[Intermediate – 110] User Experience and Content
The Best Tips to Improve UX and Marketing Strategy
There was a time when content strategy and user experience in website design operated independently of one another.
Those days are over. Now, having a cohesive user experience and content strategy is key to a great marketing approach.
What is user experience?
User experience is colloquially called UX amongst marketers, bloggers, and website developers. In its most basic sense, UX refers to the usability of a website: ease of navigation, readability, accessibility, and more.
A much more specific definition of user experience refers to how pleasing a website is to the person using it. In this sense, user experience incorporates design and color, layout and typography, efficiency and speed, and content and graphics.
Essentially, improving the user experience of a website is equivalent to increasing the level of joy user feels when engaging with a website. User experience is a highly critical part of creating a great website, and, therefore, keeping customers and website visitors happy and active with a brand.
What is content strategy?
Content strategy is very different from user experience, although there’s no doubt that a great content strategy can definitely improve a user experience, and is a key component of great UX.
While UX refers to the functionality, design, and usability of an entire website, content strategy refers to the planning, development, and publication of information (content) for a website.
The content strategy includes both written text, graphics, and media including photos, videos, infographics, SlideShare decks, etc.
The majority of marketers and business owners are very familiar with the importance of a great content strategy and work to employ one within their own brands.
Benefits of a Cohesive User Experience and Content Strategy
While UX definitely has a large design component that can’t be ignored, UX and content strategy often are individual elements that form an overall cohesive goal: to create something great for the consumer.
In this way, a website with a great content strategy that’s combined with a fantastic user experience approach can:
- Engage the target customer early on
- Reinforce brand authority and trust
- Act as a source of valuable information and knowledge
- Help a website be found through organic means (like SEO)
Because of the obvious benefits of a cohesive UX and content strategy, make sure to always keep content marketing and UX principles in mind.
Think about the attractiveness of content/page layout, how stimulating a page/piece of content is, and how engaging it is or whether it is meeting brand goals.
Best Tools and Tips for Improving UX Design and Content Strategy
Content strategy and UX need to work together for an optimal website and brand performance.
Here’s are some tips and user experience tools to combine the two in an unbeatable combination that will enhance your website immediately:
- Always Plan Ahead: Always think about your audience needs first. Who are they, how do you plan to target them, and how you can make your content extremely buyer-focused.
- Remember, a customer at different stages of the buying process is going to have completely different needs, so the content that you provide for each buying stage should be distinct and specific – doing so will greatly improve user experience.
- Design Your Content Well: What your content communicates it critical, as is readability and usability.
- If the font for your content is too small, big, bright, or light, your reader won’t be able to extract any of its valuable meaning
- Content that loads too slowly (think large image files and running to many applications) may frustrate the user. This breaks the process of consumption, and they may click off of your content without completing the action you intended for them.
- Check for broken links as to ensure valuable information is efficiently provided to the reader, and make sure to break up giant lumps of text. Without subheadings, the user won’t be able to scan the content, will feel completely overwhelmed, and jump ship early.
- You want to make sure you are creating content that is both high quality and is laid out/designed well–it’s crucial for a solid user experience.
- Make People Love Visiting Your Site: The goal of a great content strategy is to encourage more people to read your content, and to drive traffic to your site. The end hope is to increase conversions and sales.
- In addition to making sure that your content is engaging and easy to read by designing your content well, you also need to make people love visiting your site by creating the best overall user experience possible.
Small things like making sure your logo is clickable (to your homepage) create an easier way for the user to navigate back and somewhere else on the site.
That means you have to make sure that content is findable from your website’s homepage. Style your main links properly, and make user tasks straightforward and simple.
A user should never feel lost or confused on your website – instead, they should be able to easily navigate and find everything that they’re looking for.
What’s the Importance of Improving the User Experience?
If a visitor to your website has a poor experience, they’re extremely unlikely to visit your website again, let alone make a purchase on your website or engage with your brand any further.
On the other hand, a user that has a fantastic experience on your website will not only become a long-term customer but will be more likely to develop trust in your brand and recommend your brand to friends and family.
If you want to engage your customers, build a reputation as a brand with authority, and increase your sales, you need to start thinking about improving user experience.