Experience is part of the marketing
User experience, often shortened to UX, is how it feels and what it takes to use your website, app, emails and checkout. Marketing brings people to the door; the experience decides what happens next. If a visitor cannot find the price, cannot read the text or gets lost in the menu, the campaign that attracted them has been partly wasted.
This is why UX is not only a designer’s concern. Every marketer who writes copy, builds a page, sends an email or buys traffic affects it. Paying to send visitors to a confusing page is expensive, while improving the page can make existing traffic more valuable. As always, results vary, and no change can be guaranteed to raise sales.
The parts that matter most
Navigation
People arrive with a goal and want to find the way quickly. Good navigation tends to share a few traits:
- Menu labels use everyday words that match what visitors would say, not internal names.
- There are a small number of main items, grouped logically.
- The most important pages are reachable within a few clicks.
- Visitors can tell where they are on the site, for example through clear page headings or breadcrumbs.
- A search box is available on larger sites.
Navigation also helps search engines understand how your pages relate, so it supports the work described under on-page SEO.
Readability
Pages should be easy to read at a glance. Practical points:
- Keep paragraphs short and use descriptive headings so readers can skim.
- Choose a comfortable text size and line length.
- Put key information first; do not make visitors dig.
- Write in plain language and explain unfamiliar terms.
- Use lists and tables only where the content is truly a list or comparison.
Effective headline writing and clear call to action wording also belong here, since they guide the eye and the next step.
Speed and stability
A page that loads slowly or jumps around as it loads is frustrating regardless of how good the content is. Page speed is a part of the experience, not a separate technical matter.
Mobile and different devices
People use phones, tablets and computers, sometimes within the same purchase journey. A layout that only works well in one setting leaves part of your audience behind. Mobile-first design and fixes for existing sites are covered in their own guides; the principle here is that the experience should hold up across devices.
Accessibility
Accessibility means making sites usable by people with a wide range of abilities, such as those who use screen readers, keyboards instead of a mouse, captions, larger text or high contrast. It also helps people in everyday situations: a bright screen outdoors, a noisy room, a broken wrist. Basic steps include clear colour contrast, alt text for meaningful images, descriptive link text, headings used in order, and form labels. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the widely referenced standard; legal requirements vary by country, so check what applies to you. This is general information, not legal advice. For a fuller introduction, see the guide to accessible marketing.
Trust and clarity
Visitors look for signs that a business is real and straightforward: contact details, clear pricing or a statement of how pricing works, honest descriptions and plain policies. Hidden costs, misleading buttons and confusing cancellation steps may win a click but damage trust, and some are against advertising or consumer rules. Avoid deceptive design patterns.
How UX affects marketing measures
A better experience can show up in the numbers marketers already track, though causes are hard to prove. Visitors may stay on useful pages longer, complete more forms, abandon fewer carts or return more often. Analytics can show where people leave a path, and customer feedback can explain why. Sorting such evidence into a customer journey map helps you see the points that need attention.
Simple usability testing for a small team
You do not need a lab or a large budget. A basic usability test follows a simple pattern.
- Pick a task. For example: “Find out how much delivery costs”, or “Book a callback.”
- Recruit a handful of people who resemble your customers. A small group often reveals the most common problems, though it cannot tell you how common each problem is across all visitors.
- Watch them attempt the task on their own device, ideally while they talk aloud about what they expect and what confuses them. Do not help or explain; if you must stay quiet to see what happens, that is the point.
- Note where they hesitate, click the wrong thing, or give up. Write down the exact words they use.
- Look for patterns across people and fix the most serious problems first.
- Run the test again after changes.
A few lower-effort supplements: ask a colleague who did not build the page to try a task, read your customer service messages for repeated confusion, watch your search and analytics reports for pages where people exit, and try your own site using only a keyboard or with text enlarged. If you record sessions or collect feedback, tell people and follow the privacy and consent rules that apply to you, which vary by country.
Where to start
Choose the single most valuable journey on your site, such as buying, booking or requesting a quote, and test it with a few real people this month. Fix the clearest obstacles, retest, and then move to the next journey. Small, steady improvements informed by what you actually observe usually beat a large redesign based on assumptions.