As per the reports of Web Experts, 60 percent of users spend less than 14 seconds on any Blog. If they see your site simple and interesting to read they get engaged, So to keep them engaged and attract more visitors you need to have user friendly websites design. And surely this tricks always works.
My dear friends when user land on your site, first and foremost ting they look for simplicity to read, if it comfortable for them to read, they stays. When more readers attract to your website it turns to be a successful websites.
Once the users are comfortable with the design, they start exploring your site for content and here the role of content play a big role.
Forbes.com said in one of its article that in business interactions, for making good impression we have only seven seconds. The can also be applied to your blog.
If the theme of your blog appears less professional, attracting more visitors would be difficult. It will throw readers away instantly the same way your dressing might when you enter a business meeting. What if your reader is much confused by reading content, not sure what to look at first? If a reader can’t find the answer he is searching and even not able to navigate your site well, I am sure readers will not return to your site again and directly traffic is increased.
So, you know your blog design matters in order to make a good first impression. What techniques exactly can you use to have most user friendly websites?
#Whitespace Utilization
The area around paragraph, graphics and text is called Whitespace. The continuous written content makes eyes tired, so after writing some paragraphs leave spaces of some line, it helps your readers feel comfortable while reading.
Whitespaces also create concept of dividing paragraphs, using whitespace provide a clean look, make your website user friendly and attract more visitors, it shows readers that it is a separate portion. This method provides readers the easiest way to search what they are looking for.
#Use Formatting for Important Words
Let me tell you and even you also do this, a blog’s visitor most of the time does not read your content word by word. If you have done this Hats Off to you, if belongs to a special group.
Instead of reading all content of your webpage they look for important phrases and choose the website accordingly. This is the point, where whitespace play very important role and make easy search for readers.
There are others method too, you can opt for easy search ability some are listed below:
- Use heading and subheading.
- Keep paragraphs short.
- Use bold for important keyword.
- Use quotes.
- Use background colors for paragraphs.
- Make sidebar important text larger.
#Use Minimum Color
Successful websites does not uses more colors that make reading uncomfortable, it also look unprofessional. Use uniform color to all your pages. Using rainbow pattern sounds good theoretically but in practical if you embed in your website readers will not be able to decide where to go first. It will be good if you bold the important section with similar color.
To make user friendly websites/blogs it’s good to stick to 2-3 preferred color on website. Be sure to use dark color content on light background.
#Sidebar should be clean
To attract more visitors most of the newbie activate extra sidebars, which only confuse the readers where to look first. Moreover, if you have active sidebar that you don’t need then quickly remove them as their presence only confuses readers. It only messes up your site with not needed content. But few sidebars are worth to be active:
- Search bar
- Subscription feed
- Social media icons to follow
- Categories
- Recent post
You can also advertise on sidebar, but don’t make it much as it appears nuisance.
When I install WordPress, without any pause I remove calendar and recent comments widget. They are worth of removing. It looks good when sidebar has only useful widgets. As on whichever widgets reader lands she/he will feel useful.
I only want advice you to limit your sidebar widget and place only useful widgets on your website. This also makes your site to open faster.
#Loading Speed attract more visitors
This is also a main aspect of user friendly websites and helps in attracting more visitors. Most of the time visitors leaves your site because it doesn’t loaded within reasonable time. The loading time affects a lot in the statistics of any websites. The less load time directly reduces the bounce rate. Below are some tips to lessen your websites load time.
- Choose better hosting such as DreamHost, Bluehost, Siteground, SmallOrange etc.
- Have premium theme such as Genesis, Elegant themes, MythemeShop etc.
- Use cache Plugin such as WP Super cache and W3 total cache.
#Visual Content
Embedding media such images and videos are another effective way to attract more visitors to your website. Instead of reading long paragraphs people love watching videos and images. But always use images optimizer so that it’s size doesn’t affect load time of website.
#Use Navigation Smartly
Instead of bunching all of your post on home it is better to organize them in categories and title page, smartly place your post under appropriate category. This simple trick help user to find the things they are searching for.
The most important page you should keep on top navigation panel. The pages like home, about and contact page must be visible to everyone very easily you can put then important page to categories and or in drop down list.
Always keep in mind do not put many page at top navigation panel, it helps user to find the topic easier on blog. If you are using a mobile responsive theme then I am sure you have user friendly websites but above mentioned efforts are necessary.
We all know mobile user are growing every minute , now people use mobile apps to access the Internet more than they use internet on Desktop. With increasing mobile user in world your website need to be more comfortable in terms of using. Growing mobile responsive themes are bid to attract more visitors.
People using mobile will only surf your blog when it is easy to navigate because all the time people find hard to carry laptop. Remember people sitting on bus, train and taxis mostly carry mobile only.
In terms of introduction a responsive theme is one which detects what type of device reader is using and adjust the website navigation according to it. When reader use any device like tablet, mobile a responsive theme re-size the images, adjust navigation bar and put sidebar appropriately. Using responsive theme always increase your blog reader’s number.
Setting up responsive site is not very difficult now as many plugins are available – such as WP touch Mobile Plugin. But nowadays many responsive themes are available you can install one of them.
When you got less than 2 seconds to create impression on your reader and do not let your reader go away from your blog then make sure you follow my above tips.
Start from top my post and thoroughly and inbuilt all these tips on your blog and even on business blog, I am sure you blog will rock on!
Do let me know others way to attract more visitors to your blog and how to have user friendly websites design via comments.