SOME WAYS TO IMPROVE THE USABILITY OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

SOME WAYS TO IMPROVE THE USABILITY OF YOUR WORDPRESS SITE

The success of your WordPress website is largely based on the UX (User eXperience). If users encounter problems on your website or are hindered in any way in browsing, reading or discovering pages, they will look elsewhere and remember it poorly. You can have excellent content, but if the user experience is not optimal on your WordPress site, you will undoubtedly lose visitors who will leave your site and not come back.

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD USER EXPERIENCE FOR YOUR WORDPRESS SITE?
It is imperative to work on improving the user experience of your site which can be defined as the emotions and attitudes of a person when browsing a site. The wish of any WordPress platform owner is to benefit from a good visibility, a good traffic but also and above all to keep his visitors. To do this, it is essential that the UX be optimal. If you feel that your WordPress site is not as successful as you would like, after you’ve asked yourself about the editorial dimension, you need to look at the User Experience that your site offers. Analyze the time spent on the pages and the number of page views. If these metrics are very low, there is probably a problem with the UX. Find out what actions you can take to improve it.

FOCUS ON DESIGN WITHOUT FORGETTING UI DESIGN
When it comes to improving the UX of your WordPress site, pay special attention to the design of your site. It may be necessary to reconsider it in order to make it more attractive. The work to be done should consist of creating a clean design. The design must reflect your identity, but today, visitors’ expectations are focused on a great simplification of interfaces (UI, User Interface). For this reason, it is important to avoid abusing graphic elements on your page or even animations, as this can annoy the user. We all know that it is tempting to activate all the visual effects that WordPress themes offer. But you must resist this temptation! Ask yourself: what does this or that visual effect bring? If the answer is not to improve the navigation or readability of your content, don’t activate it.

It is possible to have a simple design that nevertheless attracts and promotes easier navigation. Take a good look at the overall look of your site to remove anything superfluous. Also play the card of simplicity in the use of colors. Sobriety always has an effect. Your site being your business card, you must work to ensure that it presents a positive and serious image. If not, you will not retain your visitors.

CHOOSING A RESPONSIVE WORDPRESS THEME IS NOT ENOUGH
In addition, it is imperative to have a site that displays optimally on all devices. This aspect is even an essential criterion when building a website. Nowadays, we note that more than 50% of requests on search engines are made via mobile devices. Since mobile has become the majority mode of consultation of websites, there is no longer any debate about mobile compatibility. Most WordPress themes are natively responsive. This is called responsiv design. So you will choose a WordPress theme that adapts to mobile interfaces. But this will not be enough. You will absolutely have to work on the display in mobile mode to improve the UI of your site. So you need to test the display of your WordPress site on different devices and make the necessary adjustments to ensure a consistent experience regardless of the viewing mode. Don’t settle for a responsive theme unless the display is already optimal.

CHOOSE A GOOD HOSTING SERVICE
Internet users are becoming more and more impatient. Many leave a site that takes a long time to load. In order to improve the UX of your WordPress site, this parameter must be of concern to you. You must do everything possible to reduce the loading time of your site. The problem may come from your hosting service. It must be of high quality for your site to function properly. If you have any doubts about this, look for a reputable WordPress hosting company immediately. A quality provider should offer you several hosting solutions and advise you which one best suits your needs. The most prominent options are shared server hosting, dedicated server hosting, cloud hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated WordPress hosting packages. Note that other actions can help speed up the loading of your site, such as installing new extensions (and removing those that are not useful) but also optimizing images by reducing their size.

CREATE LANDING PAGES
You can also improve the UX of your WordPress site by creating landing pages or dedicated landing pages for specific actions such as downloading a white paper for example. This is especially useful if you offer multiple products or services. Why not create a landing page for each type of offer? This way, it will be easy for Internet users to get the necessary information and to be directed, in one click, to the products or services that meet their needs. You can also set up landing pages for your special events and your newsletter.

INSERT CALL TO ACTION AND SHARE BUTTONS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
Make your WordPress site more lively and interesting by inserting call-to-action buttons. This will inevitably improve the user experience. For example, a “Sign Up Now” or “Contact Us” button is always useful and appreciated by users, who find it easier to complete an action. Make sure you always use action verbs when you develop this type of button. Also, be clever in providing them with colors that quickly catch the eye.

It is also a good idea to place sharing buttons on your WordPress site on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This is very beneficial in terms of UX. So don’t deprive yourself of “like”, “Tweet”, “Follow” or “Share” which, in addition, increase the visibility of your site.

USE WORDPRESS PLUGINS
Your user experience can be greatly enhanced if you use certain WordPress plugins. There are several types of plugins. What they have in common is that they make WordPress sites more dynamic by providing additional functionality. WPtouch is an example of a plugin that automatically adds a mobile theme to the site in order to adapt it to smartphones. A way to make your site responsive, mobile compatible. This is done without negatively impacting its SEO ranking. Thanks to this plugin, it is also possible to customize the appearance of the site for mobile users without having to write any line of code. Also note that the site still retains its desktop version and perfectly satisfies those who prefer it.

There are many other very useful plugins to optimize your WordPress site. We’ll cover that in a future article.

SIMPLIFY THE NAVIGATION MENU
When setting up the navigation menu of your WordPress site, try to simplify it as much as possible. Avoid loading it with multiple items, as users may not be able to find their way around. It’s a good idea to reduce the size of your menu by opting for a drop-down template. Then, you can create a secondary menu for the less important pages. It would be good to limit yourself to 5-6 items in your classic menu. If it is a drop down menu, do not go beyond 4 pages.

Also, pay attention to the order of the items on your WordPress site’s menu. It is imperative to give importance to this in a move to create a positive user experience. You certainly have a logical order of steps that you want users to follow as they navigate your site. The trick is to arrange your menu items in this order. A hierarchy of information to be made available to users is therefore essential. For example, if you want them to have an overview of your offers before learning more about you and contacting you, the menu could start with “Home” and end with “Contact” through “About us”.

Improving the UX of your WordPress site will help you have better conversion rates and build a loyal audience. A deep analysis is needed to decide what changes to make.

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