Each August, we partner with friends and colleagues at The Forward Festival to share our monthly content with a new audience of entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofits. The Forward Festival is Wisconsin’s largest technology and entrepreneurship festival, attracting more than 5,000 attendees and serving as host for more than 30 events over 5 days every August.

Five Ways to Create a Better User Experience – So Website Visitors Stick Around!

Joey Donovan Guido is an expert in the areas of web design, SEO, user experience and website conversion. As the owner of Cuppa SEO Web Design, Joey has made a career of helping customers design websites that help them get found but also convert visitors into customers.

“It’s a three prong approach,” Joey said. “Search engine optimization, or SEO, brings relevant visitors to your site; if user experience is good, those visitors stick around; conversion methodology makes it as easy as possible for the visitor to take the next step in the process.”

Joey shared five ways to improve user experience on websites while removing noise and gaining results. View the event replay on the SMBMad Facebook page.

Navigation Dos and Don’ts

Joey said navigational tabs should be clean and present a clear hierarchy. When crafting a navigation bar, it should be easy to read, understand and avoid leaving the visitor with questions.

“Website clutter confuses people,” Joey said. “Visitors become entrenched in what’s different, losing sight of what you want them to do which is take the next step in becoming a customer.”

Be mindful of use of drop menus, fly outs and sandwich navigations. These should show clear organization and direction that makes sense as not to confuse the visitor. Additionally, Joey suggests using social media toolbars wisely.

“Oftentimes a website will drive people to social media,” Joey said. “The problem is, once they’re on social media they [get distracted] and all of a sudden we’ve lost them. I always encourage businesses to think carefully about how they want those social buttons to behave.”

Homepage and Subpage Layouts

When building a website, it is important to be mindful of clutter.

“With both subpages and homepages, we wanna make it minimalists but still somewhat engaging to the eye without it being confusing,” Joey said.

Joey suggests utilizing a captivating photo that is authentic and relative to your brand followed by a short copy that answer three questions above the scroll line:

• What is it?
• What does it do?
• How does it help me?

“These are three questions I’ve come up with over the years that works on any webpage, any blog post, any social media post,” Joey said. “Identifying these can go a long way in making products and services more palatable to that website visitor.”

Effective Calls-to-Action

When it comes to calls-to-action, Joey advises to look at your content like an introduction and a first date. Content like introductory videos introduce the visitor to your product or service and lets them learn what you are all about. Based on that introduction, you might decide to go on a “first date” or, rather, take the next step in the process.

“Answer those three questions and then put your call to action [above the scroll line],” Joey said. “If the visitor is already introduced to you, they might be ready to take action. But if they want to know more about you, they can continue to scroll to learn more, as well.”

According to Joey, this approach successfully addresses over 80 percent of the questions your visitors may have.

Thanks to SMBMad volunteer Cassie Sonnentag for writing this month’s event recap.

Nonprofit Spotlight:

Community Conservation Inc  works directly with communities living in biodiversity hotspots all around the world. It brings enthusiasm and information to local residents, highlighting the uniqueness of their area’s forests and wildlife, and then ask for the community’s help in protecting them. The organization has been catalyzing and supporting community-based organizations since 1989, representing over 200 villages in 14 countries and protecting over 1.24 million acres. It focuses efforts on rare habitats and endangered species, including primates, cranes, tigers, and turtles.

Learn more about community-based conservation at communityconservation.org.