Research by Hubspot and Smart Insights shows that millions of content pieces get delivered or published every 60 seconds including:
- 500 YouTube videos
- 149,513 emails
- 3 million Facebook posts
- 1,440 WordPress posts
While this gives web users plenty of options to choose from, for brands it means having plenty of competition.
To stand out from the crowd and get their message across, brands have to produce high-quality and user-centric content.
Here are five user experience (UX) lessons that you should incorporate in your content marketing strategy to succeed in today’s competitive market:
1. Make Your Website Easily Accessible
No matter how compelling your content is, if your audience cannot access it easily then they won’t receive your sales message.
Poor website accessibility is one of the biggest factors that affect user experience and push your visitors away.
To identify the possible issues that make users bounce, perform a technical audit.
And here are the key aspects you should focus on:
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Mobile Responsiveness
Research shows that there were 4.20 billion mobile internet users, in April 2020. And they spent 3h and 24min browsing the web, on the average.
Mobile devices have virtually become a leading source of web traffic. And accessing your desktop version on a smartphone may be irritating since it may not load or display properly.
This is why optimizing your website for this format is a must. You need to make sure it is compatible with different screen sizes and feels as well as looks the same across all devices.
Mobile responsiveness will not only improve your site’s usability but it will also increase the time spent on site which ultimately results in better search engine rankings and more conversions.
[Source: Hootsuite]
Loading Speed
According to Neil Patel, 40% of visitors will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Users tend to care more about speed than all the attractive features they may find on your pages.
Slow loading sites frustrate the users and make them leave without making the effort to see what you have to offer.
This leads to higher bounce rates, lower search engine rankings and damaged brand credibility.
To check how well your website loads, you can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights. The tool will provide you with diagnostics and give you some tips on how to improve its performance.
Readability
Users can ignore even the highest quality blog posts and bottom content if they find it difficult to read and understand. As stated by Readable, the average reader’s attention span in 2020 is 7 seconds.
To grab and hook their attention as well as share your sales message successfully, you need to ensure great readability.
Here are some UX lessons that will not only make your readers stick longer around but also allow them to consume your content easily and quickly:
- Use larger fonts
- Incorporate appropriate colour contrast
- Have a sufficient number of headings
- Remove clutter and distractions
- Leave enough negative space
These little factors will keep your visitors interested in your offerings and strengthen your content marketing strategy.
Architecture
Once your visitors land on your website they should be able to easily find the information they are looking for. Thus, your job is to ensure a clean structure and interface so that it takes fewer clicks to complete their goal.
A great place to start with is your navigation menu. You should make sure it is clear, descriptive and easy to understand.
Then, your contact info, search bar and social media icons should be visible so that visitors can easily spot them.
2. Minimize Distractions
Minimizing distractions is one of those UX lessons that will help you improve your visitors’ focus and place it on important elements.
Having too many options can confuse them and distract them from converting. This is why you should limit your choices and only focus on key components.
To do so, make sure you:
- Remove irritating pop-ups and auto-playing videos
- Stick to a single topic per content piece
- Limit scrolling
In addition, you should incorporate call-to-actions (CTAs) and internal links. But never overuse it. Keep them prominent.
3. Know Your Audience Well
A survey shows that personalized homepage promotions influence 85% of purchases. This number highlights the fact that shoppers love to see personalized content.
Tailoring your content marketing strategy to your audience’s needs is of key importance. The best way to understand who are the people who visit your website is to develop a buyer’s persona.
It will help you to get to know them, understand their expectations as well as their fears.
Thus make sure you research their:
- Personal background
- Demographics
- Hobbies and interests
- Shopping preferences
- Pain points
- Business goals
- Major challenges
- Common objections
- And more
By creating a research-based profile that depicts your target customers you will be able to better visualize your prospects and deliver relevant content that meets visitors’ expectations.
4. Create Interactive Content
Considering the fact that the readers’ attention span is now shorter than ever, websites need to incorporate smart strategies to keep their visitors interested in their content.
Developing interactive content is a great way to inspire users to stick around longer and find the information or guidance they are searching for.
It means that the content you share should be informative, helpful and well-researched. To provide users with value, you need to answer their questions and back them up with authoritative sources
Interactive content facilitates interaction with your prospects. It contributes to higher engagement rates and increased brand loyalty.
Some of the best forms of this type of content include:
- Videos: 54% of shoppers would like to see more video content from the brands they like. Incorporating them into your content will help you capture the users’ attention and establish an emotional relationship.
- Infographics: These are one of the most popular ways to share stats and facts on specific topics. What makes them effective is the fact that they are eye-catching and make users engage. In fact, 84% of companies that use infographics claim that they work.
- eBooks and white papers: These forms allow brands to show their expertise on a given topic and educate users. They are useful in establishing a brand voice, collecting visitors’ contact details as well as generating more conversions.
- Surveys and polls: Interactive content not only allows websites to collect feedback but it also keeps users engaged.
- Calculators: Practical tools like calculators help users get different results and create numerical answers. They are a solid way to catch the visitors’ attention and make them spend more time on the site.
- And more
5. Establish Visual Hierarchy
Our human brains categorize information by organizing visual components hierarchically. Thus businesses should focus on grouping content so that they can establish effective communication with their audiences.
Creating separate sections will allow website visitors to focus on key elements with ease and quickly find the information they are looking for.
Visual hierarchy makes browsing experiences simple and contributes to intuitive interactions.
Takeaways
Content marketing and user experience go hand in hand. When brands focus on combining them, they can deliver measurable results.
Thus, producing high-quality, functional and user-centric content is the key to success in today’s competitive world.
To stand out from the crowd brands are bound to incorporate the top UX lessons in their content marketing strategies.
When used the right way, they can create great first impressions, make the visitors engage and convert.
For that reason, ensure you:
- Make your website easily accessible
- Minimize distractions
- Get to know your audience well
- Create interactive content
- Establish a visual hierarchy
However, don’t forget that this combination will work only if you create content that is informative, helpful and which brings value to your readers.