience can be provided to customers by having;

• Quick and easy navigation because users should easily find what they are looking for on your website. 
• A mobile responsive web design because 68% of mobile users are likely to stay engaged on mobile-responsive websites.   
• High-quality visuals because a visually appealing website builds trust in the business. 88% of users do not return after a bad user experience. 
• Clear and concise content because it helps users stay engaged and know what message you want to convey. 
• An easy call to action (CTA) throughout the website as it tells users what you want them to do next whether it is to contact you, make a purchase, or sign up for a newsletter. 

Brand Authenticity

In today’s brand-conscious world, brand authenticity and reputation are more important than ever because 57% of customers trust the business more if it provides an excellent user experience. 

But the real question for a small business is: how big of an impact does brand authenticity have on customer spending?

A whopping 90% of customers are willing to pay more if they purchase from a brand they trust.

So, what effect does user experience have on brand authenticity?

• Customers should perceive a relationship between themselves and your business through web design as if you possess a genuine solution to their problem.
• Generate content relative to your business products, like what problems you are solving through a specific product or how to use your product, etc as 78% of users would rather learn about a company through an article than ads.
• Associate appealing colors with your brand that are likely to resonate with your audience for a good user experience.

           Remember, users take 5 to 7 impressions to remember a brand. 

Customer Conversions

Customer conversion is the most essential metric for any small business. User Experience plays a pivotal role in customer conversions. How?

When visitors have a positive user experience on a website, they will engage more and spend more time exploring different pages. As a result, they will make a purchase or whatever type of conversions we are selling.  

Let’s assume you hired a web design company to build you a minimalist web design for your x product. If they do a fabulous job in web designing, you could get $100 per $1 spent with this investment. It is 9900% ROI (Return on Investment). Because a well-curated user experience (UX) boosts website conversion rate by up to 400%. 

If your web design gives users an excellent experience, you can hope to generate 33% more revenue than before.

SEO Boost

Search engine optimization (SEO) improves the visibility and ranking of a website in search engine result pages (SERPs). 

User experience and SEO are closely related. A good user experience will increase user time spent on the website, exploring different pages, and taking desired calls to action. This boosts SEO because;

• It decreases the bounce rate(the percentage of visitors that leave a website without visiting any other page). Lower bounce rates are better because they signal search engines like Google that your website content is engaging and informative.
• It brings high click-through rates (CTRs: the percentage of people clicking on SERPs to visit your website). It tells the search engine that your website is popular and relevant to search queries. 
• It shoots the dwell time (the amount of time a user spends on your website) because it tells search engines that users are having a good experience on this website.

Improved SEO rankings make your business website more visible to your potential customers. Thus, giving your business more organic traffic and bringing up more revenue.

Saves Valuable Time and Money

The finest thing about providing an excellent customer experience is that you are less likely to deal with customer complaints. This brings peace of mind that helps you make better decisions for your business.

Also, once you start providing a good customer experience, the hassle of frequently updating and changing your website design reduces significantly. It helps you save valuable time, money, and effort.

Good UX is Good Business

No doubt a good user experience would build a profitable and sustainable business. There are numerous examples of companies that have amassed massive market shares in their niches just because they focussed on customer experience from the very beginning.

For example, Amazon, which started merely as an online book-selling website is now worth over $1.4 trillion and is the number one e-commerce platform in the world. The thing that contributed to Amazon’s massive success is the high conversion rate due to its intuitive UX design because it is easy to navigate, search, and provides all the information users need to buy a product.

Conclusion:

Investing to enhance the user experience(UX) for your small business web design is one of the best investments you can make for your business’s better and sustainable future. Especially the businesses that are playing the long-run game always provide the best customer experience. You may encounter most of them on a day-to-day basis.  

Are you ready to optimize your web design to provide exceptional customer experience? Get a free consultation and quote about your web design here.