In the “dog eat dog” world of legal recruiting, having a robust online presence helps you get more client leads and conversions. That said, your website is a vital component of your overall digital marketing strategy – one that must be updated periodically to provide visitors with a more positive user experience (UX).
But bad website designs are common, including those that belong to many legal recruitment firms. Even a minor UX mistake on your website can cost you current and potential clients while tarnishing your brand’s online reputation. The remainder of this article will explore bad user experience website examples and how you, as a recruiter, can avoid those same costly mistakes.
What is a “Bad” User Experience?
A bad user experience is something that almost every brand or company has experienced from time to time. Since search engines like Google place a great emphasis on UX, an inaccurate or confusing website design can negatively impact your Google ranking and search engine optimization (SEO). Given that 75% of all global internet traffic runs through Google, that’s critical for your bottom line.
UX factors like site aesthetics, irrelevant information, hidden/confusing navigation, or too much data in one place can frustrate users in a matter of seconds.
Common symptoms of a bad user experience include:
- Higher bounce and exit rates
- An inability of users to engage with content
- Slow loading speed (unresponsive design)
- Poor usability
How Does Poor UX Design Affect Your Business?
The average first-time website visitor spends less than 20 seconds deciding whether or not they will stay on a given site. According to Statista, over 4.2 billion internet users now use mobile devices to go online – a figure that represents roughly 90% of the global internet population.
Over 50% of mobile users leave websites within 3 seconds, while first impressions take only 50 milliseconds to form. That doesn’t give you much time to attract and hold a potential client’s attention. As a result, your website’s design had better offer a user-friendly experience for all devices, including phones, laptops, and tablets.
If you’re running a recruiting business, having the worst UX website out there isn’t going to help you attract new business and achieve your quarterly goals.
And when you are attracting a lot of traffic to your website through external sources, like social media, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, LinkedIn job postings, etc. but your client engagement and conversion rates are low, it could be a UX issue.
Common Mistakes Leading to Bad UX Design
What makes a good or bad user experience? Here are some examples:
Complicated navigation
The core information within your website’s pages should be easy to find. Once visitors land on your website, they should know immediately who you are and what you can offer them. An inability to quickly find what they need will cause frustrated users to “bounce.”
Low page load speed
Website performance is also significant. Consider the “weight” of each page while configuring your layout to ensure the same UX for all users. An unresponsive design will send visitors looking elsewhere within seconds.
Image size
Since pictures take up to 50% of the page loading time, another component of website optimization is image size. To enhance site performance, you must optimize your visuals without needing full-sized pictures to be scaled down after loading.
Low-quality content
As the backbone of any website, content is just as important as design and functionality. Text, CTA buttons, videos, and photos are all vital sources of information within your website. Be sure to avoid content mistakes like non-unique content, excessive content, typos, syntax errors, and outdated information.
Lack of necessary functionality
Much like an online store, functionality has a large impact on converting first-time site visitors into clients. If you don’t have clear call to actions (CTA), for example, signing up for a quarterly newsletter, your firm may be losing out on golden opportunities.
How to Measure Your Site’s UX Effectiveness
As has been pointed out, the consequences of poor design are many. But how do you know if your website is creating a frustrating user interface experience or not? Thankfully, it is possible to measure your site’s user experience effectiveness through various metrics.
There are two main types of UX metrics: objective and qualitative.
- Objective metrics. These have precise numbers attached to them that you can use to track and compare specific UX elements, such as time on task, success rate, and user errors. Conversely, subjective metrics might give you information about how a user feels about the experience of using your website.
- Qualitative metrics. QMs measure customer experience quality on your site and include recommendations, satisfaction, and ratings. Behavioral metrics express in numbers how users are interacting with your website during their visit.
You can measure UX in these ways:
User interaction with forms
Website forms are a method for clients to contact you, sign up for information, or ask for more details about your business or services. They also provide you with valuable visitor contact information so you can stay in touch. On the other hand, many users shun forms that ask for too much information or are too difficult to fill out.
Site navigability
This metric lets you know what your website visitors are doing and clicking on when visiting your site. Measuring this aspect of UX provides you with valuable insight regarding how your design or layout may be helping or hindering your online marketing efforts.
Usability testing
To test your website’s usability, have some of your team click on your site and provide feedback. Reach out to a few trusted individuals, like friends, family members, and clients, and ask them to navigate the website while filling out contact forms, etc.
Another way to test usability is to run a customer success survey. Ask participants about client satisfaction, willingness to recommend your services to others, and whether they accomplished their goals while visiting your website.
Track page views and time on page
When users are willingly spending time on your website, it’s probably a good sign that it is easy to navigate. Your goal should be getting visitors to spend long enough on each page to obtain the necessary information and take the next step towards a conversion. Longer than average time-on-page figures could indicate a problem.
Other red flags to look for include users leaving your site after viewing a specific page for a long time or refusing to fill out a form – either of which could be an indication that the page might be confusing or a mismatch for the CTA that you’ve chosen.
Track page load speed
If you want visitors to stick around and see what you have to offer, your website should load quickly. In fact, page load speed is a crucial element that affects both search engine rankings and UX.
According to Unbounce, roughly 70% of internet users say that slow page speed affects their desire to purchase from an online retailer. Over 35% say that slow loading time makes them less likely to return to an e-commerce site the next time.
Although it’s hard to apply that same data to the legal recruiting business, lost website users can certainly and dramatically affect your bottom line!
Can a UX Audit for Your Firm Help?
In the highly competitive world of legal recruiting, the consequences of an outdated website design that delivers a poor user experience can be devastating to your bottom line. One of the best ways to determine the UX of your site is by periodically doing a UX audit.
At Deep Footprint, the agency behind the Legal Recruiter Directory, we specialize in results-driven digital marketing solutions for legal headhunters, law firms, and legal placement firms – including reliable UX audits. Helping those we serve realize higher client engagement and conversion rates is something we excel at every day.
The Legal Recruiter Directory also provides online support that helps legal recruiters place talented active or passive attorney candidates with prestigious law firms and corporations. If you’re interested in learning more, contact the experts at the Legal Recruiter today.