A crucial part of any successful website design is not only catching the attention of a target market but keeping that attention. Oftentimes, UX experts will achieve attention retention through eye-catching animations, clean layouts, and intentional content strategy. But in some industries where flashy design and lifestyle imagery isn’t relevant, this can be an intimidating challenge. As a B2B technology marketing agency, Bluetext has done a deep dive into some key elements to help give your B2B website the winning edge.
The Difference Between B2B and B2C Websites
When it comes to designing a website for a B2B versus a B2C audience, the design landscape and tone change in response to respective target audiences. Consumers are often online to fulfill an emotional need, such as instant satisfaction from a purchase. The B2B audience, however, tends to take more time examining all the information about the product before making a decision. Why is this important? Understanding the audience’s motivations is the first step to giving your B2B tech website a leg up in UX design.
Now that we have covered audience motivation, let’s discuss how this translates into web design. In a broad sense, UX experts recommend the key aspects of technology website should be: simple navigation, concise language, and responsive web design. In the market of technology, it is also important to emphasize successful security checks throughout the design of the site. Those are the core ingredients one would expect every website to contain, but below we explore three best practices to help B2B websites stand out against the pack.
Rely on Content
UX experts first and foremost rely on content. As we mentioned earlier, B2B audiences often have much higher stakes in their purchasing decision. Yes, it may be a sole individual making the decision but they are often selecting a product or solution that will impact many people and departments across their company. Therefore, the B2B target audience likes to know everything about the product before making their long-term purchase decision. A tech website design must accommodate large amounts of text to describe each product. Keeping this in mind, UX designers can implement specific modules for a site that best present large amounts of content in digestible chunks.
B2B tech websites’ extensive amount of content must also convey a professional tone. Most B2B site visitors are informed to some extent about the product or solution they are seeking. If a company cannot clearly explain its product in a professional and concise way, it will drive away sales. There is nothing more professionally relatable than a crunch for time, so a site should respect the user’s busy schedule and likely short-lived attention span for acquiring key details. Another common mistake for tech companies is not clearly explaining company messaging and why they stand out against their competitors at the forefront of their website. Upon first landing, a user should be able to tell what your company does, and why they should pay attention to it. The Bluetext messaging team uses a highly thought out process to make sure the tone of a brand addresses all competitors in the marketplace and stakeholders within a company.
Clear Call-to-Action
In the same vein of time awareness, B2B web designs must have a clear call to action. If you happen to capture a user’s attention enough to generate genuine interest, there needs to be a frictionless and obvious way for them to find and take the next step. Research has shown that a B2B audience is more likely to call to purchase a product than purchase online. Therefore, a website should address this pain point with live chat solutions, well-integrated contact forms, customer care information, telephone numbers, and more.
High-quality video and images
Along with the expectation of a professional tone comes a professional look. The first step is implementing high-quality videos and images onto the new site. Strong visual content can help break up the large blocks of content and avoid the risk of eye fatigue when scanning and reading lengthy text blocks. Videos are a useful and engaging way to provide a clear explanation of what the product can achieve. Coupling visual and audio elements increase the memorability of your brand and capture attention for much longer. Videos can also give a closer look at the company’s values as a whole. The Bluetext video team uses a strong brand voice, innovative animations, and professional editing to create persuasive and informative content for their clients.
Mobile Friendly
If you’re selling tech, you have to show you are tech-savvy and keeping up with the times. This should be a no-brainer, but too many technology websites across the web don’t take advantage of responsive design practices to ensure equitable desktop and mobile experiences. Bluetext implements this with well-thought-out wireframes addressing all content needs. One of the ways to best implement a strong user experience is keeping in mind the significance of a mobile-friendly design. With mobile traffic driving up to 40% of revenue, this design compatibility should never be ignored.
B2B differs from B2C in terms of their audience needs, wants, and decision-making processes. While some core differences set these types of websites apart, an informed UX and content strategy that matches audience needs is crucial to both. Consult a website design and UX agency like Bluetext so you can be sure that your website addresses the needs of your target audience, and formats content and visual components to convey a professional and interesting tone. Contact Bluetext to learn more about our services and how we can address all of your content and website design needs.
