Sometimes stating the obvious is a very useful exercise to help provide us all with a much-needed reality check. When we expend our energy on building a website for our business it is of course with the objective of generating quality leads from any traffic that we attract. The issue, in many cases, is that we do not naval gaze at our own website through the simple lens of a real user. We all spend too much time looking at our website design to make sure our “online brochure” looks great. This often comes at the expense of simple user tips and tricks that can transform the volume of leads that your receive from your hard-earned traffic.
The Simple Truth – Make Note & Don’t Ignore This Point – It’s Critical
Firstly, we need to acknowledge a truth that we all know but sometimes ignore. Mobile users are the majority of users and therefore, always view your website through a mobile device, as a primary way of assessing the look, feel, and user experience of your website. By all means, check desktop but be aware we should all be thinking mobile first, in all countries and sectors.
Now we have that out the way, let’s focus on some really obvious but game-changing user experience aspects:
Mobile “Hamburger” Menus
Pretty much every mobile website renders into a three-line navigational menu, often called a “hamburger menu”, see the example below, this is what typically happens:
So this is a classic “out of the box” theme-related user experience. But there’s a problem, we are all short of time and attention and most users will scroll on a page to quickly scan and check out what the site or page is about. This means in the majority of cases the user may ignore or not have the time to explore the mobile menu for further content. If we don’t provide really strong visual markers for users to contact us, this becomes a HUGE problem.
Look at the example below and spot the obvious, but hugely beneficial difference. Yes, you spotted it, a fixed CONTACT US button that stays on all pages on the mobile header.
There’s one other important difference. Note the white space around the CONTACT US button and the GREEN for go button colouring. Green is physiologically a colour that denotes “do something” or “GO”.
In-Page Sign Posting
So we have dealt with mobile navigation but what about all the people that bypass that and scroll into the page? Well, again an obvious but often overlooked point is that we need to be sure to give space for in-page CONTACT or CALL TO ACTION sign-posting. See the example below, where there is space allowed and also clean white space to place a strong visual “call to action”. It’s not a bad thing to repeat this in a long page scroll, we just need to be mindful not to “over-do-it” at the cost of annoying users.
Footers Mater Too
Often, it’s a good idea to allow users to see an “in-page” input enquiry form, not just a button that directs them to a page with a form, it’s just more obvious and IF the form is short but qualified a user may be more likely to input an enquiry without need to find or navigate to a new page.
Also remember a footer is on EVERY website page so becomes a site-wide call for users to take some action.
In the example below also note the standout design of having a solid blue from and clear labelling and simple white-out entry boxes for filling in the form, again nice clean and simple – not “over-designed”.
In the interests of User Experience, we shall wrap this up, too much content and people switch off.
We have raised some very simple tips and tricks that can really help drive incremental leads and revenue. Just remember, to look through the eyes of a user, always on a mobile device.
Lastly, you are also probably too close to your own design and business strategy….so just ask users or people you know to tell you what they think. Just beware of too many cooks or opinions clouding your judgement.
If you need help or advice on any aspects of your digital strategy or execution, contact a member of the Algorithm team.
Author : Simon Lloyd
