The Importance of Website Usability For Small Businesses

On the internet, a company’s web presence is the only factor on which a user can form a judgment or an impression about the company. A website is the primary point of contact between the brand and the visitor. So naturally, if the website is convenient and usable, the visitor will achieve their goal through using it and if it’s not, the visitor will leave. The decision to stay or leave is made fairly quickly. Believe it or not, the Website Standards Association estimates it to a grand total of barely 10 seconds. This is an incredibly short amount of time for companies, especially small businesses, to create and maintain a positive user experience and retain customers.

Website usability is defined as the degree of ease of use of a website for visitors. It encompasses minimal effort, high speed of achieving results, and a simplified, pleasant, and safe interaction. When web designers in Kuwait build websites with the business in mind, even though they prove to be informational, they fail to provide the level of engagement, usability, and functionality that is generally desired by visitors. Employing a user experience (UX) design instead, by focusing on the users, entails trying to align a website’s look and feel with the needs and expectations of an audience. “Design” here goes beyond graphical representation and indicates structure, flow, content organization, and the ease of finding information. Of course, a creative website design that incorporates your business’s ideas and aesthetic is pivotal and central to the website, but the visitors’ needs should always take priority.

This is why it’s important for web design companies in Kuwait to enhance and maintain website usability:

• The more easy and efficient it is for visitors to use your website and complete the tasks they came for, the higher the chance of them returning in the future and becoming a customer. In the e-commerce industry, poor usability of an online store can lead to a loss of 50% of its customers.
• Having a user-friendly website with high performance requires less frequent website maintenance and takes away less time from other business responsibilities, especially for small businesses who don’t have a dedicated web developer in their staff.
• Ease of website use along with superiority of content and functionality increases the likelihood that visitors will share and recommend your website to other potential customers.
• A well-performing navigable website will result in fewer customer service emails and calls, reducing your support costs, and increasing sales. Additionally, if you’re an e-commerce business, you will get fewer returns.

Professional web design companies in Kuwait follow certain usability principles that help combat visitor dissatisfaction and create a positive, engaging, and productive user experience. This is how you can start:

1. Structure the Content

   Your web design should be creative, but also have neat, well-defined, and easy to navigate pages. Creating a list of important pages and internal sections beforehand will prevent you from creating new and confusing ones during the design process. Any basic web page should have the following structure:

   • A homepage that functions as the cover of your website and explains clearly what your company offers.
   • Some history or background about the company that gives the users an idea of where you come from.
   • A detailed list and description of your products and services.
   • All of your contact information including phone numbers, email addresses, locations on Google Maps, and a contact form.

2. Keep it Clean and Clear

   Use of any texts, images, and other graphic components should work to facilitate the user’s experience with the website, help them easily find what they’re looking for, and should never function as a distraction. The different contents on a website should be separated and logically classified. Also, your web designers in Kuwait should try to maintain a consistent design throughout the different web pages.

   Beware of using industry jargon by assuming that everyone is familiar with it. To test this, ask a friend who doesn’t belong to the industry to review the text and see if they understand the terminology. Opt for simple and clear language, and choose images that are original and complement your text.

3. Use Menus & Links

   Menus do a great job of keeping the website clean and reminding the users where they are and how they can access other pages or links. They should be perfectly visible, accessible, and placed strategically. A maximum of about 7 menu items are recommended. Other items can be added in drop-downs or secondary menus.

   You can also use hyperlinks, which are usually made between two web pages on the same website, to improve and ease navigation.

   You might even want to implement the three-click rule of website navigation, which states that any information on a website should be reachable within three clicks or less.

4. Make it Shareable

   If you’re using a multi-channel marketing strategy for your business, don’t let it go to waste. People love knowing more about a brand through its different social media channels. So don’t be afraid to plug in your Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc. on the header or footer of your website. This will make interaction with visitors easier and increase your potential customers.

5. Include Call-to-Actions

   This is the one part of your website that should be the most clear and concise. It is your best bet for incentivizing purchases. Call-to-actions must be super easy to follow and visitors should know exactly where to click. They should be in line with your business objectives. For example, use terms like, “Buy your product HERE” or “Click here to consult us”.

6. Enhance Speed & Performance

   Start with hiring high quality and reputed web hosting companies in Kuwait. Esure that during promotional demands and holiday seasons, the web host is able to handle the traffic that is anticipated. Regularly test both desktop and mobile performance of your website. Frequent inaccessibility and long load times contribute to bad user experiences and are among the top reasons for visitors to leave.

7. Get Feedback & Test

   The most valuable feedback you can get is from your visitors and customers who are the ones clicking around your pages. Obtain user feedback including any problems or issues they faced while using the site and any ideas they might have for improvement. Another place to consult is your website engagement metrics, wherein a low engagement rate may indicate lack of clarity or performance of your website. However, remember that most people will not even bother leaving feedback. If the problem is big, they will just leave and go to another website.

   Which is why it’s incredibly important to invest in usability testing. Have people from outside your team and company perform an objective test of your website. This way, you will be able to detect usability issues before any damage to your reputation.

Following web usability principles can produce measurable changes in the quality of your website, which can improve conversion, and increase sales, without raising your marketing budget. It gives small businesses and companies with limited resources the power to surpass even large organizations in their attractiveness to visitors. Design Master, among the top website design and development companies in Kuwait, can help you with designing, testing, and maintaining a website that is user-centric. If you wish to reap the benefits of a website that honors your business aesthetic and creative vision along with the needs and expectations of your target audience, contact us today!

You can also check out our website here: https://www.design-master.com/#Homepage