37 Elements of Effective User Engagement #5 – Clean Web Design

Welcome to Part 5 of my user engagement series where we will be discussing how to increase the user experience by implementing a clean web design. A clean website design is very important because having a clear navigational menu, clearing cutter and improving load speed will help users locate information quickly without any delays. The quicker they find information, the better it is for you because they will directly be able to share or comment leading to increased traffic and more topic ideas. It’s amazing how a clean website design can help double your traffic within a few days. However, I often find people focusing on the wrong elements when designing a website. They always focus on the fonts and color which are both crucial, but NOT a priority.

If you haven’t read parts 1-4, then I encourage all of you to start their then read this content. Let’s get started.

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Navigational Menu

Having a clear navigational menu at the top is imperative to increase user engagement. By providing a menu at the top where people can find categories and links, you’re increasing the chances of them finding the information they are looking for. If they arrived on your page through search engines then MOST likely they notice your menu and read other content on your website. I often see people putting menus in the wrong place or NOT adding the right information so decrease user engagement on their website. When creating a menu, it’s important to have the right information like home, about us, contact us, categories and other niche related information. Here are a few more tips:

  • Make sure they can find the menu and can clearly see it on your website
  • Make sure it displays on every page no matter where the user is skimming
  • Make the fonts readable
  • Make sure it matches with the rest of your website

A navigational menu has been proven to increase user engagement by double and increase the overall time a visitor is on your page.

Clean Up Clutter

I’ve visited a lot of websites in my niche and notice the same thing over and over again. The blogger simply has too much going on throughout their page and this can be very distracting to the visitor. This is a quick way to force people to leave your website because with clutter comes an automatic feeling of NOT being able to find what you came looking for. I encourage my clients to remove as much clutter as possible and this means to stick to the basics. Here are a few effective tips.

  • Always stick to what’s important on the page like the content, images, and videos.
  • Space out wording so it’s easy to read
  • Adjust font size and color
  • Remove too many banners
  • Divide up your content so it’s easy to read

Clutter is an easy fix so make sure you go through your content sticking to the basics.

The Layout

What do I mean by layout? The layout refers to the way your website is displayed in terms of content, boxes, and footer. Having these elements in the right place makes it easier for visitors to read your content and skim through. Over the years, the proven layout with the highest engagement is having a right side-bar, text on the left, navigation on the top and footer on the bottom. This also means to have no more than 2 banners on the page and everything must be relevant because this stick to the main point of your page. I see many people messing around with the layout having a sidebar on the left making it hard for people to read the content. Keep the layout simple and always focus on the user experience. You are blogging because it’s your passion, but as a business it’s your visitors who will define your success.

Fonts and Color

Browsers will translate fonts differently so it’s important the ones you choose will be displayed correctly no matter if the visitor is using Chrome, Explorer or Firefox. From my experience Arial, Tahoma, Verdana and a few others display perfect no matter what browser the user is arriving on your page with. When designing your page always run as many tests as possible to see how each font translates so the user experience isn’t affected. Next, the colors matter because you want to use those which are easy to see and NOT hard on the eyes. The most important is obviously the color of your text which should be black. For links, I like to use the common color of blue and try to stay away from bright colors as they can be very hard on the user’s eyes.

Keep in mind these tips:

  • Colors must match throughout the entire website
  • Keep them large enough so it’s easy to read
  • Font’s must display correctly on every page
  • Links must be visible because this increases user time on site and them visiting other pages

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