Since late last year, the technology industry has been alight with news and developments surrounding the Metaverse. Companies large and small are betting big on what is seen by many as the successor to the internet. Microsoft’s record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been seen by many as a Metaverse play. The likes of Facebook have even restructured their entire organization and established a new parent company, Meta, named after the Metaverse.
But what exactly is the Metaverse? In simplest terms, “The ‘metaverse’ is a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you.” If you’re still confused, that’s okay. The Metaverse is constantly evolving as more and more companies invest in the concept. Chances are you’ve already experienced flavors of the metaverse but may not have even realized it. To break it down, major players in the technology industry are looking at the Metaverse from a capabilities perspective for the likes of:
- Real-time 3D graphics
- Feature sets that overlap with real-world activities
- Personalized avatars unique to each user
- Person-to-person social interactions that are less competitive in nature and more goal-oriented compared to stereotypical games
- Designs best well-suited to virtual and augmented reality headsets
- Links with outside economic systems so people can profit from virtual goods
Regardless of how you feel about the Metaverse and its capabilities, there’s no denying that AR/VR is growing more popular. In 2021, it was estimated that approximately 85 million users experienced AR or VR at least once a month. Virtual reality headsets, which were originally intended for gamers back in the 1990s, have picked up momentum in the past decade as companies are releasing sleek, futuristic consumer headsets and applications. That userbase will only continue to grow as VR/AR devices become more accessible from a cost and usability perspective. Given the fluidity of the concept of the Metaverse, the marketing opportunities are truly endless at the moment. Below, we take a look at just a smattering of ideas for marketing in this next generation of the internet.
1. Gamifying your Brand
As we’ve discussed before, gamification is the act of taking a process that already exists and applying game mechanics to make it more engaging. Given the current state of the Metaverse and its existing uses, gamifying a brand is the first natural step we’ll see companies take as they expand their reach into this additional marketing channel. We’re already seeing some companies dive headfirst into brand gamification in the Metaverse. To promote the new Nike React Flyknit running shoe, Nike created its own virtual world, called Reactland, allowing users to create avatars of themselves and then navigate through the game’s forests and rooftops while jogging (in real life) on a treadmill for three minutes.
2. Parallel Metaverse Marketing within Real-Life Marketing
Just as we create physical manifestations of digital marketing campaigns, marketers need to be ready to expand their focus to the Metaverse as a third component of any future campaign. Campaigns targeting millennials and Gen-Z’ers will comprise the majority of initial Metaverse marketing campaigns, as these audiences are the predisposed primary users of the platform. Experiential marketing will also be a major component of any Metaverse marketing campaign, offering branded installations and events that users can interact with, as opposed to just placing simple ads.
3. Harness the Power of Facebook’s Meta
While Facebook is still in the early stages of rolling out its Metaverse to consumers, there’s a good chance that any experience will include digital advertising and in-experience transactions. Anything from building virtual stores, hosting immersive events, or creating Facebook Ads will no doubt be considered. Additionally, we’ll definitely see comparable offerings from other companies staking their claims in the Metaverse hype such as Walmart and Microsoft.
It’s fair to say that the Metaverse in its current state is filled with uncertainties. While many companies are pouring tons of capital into the space, no one knows what it will look like in five to ten years, let alone next year. That being said, it will be important for marketers to stay in the loop and decide when might be the best time to stake their own claim in the Metaverse. Interested to see how Bluetext is taking advantage of up-and-coming technologies on behalf of our clients? Contact us.
You don’t want your users to get an error page, but if they do, make sure it is a good one.
If someone finds a 404 page on your website, they are probably in the wrong place; your goal should be to make it as easy (and fun) as possible for them to find the right page. You need to make sure that your visitor can find a way back to their intended location, so it’s helpful to direct them to popular pages or a search feature. By giving your user some direction, you can make lost pages feel more like a detour than a dead end on your website.
While your primary focus should be to help your users find a new page to travel to, there is also a trend toward having more interesting and fun 404 pages. You want to keep any error pages within the realm of the company brand, but you should also see it as a chance to add some humor or engagement to your website. By infusing some witty text or a cool graphic into your 404 page, you help website visitors have a good experience on your site even when they face an error code. After all, the happier your website visitors are, the more likely they are to continue exploring the website, rather than exit out altogether.
