How to improve the User Experience on your website, step by step
Photo by Michelangelo Buonarroti on Pexels
Forget trying to make your website simple
The number one reason you can’t improve the user experience (UX) on your website is it’s too simple.
Ironically, a simple website gives you no control over the UX at all.
I want to teach you how to zoom in on the user experience so you can take control of your website and get better results.
Instead of seeing the user experience as a few simple steps, we’re going to identify and list out every single one. That might sound complicated, but it’s a game-changer.
Simple, Complex or Complicated?
First, let’s define a few key terms.
If you’ve got something that can’t be broken down into smaller parts, you might say it’s simple. Another word for that is complex.
Complex things are hard to improve because there are no parts to fix, replace or remove.
For example, an omelette is complex.
Yes, it’s simple—just a few eggs—but once you crack those eggs and mix them together, there’s no going back.
On the other hand, if you can break something up into its parts and put it back together, then it’s complicated.
Complicated things have unlimited potential because when you can improve the individual parts, you can improve the whole, over and over again.
For example, a 747 is complicated.
Sure, there are lots of parts, and it would take a number of experts to put one together. But if you had all the parts, and you had enough qualified people to help, you could pull one apart and bolt it back together, piece by piece. Yes, actually.
Something that’s complicated can be reduced to a series of steps, mastered, and put back together again.
And that’s exactly what you want to do with your website.
Because getting people to click is complicated. Getting people to open your emails, book an appointment, buy something… it’s all complicated.
Your website presents a series of micro-decisions for your visitors. And the more you break them up and plan them out, the more control you have over your success.
Getting People to Do Anything on Your Website is Merely Complicated
Sure it seems like there are lots of steps, but if you break it down and understand the parts, you can improve them all, one by one.
Small micro improvements will lead to exponential macro success.
You can get more people to take more action on your website by making it more complicated.
Here’s how:
Map out all the steps from beginning to end
Break up each step into its parts
Make every single step lead smoothly and effortlessly to the next step
Let’s look at that in a bit more detail.
1. Map Out All The Steps From Beginning to End
Let’s say you’ve got an exciting new promotion and you’re sending out an email to drive more people to your website so they can buy your product.
That might look something like this…
Email
Website
Purchase
Not bad, but it’s not clear how we get from one step to the next. We can do better. Perhaps we can break it down a little further…
Email
Landing page
Product page
Add to cart
Enter payment details
Purchase confirmation
Email confirmation
Delivery
That’s better. We have more than doubled the number of steps now. And the process is more visible.
But, how does a visitor get from the email to the landing page? Why would they want to?
Do they open the email, then “magic happens”, and the next thing you know, they’re at your website, credit card in hand?
Probably not.
If we want to be successful, we’ll need to understand the micro-decisions in much more detail. That’s where the next part comes in.
2. Break Up Each Step Into its Parts
Keep breaking up each step until you can see all the component parts.
Each part probably has some assumptions baked in. So each part could probably be ironed out just a little to make things even easier for the customer.
As you hone in on each part, yes, things get more complicated. And that’s exactly what you want.
Let’s see how we can make our list more complicated…
Email Subject
Email Contents
Email Call to Action
Landing Page Headline
Landing Page Content
Add to Cart Button
Enter Payment details
Buy
Confirmation
Email Confirmation
Delivery Update via SMS
Delivery is Completed
Confirm Delivery and Thank Customer via SMS
The buyer opens the box and weeps tears of joy
The buyer tells all their friends how great we are
The buyer’s friends see a promotion link in their Instagram feed
Website flooded with new buyers
The original three-part process, from email to website to purchase, has now become seventeen individual steps. And we could keep going, breaking those down even further.
By stretching out the steps in detail, it helps us spot assumptions hiding between any of the steps and it helps us make each step as clear as it can possibly be.
And then we’re ready for the final step.
3. Make every single step lead smoothly and effortlessly to the next step
I don’t believe in magic.
When we assume people will get from one step to the next—rather than planning how—we give up control. We’re hoping something magic happens. And that’s scary.
It’s probably because we’ve ignored some important details. Or we’re overwhelmed and want to give up.
But a 747 doesn’t rely on magic. You merely put this bit here and that bit there, step by step, until it’s done.
It’s the same for your website.
It’s simply a matter of thinking carefully at each step about how you will get a person to the next step.
Let’s Begin with the Email Subject
The only job of the Email’s Subject is to get a person to open the email. That’s it. You’re not trying to convince anyone to buy yet. That comes later. First, you have to catch their eye so they’ll open the email.
So you want to make that subject line super clear and relevant. And you want to add a little intrigue too, so they’re curious enough to open it.
Next Up is the Email Content
The content has to hold their attention and encourage them to click the link.
What does the email’s content have to be to get people interested enough to look for the link? What does the Call to Action have to say to get them to click it?
And then what does the Landing Page Headline have to say to get them to consider your promotion?
And so on until you get all the way to the end, where your buyer is sitting there in a pool of their own tears, overcome with joy because your wonderful product finally arrived and now all their friends are rushing to buy too.
Not Hard. Merely Complicated.
So, there’s a bit of work to do. And it won’t be easy. But at least you can see what you need to work on because it’s merely complicated.
Whatever it is you’re trying to do, the best place to start is by breaking it down into steps. Keep breaking it up until you understand each step, and then make sure you know exactly how each step leads to the next. Then you’re in control.
I hope you find this process useful next time you’re faced with something that’s just a little bit complicated.
