UX Tips for Small Businesses
Whether it’s during the holiday season or any other time of the year, small business owners are always looking for an edge to help make their digital marketing efforts more effective and increase conversion rates.
Limited budgets and time always lead business owners having to make hard choices about where to put their efforts in order to best reach potential customers and target audiences.
We polled numerous partners and experts here at UpCity to get their recommendations, and virtually every one of them came back to the importance and impact of your small business website. Each of them had several UX tips and recommendations, and they emphasized how valuable and important your “home base” is in terms of converting customers and sales.
Here we’ve pulled some of the most impactful quotes and advice that they gave about UX design to help your small business continue to grow.
Mobile Website Design for User Experience
You’ve certainly heard the phrase “mobile-first design” before, and there’s good reason for it. As more and more people utilize mobile devices as their first point of contact for everything on the web, having spot-on functionality and a great looking site is more important than ever.
“If your small business’s website wasn’t designed with mobile in mind, you are already falling behind your competitors. It should be the case that anyone can logically and smoothly navigate between your web pages. And be aware that just because your site performs well on desktop doesn’t mean it performs well on mobile. So, constantly test your site and optimize where possible.” – Megan Marshall, Customer Success Coordinator & Content Specialist at WEBii
The numbers certainly back up and justify taking a mobile-first approach, and it can be one of the biggest “bang for your buck” moves that small businesses can make.
“According to studies, 60% of users will leave a website that isn’t mobile-friendly and head over to a competitor’s. Make sure that your website is responsive so it will automatically adjust to the size of the device being viewed, and use the Google Mobile-Friendly tool.” – Juan Pineda, Managing Director at Agile Digital Agency
As part of mobile-first and responsive design, one of the most impactful things to keep in mind is simply making sure that your site is easy to see and easy to read. Not all businesses manage to do this, and you can absolutely benefit.
“Always make sure your website is mobile-friendly. If your visitors have to pinch and zoom to read the text, they’re most likely to leave your site.” – Kimberly Ortiz, Owner of Boost Web Studio
Mobile-friendly UX design extends beyond readability, of course. Good user experience requires considering everything from your website’s design to the organization of information, link structures … basically everything that is a part of the customer experience.
“Keep in mind the limitation of screen sizes and make sure your website visitors can land where they need to and find info they need easily and quickly. This means developing a robust internal linking structure and making sure each page provides focused information.” – Xiao Faria daCunha, Founder of Westerlund, Co
Being aware of mobile usage is one of the keys, but also shouldn’t be the only consideration while designing your site. The best approach according to our panelists was responsive design. With proper use of responsive design, you can offer users on different devices an optimized experience that does an outstanding job of showcasing your brand, your products, and your services.
“It’s crucial that your business’s site doesn’t take too long to access on mobile networks. The biggest opportunity is reducing the size of your site’s images. Your site should detect if the browser supports WebP (a next-generation format that’s smaller than JPG and PNG) and deliver images in this format whenever possible. Since phones have smaller screens than desktops, your site should also detect a smaller screen and deliver lower resolution images as appropriate.” – Zach Samuels, Web Developer at Twin Silver Web Design
“We spend more time than ever before conducting business, buying groceries and other products, and searching for services on our phones. This should be enough reason to focus on your mobile site as a priority. It’s a relatively small step in the planning process that can yield massive results.” – Diana Vasile, Head of SEO at inSegment
User Experience Means Focusing on the User First
It may sound obvious, but the focus of any user experience efforts, including your web design, calls to action, site loading speed, and entire design process should be focused on the user. In other words, take the time to consider what your current and potential customers want or need, and ensure that your design or redesign process is focused on good UX practices that will work for your audience.
“Remember, it’s the USER experience, not YOUR experience. Many small businesses use their website to talk about themselves; their accomplishments, company story, etc. But it is much more important to talk about your customer, their problems, and how your service can make their life better. Make your customer the main focus point of the design and you will stand out from most of your competitors.” – Anastasiya Goers, Agency Owner at S&V Marketing
That focus on the user portion of user experience design is no different than the advice you frequently hear about all of your marketing efforts. Focusing on the customer, their needs, and the problems they encounter is a critical and valuable step in developing user-friendly websites, apps, social media content, and more.
