Grow Your Local Business by Improving Your Website's UX

Speed and Load Time 

If your website has speed issues, if it’s laggy when moving from page to page or takes forever loading images, you’re setting your visitors up for a bad experience from the get go. 

Nearly half of all visitors will leave your website if it takes more than three seconds to load. That’s a lot of lost customers! This is why it’s essential your site loads quickly and is responsive.  Ultimately, if you can’t keep people on your website, you’ll have a hard time gaining new customers through that channel. 

Another reason it’s important your site loads quickly is the benefit it has on your search engine ranking. Google favors sites that are responsive and provide a good UX. If your site is slow, you could be damaging your ranking potential. 

Images, Fonts, and Layout 

It’s easy to think swirling fonts, tons of images, and wall-to-wall design elements make for a good website. Your local business does good work, so you want to convey that on your website with an ultra-fancy design. 

The problem is, this can actually repel your site visitors. If your site is too busy, packed with low quality images, big blocks of text, or font that’s hard to read, there’s a good chance your potential customer will click away to another site. It’s too much to take in and hard to decipher. 

When it comes to your website’s design, less is usually more. Set your site visitors up for a great experience with a clean design that encourages them to click around. Be sure to use plenty of white space, small chunks of text, and relevant, high quality images.  Fancy fonts are sometimes okay for subheaders or call outs, just be sure they’re clearly legible on any type of device. 

Ease of Navigation 

Along with a great design, your website should be easily navigable. If your site visitors can’t quickly find what they’re looking for, they’re certainly not going to stick around. 

Think of it in terms of an elevator pitch. The high-level, most important things you want your potential customers to know about your business should be right there on your homepage, or at least quickly accessible in one click. Clicking more than twice just to find out about the services your company offers will negatively affect your user’s experience. 

Keep your website’s menu simple and intuitive, and be sure your contact information is easy to find on every page of your site. 

Make it Inviting 

Your website should be a reflection of your business. If you’re a local business, this is especially important because your site needs to connect directly with the people in your community. 

Tailor your website to fit your business and its customers. And don’t make the mistake of thinking professional = formal. It doesn’t.  You can project a professional image without being stiff or overly technical. Remember, the goal is to connect with your potential customers, not to seem austere or unapproachable. Have fun. 

Update Your Website to Improve UX 

A perfect business website probably doesn’t exist. Every site on the web could use improvement in one area or another. 



But perfection isn’t the goal. The goal is to create a well-designed, responsive, engaging website that your potential customers will connect to and have a great experience exploring.