In the previous sections, we discussed the things that can present problems only for a website owner. Usability flaws will directly impact users. SEO audit includes UX usability audit. If a page has a high bounce rate and the technical audit shows that hosting, links and everything else is great, check your UX usability. It is inevitable for quality website promotion.
We collected the most frequently asked questions and grouped them into the following questions.
- Why UX audit needed?
- How to format a UX audit?
- What is a good UX checklist to audit website?
- How long should a UX audit take?
- How to set up a UX audit for a new user?
How to check website UX usability?
Audit parameters are clear from the very meaning of the word usability. UX usability is how easily something is used. However, in terms of website promotion, the term is much broader. UX usability shows how effective, useful, and relevant to the user a site is.
Usability Testing: Website Tips and Examples
- An Effective website meets, or better yet exceeds, user expectations. It helps visitors to quickly and easily solve the tasks that brought them to the website.
- A Useful resource promptly provides users with the necessary information without wasting time, money, and effort.
- A Relevant website, at last, becomes the Holy Grail searched online by users. It fully meets their expectations or needs and provides a clear answer to particular search queries.
These effectiveness, usefulness, and relevance are researched in usability analysis and website audit.
Why do you need UX usability analysis?
UX Usability is critical to a website.
- If a resource is inconvenient to users, they will find a website that will be more easy-to-use and save time and effort.
- If visitors don’t see the information, they cannot understand what the resource is about and its use. Predictably, within a few seconds, they will leave to find a place that doesn’t cause unnecessary questions.
- If you don’t answer users’ questions but provide a lot of useless and superficial information, they will go to competitor, who can quickly and completely satisfy needs.
The importance of UX usability can be shown based on two consumer goods stores with professional and unprofessional salespeople. The store that provides visitors with understandable, specific, and complete information about the product will have a new buyer. The salesman will flounder, talk off the point, or even stay silent and will get nothing.
Sample UX usability audit of apple.com
1. The menu highlighted on the image below should be pinned on the category pages since, after scrolling, it disappears.
2. For the Mac category, the website owners need to create an Н1 that would be relevant to the category.
3. The product page has the wrong order of headers. The H1 much go first and then the others. Moreover, tags have the same content, which is considered a duplicate element.
4. The header shouldn’t include icons.
5. Each element of the block is active and has links.
Apple.com should remove text for more effective SEO advertising.
6. These elements should be converted to span preserving the styles.
7. These blocks should be active.
8. Too large photos and excessive space between the blocks significantly increase the scroll length so much hated by users. Apple.com must add the Up button, which is inevitable with such a scroll depth.
9. Since the scroll length on every page is quite big. Users have to return to the top to go to another page, which is pretty inconvenient.
10. The search is worth attention. It provides various search suggestions. After the SEO audit, we can recommend adding 10 phrases popular among users.
11. If you go to the cart without adding a product, you will see the message that the cart is empty and invited to Apple’s accessories store with a common online store design.
The cart should display the list of all categories.
12. The H1 header should be added in the Accessories store.
13. The iPad page should include all models, whereas the See all models button must be removed. The thing is that there are only five models, three of which are immediately displayed.
14. It would be great to add the link to the Accessories store to the main menu since the section can be accessed only from the cart. This is a thought-out solution based on the idea that users can buy the necessary accessories when they finish the order. However, users who already have Apple devices and need something additional may face problems.
UX Usability optimization of the mobile website version
1. The menu should be cropped.
2. Menu is scrolled right or left. More convenient if the icons were smaller and didn’t require scrolling.
3. Again, the main menu is unpinned. Causes the same inconveniences as in the desktop version.
4. Text should be hidden with the help of a drop-down. It’s better to display the first paragraph and show the rest after clicking the Read more button. This will significantly reduce the scroll length and positively impact the search engine advertising of the website.
5. The county selection list should be divided into two columns.
Conclusion
Usability is the face of a website. The look of the face will influence the user’s opinion about resources, business, products, and provided services.
A regular SEO audit helps websites stay afloat and not get lost among numerous similar offers. An automatic SEO audit is conducted at least once per month, whereas the full SEO website audit must be conducted every six months. This allows you to assess work and achievements.