Take Amazon for example, when a page is lost users are shown a cute dog with redirection back home. Even better is that the dog photo changes each and every time to feature one of their 43 “Dogs of Amazon”.
Ceros has a great example of a fun and helpful 404 page. The company recently updated its 404 page to have an interactive wheel that leads users to random content. By encouraging interactivity as Ceros does, you can keep your users interested in your content even when they’ve lost what they are looking for. Engaging features like this motivate visitors to look beyond their original search and consider other areas of your website.
The new BigBear website, which Bluetext worked on, is another example of an excellent error page. On their 404 page, you can see a picture of a lost bear. This adds a little humor to the page while keeping the content on-brand for the company. The 404 page does not end there, though. It also has quick links to encourage visitors to continue interacting with the website.
Both of these examples illustrate the usefulness of having an informative but fun 404 page since the ultimate goal of any website is to keep visitors engaged! While a 404 error is never the ideal landing page for your website users, it is critical to prepare and design for this scenario. And by turning what was traditionally a dead-end into an interesting detour with clear next steps, you increase the chances of a positive user experience on your website.
If you need help setting up a new 404 page, reach out to our experts at Bluetext.
Marketers often approach their content strategy with the simple goal of conveying a message to their target audience. But nowadays, that’s not enough for maintaining an effective content strategy. Before a user ends up on your site, they typically search for information through one or more Google searches. These Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) are where users find results that the search engines deem to be the most relevant to the query. Depending on the relevance of the site content, users may also see a SERP Feature (a well-packaged snippet of information from the relevant search result’s page). This gives users a quick view of the information they are looking for while saving them time from digging through multiple pages. As a digital marketer, your content strategy should aim to meet the purposes of these possible SERP Features to increase your chances of being featured on SERPs and ultimately get a user to visit your site.
Nowadays, search engines have evolved to the point where they can determine the intent behind users’ searches to provide the most relevant results. As such, you need to be more deliberate in crafting your content to ensure it’s meeting your audience’s needs at their stage of the buyer’s journey. Ideally, you should have content that can accommodate all three phases, Awareness Stage, Consideration Stage, and the Decision Stage. But this isn’t always the case depending on your particular audience.
Raising Awareness for Your Audience
In the Awareness Stage, users know they have a problem and are actively searching for explanations of their problem. They aren’t quite ready to pick a solution, so any tools to quickly gather high-level information are beneficial here. This is where SERP Features come in handy. With a little planning, you can optimize your content’s likelihood to be featured in certain SERP Features such as Knowledge Graphs, Featured Snippets, Related Questions, Videos, or Images. All of these features will pull relevant content from your site so long as the search engine determines your content to meet certain criteria. In this stage, you want to make sure your content is very clear in explaining who you are, what services or products you offer, and the why/how of what you do. Oftentimes, including lists or FAQ-styled content is beneficial to search engine crawlers and webpage users!
Considering How to Connect With Your Audience
So now your audience has entered the Consideration Stage, they are looking for solutions and more specifically, how your solution can remedy their issue. Now your content should be more thorough and technical than in the Awareness Stage. Provide concrete examples of how your products or services can solve the user’s problem. Four useful features for this stage are Featured Snippets, Related Questions, Reviews, and Videos. The Featured Snippet works best when you answer the user’s query in very specific ways, whereas Related Questions works best for explaining the “why” behind a user’s query. Featuring product/service reviews on your site also allows you to show up for the Reviews feature which enables the user to better compare solutions and build trust. Lastly, the Videos feature provides a great opportunity to dive deeper into why your solution works for the user.
Convincing Your Audience to Make a Decision
By this point, your audience is at the end of the buyer’s journey and just about ready to decide which solution meets their needs. As part of the last steps, users now want to confirm which solution amongst the ones found in the Consideration Stage is best for them. At this stage, all of your content should be as thorough as possible to ensure you’ve answered any potential lingering questions your audience may have. Three Features that excel at accomplishing that are the People Also Ask, Videos, and Long-Form Content features. Tailoring your content to include technical details and statistics as well as client testimonials reassures the user that they’ve picked the right solution.
