Why this is important
The user experience on your website is a critical component of helping visitors feel comfortable, know the “lay of the land,” and making it easy for them to understand what to do next (without twisting their arm).

Your website navigation may not be the first thing a visitor looks at when they land on your site, but it is a critical component to their user experience. It’s almost like Google Maps, helping lead visitors to the destination they want to arrive at. Hence, it needs to be clear, easy to understand, and distraction free.

Thanks for visiting, Cuppa SEO Web Design.

I hope this video helps you create a better user experience on your website!

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• Does it attract visitors on its own?
• Does it make those visitors feel comfortable when they arrive on the site?
• Does it make it super-easy for visitors to take the next step in becoming customers?

Unfortunately, many don’t.

Before we talk more about what goes into a successful website, let’s talk about why so many websites fall short on what I’ve mentioned above.

It’s because of lack of knowledge. Let me explain …

Not all websites are created equal. But to those who are outside the industry, there’s no way of knowing what’s good and what’s not good. It’s almost like someone going to buy an automobile who knows absolutely nothing about cars.

If the options are a 1979 Ford Mustang (my first car), and a 2021 Subaru Outback (my current car), and both look good from the outside — it may appear that other than the shape, size and color — there’s no difference between the two. Realistically, how can somebody who knows nothing about cars know the difference? Especially if they don’t know the right questions to ask? They may be thinking. “a car is a car — and they’re all the same. I like the blue one, and it’s also less expensive …”

Same deal with a laptop. If you know nothing about computers, there’s no way of telling which computer is more powerful than another — because you don’t know what to look for, and you don’t know what to ask. So you may judge on color or price, thinking they’re both the same …

These examples may sound far fetched, but this is EXACTLY what happens when most businesses hire a web developer to build them a website. They think that the product is the product, no matter who builds it — and this is not surprising because the business doesn’t know what to ask for, or to look for, in a well-built site. So they trust the web developer to take care of it for them.

Since all websites are not the same, here’s a list of what needs to be baked into your new site. This will equip you with some knowledge — and the ability to ask specific questions — to make sure you’re not paying someone for a clunker of a website.

The following criteria will help you attain a website that functions well, and gives you a good ROI …

1. Custom Web Design: Your site should be customized to your company’s personality, goals and needs. Avoid cookie-cutter sites that make you look like everybody else.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Every nook and cranny of your site needs to be optimized with SEO in an effort to bring more visitors to your site. Ask your potential web design firm IF they do SEO, and HOW they do it. They should tell you they optimize every single title tag, meta description, image name, alt image name, headline, copy and text link. Don’t say this to them, just know they should be saying it to you! I will bet you a cup of coffee they don’t mention most (if any) of these optimization methodologies. Oh, and they should be creating a custom keyword report for you — and meeting with you to review and explain it.

3. User Experience (UX): UX is exactly what is sounds like — the positive, negative or neutral experience a viewer has when they visit your site. This needs to be discussed. If it’s not, you could wind up with a lot of noise and distraction on your site, which is a big turnoff to visitors. Visitors need to immediately feel comfortable when they arrive on your site, and easily understand the lay of the land. Content, imagery and calls-to-action need to be easy to digest — without having to think about it. This adds up to a pleasant experience that helps build trust. Same deal here. Don’t divulge this info to the web design firm you are considering, just ask them what they do to ensure a solid UX and see what they say …

4. Conversion: A solid website conversion strategy ensures that the visitor knows exactly what to do next. Whether it’s filling out a contact form, giving you a call, or downloading some complimentary content, conversion strategies need to be crystal clear. The best way to create a conversion methodology is to focus on the solutions you provide to ease someone’s pain. In other words, provide a benefit. Never use fear tactics, or try to strong arm — or over promise.

5. Desktop & Mobile Design: Your site needs to be responsive, AND be designed for both desktop and mobile so the user experience and conversion methodologies do not suffer because of a different screen size.

There’s more to it than this, but these five items can put the power in your hands to make sure you’re hiring the right web design firm to build your website.

For more information about SEO …
You can download a free chapter from my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing.

Buy the book …
If you’d like to learn more about the entire web design process, you can buy A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing on Amazon.

Thanks for visiting!

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Although we’re talking about website design here, I’d like to take a step back and share a real-world experience that shows how choosing form over function can cause a poor user experience — and ultimately make a product unusable, or at the least non-optimal for the end user.

