How to Improve the UX for Your Website Content?
You have built a website for your enterprise and published content. What’s next? Now you need to take a few steps to improve the UX. You need to ensure that users can access your website easily and find the necessary website content quickly.
It’s worth mentioning that there is no significant difference between enterprise UX and consumer UX – in both cases, website users are real people. So whomever your target users are, you should follow the general UX writing guidelines.
Table of Contents
1 – Cut the fluff
The first thing you should know about content writing is that users of enterprise websites rarely read web pages word by word. In most cases, they scan the page, paying attention to the essential words and sentences.
So if you strive to improve the UX, you should cut the text that doesn’t add value. The fewer words your page includes, the easier it will be for users to skim it and find necessary information. To create “scannable” website content, you should follow these rules:
- Focus on creating actionable website content rather than general or descriptive content
- Add meaningful headings and subheadings
- Use bullet lists to present the most critical information
- Highlight the keywords to guide readers
- Present one idea per paragraph
- Reduce character count by opting for shorter phrases
Well, cutting the fluff is easier said than done. Even though most content contributors are aware of these rules, they fail to follow them.
Every time you create a new copy, you should check it for usability compliance. It would help if you asked yourself the questions: “Is this phrase significant or can it be omitted?” and “Can I express the same idea using fewer words?”. Keep your copies brief and concise, and you will significantly improve the user experience.
2 – Use Plain Language
When writers create content for enterprise websites, they strive to maintain a professional tone of voice. Pretty often, they use industry-specific language for this purpose. But the problem is that this writing strategy doesn’t fit every enterprise.
Suppose your website is visited and used by your employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Your employees are familiar with the technical jargon, but your customers are not.
Using industry-specific terminology will make your UX copies hard to read, affecting the overall user experience.
Do you want to make your website content accessible for the general audience? If so, you should use plain language and choose words wisely. Here are a few essential rules to follow:
- Don’t use sophisticated terms if they have simpler alternatives/synonyms.
- Avoid the words that your website audience is not familiar with. If you can’t avoid these words, make sure to define their meanings.
- Don’t use words and phrases that may have double meanings and confuse your website visitors.
Effective UX design is all about simplicity. The simpler your UX copies will be, the more visitors your enterprise website will attract.
3 – Use Common Sense
Some content contributors take these two tips too seriously and overdo the task. Trying to make their copies “perfect”, they use straightforward language and write too few words. Eventually, they create content that doesn’t sound professional and match an enterprise website.
It would be best to remember that your target users are experts in the field and demanding clients, not preschoolers. Thus, it would help to use common sense while simplifying your writing. Yes, it would be best to improve the readability and usability of your content. At the same time, you shouldn’t sacrifice the content quality and expert tone.
One of the most important rules to consider when working with your UX is knowing your audience and setting your purpose clear. For example, starting with your brand identity, your website should provide a mixture of technical and advertising content that will help to inspire people and wish to read further.
It means that if you turn to generic phrases overfilled with keywords just for their sake, things will not work well. Focus on helping people relate instead by telling a story and presenting your website content uniquely to make people feel that they are being cared for!
Without a doubt, things may quickly get complex as you do your best to find the perfect balance between simplicity and readability.
The trick here is to structure your sentences correctly by focusing on your initial needs. If you need assistance with this writing, consider checking a sociology essay example to see how the complex arguments have been simplified without sacrificing the subject.
Approaching professionals in your related field for your educational, business or personal services will help you achieve the right balance. They know how to get things done, whether you approach them with something like “write my thesis” or “edit my content to make it stand out” request.
Remember to offer your UX copy report first and let the specialists offer several suggestions to improve things. Don’t forget that you will always learn as your writing and analysis skills improve!
4 – Enhance First-Use Experience
The information architecture of enterprise websites is more complex and sophisticated than those of eCommerce and other sites. For this reason, when users visit an enterprise website for the first time, they get overwhelmed with the amount of information provided.
What can you do to improve the first-use experience and motivate new users to visit your website content? It would be best if you considered the following:
- Don’t put your efforts into creating time-consuming tours that show the features of your website. Instead, provide users with the basic information they need to start using your website. Don’t worry; users will learn more about your product during their subsequent visits.