Overall, when creating a content strategy, no two sites will be the same. Each content strategy should be tailored to your audience and their stage of the buyer’s journey. From there, you can leverage content that is more likely to be shown in the SERP Features mentioned above. As a full-service digital marketing agency, our expert content writing and SEO teams at Bluetext can help determine who your audience is, what stage they’re in, and how best to tailor your content to be displayed in SERP Features. Want to learn more about how Bluetext can help your ad campaigns thrive? Get in touch with us here.
2 years ago SonicWall approached Bluetext with a campaign challenge: “Help us infuse originality within an over-saturated cybersecurity market. Portray Boundless Cybersecurity ability to break free of cyber threats.”
Bluetext’s response? Hours upon hours huddled over brainstorming sessions until the winning idea came to light. Portraying the end-users in a surrealist, anti-gravity state in which they quite literally “break free” from the constraints and anxieties of impending threats. But how could this be done? With a troupe of ballet dancers, a giant trampoline, and an imaginative team of creative & strategic minds the first Boundless photoshoot was made possible.
By knowing the unknown, providing real-time visibility, and enabling breakthrough economics, SonicWall protects against boundless exposure points for increasingly remote, mobile, and cloud-enabled workforces. In order to communicate SonicWall’s business values across a variety of businesses, Bluetext prescribed a verticalized approach to target the unique needs of each industry. Every detail, from costume to backdrop, was personalized to resonate with distinct audience personas. To truly stand out and earn attention in a crowded cybersecurity arena, the campaign centered on fantastical floating imagery, which served to visualize an anti-gravity feeling of breaking free of cyber threats. To achieve this vision, action photography of models jumping and free-falling atop a giant trampoline was captured. With custom photoshoots, expert post-production editing, and head-turning taglines Bluetext truly elevated the campaign to new heights. As a collection, the campaign imagery showcased SonicWall’s wide range of customer success, and as individual targeted campaign assets, the images emphasized SonicWall’s application to industry-specific use cases. New website pages, banner ads, and social graphics were developed to reinforce ”When Cyber Threats Are Limitless, Your Defenses Must Be Boundless.”
The campaign was a roaring success. So much so that it inspired a Boundless 2.0 campaign that elevated key art imagery to 3D video production to tell the evolving Boundless story. This time, the campaign focused on the end user’s journey into a surrealist, anti-gravity state of mind. The campaign video spans a variety of industry applications, from higher education libraries to retail shops, but focuses on the perspectives of an SMB and remote employee. The narrative describes the current state of cybersecurity, being a sense of closed-off isolation to avoid the fear of cyber threats, but begs the question of ‘what if?’ The main characters are shown proceeding through their daily responsibilities (whether that be commuting into the office, or multi-tasking child care responsibilities at home) until interacting with SonicWall products on their given devices. As these users connect to SonicWall they experience the unconventional possibilities of cybersecurity; ‘What if cybersecurity felt…free?’ The characters are transitioned to a surrealist Boundless world, in which 3D video effects bring a state of gravity-free liberation from constraints of the past. The characters “break free” to realize a more secure, yet freer, future with SonicWall.
To further compliment the Boundless 2.0 campaign video, Bluetext brought the story to life on the SonicWall website homepage and campaign landing page. Both of which feature 3D video in the hero zone to showcase Boundless Cybersecurity for both the remote and in-office workforce. Bluetext animators built a custom 3D environment for each character, which is showcased through 360 pan-around camera effects. Attention to detail was everything, from the outfits worn by the character to the interior decor with hints of the SonicWall brand elements. The characters themselves even parallax for hyper-realistic body motion. The rest of the pages were designed by the Bluetext website & UX designers to highlight the campaign’s core messaging, featuring new products and industry-related use cases.
In an impressive feat of animation, website design, videography, and most of all creative brainpower, Bluetext accomplished its challenge. The Bluetext and SonicWall team combined forces to bring new energy and direction to the SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity campaign. In two years the campaign has evolved to new heights, but just like SonicWall security, the potential is boundless. Stay tuned to see how the campaign further evolves in 2022, and contact us to see how we can develop a state-of-the-art campaign for you.
