Five reasons online businesses need a UX pro
In 2024, 20% of retail purchases are expected to be made online. And Nasdaq predicts that by 2040, that number will soar to 95%. So with an estimated 24 million online businesses around the globe, how do owners get their companies to stand out?
UX designers play a crucial role in addressing this question.
Here are 5 ways they can impact online business success.
1. Reduced bounce rates
Rejection in the world of web traffic is better known as your bounce rate. So if you can’t bear the thought of being left on read, you’ll want to enlist the help of a UX designer to ignite your digital glow up.
The official definition of a bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who navigate away from a website after only viewing one page. With a few tweaks, UX designers can keep visitors there for longer.
By improving aspects like loading time, mobile-friendliness, and information architecture, designers can encourage users to spend more time exploring or completing desired actions and less time clicking away.
2. Enhanced customer satisfaction and retention
A 2018 study from Salesforce Research found that 80% of customers believe the experience a company offers is just as important as the products and services it provides. This statistic underscores the importance of crafting user journeys that create positive emotional experiences, which UX designers foster through strategies like emotional design.
Do you feel a sense of pride when your Fitbit vibrates to notify you that you reached your daily step goal? That’s emotional design in action. And by incorporating these types of reward elements into apps, UX designers shape the overall customer experience and improve retention.
3. Higher conversion rates
When it comes to closing the deal, online businesses can’t overlook the impact of UX designers. By employing processes like personalization, designers can tailor content and features based on user behaviour, just like Amazon and Netflix do when they analyze your history and recommend products you’re likely to enjoy.
Coupling the personalization process with a call-to-action feature like a “buy now” button accentuates its impact and facilitates quick purchases.
In a world where technology enables us to summon so much from our fingertips, effective design should feel like a guiding hand—allowing us to easily navigate from the landing page to the checkout. Personalization and call-to-action design are just two of the many ways UX designers influence the likelihood of purchases and help boost conversion rates.
4. More informed decisions using data
Making key business decisions without tracking data is like throwing darts in the dark—you might hit the target, but you’re just as likely to miss completely. That’s why UX designers prefer to leverage data-gathering techniques to help business owners make informed decisions.
Through methods like A/B testing and tools like Google Analytics, designers track user behaviour to gather insights that inform the design of their websites. They then continually optimize these sites by regularly analyzing the key metrics they’ve acquired, a process that can also reveal users’ pain points, behaviours and preferences.
These are just a few of the reasons why modern managers are looking to leverage the expertise of UX designers in the digital future.
5. Boosted SEO rankings
A seamless user experience won’t just reduce the number of people leaving a site; it’ll also boost the number of visitors arriving through improved SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rankings.
The elements that diminish bounce rates also help a site rank higher in Google search. For instance, a clear information architecture and mobile-friendly design can allow Google to quickly crawl and index your site.
Another key metric in improving SEO ranking is the user’s average session duration. Longer sessions signal to Google that a website carries value, resulting in a higher ranking.
Learn more about Concordia's UX Certificate