{"id":14567,"date":"2017-07-14T18:46:34","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T07:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creately.com\/blog\/?p=14567"},"modified":"2024-02-14T23:22:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T12:22:48","slug":"the-ux-cheat-sheet-for-busy-smbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creately.com\/blog\/software-teams\/the-ux-cheat-sheet-for-busy-smbs\/","title":{"rendered":"The UX Cheat Sheet for Extremely Busy Small Business Owners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When most small businesses think of metrics, things like website traffic, conversions, and page views immediately come to mind. But while these metrics can deliver important insight as to how well your marketing is working, they do little to illustrate how you score on user experience<\/a> (UX).<\/p>\n

Color, images, and a catchy copy can attract your audience, but it’s your UX design that keeps them coming back (or not). \u00a0A recent study by Experience Dynamics<\/a> revealed that a massive 79% of users who don’t like their website experience will go straight to another site who can better serve their needs.<\/p>\n

Adding the ever-expanding mobile usage into the mix, and UX becomes more crucial than ever.<\/p>\n

If you aren’t well-versed in UX optimization, you could outsource to a tech company who specializes in exactly that.<\/p>\n

Or, you can use these five UX hacks that don’t take an expert to implement.<\/p>\n

Hack #1 – Understand What Your Users Want, Not Just\u00a0Who They Are<\/h3>\n

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Traditional personas focus on customer demographics, but don\u2019t do much in communicating what exactly<\/em> those personas need. Someone who falls in the 25-34 age range is married with two children, and works full-time may have very different needs and expectations than someone else who falls within those same parameters.<\/p>\n

Instead of lumping people into age and location categories, try developing a new set of standards that focus on actions: do they like to comparison shop? Are they looking for specific information? Are they just browsing? Are they in the decision-making stage or the curiosity phase? Have they done business with you before or are they first-time visitors?<\/p>\n

Listen for cues during conversations with your customers. Talk about their goals, what’s preventing them from reaching those goals, and what their ideal solutions look like. Find out how they discovered you and what made them choose you in the first place. Train your team to make these same discoveries and develop a way to capture and organize them.<\/p>\n

By determining their needs, you are better positioned to fulfill their expectations regardless of the age, name, and geographic location of your user.<\/p>\n

Hack #2 – Focus on More than Just Your Homepage<\/h3>\n

Users don\u2019t always enter your site through your home page. It\u2019s important each secondary page clearly communicates what you do and what value you provide.<\/p>\n

This is especially important if you are using landing pages in your marketing mix. These pages (and all other pages) should contain a consistent brand and structure throughout so your users don’t feel like they are visiting a whole new website while they are clicking around.<\/p>\n

In addition, you should make it easy for users to navigate to other areas regardless of their website entry point. Users don’t want to click the back button several times to get back to a certain point. If you can help them get anywhere on your site in 3 clicks or fewer, you’re all set. Prior to designing your website landing pages, create a blueprint and a prototype of them with\u00a0wireframes and UI mockups<\/a> to ensure that, each one of them meets the standards of a quality UX experience.<\/p>\n

Hack #3 – Enhance Readability to Improve Brand-ability<\/h3>\n

How your content looks,\u00a0is just as important as what your content says. But your audience will never know what your content has to say if it doesn’t look presentable first.<\/p>\n

From web page copy to blog articles to signup forms, your reader should be able to skim the content easily to find what they’re looking for. No one wants to dive into a whole page worth of text with nothing to prevent reader fatigue. Instead, you can use a blend of the following elements to make your content more reader-friendly:<\/p>\n