62 seconds. That’s the average amount of time a user will spend on a website before hopping to another page. 62 seconds for your website to show off all your company has to offer. 62 seconds for you to create a spark of interest that will keep your customer’s cursor away from the dreaded back button. The attention span of modern internet users is a fickle thing, dashing between emails, articles, quick searches, and more. So when you have only a little over a minute to hook a viewer, you better make every second count. A beautiful landing page can grab a viewer’s attention, but a strategically crafted landing page will keep them there. Below are some tips that top digital marketing & website design agencies use to hold the attention of your audience when they land on your site.
Helping Your Users Take Action with Interaction
A favorite UX design practice to encourage digital engagement is the use of interactive elements. This elevates the user experience from passive observer to a participant (referring to any degree of interactivity) on your landing page. When inviting users to interact with content, UX designers tread a fine line between doing too little and asking too much from their audience. Subtle elements such as eye-catching hover states and scroll-initiated animations are one way to get the user involved and create interesting effects based on their cursor movement or scroll. The logic behind these interactive elements is basic psychology — rewarding the user for viewing your content or scrolling encourages them to continue this action. Once visual interest is sparked, the user is more likely to continue scrolling on-page to view content and eventually reach a lead generation form.
Lending Your Users a Hand with Custom Cursors
Another top trend in interactive content is custom cursors. Brands are beginning to implement custom cursor shapes and styles, and even animations triggered by placement on-page. One of Bluetext’s favorite examples of interactive landing pages is Asimily, a page with several subtle interactive elements, including new content triggered on scroll, animated hover states, and typography motion.
Animations That Keep Your Audience Still
Animation is also a powerful tool to capture and retain attention, with elements like looped animations ensuring that a user catches an effect and can continue to watch it. Animated promotional videos can also be leveraged into powerful lead generation tools. Videos are quite effective for generating leads because they present a simplified version of your offering, and are far more engaging, and require less effort than reading an article. Animations are a great way to convey key information more efficiently and effectively on what your brand has to offer.
Take the Lead with Your Landing Page Strategy
Ultimately, these little changes can make a big difference in converting prospective customers into solid leads. There are many other ways to increase leads to supplement interactive elements. Targeting by channel, limiting navigation, including a clear call to action, and communicating key insights clearly all contribute to a more impactful strategy. Aggregating strong messaging, website design, and user experience best practices can enhance conversion rates on landing pages. Need help achieving better leads? Bluetext is here to bring stronger leads to your company through exceptional content and design.
Establishing a personal connection between your business and the customers you serve is one of the most critical elements of a successful marketing strategy. From tailored social media posts to targeted ad campaigns, companies will pour swathes of resources and countless hours into pursuing a personal connection with consumers. Chasing that magic spark transforms them from company to companion in the eyes of the market. So why, if that human connection is so important, do many businesses abandon it when building their websites? Why, when they’ve almost gotten a customer to the finish line, do they greet them with generic home pages devoid of character and life? The answer lies not in the intentional design choices they made but rather the ones they didn’t. In a digital-first world and with the growth of online interactions, it is critical that digital marketers do not lose focus on the human behind the screen.
The Devil is in the Details
Certain aspects of every site (like copy and primary visuals) are often prioritized and will receive the care and attention they need to ensure user engagement. Many businesses, however, fail to consider more minute aspects of the user experience while building their websites. Elements like tab icons, custom cursors, and footer designs contribute to the feelings a potential customer will be left with after that crucial first impression on the home page. These subtle finishing touches are the lifeblood of humanized websites. While they may not be the main attraction, they play a significant role in setting your site apart from the pack and giving your brand its own distinct flair. Here are a few digital touchpoints you may have neglected, along with some inspiration from brands that are making the most of them.
Favicons; Small Pixels, Major Impacts
Favicons (a shortening of favorite icons) might only be a few pixels big, but they can significantly impact how potential customers are directed to your site. A favicon is a graphic element displayed in various places, including Google search results, autocomplete search suggestions, browser histories, and browser tabs. While they may be small, favicons play a significant role in how users recognize your brand and interact with your website. The average person has between 10 and 20 tabs open simultaneously while using the internet. A memorable favicon can help potential customers recognize and return to your site in a crowd of tabs.