Choosing Design Over Functionality: a Mini Case Study

I recently upgraded my iPhone and purchased a case to protect it.

The design of the case was beautiful, complete with wood inlay art on the back.

Regarding function, the online description of the case promised a “raised bezel” for screen protection. Since protection was an attribute I was looking for, I bought the case.

The Problem

Upon placing the case on my phone, I noticed there was NO raised bezel to protect the phone’s screen, and that putting the phone face down exposed the screen directly to whatever surface it was placed upon.

What’s happened here is two major things …

My expectations weren’t met, and they should have been based on product specs. This raises the issue of delivering what you promise, which we won’t dive deeply into here (maybe in a another post).

The other issue is the fact that the company that makes these cases chose form over function.

In a tech world where Jonny Ive (Apple’s long-time product designer) strives for an ever-slimmer aesthetic, case makers have followed suit to make cases ultra thin. What the fascination with thin is, I don’t personally understand, especially when a slightly thicker iPhone would make the back of the phone FLAT, as opposed to having a camera protrusion, which would be a better design — and a better user experience — for all of us iPhone users.

Regarding the case in question, the problem is the MAIN function of a case is to protect your phone, and removing a protective component to add a few less millimeters of thickness defeats the purpose of the product.

In this case (pun intended) the manufacturer of this case, and many other cases I’ve researched, are all choosing form over function — which means they’ve gotten it all wrong.

Good design is design that holds functionality at the forefront, allowing the design to SUPPORT functionality, and actually make the product more intuitive to use. Think Mac vs. PC (sorry Microsoft, but it’s true).

What This Has to Do With Your Website Design

When a visitor arrives on your website, they typically have a specific reason: to attain information, buy a product or service, schedule an appointment, etc.

The function of your website is to make it as easy as possible for a website visitor to take the action YOU WANT THEM TO TAKE NEXT, which means you need to make it as easy as possible for the visitor to understand what you offer and if it solves their problem (what I often refer to as a pain point).

If the design of your website supports this philosophy, that’s great! It’s also following a solid, proven user experience and conversion methodology.

For example, the Cuppa SEO website homepage provides brief descriptive copy that lets you know exactly how we can help, followed by two (and only two) calls-to-action that lead the viewer to where they want to go. No distraction, no confusion.

Here’s another example of a homepage where function is fully supported by design:

On the other hand, if the design of your website looks like this, offering you’re in trouble …

As you can see, it has no less than FIVE navigations (I’ve counted the ad at the top of the page as a navigation element as this is prime real estate, and typically where your navigation should live). This homepage also offers no clear conversion strategy.

The result? I’m left with not really knowing where I am, what I’m looking at or what to do next. The desire to design this website without placing functionality at the forefront has created confusion — which is a bad user experience.

Want more info about this topic and others like it?
Check out my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing.

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Penguins.

This was kind of a big deal because my wife and I have been Penguin fans for years. So, I thought it might be cool to get a set of sheets and pillowcases for our home, but …

… although the pillowcase was prominently featured on the cover — no page number was given. This is one of the most pervasive problems I’ve found in the world of catalogs, and it’s just a plain bad user experience (UX).

What is the reasoning behind not making it super easy for a potential customer to find what what you’ve presented to them on the cover? Maybe it’s so they’ll peruse the entire catalog and buy more, or maybe it’s just an oversight. Who knows

What I do know is, regardless of the reasoning, it’s still a bad UX. In my case I went from being excited to make a purchase (the reason for the catalog’s existence in the first place) to being mildly annoyed that this company was providing a bad experience.

So, instead of spending money, I decided to write this blog post about it.

What this has to do with web design …

Whether it’s a catalog, or a website, it’s got to be easy for people to find what they want! They should never have to dig around searching, hoping they stumble upon what they’re looking for. This is true whether you have a handful of products/services, or thousands of products like J. Crew does.

J. Crew has taken an immense amount of product and made it easy to drill down to exactly what you want.

Here’s J. Crew’s mega navigation: lots to choose from, yet precisely organized for ease of use …

And here’s what it looks like once you choose a category to peruse. The left-hand navigation on this page makes it easy to make choices that further sharpen results — all at a glance.

Now, imagine if J. Crew had taken the standpoint of the catalog cover with no page numbers. You’d have to scroll through ALL 341 items of their Shirt category to find what you’re looking for.

