One of the things that is on many to-do lists when a coach sets up a coaching business is “create a website.” In this week’s guest post Mei Qi Tan, shares her expertise and knowledge in how to develop your website so your readers find using it easy rather than confusing!

Three things to improve the experience of your website

by Mei Qi Tan

Once you’ve created a website, it is not enough to let it mature by simply adding content to it as time progresses. Just as your business matures in real-life, so does its digital presence.

Content needs to be updated regularly in terms of adding new content, and existing content should also be reorganised and refreshed regularly.

Another important factor is to understand how people are using and experiencing your site, in order for you to create and enhance its user experience. A good experience will emotionally satisfy and delight users, and is one of the best ways of ensuring their return. But in order to do this, you must set the right foundations in order to build consistency not just in your site, but in your brand as well as maintain the emotional satisfaction of users.

There are three elements of experience that you can start working on immediately in order to enhance your site, the first of which is –

Make navigation flow

In order to create smooth navigation through your site, try constructing some simple user journeys based on a few primary tasks you know visitors will conduct when using your site.

Understanding the journeys through your site content can help you plan and design pages to guide and support users. For example, chart the steps users will have to take when wanting to purchase something, or find your contact information.

Most users arriving at your website will have some clear goals they want to achieve. First, do some research on the types of people who use or frequent your site. Once you have an idea of who these people are, you can start to understand the types of goals they might have for using your site. One could be from the perspective of a potential customer who was referred to your services, but has never been to your site before.

Talk to some people you know, and ask them about the journey to information they take when visiting a new website. The first step might be clicking on the “about” page to find out about the business, or perhaps they’d like to take a look at “testimonials” (if they’re able to find it, that is!).

User journeys are critical to understanding the flow of information and the different pathways users might take on your site. But you can’t start to chart the journeys without doing your research, so talk to some people about the typical ways they approach and use new websites for information, and you can start designing your information flows and user journeys through your site from there.

Make information findable

Website owners tend to underestimate the importance of clear and concise labelling throughout the site. As a business owner, you’ll want to be able to include as much relevant content as possible, but the task of organising all existing content into a few ‘catch-all’ categories can be overwhelmingly difficult.

Exercise discipline in categorising your content regularly, and be ruthless in selecting the best and most concise labels for categories of content in your site. Don’t fall into the trap of jargon or wordplay – most of the time, your users won’t understand what those labels mean or refer to. Simplicity is key. Also, make sure to include a content search tool to enable users to quickly find what they’re looking for.

Make it for mobile

By 2014, it is estimated that mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage. More people are accessing websites from mobile devices, and designing sites and services for a mobile use case is becoming impossible to ignore.

Don’t panic though, because designing for mobile can actually be a helpful exercise in improving the experience of your website, by stripping away a lot of unnecessary elements on a page that could distract the user from completing their tasks efficiently.

Designing for limited screen space can act as a ruthless enforcer of “getting to the point”- what does the user want from my site, and how can I give it to them with minimal efforts on their part?

If it’s services they want, perhaps you should think about creating a device-specific app. But if your site is content heavy, maybe you should think about making your site responsive. A responsively designed site automatically adapts content and layout on your site to different screen sizes.

If you’ve got a firm understanding on the types of information your user is looking for, you can prioritise that information within the site code for prime positioning and optimising presentation on different screen resolutions and devices.

About the author

Mei has recently arrived in London from Sydney and is embarking on a Masters Degree in Electronic Publishing. She is a Product Designer in Shoreditch