Consistent aesthetics and responsive designs can help your favicons catch consumer attention and increase brand recognition. Google’s multi-color G is a classic example of the favicon and has seen its design applied to other products in the Google suite to maintain consistency and recognizability across websites. Trello’s dynamic tab icons change color and design to match users’ activity, drawing attention back to itself and giving users the sense that the site recognizes their presence.
Designing Footers That Use Your Head
Although they may come last on the page, the design of your footer shouldn’t be an afterthought. Often overlooked, the footer of your home page plays a critical role in the user journey, serving as the gateway to the other sections of your website. When a user isn’t sure where to navigate, the footer is a reliable option to find what they’re looking for. As a crux of the customer experience, the footer of your home page provides a great opportunity to incorporate design elements that support your overall brand messaging and drive a deeper understanding of your company’s vision.
Wild Souls, a Greek company dedicated to storing exotic nuts, features a rotating banner in their footer containing phrases and imagery that elaborate on the social causes they stand for. Bold expressions like “F**K PLASTIC” reinforce the anti-establishment and eco-friendly aesthetic of the Wild Souls brand.
Mafanfa, a website for buying hand-crafted Latin American goods, houses its footer’s website navigation links within various geometric shapes that spring to life when hovered over. The oblong shapes and dynamic movement give visitors a sense that the entire page is as customer-designed as the hand-woven clothing it sells.
Blue Stag is a UK-based creative agency that builds its mission on pushing boundaries and creating progress, a sentiment that comes through in their animated footer. Within it, a sky blue stag prances through a wavering mountainscape, a stark figure advancing through a changing landscape just like the company it’s named after.
Creating Custom Cursors That Click With Users
The cursor is the middleman between a user and your website. It’s a critical component of website navigation that will be within a user’s frame of focus the entire time they’re on your site. So why do so many companies neglect this constant source of consumer attention by settling with a generic white arrow? Custom cursors allow companies to provide visitors with a unique experience from the second they click into the site.
The digital agency Cuberto gives a masterclass in iterating on existing designs with their custom cursor that builds on the default design. A roving trail of dots hangs close to the familiar arrow and enlarges whenever it passes over important sections or key brand elements, a unique fusion of a design we’re familiar with and one that we’re not. Not only does this dynamic cursor intrigue visitors, but it allows Cuberto to more easily control the user journey through their homepage, drawing user attention to elements of the site they want to ensure that they see. Custom cursors can come in all different shapes and sizes, from brand icons to even animated designs. With so much opportunity, it’s a wonder why this UX trend is still such a rarity across website designs. A custom cursor is an unexpected detail that is likely to surprise and delight a website user and surely create a memorable browsing experience.
Making the most out of every element in your website design can seem like a daunting task. That’s where Bluetext can support. Contact us to learn more today.
Second-only to your homepage, your sitemap is one of the most important and most visible parts of your website. What value is a website if people can’t find the content they are looking for?
A sitemap is quite literally a map of your website’s page inventory. Sounds simple right? As a content creator, you may know exactly where all of your content lives and how to get from Point A to Point B but to an unfamiliar website user, this may not be as intuitive. To complicate the process even further, creating a sitemap is not always black and white. Every website and its content is different, but there are certain steps you can take to develop the most user-friendly version possible.
Prioritizing Specific Content
Your first step should be determining what type of information will be available on your site, and more importantly how that information should be prioritized to meet business goals. First, it is important to conduct a content audit to take inventory of what is available to the user. Are you featuring lots of products? Are you trying to build up your thought leadership presence? Do you need a lot of information to educate users about your services, or will they already know about your area of expertise when they come to the site? Establishing your top three objectives for the website is a great place to start when conducting a content inventory.
After you have an idea of what kind of content your site will feature, you should take a step back and imagine being in the shoes of your target audience. What might your users look for? And how do they phrase their needs? While you might have an internal structuring of products or services that makes sense to employees with deep technical knowledge, your website is for a broader, often less specialized audience. Consult your SEO keyword strategy to ensure your menu labels match organic search teams. Added bonus: Google crawlers pay special attention to a website’s sitemap, making it a golden opportunity to embed top keywords. Make sure that any terms you use will be searched by your ideal audience and are likely to catch their attention on the website.