“The best UX tip I can give to any business owner is to make sure they understand their customers first before trying to design anything. If you don’t know who your customer is, how will you ever be able to build something that meets their needs? Start with empathy.” – Shan Serran, CEO & Founder of Veewz
“The best way to create a great user experience is to focus on the customer first, such as thinking through the benefits your products or services will provide them. I know that sounds like common knowledge, but far too many websites focus on the features of their company instead.” – Dario Zadro, Web Strategist at Zadro Web
In terms of user focus, one piece of advice that you can’t hear too many times is to keep things simple. And our expert panelists came back to this point several times because of the incredible value in saying and showing things that customers can easily understand.
“KISS – keep it simple, but sweet. Good user products are simple to use and allow users to find the information users are looking for quickly and efficiently.” – Anjelika Kour, Managing Director at DD.NYC® (DigitalDesign.NYC)
“Humans have a super short attention span of only 8 seconds. Knowing this, as a small business you need to catch the website vistor’s attention with your key offerings, not lose it with unnecessary details. Make your content skimmable by making sure you have descriptive headlines and content separated into smaller paragraphs. Great copy is short, to the point, and speaks to your customers.” – Preston King, Owner of Underdogg Marketing
Whether you contract with an agency for testing or you have your in-house staff help you, be sure to take into consideration the usability of the site. Load times, landing page navigation, CTAs, and first impressions can tell you a lot about whether your website’s UX is becoming better and easier for real customers.
“User experience is all about simplicity. Simple words, simple messages, simple next steps. Confused people don’t buy, so be very clear about who you are and what the next steps are.” – Cedrick Webb, CEO of Smart Digital
You’ve likely also heard marketing experts suggest that the customer should be the “hero” of your story. And UX design is just one area where you can benefit from placing the customer in the “hero” scenario when it comes to your design and content.
“Your user is the hero of the story; you are simply the guide. The more you can build your user experience around your user, the more likely it is that they engage with your product. Instead of asking ‘what’s the best way this can be done,’ ask ‘what would be delightful for our users to interact with.’” – Greg Hatch, Owner and CMO at Fire Flower Apps
Although every business owner has a lot that they want to say, and although we all believe that it’s equally important, customer decisions are made in a matter of seconds. So when it comes to your UX redesign, content development, and so on, simplicity is really the number one virtue.
“Less is more! If users can’t understand the offer immediately, they will leave. So be precise, keep headlines to 6 words or less, use icons or visual aids to help get the message across, and make it easy for the user to take action.” – Stacie Benefield, Founder & Principal at Dynamic Design Solutions LLC
“A top priority of UX designers should be to consider the user journey and ease of navigation. UX design best practices should be integrated into your online presence such as the hierarchy of information, accessibility standards, and consistency of branding to create a memorable experience.” – Aidan Payne, Chief Executive Officer at Yesterday Design Co.
Additional UX Tips to Add to Your Marketing Strategy
Our panel of partners and experts had countless pieces of advice to offer as you begin the optimization of your site with your user experience in mind. And among them was something that can often get overlooked: UX research.
“Seek feedback from your users. Improving user experience requires you to actively collect feedback from your audience. Run surveys, run analytic tools on your website, and implement changes that improve user experiences for your users.” – Evan Holmgren, Co-Founder of Hammerhead
“It’s important to clearly define what users are looking to gain or what task they’re looking to complete when they interact with you. A great way to get to the bottom of this is through user research. You can use surveys and focus groups to beta test new products and features, and then do in-depth interviews if more expansive information is needed.” – Sophie Mann, Director of Content Strategy at encite branding + marketing + creative
Information is not the only type of content that can help improve your user experience. There are simple but effective additions you can make to your site that will add value and increase “stickiness” to keep customers engaged and get them interested in learning more.
