Small businesses rely on their websites to attract and retain customers. Websites make it possible for visitors to discover and shop with your brand.
However, a website with a poor user experience can disconnect you from future customers. If the pages load slowly or broken links appear, your visitors may decide to leave your website—increasing your site’s bounce rates.
Don’t let this happen to your small business. Use a WordPress UX plugin to improve your user experience.
1. WPtouch
Research shows that up to 70% of web traffic comes from a mobile phone. Consumers are interacting with your website on small screens. So, your team must make it easy for them to engage without having to squint their eyes or constantly resize your pages with their fingers.
WPtouch, a mobile plugin for WordPress, offers a solution by automatically adding a simple and elegant mobile theme to your website. You’ll get a mobile-friendly site that prevents your SEO rankings from dropping.
The plugin allows you to customize your site’s appearance for your mobile visitors without writing a single line of code. Don’t worry about the desktop version of your site because it will continue to show for your non-mobile visitors.
2. Smush
No one likes waiting, including online visitors. Your goal is to get visitors to your content as quickly as possible. The faster you can make your WordPress site, the faster visitors can learn more about your brand and products.
Smush optimizes your images to improve your page load speed. This WordPress plugin compresses images by stripping hidden bulky information to reduce the file size without affecting the appearance of the image. Also, you can bulk compress up to 50 images with one click.
This tool comes with a wrong size image finder, too. Once activated, Smush offers smart tips for scaling your images. Therefore, you can quickly locate the images slowing down your page speed.
3. Broken Link Checker
Broken links on your site disrupt the user experience. When visitors land on a 404 page, they don’t get to engage with the intended content. As a result, visitors may leave your site altogether. Adam Heitzman, co-founder and managing partner at HigherVisibility, agrees.
“The big issue with this is that broken links hinder the user experience for anyone browsing your website. In fact, too many broken links can even hinder the linking site’s SEO.â€
There’s a plugin to help you monitor your WordPress website for broken links. The Broken Link Checker scans your site, notifies you of broken links, and makes suggestions for fixing those links. You can even fix broken links within the tool using the filterable link list. You’ll save time maintaining your site.
4. Provide Support Live Chat
Customers want quality service when shopping for products. Your customers also want answers to their most pressing questions so that they can make better purchasing decisions.
For your online business, live chat offers an opportunity for your team to talk directly to customers. You can answer their questions in real-time and direct them to the best product options. It also serves as a tool to build customer relationships.
You can easily add live chat to your website with the Provide Support Live Chat plugin. This tool provides your customers with instant assistance via live chat. You’ll also receive customer messages when your team is offline. Choose from the embedded chat window or classic popup chat window based on your visitors’ preferences.
5. Everest Forms
Collecting leads for your business is essential to communicating with interested buyers. To gather pertinent information from leads, you will need an online form. Ellen Gregory, a contributor to CloudApp, explains:
“Just like your favorite site, a UX form should be easy to use, deliver the information a visitor needs, help them to make an informed decision, and provide a solution for a specific challenge or concern. If not-so user-friendly forms are resulting in high bounce rates, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board.â€
With Everest Forms, you can create any kind of form, from lead generation forms to contact forms. The drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to control and sort your desired fields. Also, the WordPress plugin supports single and multiple-column forms.
6. Apex Notification Bar
As your small business attracts more traffic, you’ll probably want to experiment with different ways to communicate with your visitors. Maybe you want to announce a new promotion or inform people about the upcoming launch of your new ebook.
You can grab the attention of your visitors by adding a notification bar to your website. With the Apex Notification Bar, you can quickly notify visitors of your message and encourage them to take action. For example, you can add a countdown notification bar for a product sale.
This premium plugin comes with 15 pre-made templates to customize with your site. You can add a custom icon, email subscription form, contact popup, Twitter feed, or search form. It also integrates with Constant Contact.
7. Smart Product Viewer
A better website experience can earn your small business more revenue. By showcasing your products in a unique way, your brand can influence customers to purchase.
The Smart Product Viewer is an animation tool for highlighting your products. The plugin allows a customer to see your product with a full 360° spin view. It’s customizable with 64 navigation styles and color combinations.
Boost Your User Experience with WordPress UX Plugins
Your website is a powerful tool to capture the attention of your visitors. Keep people engaged by offering a superb user experience. With these WordPress plugins, you’ll be one step closer to improving your site.
Shayla Price creates and promotes content. She lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology, and social responsibility. Originally from Louisiana, Shayla champions access to remote work opportunities. Connect with her on Twitter at @shaylaprice.