Establishing your Navigation Structure
Next, you will need to think about the most intuitive way to structure your main-level navigation in the menu bar. This navigation will be present on every page, and for ease of use, it should be relatively short (we usually recommend four to seven items). You can have many child pages under this navigation, but you want to make sure that those top-level items present a few clear high-level categories to organize the information below them.
Once you have determined your top-level navigation, it’s time to determine the child, and even grandchild, pages that will live below in the website menu. While it might seem like you need a new page for every topic, think critically about what could be on-page content and what should be entirely its own page. Some pages might fit under a couple of umbrella categories, but make sure that pages are neatly assigned and do not repeat in different areas of the menu. For accessibility reasons, you want each page title to appear only once. Menu duplicity is a common problem for companies offering both “products” and “solutions”. While the argument could be made to categorize a page under either one, you should strive to pick one.
Don’t Forget About the Utility Navigation
After structuring your main navigation, make sure you don’t forget to add items to your utility navigation as well. The utility nav is a great opportunity to pull out some important content that otherwise might get buried in your website. The utility navigation is the smaller links above your main menu and is always present at every step of the user journey. This is a perfect opportunity for ever-green content that appeals to broad audiences. For example, we often recommend putting careers in the utility navigation to make it easier for potential employees to efficiently find job listings and apply.
These steps will surely get your website sitemap off to a great start! However, keep in mind this is an iterative process and will need to be updated as needed. By tracking in-site searches in Google Analytics, you can see what users seem to have trouble finding through the navigation alone. If any term is getting significant search traffic, it might be worth changing the sitemap to make that content more clearly available.
Creating a sitemap can be challenging, and often benefits from a fresh, third-party perspective. Trusting a content marketing & user experience agency, like Bluetext, can help establish clear content goals and a reorganized sitemap. Contact Bluetext to learn about our experience creating intuitive sitemaps that will make your site shine.
We’ve all heard the old adage “the medium is the message” – and that could not be more true in today’s vast media landscape where the majority of users are browsing websites on mobile devices. Knowing that users are visiting your website and often encountering your brand for the first time on a mobile platform, it is essential to thoughtfully design a mobile user experience that takes into consideration both the benefits and limitations of mobile devices as well as known user behaviors.
Mobile web design should not just be a narrowed version of the desktop experience, it should be a responsive design in and of itself that gives way to an intuitive user experience and easy navigation to the information the user is looking for. There are so many variables that can cause a user to leave a website. A slow-loading page or poor content layout can be enough to drive users away – don’t let a lack of forethought when it comes to the mobile user experience be a barrier between your audience and your website. By implementing the following best practices, you will be sure to create the best mobile experience for your users:
Ease of Click is Key
You should always keep in mind what we know about all users visiting your website – every action you ask them to take should be as easy and frictionless as possible. Before even considering the content that will go on a page, you need to consider where on page it will be most accessible. In 2011, Steven Hoober and Eric Berkman published a study called “Designing Mobile Interfaces” in which they coined the term “thumb zone.” This refers to the areas on mobile screens that are most easily reached by the users’ thumbs and therefore where all important clickable items should be placed. Placing important buttons and links in difficult-to-reach areas on screen can add barriers to content and therefore detract from the overall user experience.
Intuitive Navigation
Whether a user knows exactly what they’re looking for or they are purely just browsing on your site, the path to information should always be clear and natural. Creating the best navigation for your site requires thoughtfulness of content and consideration of your audience and the way they are used to maneuvering through a website. The navigation should make sense for the content you have to offer while also aligning with the organizational structure that your users are familiar with. There are many correct ways to layout the navigation of your website, you just need to find one that is the best fit for you and your audience. Employing intuitive navigation on your website is particularly important on mobile platforms because eliminating clicks to content while also having a well-organized site structure can assuage user frustration, encouraging them to stay on your site longer and to visit more pages. Solutions like hamburger menus help organize the menu in a way that the user isn’t overwhelmed by the menu items all at once when first arriving on the page while also mimicking the structure of the desktop site.
Cross-Device Consistency
While the mobile experience of a website should not just be a minified version of the desktop interface, keeping consistent UX design across desktop, tablet and mobile devices should always be a priority when creating your website. Responsive design across the board is crucial when trying to keep the user from disengaging from your site. Any inconsistency that arises when switching from one device to another can create confusion for the user and create the perfect opportunity for them to leave your website. Once again, it always comes back to making everything seamless and easy for your user. The mobile web design should be a full experience in and of itself that considers the intricacies of mobile user behavior while also mirroring the overall UX of the desktop interface. It is a delicate balance but is very worth it when done right.