“Don’t just provide your customers with a product or information; give them multiple ways to interact with your product or service. These can be created through widgets to enhance UX, and those widgets can also be optimized with headings and structured data, creating an SEO advantage when it comes to what Google refers to as ‘supplemental content.’” – Joshua Coffman, Founder of 502ads
Speaking of supplemental content, remember that your design and imagery play a very important role in the information you’re sharing and the user’s experience, too.
“Use visuals to guide users through your content. Include photos, videos, infographics, and other visual elements to break up text and add interest. Use calls to action (CTAs) to encourage users to take the next step, whether it’s contacting you, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase.” – Jose Gomez, CTO & CoFounder at Evinex
You’ve probably visited some websites personally where it seemed like the business was trying to fit everything imaginable onto the page. And that’s one of the key things to avoid, too. As with any good design, white space is very useful in helping to make pages not only visually pleasing, but more effective.
“Using white space helps customers know what you want them to look at and what you want them to do. At that same time, using too much white space could mean leaving out valuable information. The trick is to balance text and white space to highlight your most important user information.” – Nachum Langsner, Co-Founder & CMO at LocalBizGuru
As with most of your marketing efforts, at the end of the day the customer is the person who is most important throughout your UX process. Regardless of demographics, industry, or product, everything from UX optimization to content marketing and beyond comes back to understanding and addressing your client’s needs.
“Persona identification is a start, but knowing your audience can elevate your results. If you learn more about the motive behind each interaction, you can provide a better way to communicate with them. After all, each UX experience is a form of communication experience.” – CHRIS LO, Principal/Creative Director at Matcha Design
“Stop thinking that UX is about creating wireframes for your website. It’s about helping to pinpoint underlying problems and identifying or visualizing the best path to a solution.” – Brad Muncs, President & CEO of Symetris
Explore More UX Resources with UpCity
As you can imagine, the incredible advice and tips we gathered here are just the tip of the iceberg. Our partners and panelists have a wealth of knowledge to share when it comes to user experience, from just getting started to fine-tuned recommendations that can elevate any business. Whether your business is well established or you want to explore UX before you launch a new site, be sure to reach out to these UX partner firms and discover the advice and guidance they can offer.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Whether it’s during the holiday season or any other time of the year, small business owners are always looking for an edge to help make their digital marketing efforts more effective and increase conversion rates.
Limited budgets and time always lead business owners having to make hard choices about where to put their efforts in order to best reach potential customers and target audiences.
We polled numerous partners and experts here at UpCity to get their recommendations, and virtually every one of them came back to the importance and impact of your small business website. Each of them had several UX tips and recommendations, and they emphasized how valuable and important your “home base” is in terms of converting customers and sales.
Here we’ve pulled some of the most impactful quotes and advice that they gave about UX design to help your small business continue to grow.
Mobile Website Design for User Experience
You’ve certainly heard the phrase “mobile-first design” before, and there’s good reason for it. As more and more people utilize mobile devices as their first point of contact for everything on the web, having spot-on functionality and a great looking site is more important than ever.
“If your small business’s website wasn’t designed with mobile in mind, you are already falling behind your competitors. It should be the case that anyone can logically and smoothly navigate between your web pages. And be aware that just because your site performs well on desktop doesn’t mean it performs well on mobile. So, constantly test your site and optimize where possible.” – Megan Marshall, Customer Success Coordinator & Content Specialist at WEBii
The numbers certainly back up and justify taking a mobile-first approach, and it can be one of the biggest “bang for your buck” moves that small businesses can make.
“According to studies, 60% of users will leave a website that isn’t mobile-friendly and head over to a competitor’s. Make sure that your website is responsive so it will automatically adjust to the size of the device being viewed, and use the Google Mobile-Friendly tool.” – Juan Pineda, Managing Director at Agile Digital Agency
As part of mobile-first and responsive design, one of the most impactful things to keep in mind is simply making sure that your site is easy to see and easy to read. Not all businesses manage to do this, and you can absolutely benefit.
“Always make sure your website is mobile-friendly. If your visitors have to pinch and zoom to read the text, they’re most likely to leave your site.” – Kimberly Ortiz, Owner of Boost Web Studio
Mobile-friendly UX design extends beyond readability, of course. Good user experience requires considering everything from your website’s design to the organization of information, link structures … basically everything that is a part of the customer experience.