- Highlight the authenticity of your brand. Use the language and writing style that match your enterprise’s brand image. It’s a great way to create a memorable first-use experience.
- You may ask first-time visitors to fill out a form. Keep in mind that you can request only that information you need and will use.
- Consider sending a follow-up email to the first-time users. Provide them with information on what content they can find on your website and how they can use it.
According to studies, 88% of users are less likely to return to a website if the first-use experience is negative. To address this issue, you should revisit your marketing strategy, not only UX design. You should edit sign-up forms, think about leveraging email marketing, and use other marketing tactics that indirectly affect user experience to get positive outcomes.
5 – Think of Mobile Users
Your enterprise operates in the mobile internet era, and you can’t ignore this fact. Surveys show that modern users expect a company’s mobile website to be as good as a desktop website and provide the same quality content. So when you work on improving the UX, you should think about improving the mobile version of your site in the first place.
The trick is that users believe that the devices they are using to browse the website do not affect their reading comprehension, but in fact, it does. When users read an article on a mobile device, their reading comprehension decreases. And the more complex the article is, the less information readers can understand and memorise.
Naturally, you can’t force users to browse your website content using their desktop devices. But you can tweak your mobile content to ensure that users will better comprehend your writing.
You can’t rewrite every piece of content for mobile. But you can do the following. You can choose the essential content pieces and edit them properly.
For instance, you can optimise articles that explain how to use the key features of your website or posts that present the essential information about your enterprise and the technologies you are using.
6 – Get to Know Your Users
Do you put lots of effort into enhancing the UX, but nothing changes for the better? If so, you need to rewrite your strategy and start from the very beginning – from user research.
The chances are, you’re missing a piece of important information that prevents you from making the right tactical decisions.
You should conduct a study to learn more about your target users and their requirements. You can use one of the following research methods or both:
- Quantitative research. Using website analytic tools, you can collect data about users and their on-site behaviour. It will help you understand what content attracts users and what content is a cause of a high bounce rate.
- Qualitative research. If you want to know even more details, you can conduct surveys and interviews with real users. It will give you an in-depth understanding of what affects user experience and what changes you should make to fix the situation.
There are also other factors that one must consider when working with the target users through the lens of UX analysis. It all comes down to the user experience and your knowledge of the target demographics.
If you aim for individual goals with your website content, start with the usability aspect, where you first research market trends. While dealing with competitive designs sounds appealing, best market practices have been there before and have been tested out.
It has to be valuable, useful, accessible, desirable, credible, and findable in the first place. Your users must see what value is represented by your content and how it can be made helpful for their specific needs.
It’s where your website structure factor comes into play as you have to keep things credible and accessible. Speaking of the UX part related to credibility, you must provide due references and explanations relevant to your specific case.
Doing so is one of the critical aspects of digital marketing these days. It also means that improving your website’s UX position should start with your users and what you would like to achieve! Learn how to sort and analyse your information regardless of whether you use those above qualitative or quantitative analysis methods!
Ask yourself these critical questions:
- How can I address the needs of my users, and what resources will be required?
- What content makes me unique, and how can I make it accessible and findable?
- What social group represents most of my users, and how do I advertise my content in that field?
- What is my current shortcoming as I try to reach a wider audience?
- What factors can help diminish the risks and increase the usability of my website’s content?
Once you define the factors that influence the UX, you will develop an effective UX solution.
7 – Focus on continuous improvement
UX improvement is an ongoing process. Since the users’ preferences are ever-changing, you should watch the current UX trends and do your best to keep up with them.
It will help if you revisit your website content strategy once in a while. It will allow you to ensure that your strategy is up-to-date and that your enterprise is presented in the most favourable light.
As you work on continuous improvement, the most important is to keep your mind open and remember that specific strategies take time to work, which is why you should not panic when something does not take off right away.
UX trends change all the time, yet it does not mean that you have to catch the first opportunity to make a change because there are specific values and business principles that you must start with.
Follow your marketing plan, keep things flexible, and let your users have a say by adding interactive elements to your website content, including surveys or multimedia elements with unique campaigns or innovative tools like touchless interaction, making UX more accessible.
If you take your time to analyse and focus on flexibility, things will always pay off, and your UX ranks will always remain relevant!
