9 ways to improve your content’s UX beyond great writing

Solid writing is critical to effective content marketing, you already know that. However, your target audience won’t read your content if it doesn’t look good. 

Your presentation, or user experience (UX), is key to ensuring the great content you put so much work into is well-received. Use the following tips to ensure your content’s UX meets the needs and desires of your audience.

Key takeaways:

• A simple layout with lots of white space and consistent design reduces your bounce rate.
• A speedy site with user-friendly navigation keeps your audience on-site longer.
• Use engaging visuals more than stock photos and differentiate calls to action (CTAs) and hyperlinks for better click rates and conversions.
• Fix or remove broken links and make sign-ups as painless as possible.
• Always double-check that your content is mobile-friendly.

1. Layout simplicity 

Everyone is suffering from information overload nowadays. You’re already fighting lower attention spans by using shorter, simpler sentences. A webpage with a clean and open layout with abundant white space will also keep people’s attention. Clutter creates a poor user experience and drives your audience away.

Of course, you want to deliver value, include images, and seize every opportunity for a conversion, but your pages should not be overwhelming. Do a design audit to ensure your site has that crisp, clean feeling with big margins and ample spacing.

2. A speedy site

However true it was years ago that people decide whether to stay on your site in seconds, that premise is even more applicable today. Spend time on the technical abilities of your site to ensure that pages are fluid and load promptly.

If a page isn’t loading within a second or two at the max, expect visitors to jump ship quickly. Use technical SEO tools from your martech stack to boost the speed of your site.

3. Easy navigation

When you become a thought leader, you get the bonus of people hanging around your site and reading even more material. That extra time on site means more time seeing your CTAs and increasing potential conversions.

However, if users have difficulty finding additional information as they progress through the sales funnel, they’ll turn elsewhere.

One way we’ve increased time on site with our web pages is large headers and simple footers that make it easy for users to navigate. Plus, we always spotlight related articles for further reading on a topic and highlight popular posts.

Dig deeper: The art of natural funneling: How to lead your readers without forced CTAs

4. Design consistency

You probably know how vital it is to maintain consistency with your brand’s tone and personality. The appearance of your website should stay consistent as well.

Don’t make your audience think they’ve suddenly gone to a different domain with drastic changes between pages. Use consistent coloring, spacing, illustration styles, headings and fonts to create a sense of comfort and familiarity with your brand.

5. Engaging visuals

While graphics are a key part of content, too much stock photography can be distracting. It’s not difficult to find the same photos in business articles across the web.

Establish your brand’s personality with images that fit your persona. When you do use stock images, pick ones that fit your style.

On our agency’s website, we love to use humorous and snarky pictures to open many of our articles because they match our brand voice. We’re also not against tossing in a funny GIF or two when fitting.

6. Differentiation of links and CTAs

You should be measuring clicks and conversions to determine success. However, you’ll have a hard time getting people to click that when they can’t see clearly where a hyperlink is. 

I’m shocked how many sites don’t do this since most word processors underline and change hyperlinks automatically to blue text. Still, formatting might change while sharing or uploading articles, so double-check that articles display correctly after publishing.

We’ve also discovered that putting the link over a few words pops better than just a single word. This suggestion goes double for calls to action. Tossing in a button or image that draws attention will boost clicks on your all-important CTAs.

Dig deeper: 5 tips for balancing ‘push’ and ‘pull’ in content marketing

7. Easy sign-ups 

One of your best pre-sale conversions is getting sign-ups from lead generators. Still, you’ll find that the number of sign-ups drops dramatically when you ask for multiple lines of contact information.

Do you really need a phone number and the name of the business? Often, if you only ask for a name and email address, you have enough to reach out to a qualified lead and build on that connection.

Also, set up your forms so the user’s browser can quickly auto-fill information. An effortless form-filling process boosts your odds of sign-ups.

8. Mobile-friendliness

This point should be a no-brainer by now, but it’s easy to forget when you’re trying to get everything done. Verify your site looks as good on mobile as it does on desktop — if not better.

The problem is most site construction occurs on a desktop. Ensure you’ve made your pages smooth and pretty for smartphones and tablets.

9. No broken links

Broken links to third-party sites may seem small, but they can quickly wreck UX and SEO. Those links demonstrate credibility and authority to the algorithms and your readers.

Clicking a link to a great reference and getting a 404 is frustrating. Even worse is heading to a spammy or unsecured site.

During the editing phase, ensure the links you include in your articles work properly. When you update content (which you should do regularly), verify that hyperlinks still work and go to the right pages.

Quality UX makes your content shine

Great UX ensures that your audience gets the point of your content and avoids the distraction of poor presentation. Use these tips to improve your UX and start getting higher conversions.

Dig deeper: Doing more with less: How marketers can make content go further