Did you know that there are ways to check whether your website works properly and meets users' expectations? Evaluating the usability of a website ensures that customers, when accessing the platform, have the best possible experience, making them perform actions, such as registering or actually buying, and feel satisfied.
In addition, usability testing, especially for e-commerce, allows you to better understand which strategies work with your audience and which ones definitely do not give the expected return. It is also fundamental to measure the performance of the page and help develop tools that aid navigation, reducing costs and increasing conversions.
Are you interested in learning more about this subject? Read this article to the end and find out what are the seven main criteria for evaluating the usability of the site!
1. bounce rate
The bounce rate, also known as bounce rate, is the number that reflects the amount of customers who have performed a single action or purchase on the website and have not returned. The number is obtained by adding the total number of e-commerce customers and subtracting the customers who did not return.
When the difference is a high number, it may be indicating that something is not going well, such as, for example, the marketing strategies are not being sufficient or the site itself has experienced some instability. For this reason, it is essential to know what is causing the high bounce rates and identify different ways to build customer loyalty.
2. Responsiveness
Responsiveness refers to the site's ability to adapt to different screens, as more and more people use devices other than the computer to access internet content and make online purchases. This means that one of the usability criteria for a site is that it can be accessed by smartphones, laptops, smart TVs, and even by multimedia centers in cars.
Another important factor linked to this criterion is that internet search engines, and among them Google, when accessed by mobile devices, prioritize, in organic searches, sites that have this mobile version, since they display the content without loss of quality. In other words, it allows a pleasant navigation for the client and improves the ranking in organic searches, which are the main source of access for e-commerce.
3. SEO
Speaking of organic searches, one of the main criteria for evaluating the usability of your e-commerce is whether it uses SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies.
SEO is a set of strategies that, in the long term, presents positive results with regard to the number of hits and conversions. This strategy works on three crucial points: content, relevance of information to users and potential customers in the technology.
If this criterion is not being well worked on in your site, possibly its usability may not be meeting your expectations. To improve this point, try to understand your customers' problems (or pains) and offer content that can solve them. In addition, try to gain authority in your industry and choose a virtual platform that offers a good user experience.
4. Concise Content
To provide useful information to your audience it is important to invest in content marketing, which, as we said before, is also one of the SEO strategies. The idea here is to produce relevant content and become an authority to the company's target audience.
Unlike traditional marketing, which relies on direct strategies for selling products or ideas, the purpose of this type of action is to help a potential customer to find the solution to their problem, establishing a relationship of trust with the brand. Thus, when the time comes to acquire a product, he will probably turn to the company that has already helped him with the provision of information.
In content marketing there is the so-called sales funnel, which covers the stages of attraction (when the customer learns and finds out about the problem), consideration (when he recognizes the problem and considers the solution), and decision (when he makes the decision that he will solve the problem).
Therefore, if the e-commerce intends to offer a good experience to the user, it is necessary to offer in the right measure and time the contents according to each stage in which they are. It is worth remembering that, to be really effective, the content needs to cover the entire universe of the purchase.
5. Visible Contact Information
So far we have seen some criteria that are directly related to the volume of hits and ranking factors in organic searches. However, it is important to note that it is not very effective to invest in the best strategies for dissemination, when the customer simply gives up on a purchase for not having contact information
This is important because, several times, he would like to ask a question or even make a complaint and access is made impossible by the lack of an email or phone number.
There are cases in which the information exists, but it is so poorly positioned that the customer simply does not see it, which demonstrates a serious problem in the layout, which is the next criterion on this list.
6. Layout
Layout is also one of the criteria that can make or break a site's usability. This is because poorly positioned elements, colors that do not match the brand, or information in places that are difficult to access can drive the user away from your online store.
For this reason, it is very important to use tools that map online user behavior, because they can identify at which point the site received more clicks, at which moment the user left the page, and where he spent most of his time. With this data, you can perform functionality tests and identify the best strategy for your site.
7. Interactivity
Finally, another great success for a site in terms of usability is interacting with its users. For this, you can bet on chatbots, which are automated interaction channels that direct customer questions. Having a team available to offer personalized service in case of doubts and complaints is also a fundamental strategy for the customer to feel heard and trust the site.
It is very important to keep in mind all these criteria to evaluate the usability of a website. They are important to ensure that you get the expected result and stand out from the competition. If in doubt, there are specialized companies that offer software that can test each of these variables and provide a detailed report of your situation. It is worth checking it out!
Did you like this content? Want to know a little more about it? Then read our article about how your e-commerce performance impacts conversions!