Prioritization and Breakdown of Content
Simply due to the nature of mobile devices, there simply isn’t much space to fit content in one viewport. This means that in order to encourage your audience to 1) consume the content you write and 2) take away the most important points, you have to visually break up content to make it digestible while also pulling out the highlights as visually engaging elements on the page. Drawing users to your website is a challenge in and of itself – this is only compounded by the challenge of capturing enough of their attention so that they read a significant amount of content while on your site. The reality is you have a very short window to grab their attention and once you have it, concisely driving home the main takeaways is crucial. On mobile, in particular, breaking up content into chunks rather than overwhelming the user with massive blocks of text is a good way to make it all seem more approachable especially when you are trying to fit content into such a small screen. Highlighting specific points using statistics and images in a visually interesting way is a great way to also hold user attention.
Conclusion
Users have shown over a number of years now that the age of mobile device browsing is here to stay and if you choose to ignore it, you will get left behind. When designing for mobile devices, there is so much to be gained by considering what we know about users and the way they physically interact with their devices, and the way they consume content. Mobile web design principles center around the idea that users should always be presented with the path of least resistance when it comes to finding the information they need on your website as well as actually clicking the button to get there.
If your website needs a mobile makeover, contact Bluetext to learn about our website user experience design services.
Scroll-based animation offers all the benefits of on-page animation and more. Not only do pages with scroll-based animation engage users more effectively, but they can also tell more complex stories, improve page load time, and expand the capabilities of your brand identity.
Some stories are best told visually, and scroll-based animation is an effective way to make complex stories simple and elegant. Designers can use animation to guide users as they scroll, catching their eye at exactly the right time and place. Apple incorporates subtle animations into its product pages to drive user focus toward key information they want to highlight.
Scroll-based animation can offload elements beneath the virtual “fold” from the initial loading process, decreasing overall load time. Elements above the fold are prioritized in the initial load, saving time on down-page items that are animated to appear as the user scrolls down.
Implementing scroll-based animation provides the opportunity to add animated elements to your brand. Whether they’re completely new, or existing pieces that have been updated with motion, animated elements can help bring your brand to life. Elements like a scroll-based footer or call-to-action can be used across a website to consistently call attention to key information about your brand.
Key Tips for Scroll-Based Animation
Getting started with scroll-based animation can be tricky, so here are a few pointers to keep in mind as you go.
- Timing is everything. The flow of the animations as a user scrolls down the page is key to maintaining their interest. As a user moves down the page, elements should naturally animate or appear, so there are no gaps in the experience. A simple, well-timed scroll-based animation is always better than a complex but awkward one.
- Added effects should emphasize key information, not detract from it. Keep in mind that the whole point of on-page animation is to make it easier for users to navigate your site and find what they’re looking for. Be sure that any effects or animations make their experience easier, not more difficult.
- Less is more. When in doubt, simplify. Avoid cluttering your site by animating every element on a page or by introducing particularly drawn-out animations for no reason. As a rule of thumb, smaller elements should have shorter animation cycles, and each animation should have a purpose in guiding the user experience.
Looking for inspiration?
Clarabridge’s animated homepage brings the brand to life and elevates the user experience. On-page effects guide the user through the homepage, emphasizing the strength and ease of Clarabridge’s solutions. Click here to read our case study on this project.
HuffPost’s interactive article, Chef Jose Andreas Embraces the Chaos, is an example of “scrollytelling,” which uses scroll-based animation to enhance a written story. Hand-drawn visuals appear as the reader scrolls through the story, adding a playful, personal feeling to the page.
For Calling All Optimists, Bluetext incorporated subtle scroll-based animations throughout the site to draw attention to key information or calls-to-action. Along with the brand’s playful shapes and colors, these animations reinforce the positive, dynamic qualities of the site. Click here to read our Calling All Optimists case study.
Ready to see how scroll-based animation can enhance your site? Contact Bluetext to learn about our motion design and interactive UX services.