A group of people are depicted working on a website. There is a larger-than-life laptop displaying a website under construction. One woman in a hardhat looks at a laptop. Another women is seated upon the laptop. One man is hoisted from a crane. Another man is standing to the side on a ladder holding a web window.

July 22, 2024

8 Critical Elements of User Experience You Can’t Ignore

As you explore new ways to grow your brand’s digital channels, you’ll come across a variety of strategies and techniques. Virtually all of them are predicated on a single factor: the quality of your website.

We’re not talking about the quality as judged by your C-suite or some panel of web developers. No, what’s important here is the quality of your site as perceived by actual users—the real humans you’re hoping will exchange money for your brand’s goods or services.

This is known as your site’s User Experience, or UX for short, and it’s a critical component of digital success.

Here’s what you need to know about UX and how to optimize it to drive revenue growth and enhance your digital marketing ROI.

What Is Website User Experience?

A woman is seated at a desk looking at a computer monitor. The monitor displays a product page for a dress. On the desk is a shopping bag, a gift box, two gold coins, and a shopping cart online icon. To the right of the desk is a physical shopping cart with two shopping bags. Behind the shopping cart is a clothing rack with two dresses and two t-shirts.

Conceptually, your site’s UX is no different from what a customer would experience if they walked into a brick-and-mortar location.

Let’s start this analogy at the front door.

Does the door open automatically and quickly? Or is the sensor incorrectly configured, forcing the customers to wait a moment before entering?

Once they make it inside, is the interior laid out in a way that encourages visitors to explore? Can shoppers easily find what they’re looking for? How are you providing opportunities for them to learn more about your products or services, your brand’s history, and key team members?

Once customers find a product they like, is your checkout process quick and easy? Or are there roadblocks that may lead some customers to decide they don’t have enough time to complete their transactions and simply abandon their carts?

Whether we’re talking about a physical or digital storefront, UX matters a great deal.

Is user experience subjective? To some extent, yes. You can’t please everyone all the time. However, you can definitely optimize your site based on the preferences of your target audiences and personas to drive conversions and revenue.

Why Does Your Website’s UX Matter?

First and foremost, the quality of your site’s UX is crucial because it impacts each visitor, affecting whether they explore, convert, or bounce.

And if that somehow isn’t a sufficiently compelling reason to invest in your UX, try this: User experience matters because Google says so. Usability is one of many factors considered when determining search rankings, so your ability to capture a top SERP position depends in part on your UX.

A stellar UX can be the critical differentiating factor in SERP ranking positions, particularly in hypercompetitive verticals where everyone has optimized title tags, meta descriptions, and so forth.

That means how well you optimize your website’s UX has a direct impact on organic search performance, not to mention every single one of your digital funnels.

UX isn’t cosmetic; it has tangible dollars-and-cents value, which is why no brand can afford to neglect it.

8 Aspects of User Experience to Optimize on Your Website

Two marketing professionals stand before a larger-than-life computer display, currently showing a product page for a dress. To the left of the display is a checklist and two shopping bags. To the left of the display is a clothing rack with two dresses and two t-shirts.

With the value of your site’s UX in mind, here are eight key elements of user experience, with tips to optimize each.

Publish High-Quality, Helpful Content

Content is what brings users to your website, helps make your site usable, and helps turn visitors into customers. For these reasons, content is a chief consideration when evaluating overall site health and UX in particular.

Since the rollout of Google’s Helpful Content updates and the subsequent introduction of the Helpful Content System, the quality of your on-page content is more critical than ever. The more valuable your content, the higher you can expect to rank in organic search results.

Google’s content creation guidance specifies that content should be helpful, reliable, and people-first.

Remember, behind all the industry talk of ranking factors, algorithm updates, and the like, the fundamental premise of Search is simply serving the most valuable results for each query.

So, how do you create best-of-web content that delivers genuine value to your target audience? Start by focusing on the people you hope will read your content. Identify their needs, then meet those needs in a comprehensive, helpful manner.

This is where the concepts behind E-E-A-T thrive: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Your content should demonstrate these principles in order to create the best possible experience for your users.

Although Google uses content as a ranking factor, avoid publishing content designed for the explicit purpose of pleasing search engine algorithms. Focus on the real people you’re hoping to attract to your site and prioritize their needs.

Search engines learned long ago how to spot keyword stuffing and other tactics now considered black hat SEO. Implementing white hat tactics helps you avoid potential penalties and puts your site on the shortest path to success.

Improve Page Speed

Loading speed is a commonly overlooked optimization area. It is a superb example of how first-rate UX will benefit a brand on two crucial fronts.

Ensuring your pages load quickly helps with both:

Enhancing funnels to increase the likelihood of users converting on your site
Demonstrating to search engines like Google that your site is of superior quality and worthy of ranking highly in organic search results.

We’ve all had the unpleasant, even downright frustrating, experience of trying to access a site that loads slowly. You also have to worry about cumulative layout shifts that can disrupt the user experience.

Poor page performance is a surefire way to rack up bounces in your GA4 tracking. If you aren’t sure how your pages perform on this front, take your priority URLs over to pagespeed.web.dev and analyze each one.

No big deal if you aren’t the lead tech person on your squad—ask someone on your dev team to review the details with you so you can build a list of action items.

Strengthen Site Security

Users are increasingly prioritizing security and privacy as they navigate the web, and showing your users you care about these issues is key to building trust.

It starts with an HTTPS certificate. Consider this item non-negotiable—you simply must have one if you want to grow your brand online. If you don’t, users will see a “Not Secure” warning when navigating to your site, which doesn’t leave the best impression.