When it comes do web design, remember to make the user experience customer centric!

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That said, have you ever walked up to a door and pushed (or pulled) — and the door didn’t budge? I’m guessing yes. This poor user experience is the result of a poorly designed door.

The reason I bring this up is the other day I was entering a building after an appointment and I encountered some really good doors!

Before we go any further, let’s quickly define user experience so we’re all on the same page …

User experience is the positive, negative or neutral experience you have online or in the real world (what I like to call the analog world). It’s as simple as that!

From the instant I looked at them, I could tell these doors were well designed because I didn’t have to think about how to use them.

To enter the building, the vertical bars made it clear that the door needed to be pulled to be opened …

To leave the building, the horizontal bars clearly communicated they were to be pushed …

Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but if both sides of the door had ONLY horizontal bars or ONLY vertical bars, then the clarity of how to use the door is lost.

What this has to do with web design …

Well, a lot, actually.

When someone arrives on your website, you want things to be as clear and easy to understand as possible. Is it easy to find your products or services? How about ways to get in touch? Do you have one or two calls-to-action on your homepage, or do you have dozens like this one?

If you’re interested in geeky stuff like this, check out The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman. It’s chock-full of examples of products that have positive and negative user experiences.

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When I arrived on the site, I was instantly greeted by a pop-up (shown to the right) that asked me for my email address. In fact, it basically demanded my email address before I could shop the site.

What?

I’ve seen this before, and I’m sure I will see it again, and it’s a big mistake in the world of web design.

Yes, acquiring visitor emails to grow a company’s email list is a pretty simple, standard conversion strategy. But the way this company has implemented this strategy here carries a hefty cost because …

When a company is so blinded by a particular strategy, in this case attaining “new member” emails, they’re forgetting a couple of cornerstone concepts:

1. They were so focused on their conversion strategy that they forgot about their main goal — SELLING.
This company in business to sell product — first and foremost — not accrue email addresses. Having a nice email list can help with long-term relationship building and potential sales, but by restricting access to the site unless a visitor forks over personal information makes it impossible for visitors to shop without making a commitment of some kind — which is bad for business (and for the user experience, as we’ll soon see).

Why not let me shop and then have me sign up to become a member when I’m ready to complete the transaction? Attaining my email at the purchasing stage makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? After I’ve had a chance to peruse the site, see what kinds of products you have, and place some in my cart? In this case, becoming a member and sharing my email feels a lot more natural.

2. They forgot about providing the very best user experience possible.
The second problem here is this conversion methodology — disallowing me from shopping the site unless I hand over personal information — is a poor user experience for the visitor. User experience is the positive, negative or neutral experience a visitor has online, or in the analog world for that matter. And when a visitor arrives, and is immediately faced with a brick wall to entering the site — it’s not going to make anyone feel comfortable or welcome, and it’s certainly not going to build trust.

What this company is doing breaks a cardinal rule … they’re making it all about themselves and their goals, instead of focusing on their visitors’ needs. Essentially, there’s an initial ask of each and every first-time visitor — a demand for something — without offering anything tangible in return. Visitors can only assume that if they sign up they’ll start receiving potentially unwanted emails from this company — and they don’t even know what’s for sale on the site!

As you can see, when it comes to website conversion, it’s important for an organization to understand what their top goals are, and how they can best connect with their customers and potential customers to attain those goals in an ethical way.

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Eliminating distraction is part of the essentialism philosophy. The less distraction we experience, the better chance we have of focusing on what’s really important.

In order to eliminate distraction, we must first identify what’s essential and what’s non-essential. Then, we then have to cut out the non-essential distractions.

According to Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, “the Latin root of the word decision — cis or cid — literally means to cut … Since, ultimately, having fewer options actually makes a decision ‘easier on the eye and the brain,’ we must summon the discipline to get rid of options or activities that may be good, or even really good, but that get in the way.”

This is true in life, and on your website.

Contemplating the art of cutting out distraction made me think of the user experience (UX). Specifically, making things “easier on the eye and brain” is a cornerstone of the UX philosophy. Good UX makes it so a website visitor doesn’t have to think because we’ve removed the distraction.

If you’ve ever been on a website that had three navigations, half-a-dozen calls-to-action, and a slide show, you know what I mean.

