User experience (UX) is the fundamental component of an effective plumbing website. It impacts how well the site ranks on search engine results and how frequently visitors convert into leads or prospects.
With so much focus on content creation and search engine optimization, plumbing companies and their marketers sometimes overlook the importance of user experience and interface.
Unfortunately, well-written content perfectly optimized for search rankings can be rendered useless by a poor user experience.
Key Takeaways
- UX Impacts Conversion Rates
- UX Impacts Search Rankings
- UX Reflects on Your Company and Brand
- UX Can Be Improved With Proper Techniques
What is User Experience for Plumbing Websites?
User experience is a plumbing consumer’s experience while interacting with your website. Factors include the user’s perception, the quality of the design, and the website’s ease of use.
Google and other search engines track users’ on-site behavior to help determine whether the site and page provide users with their desired outcome.
As a result, the quality of the plumbing website’s UX can impact search results and conversions.
What is User Interface for Plumbers?
User interface is how users interact with your plumbing website, regardless of experience. Of course, superior interfaces create better experiences, which should be the goal of every website.
Experienced web designers have a nuanced understanding of user interface, which is reflected in the presentation of the site’s graphics, buttons, navigation, and calls to action (CTAs).
5 User Experience Tips for Plumbing Companies
Website user experience has become essential to digital marketing over the past decade.
As the interface between the user and the website becomes more defined, the user demands a more streamlined experience.
In short, user experience defines how visitors interact with and experience your website.
Marketing research indicates that 40% of web surfers will leave your page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, highlighting how user expectations have increased over time.
Developing ways of providing a modern UX to your visitors can be challenging. After all, you run a plumbing company, not a website design company.
In the following post, we will discuss some tried-and-true tips you can implement to improve our website’s user experience.
1) Increase Page Speed
Free tools like Google PageSpeed Insights allow plumbing companies to quickly test their website speed to gauge how users are experiencing their site.
A score of 90 or above indicates that your site is optimized for speed and loads quickly for your visitors. Meanwhile, scores below 70 reveal your site is not loading as quickly as most users expect.
If your site speed is lower than you’d anticipated, consider implementing some of the following changes:
- Compress Images: Compressing JPG, JPEG, or PNG images and converting them into WebP can increase your site speed.
- Don’t Overdo Images: Images are great for plumbing SEO. However, having too many of them on any page of your website can distract the user from your important content and significantly slow your page load times.
- Use WPRocket: WordPress users can install a caching plugin, WProcket, which introduces lazyloading and optimizes CSS delivery to reduce load times.
- Work With a Pro: Template websites can have obtrusive code built into the design, so working with a professional web developer can provide you with a cleaner codebase.
2) Segment Content
Break up giant walls of text into smaller paragraphs and use numbered and bulleted lists to help break up important content and make it more readable for your visitors.
A recent study found that 70% of people prefer looking at content with bulleted lists instead of 55% of people who read content without lists.
Simply breaking content up so it’s easier for your viewers to read can significantly differentiate how many potential customers you are moving along the sales funnel.
3) Relevant Headings
Your headings or header tags help search engines and their users understand and categorize your content into a cohesive document.
Consequently, it’s important to use relevant headings that correctly preview the subsequent content and its intent.
To provide a quality website user experience, your headlines should indicate content that the user will actually read about.
4) Fix Broken Links
Broken links are among consumers’ most annoying problems when navigating a plumbing website.
Imagine that a pipe under your kitchen sink just started suddenly spewing water. You hop on your phone and search for emergency plumbing in your area.
You find the top result, click on their website, and hit the Contact Us link, only to be led to a page that says, “404 Error page not found.” That’s a surefire way to lose a customer, so monitoring and correcting broken links on your website is imperative.
Use this free tool to identify broken links and complete the following tasks to correct them:
- Replace Links: Replace links to 404 errors with links to active pages that cover the same topic and satisfy the same intent.
- Remove Links: Sometimes, you may not have a viable replacement URL. In this case, you can delete the link entirely to avoid user experience issues.
5) Optimize for Mobile
76% of adults will use their phones to shop online and search for local services, including plumbers, meaning your website must provide a speedy mobile experience.
Here are some tips on how to improve mobile UX:
- 3rd Party Video Uploads: For your mobile site, try uploading your videos through a 3rd party site. In other words, don’t upload them directly onto your site. You can use YouTube for 3rd party uploading.
- Avoid Flash: Most phones don’t have Adobe Flash Player installed, and most don’t come pre-installed. So, it’s usually a good idea to avoid using Flash for your mobile site animations and images.
- Optimize Clickable Elements: Remember that mobile users will have a smaller screen, and it’s incredibly annoying when links are too close to each other on mobile pages. Space out links on your mobile pages and make your CTA buttons nice and big.
Plumbing companies should prioritize their website’s mobile experience, as it will result in the most conversions compared to other devices like desktops and laptops.
Final Thoughts on User Experience
User Experience (UX) for plumbing websites is essential to online success as it impacts rankings and conversion rate.
Search engines prefer to rank websites that satisfy users, which means UX can impact your keyword rankings on Google and Bing.
Furthermore, users expect a positive user experience once they arrive at your website. Failure to provide such a UX will result in drops and loss of conversions.
Conversely, a premium UX will increase conversion rates and drive more business to your plumbing company.
Considering these factors, optimizing your plumbing website’s user experience is essential to your broader digital marketing campaign.