Even better than simply having the certificate to avoid browser warnings? Highlight your privacy and security certificates in your footer, so users can view them on landing pages and as they explore your site.

Any time you plan on collecting user data, let them know beforehand, regardless of whether such notice is required. It’s simply good business, and users will appreciate your transparency, which serves to further cement that all-important trust.

Implement a Responsive, Mobile-First Web Design

Mobile-first indexing is nothing new, so hopefully your developer used responsive web design from the get-go, and you have nothing to worry about here.

Google initiated mobile-first indexing in November 2016, as more and more web traffic came from mobile devices rather than desktops. This change meant that Google’s bots looked first at the site’s mobile version. In late October 2023, Google announced it was using mobile-first indexing exclusively.

Responsive site design is recommended to ensure all pages are mobile-friendly. This is another change that is good for both your funnels and search rankings.

If you need to update an older site to be responsive, this task is certainly doable, so long as the site builder supports mobile web design.

Not sure whether your site is responsive? Hit F12 and Ctrl+Shift+M to access developer tools, or ping your new best friend on your internal dev team.

Make Navigation Seamless

You may not be there yet, but like the rest of us, you’ll eventually reach an age where you feel a tinge of anger when you go out shopping and find that they’ve rearranged the grocery store.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with some spring cleaning or a revamp to improve ergonomics or logistics. But as a shopper, now all of your go-to products are that much harder to find.

Keep this sense of frustration in mind as you create and/or update your site navigation. Your visitors shouldn’t feel like Indiana Jones exploring a forgotten tomb. Rather, they should be able to easily get where they’re going, and they’ll be grateful for the seamless experience.

Ever heard of “click depth”? It’s a measurement of how many clicks it takes to navigate to a given page from your home page. The more clicks required, the less traffic you can expect to complete the journey. Ideally, every page on your site should have a click depth of three or less.

There are several ways to achieve this.

Efficient use of categories and subcategories in your header navigation menu is certainly the best place to start. Ensure that your menu is clean, uncomplicated, and non-duplicative.

Navigation breadcrumbs are extremely useful because they make your pages more accessible in terms of click depth and easier for your user to find. If you aren’t already using breadcrumbs, now is a good time to get started.

Implement a Search Function

Search has become a ubiquitous part of web browsing, and including a search function on your site is key to delivering a premium user experience.

The faster users can find what they’re looking for, the more satisfied they’ll be with their visit, which reflects positively on your brand.

Of course, that’s only the case if your search function delivers value. That means it has to function properly and deliver the results your users are after.

Here are a few best practices for your site’s search function:

Make the search bar highly visible on each page, typically in your header.
Don’t require a perfect query to deliver relevant results. Incorporate semantic search tenets to the extent practicable.
Never leave your users empty-handed. Even when a query doesn’t turn up relevant results, be sure to provide navigation options—ideally, collections pages, buying guides, or other priority URLs.

Unfortunately, you can expect users to judge your search tool against Google Search, and there’s not much you can do to compete against the top search engine in the world.

Your search tool might be more of a Toyota Corolla than the Ferrari that is Google Search, but as long as it gets your users where they’re going in a timely manner, they’ll still appreciate it, which is how you know it’s contributing positively to your UX.

Prioritize Accessibility

Optimizing your site for accessibility should be a priority because:

It’s the right thing to do.
Google assesses site accessibility and includes a distinct accessibility score in each URL’s page speed report, meaning it impacts search rankings.

Keep in mind that Google encourages manual testing of your site to ensure accessibility, as their automatic detection isn’t a guarantee.

Here are a few items to start with:

Make interactive controls keyboard focusable and displayed in a focus indicator. Users should be able to navigate your site using only a keyboard.
Ensure a sufficient contrast ratio between background and foreground colors.
Use alt attributes for image elements, especially image alt text for people using screen readers.
Size and space your touch targets appropriately. If a button is too small or too close to another button, it can be difficult or impossible to use correctly.
Check to see if each page’s visual order follows its DOM order.
Consider whether each page’s tab order is logical.
Make sure interactive elements indicate their state and purpose.
Hide offscreen content from assistive technology.

Build Trust Through Social Proof

The power of testimonials has only grown in recent years as more commerce has evolved into e-commerce, so displaying reviews on your site is an outstanding—and relatively simple—way to enhance your UX by giving users all the more reason to trust your brand.

Of course, since it’s so easy to create fake reviews in one form or another, one of the most effective ways of sharing social proof is by using reviews from a third-party site such as Trustpilot.

First-party reviews can work well as long as you present them with sufficient context about the reviewer and, if applicable, their organization/background—particularly if you’re a B2B outfit.

Reading real reviews from real people will help your prospective customers get an idea of what to expect, which means you can expect higher customer satisfaction rates, stronger loyalty, and enduring long-term results.

Dominate Organic Search with a Custom Strategy From VELOX Media

A laptop displays an e-commerce store selling dresses and sneakers. The VELOX Media logo is featured prominently on the screen. Outside the laptop are icons symbolizing a shopping cart, a shopping basket, and a check mark. To the right of the laptop are two shopping bags.

Improving your UX is key to enhancing funnels and climbing organic search rankings, but it’s still just one piece of the SEO puzzle. You need a trusted partner for a successful campaign that includes everything from technical optimizations to link building, world-class content, and more.

As a full-service, revenue-focused digital marketing agency, VELOX is recognized as a Google Premier Partner—among the top 3% of agencies globally—because we consistently exceed client expectations. Our fully customized campaigns are tailored to achieve your growth goals and conservatively target 400-800% ROI.

Does your digital revenue need a boost? Contact VELOX today and discover how sustained search dominance can push your business to the next level.