In the digital marketing landscape, user experience, also known as UX, is something that is often talked about – it’s mentioned so regularly that it might seem like just another keyword that marketers use lightly. However, when done correctly, user experience plays a critical part in your marketing strategy.

User Experience is an umbrella term that helps to map out the process of creating products and solutions that provide relevant experiences to your users. The area of UX helps to improve how people interact with technology and adapt products to meet the needs of your users.

Consumers expect a positive experience when visiting your website. All digital marketing should deliver a valuable experience for its users, motivating them to proceed further in the onboarding journey. 

Here at Rooster, we know just how important UX is for any business, and how it can impact the way consumers interact with you. 

the overall user experience

In the grand scheme of things, user experience is defined as all of the aspects and touchpoints the end-users experience with your brand, its products or its services. Any interaction makes up for user experience, and each will affect the overall opinion of your user. 

With many areas to cover, it’s easy to get lost in where you should pay your attention. How quickly does your website load? Will users bounce off due to its speed? How does your website look? Can people find what they need almost immediately? Every factor counts and every consideration requires support from each area of digital marketing, whether it be the marketing itself, graphic design elements or general interface design. 

make a good first impression

You have to truly get to know your consumers to find out what they want and need. Ask questions about their decisions, look at how they use your products and never assume that you know what they want without doing so. The experience will be different for everyone and when designing your site it is important to keep that in mind. 

You must make a good first impression by clearly communicating what it is you offer consistently. Users should have no issue finding exactly what they are looking for and the website should act as a digital extension of your sales team to convert them into buyers. 

making changes 

Website design, copywriting and even how you are seen on Google’s search engine can either make or break the impact you have on potential consumers.

Making those initial changes can seem like a lot of effort, but identifying the needs of your customers – and how your business can meet those needs – will soon refine those you wish to target.

There are numerous considerations to think about when looking at your UX strategy:

  • Is the website simple to use? Can customers find what they are looking for with ease?
  • Is there a clearly defined journey to conversion points? Does the website allow customers to continue on their buying journey?
  • Is the design consistent throughout the website and other marketing materials?

elements to consider

It is more than the ‘pretty’ designs and colour choices you make. UX consists of factors such as usability, functionality, navigation and value. The strength of these elements will decide how functional your website is to its users. 

User Journey supports the navigation of a website to clearly guide the targeted audience through the site, by serving relevant information and leading them through to where you want them to end up. If that includes a conversion on the website, then the journey the user takes must support them to make the decision to convert.

Usability considers how responsive the structure and the design of your website is. A responsive website needs to address what your customer wants before they even realise it is what they desire. 

Accessibility is becoming increasingly important to cater to users with various impairments. There are currently  14 million people in the UK that have accessibility requirements that aren’t generally catered towards, making accessibility a huge market that needs to be considered.

Functionality makes sure that everything on your website makes perfect sense. It establishes the whole purpose of your site and where the use of smartphones and tablets are at an all-time high, the content on your website and its performance should be consistent across all devices.

Navigation focuses on minimising the number of clicks it takes for people to find what they are looking for. It’s recommended that users should not have to click more than two or three places to find what they need.

The value determines whether or not your potential customers believe your products or services are beneficial. You can design your website in a way that clearly expresses the value of your offerings. 

Aesthetic design and cleverly crafted copy go hand-in-hand. The overall goal is to impress users with smart design, but also use informative content to remind them of why they were looking at your website initially. 

get started

The journey to a great user experience includes numerous steps to get started.

user personas

The initial step is getting to know who your audience is. From there, you can expand on creating experiences that speak to your audience in the same emotive tone as your users. Creating a user persona will gauge a representation of the most common segments within your audience for a product or service that you are promoting. Analysing data is key to check the patterns. 

interview users

With user personas, interviewing existing and potential users of the product or service can help gain insight into what design elements will speak to the audience most effectively. A user’s experience on your site will be subjective. Interviews will help create at least a guideline for expectations. 

sitemap functionality

A website build will require a functional sitemap for the pages you wish to create. This will consist of a clear plan organising all the pages and subpages of your services or products in order. A sitemap will make it so much easier to see how a user will get from each touchpoint across your website before actually building the site.

wireframes

Site structure is nothing without visuals. Wireframes are essentially the visual guides that make up the initial framework of your website pages, giving you an idea of the look and feel. Incorporating wireframes into the process means that you can discover any usability issues before the development stage, saving time and money. 

usability testing

Usability testing will discover how easy it is to use a product through testing it with real users to identify any struggles they may face during the interaction. Users will be asked to complete specific tasks through observations by researchers to witness any problems they might encounter. The more similar problems established, the better the recommendations will be to overcome usability problems. 

user experience is no longer an option

User experience can’t go ignored if you want to impress potential and current consumers. If you can’t keep up with expectations, there will be another brand out there who can, and then some. Investing time and resources into optimising user experience into your marketing will encourage enjoyable experiences before and after users have visited your site. 

how Rooster can help

Some markets depend on desktops and others may be exclusively mobile-friendly. However your industry works, Rooster Marketing will build for the dominant platform first. 

All websites created at Rooster are secure, fast and futureproof. Our SEO team ensures technical best practices to give your site the best ranking potential from the moment of launch. We put customer experience first by creating compelling customer experiences that look beautiful and demand to be used. 

Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you to build a website you and your users love.