I’m talking about something like this …

Think about the user experience on your website. Do you have opportunity to “get rid of options or activities that may be good, or even really good, but that get in the way?” Do you have more than 1-3 calls-to-action muddying the user experience? How about a slide show, or multiple navigations?

These are only a few of the ways distraction can creep into your website. But if you take a look, and talk with your team about what’s really essential, you’ll be able to cut out the distraction and improve the UX of your website.

As you may have guessed, this strategy has a way of improving your website conversion, as well.

Need help with the UX and conversion strategies on your website?
Feel free to contact Cuppa SEO anytime to schedule your complimentary consultation.

For more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO …

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We all face trade-offs in our professional and personal lives.

When we choose to stop working and spend time with family or friends, it’s a trade-off. When we decide to stay up an extra two hours to get that work done, instead of going to sleep, it’s a trade off.

In each instance, we’re choosing one thing over another, which is why figuring out which is most essential in life, and in business, is so important. If we trade-off something really important for something that’s less important — but begging for our attention — that can have long-lasting repercussions.

In his book, Essentialism, Greg McKeown talks about the “reality of trade-offs: we can’t have it all or do it all. If we could, there would be no reason to evaluate or eliminate options.” I agree.

Greg goes on to say, “Once we accept the reality of trade-offs we stop asking how can I make it all work, and start asking the more honest question which problem do I want to solve?’”

What this Has to Do with Your Website

How about EVERYTHING?

Your website is a lot like your personal and professional life — it can’t do everything. And yet, many businesses and web design firms try and make it do just that with strategies like:

• Multiple navigations
• Social media buttons front-and-center on the homepage
• An egregious amount of calls-to-action
• Pop Ups
• Carousels (Sliders)
• A website that’s over designed, as opposed to designed for a stellar user experience (UX)

I’m not saying every website possesses all of these attributes, but a high percentage of sites contain one or more of them.

Why? Because not enough trade-offs were made — or more specifically, trade-offs were made (intentionally or unintentionally) in favor of the non-essential. Bad for your website, and bad for your business.

The most successful trade-offs are deliberate and well thought out.

Let’s evaluate each of the four web design strategies mentioned above and how we can make more essential trade-offs for each …

MULTIPLE NAVIGATIONS

Typically, multiple navigation bars, or primary and secondary navigation bars can be tricky and difficult for the user to navigate — which means a bad user experience.
Let’s take a look at a site with multi-navigation hierarchies that can create a poor UX for a visitor …

Navigation #1 & 2
In the above example, #1 is the primary navigation. Then you’ve got a secondary nav above it.
Already, the user’s focus is split in two — at least for a few seconds, which can be enough to confuse or distract someone. Not the desired effect.

Navigation #3
But this website isn’t done yet. The third navigation (#3) sits above the secondary nav. This is the search box and social buttons. We’ll talk about this next in the Social Media Icons section.

Navigation #4
Nav #4 is an advertisement for Advil. And although it’s not technically part of the navigation (it’s a call-to-action), I’m counting it here because it is taking up prime real estate where your primary navigation should be!

Navigation #5
This navigation sits mid-page, disjointed from the primary navigation. Nav #5 contains news-centric information. Something that could easily be communicated through adding “News” to the primary nav, along with a dropdown menu to accommodate each tab.

At this point, the visitor’s focus has potentially been split five times — and that’s not even counting the slider they use for multiple hero images (bad for UX) and the other links and call-to-actions on the page.

SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS (NAVIGATION #3)

It’s typically a bad idea to place social buttons at the top of a web page like this for two reasons:

• Social buttons add another layer of navigation to the site. Now the user’s focus is split into three. What is the purpose of those social buttons? To bring someone to one of your social media platforms, right? As we’ll see in Part 4 of this book, social media — very often — is a tool that helps drive people TO YOUR WEBSITE.
  
• When you place your social buttons right up at the top of your page, in addition to competing with your primary navigation — it also runs the risk of directing someone AWAY from your website.
  When this happens, you’re directing traffic the wrong way! Once we’ve got someone on our website, the last thing we want to do is have them leave! More on this in Part 4, but I wanted to address, albeit briefly here, too.

MULTIPLE CALLS-TO-ACTION

To achieve high conversion on your website, your call-to-action needs to be clear. Notice that I said “call-to-action,” not “calls-to-action.” Too often, websites offer way too many calls-to-action to customers (bad for UX), when they should only be providing one or two. Lucky’s menu is the perfect metaphorical example of a successful call to action. It’s clear, easy to understand and it wasn’t 16 pages long like the menus we’ve all had to fumble through at a diner.

