Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Website User Experience

A great website converts better than a confusing one with weak calls to action — that part's obvious. What's less obvious is how many small, fixable things decide which one yours is. Here are the ten improvements that move the needle most.

• Make the logo clickable to Home. It's the current standard — retire the separate home button.
• Make your navigation rock: readable size, strong contrast, and custom terms that carry your brand's voice instead of generic labels.
• Determine the goals of the site. A call? A transaction? An email for follow-up? Write the goals down, talk them through with someone, then build calls to action that match.
• Desk-test it. Sit with someone who isn't web-savvy — ideally your ideal customer — and have them use the site while you listen and take notes. You'll walk away with dozens of fixes; fixing them can lift the experience 30-40% or more.
• Create a visual style guide: colors, fonts, imagery, logo use — one standard so branding and messaging stay consistent everywhere.
• Decide the type of experience you're offering: transactional, informational or navigational — and design for it deliberately.
• Make it easy to find stuff. The easier the find, the happier the visitor — nobody smiles at a wall.
• Make the site friendly. Voice matters — small phrases with personality make people feel part of the experience instead of processed by it.
• Match the search intent your visitors arrive with, and route each kind through a focused path. Your analytics will show you what they wanted.
• Create user personas: one to three sketches of exactly who you're selling to. Write to them, not to everyone — and not to nobody.