“Keep in mind the limitation of screen sizes and make sure your website visitors can land where they need to and find info they need easily and quickly. This means developing a robust internal linking structure and making sure each page provides focused information.” – Xiao Faria daCunha, Founder of Westerlund, Co
Being aware of mobile usage is one of the keys, but also shouldn’t be the only consideration while designing your site. The best approach according to our panelists was responsive design. With proper use of responsive design, you can offer users on different devices an optimized experience that does an outstanding job of showcasing your brand, your products, and your services.
“It’s crucial that your business’s site doesn’t take too long to access on mobile networks. The biggest opportunity is reducing the size of your site’s images. Your site should detect if the browser supports WebP (a next-generation format that’s smaller than JPG and PNG) and deliver images in this format whenever possible. Since phones have smaller screens than desktops, your site should also detect a smaller screen and deliver lower resolution images as appropriate.” – Zach Samuels, Web Developer at Twin Silver Web Design
“We spend more time than ever before conducting business, buying groceries and other products, and searching for services on our phones. This should be enough reason to focus on your mobile site as a priority. It’s a relatively small step in the planning process that can yield massive results.” – Diana Vasile, Head of SEO at inSegment
User Experience Means Focusing on the User First
It may sound obvious, but the focus of any user experience efforts, including your web design, calls to action, site loading speed, and entire design process should be focused on the user. In other words, take the time to consider what your current and potential customers want or need, and ensure that your design or redesign process is focused on good UX practices that will work for your audience.
“Remember, it’s the USER experience, not YOUR experience. Many small businesses use their website to talk about themselves; their accomplishments, company story, etc. But it is much more important to talk about your customer, their problems, and how your service can make their life better. Make your customer the main focus point of the design and you will stand out from most of your competitors.” – Anastasiya Goers, Agency Owner at S&V Marketing
That focus on the user portion of user experience design is no different than the advice you frequently hear about all of your marketing efforts. Focusing on the customer, their needs, and the problems they encounter is a critical and valuable step in developing user-friendly websites, apps, social media content, and more.
“The best UX tip I can give to any business owner is to make sure they understand their customers first before trying to design anything. If you don’t know who your customer is, how will you ever be able to build something that meets their needs? Start with empathy.” – Shan Serran, CEO & Founder of Veewz
“The best way to create a great user experience is to focus on the customer first, such as thinking through the benefits your products or services will provide them. I know that sounds like common knowledge, but far too many websites focus on the features of their company instead.” – Dario Zadro, Web Strategist at Zadro Web
In terms of user focus, one piece of advice that you can’t hear too many times is to keep things simple. And our expert panelists came back to this point several times because of the incredible value in saying and showing things that customers can easily understand.
“KISS – keep it simple, but sweet. Good user products are simple to use and allow users to find the information users are looking for quickly and efficiently.” – Anjelika Kour, Managing Director at DD.NYC® (DigitalDesign.NYC)
“Humans have a super short attention span of only 8 seconds. Knowing this, as a small business you need to catch the website vistor’s attention with your key offerings, not lose it with unnecessary details. Make your content skimmable by making sure you have descriptive headlines and content separated into smaller paragraphs. Great copy is short, to the point, and speaks to your customers.” – Preston King, Owner of Underdogg Marketing
Whether you contract with an agency for testing or you have your in-house staff help you, be sure to take into consideration the usability of the site. Load times, landing page navigation, CTAs, and first impressions can tell you a lot about whether your website’s UX is becoming better and easier for real customers.
“User experience is all about simplicity. Simple words, simple messages, simple next steps. Confused people don’t buy, so be very clear about who you are and what the next steps are.” – Cedrick Webb, CEO of Smart Digital
You’ve likely also heard marketing experts suggest that the customer should be the “hero” of your story. And UX design is just one area where you can benefit from placing the customer in the “hero” scenario when it comes to your design and content.
