In 2012 I did a post about the importance of the look of your website. Today I’m going to expand on that post with more of a focus on the usability of your website. When I did that post Smartphones were just beginning to become mainstream and very few websites were mobile friendly. Today it is the exact opposite. Smartphones are not only mainstream but regular feature phones are rare almost worldwide as smartphones get cheaper. For people that have visited my blog before you may notice that I just did a big overhaul of my blog. It went from the default 2011 WordPress theme to a modern, mobile-friendly/responsive blog site. I’ve also made it easier to browse by creating a better navigation menu and pages rather than the previous setting where I had only 2 pages on the blog. A home page with continuous scrolling to see all my blog posts and an about me page. Making it a lot better to not only look at but also easier to navigate through.

Why is this such a big deal? Well simply put the harder your website is to use or navigate, the higher the bounce rate of your website will be and the lower the time spent on your website by each user will be. For a student blog this may not be very important but for company websites, personal websites and other blogs it is very important! The first thing users pay attention to is the aesthetics/looks of your website. If you have an ugly website the user will probably leave the website in under a minute. Second is the ease of use. So how easy is the website to use and navigate through. You might have a nice looking website but if it’s hard for me to find exactly what I’m looking for, you’re going to lose me pretty fast. I may stay on your website for about 30 seconds to find something but anything more than that I’m going. The third point actually builds on both the first & second point. It is mobile responsiveness. If your website looks great and is easy to use on my Desktop computer then that’s great but if I’m on my smartphone trying to use your website and it is hard to use or does not look nice on my phone then once again I’m gone.

What does this mean for Marketers, Businesses and Blogs? In order of priority each business must ensure their website follows the guidelines below:

1. Make sure your website looks good on the Desktop computers and Laptops.

2. Make sure your website is very easy to navigate through and use on Desktop computers and Laptops.

3. Make sure you make your website mobile responsive so it can detect if it is desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet and adjust accordingly to look nice and remain easy to use.

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