When we offer only one or two calls-to-action, we wind up providing a better user experience, and in turn have a greater chance of having the customer take action.

In other words, avoid this …

POP UPS

Pop ups are poor for UX because they’re an interruption from what people came to your site for. Plus, they make a visitor have to stop and think about what the pop up says, and if it’s relevant or not to them. In other words, it adds another layer of thinking and decision making to the process — which breaks the “don’t make me think” rule.

And they’re annoying.

Yes, pop ups provoke visitors to feel annoyed. Why would you want to intentionally annoy visitors when you’re trying to convert them into customers? There are better ways to engage.

CAROUSELS (SLIDE SHOWS)

Website carousels, also referred to as slideshows or rotating offers, are something we find on a lot of websites. But they’re a bad user experience and they’re bad for conversion.

As an organization, it’s always tempting to give MORE information on one’s website. But more information can often have the opposite effect of what was intended.

Carousels make your visitor think harder. Every new rotating banner is new information that makes the viewer have to think, and even if that’s for only a few seconds, that’s a few seconds too many.

Yes, you should assume your customers are intelligent, and yes — you should also acknowledge they’re overwhelmed and super busy. As every new offer slides into view, you’re giving them more work to do. They’ve got to digest it, then decide if it’s more important to them than the previous offer(s). And then, after four slides, they’re asking “what was the first one again,” and possibly wondering how they get back to a previous offer.

Instead of carousels, use a single image for better UX. Then, figure out the top one to three (maximum) things your visitor needs (address those pain points) and make them easy to find calls-to-action.

OVERDESIGN

The following type of site is often a lot of fun for a designer to build, as it provides opportunity to be really creative. But it’s bad for UX because it’s really hard for the visitor to easily locate the exact information they need. The type of site in our example is called a parallax site, but there are many over-designed sites that aren’t parallax that still have moving backgrounds, and animations that pop onto the screen from out of no where.

Sites like this can be very unsettling for the viewer who’s looking for “solid footing” as soon as they arrive on your site. What I mean by this is that website visitors, mostly unconsciously, have a need to understand the lay of the land when they arrive on a website. They want to feel grounded, and be able to quickly understand where they are without having to think about it.

I hope these examples help you trade-off non-essentials for essentials on your website!

Need some help?
If you’re looking to make improvements like this on your site, but need some assistance, feel free to contact Cuppa SEO anytime. We’d be happy to discuss how we can help improve your web design.

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

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Slideshows are a commonplace strategy for  sharing more information through a series of sliding imagery/offers on a homepage.

We’ve all seen them. Each slide sits front and center for a few seconds, and then it’s gone.

Avoid this strategy on your website, as it’s bad for conversion.

Website conversion is a strategy that takes a website visitor from where they are, to where you want them to go.

When we offer too many options for where we want to lead people, it causes them to think. And although thinking is usually a good thing, we want to avoid unnecessary brain work on our website because it can easily lower the user experience. And when the user experience is damaged, conversion can often be a casualty.

To avoid bombarding visitors with offers, you can ask yourself one simple question: what are the top one or two things we want a website visitor to do?

This is not always easy to answer, especially if you sell a lot of products or services.

If this is the case, it’s good to employ the 80/20 rule. What 20% of your products or services account for 80% of your business? if you’ve got a lot of services/products, then identify the top performing product or services categories, instead.

Write them down.

Essentially, the goal is to pare down your top products/services to 2 or 3, and then create a strategy to present them on your homepage in a way that avoids slideshows.

This is not always easy, but it’s been proven that providing less options, in a clear and easy to digest way, helps improve conversion rates. And that means more people buying product, or scheduling a consultation to discuss your services.

Think of it this way.  Which is easier to digest and remember?

1. My name is Joey and I run a web design firm
   OR …
2. My name is Joey Donovan Guido, and I’m originally from New York. I have two kids, a cat, and a beautiful wife. I run a web design firm that specializes in SEO, UX, conversion and Adwords, and I’ve been blogging for over 10 years. I like Apple products and mid-century modern design.

As you can see, the more information presented, the more difficult it is to retain, and the less clear my message becomes.

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