“Your user is the hero of the story; you are simply the guide. The more you can build your user experience around your user, the more likely it is that they engage with your product. Instead of asking ‘what’s the best way this can be done,’ ask ‘what would be delightful for our users to interact with.’” – Greg Hatch, Owner and CMO at Fire Flower Apps
Although every business owner has a lot that they want to say, and although we all believe that it’s equally important, customer decisions are made in a matter of seconds. So when it comes to your UX redesign, content development, and so on, simplicity is really the number one virtue.
“Less is more! If users can’t understand the offer immediately, they will leave. So be precise, keep headlines to 6 words or less, use icons or visual aids to help get the message across, and make it easy for the user to take action.” – Stacie Benefield, Founder & Principal at Dynamic Design Solutions LLC
“A top priority of UX designers should be to consider the user journey and ease of navigation. UX design best practices should be integrated into your online presence such as the hierarchy of information, accessibility standards, and consistency of branding to create a memorable experience.” – Aidan Payne, Chief Executive Officer at Yesterday Design Co.
Additional UX Tips to Add to Your Marketing Strategy
Our panel of partners and experts had countless pieces of advice to offer as you begin the optimization of your site with your user experience in mind. And among them was something that can often get overlooked: UX research.
“Seek feedback from your users. Improving user experience requires you to actively collect feedback from your audience. Run surveys, run analytic tools on your website, and implement changes that improve user experiences for your users.” – Evan Holmgren, Co-Founder of Hammerhead
“It’s important to clearly define what users are looking to gain or what task they’re looking to complete when they interact with you. A great way to get to the bottom of this is through user research. You can use surveys and focus groups to beta test new products and features, and then do in-depth interviews if more expansive information is needed.” – Sophie Mann, Director of Content Strategy at encite branding + marketing + creative
Information is not the only type of content that can help improve your user experience. There are simple but effective additions you can make to your site that will add value and increase “stickiness” to keep customers engaged and get them interested in learning more.
“Don’t just provide your customers with a product or information; give them multiple ways to interact with your product or service. These can be created through widgets to enhance UX, and those widgets can also be optimized with headings and structured data, creating an SEO advantage when it comes to what Google refers to as ‘supplemental content.’” – Joshua Coffman, Founder of 502ads
Speaking of supplemental content, remember that your design and imagery play a very important role in the information you’re sharing and the user’s experience, too.
“Use visuals to guide users through your content. Include photos, videos, infographics, and other visual elements to break up text and add interest. Use calls to action (CTAs) to encourage users to take the next step, whether it’s contacting you, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase.” – Jose Gomez, CTO & CoFounder at Evinex
You’ve probably visited some websites personally where it seemed like the business was trying to fit everything imaginable onto the page. And that’s one of the key things to avoid, too. As with any good design, white space is very useful in helping to make pages not only visually pleasing, but more effective.
“Using white space helps customers know what you want them to look at and what you want them to do. At that same time, using too much white space could mean leaving out valuable information. The trick is to balance text and white space to highlight your most important user information.” – Nachum Langsner, Co-Founder & CMO at LocalBizGuru
As with most of your marketing efforts, at the end of the day the customer is the person who is most important throughout your UX process. Regardless of demographics, industry, or product, everything from UX optimization to content marketing and beyond comes back to understanding and addressing your client’s needs.
“Persona identification is a start, but knowing your audience can elevate your results. If you learn more about the motive behind each interaction, you can provide a better way to communicate with them. After all, each UX experience is a form of communication experience.” – CHRIS LO, Principal/Creative Director at Matcha Design
“Stop thinking that UX is about creating wireframes for your website. It’s about helping to pinpoint underlying problems and identifying or visualizing the best path to a solution.” – Brad Muncs, President & CEO of Symetris
Explore More UX Resources with UpCity
As you can imagine, the incredible advice and tips we gathered here are just the tip of the iceberg. Our partners and panelists have a wealth of knowledge to share when it comes to user experience, from just getting started to fine-tuned recommendations that can elevate any business. Whether your business is well established or you want to explore UX before you launch a new site, be sure to reach out to these UX partner firms and discover the advice and guidance they can offer.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
