Days when businesses used websites for sharing information and promoting products only, are long gone. Today, companies use websites to improve customer experiences and increase traffic conversion. However, to offer your website visitors with the best experience possible, you need to ensure your site is as engaging as possible.
One of the most critical aspects of improving the experience is speed – your clients don’t want to wait five minutes for a website to load, no matter how beautiful it is. Sometimes, a website’s structural design determines its load speed. This is why working with web development firms like Lilo is always advisable.
Other factors that are likely to influence site speed include the server and storage place of codes. Now that you know more about speeding up your business website, here are five simple tips web designers implement to make a site easier to use and faster.
A Functional, Yet Simple Design
Now, websites are leaning towards using simple imagery and few texts because that is what is attractive to your readers. Also, new sites are keeping all information on a single page – without redirecting the reader from one page to another. This is made possible using JavaScript and helps in engaging the user while minimizing loading time tremendously.
Compressing Website Code
The next step to speeding up your business website is through compressing codes used. This is done via zipping software such as Gzip, which is used for mashing all files together for reduced HTTP responses. More HTTP responses fill up a server with more traffic, eventually slowing down your website; conversely, lowering requests speeds up your site as a whole.
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
CDN is a tool that’s used for storing your site’s data and for blasting it to different servers in various locations across the world. For instance, if you are based in Washington DC and have web visitors in Europe, a CDN will cache your website data and distribute it to Europe servers. Doing this helps speed up your user’s experience because information is not pulled from the primary U.S. server.
In short, CDN places your content in multiple locations at once, providing your clients with superior coverage. A great CDN can reduce a website’s bandwidth requirement by as much as 70 percent while increasing website speed by 50 percent.
Making it Easier for Users
To improve the web design, always have a plan that maps out your visitor’s journey from the first time they visit the site to the moment they become a customer. Also, remove elements like complex animations, long content and stocky website images. Instead, focus on having powerful, short sections of text with applicable photos sectioned by concise and clear headers.
Also, include follow and social share buttons, implement calls-to-action, and use the right images at every step. Make sure that navigating the website is easy, making it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for quickly. Don’t be afraid of using white space to break up the page and increase its readability.
Mobile Optimization
If you don’t know yet, 80 percent of Internet users use their smartphones to find information on the web. It’s necessary that your website renders itself correctly on mobile phones and devices and ensure that it fits the needs and wants of your mobile visitor.
These are some tips that are used when seeking to improve the UX of your website visitor. Staying ahead of the competition is all about improving the user experience. Make sure your business site stands out by offering your customers flexibilities and ease of use.