7 Tips to Improve Your Website Usability

7 Tips to Improve Your Website Usability
By Joy Montgomery

You've gone to websites that annoy you from the minute they pop up, websites that aggravate you while you're trying to complete a transaction, and websites that seem to find ways to be unfriendly in countless other ways. You don't want to add your own website to that list. A website that delivers what was promised in a way that is as nearly effortless as possible is a website that customers will come back to. Here are 7 tips that will help you have a usable and customer-pleasing website:



1. Be clear - Confusing your customers is not a good business practice. Make sure that the content on your website is easily understood by anyone who fits your target market. Make sure the navigation is simple. Hire an outsider to use it and let you know if there are problems.

2. Be concise - Your customers don't need to know how you developed your product or the problems you overcame while you developed your service. They just need to know, in as few words as possible, what's in it for them.

3. Be relevant - Remember what your Mission Statement is, what your vision is for your company and don't waver. Keep your focus on content that builds the business you want to have. Don't get distracted

4. Be functional - People came to your website to complete a transaction. Don't let a bunch of clever distractions get in the way of the transaction. Some entertainment is nice but don't let it overshadow the purpose of the website. Don't let it get in the way of making the sale.

5. Be friendly - Use conversational English. A limited subset of the language will not only make your website usable here. It will translate to other languages easily and affordably. If you want to reach as many people as possible, user-friendly language will go a long way.

6. Be honest - Don't make promises about your product or service that you aren't sure you can keep. It's tempting to exaggerate the benefits that you can provide. If you deliver what you say you can deliver, you have satisfied customers. If you can't deliver, you don't.

7. Be up to date - Don't let your website get out of date, get stale. It's easy to put your updates on the back burner while you tend to your business. While they're on the back burner, they could be costing you sales. They could let you land up on your customer's back burner.

Conclusion: Your ability to connect with your customers will depend, to a great degree on properly functioning clear, concise communication on your website.
Got drama in your workplace? Drama comes from confusion and resulting dissatisfaction. Put a solid, structured business system and clear, concise communication in place and end the drama.

Joy Montgomery converts business requirements to system specifications, presentations, and documents in a way that strengthens teams - a friendly way. She has been producing user-friendly printed and online content for more than 25 years.

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