How Large Should Your Website Be to Have a Good User Experience?

So you’re planning on launching a new website. Congrats! You’ve got a ton of ideas, concepts, and strategies you want to try out. Now comes the hard part: learning how to create a website that is both effective and efficient.

In order to have a good user experience (UX) on your website, you need to have a good balance between the two. That is, you need to ensure that your site isn’t too big that it becomes difficult for your users to find what they’re looking for, but it also doesn’t need to be so small that it is unappealing and slows down the loading of the page. After all, everyone has different bandwidth limits and device speeds. What is considered fast by one person may be slow for another. Additionally, a bigger picture is always better when you’re dealing with a website. People love to look at expansive views of the world. It gives them a sense of freedom and adventure. Thus, a larger website typically leads to a better UX.

With these points in mind, let’s discuss the size of your website.

Is Bigger Always Better?

Although it’s generally best to have a bigger website, that doesn’t always mean it’s the best option. It depends on how you design it and what you pack into it. Let’s consider the advantages and disadvantages of having a large website.

The advantage of having a large website is that it gives you the ability to pack a lot of information into a single page – something that becomes increasingly difficult as the site gets bigger. This means your users can browse through a ton of content in a short amount of time. Furthermore, having a large website means your users can access your content from any device – whether it is a mobile phone, a tablet, or a PC. Last but not least, larger websites typically mean more opportunities for growth and expansion. You can always add more content, more products, or more categories. These are all good things.

The downside to having a large website is that it requires more resources. It takes more time to load. This means your users have to sit through longer periods of time waiting for the page to fully load. Now, this might not seem like a big deal. But, you have to consider all the other users out there who are trying to access your content while it’s loading. Meaning, they’re going to have to wait even longer. This is why it’s best to keep your website as small as possible. But, on the other hand, if you do choose to go this route, make sure to add as much value as possible.

What About Responsive Websites?

Not so long ago, creating a responsive website was either impossible or very time-consuming. But, as the name implies, a responsive website is designed to look good on any device – whether it is a mobile phone, tablet, or laptop. The idea behind a responsive website is to create one page that reflows and changes according to the screen size being used.

Now, you don’t necessarily have to use a CMS to create a responsive website. You can easily build one using pure HTML and CSS. But, why would you want to do that when there are a lot of benefits to using a content management system (CMS)?

One of the biggest benefits of using a CMS is that it makes creating a responsive website much easier. Since you’re basically just building blocks – such as headlines, paragraphs, images – within the content itself, it’s a cinch to build a highly functional responsive website. And, don’t worry, you don’t have to be a programmer to do it. Even non-geeks can use basic CMSs to build a functional and beautiful responsive website.

Additionally, content management systems make it much simpler to maintain multiple websites from a single source. So, if you happen to be the proud owner of a multi-national company with offices around the world, having a content management system is undoubtedly the way to go. Otherwise, maintaining several different websites can become quite the chore. Especially if you don’t have the time to dedicate to it.

Ultimately, creating a responsive website is a lot easier with a content management system. This is because, as a user, the main thing you want is for the page to load as fast as possible. So, less resources used means a faster page load time – even if it is just for one person. And, isn’t that what matters at the end of the day?

Keep It Simplistic

Another important thing to keep in mind when designing your website is keeping it simple. Now, first of all, you don’t need to be afraid of making your website look too simple. Quite the opposite, in fact. Keep it simple, and you’ll start seeing the benefits soon. People will begin to appreciate the fact that you didn’t go overboard and complicate things. And, you’ll begin to see the advantages of a smaller more streamlined website. It will seem more inviting and easier to use.

Besides, instead of having a ton of different pages – such as one for tours, one for products, one for news, etc. – it’s better to have one single page that contains all the content. This makes it easier for users to navigate and to find what they’re looking for. Having a ton of different pages can also make it difficult for search engines to index and categorize your content. So, from an SEO standpoint, having fewer pages usually means better scores in both local and global searches. This is because, as you’ll see soon, a streamlined website usually means a higher conversion rate.

Keep It Minimal

Even though we just discussed how having a ton of different pages is bad, you don’t necessarily have to prevent this from happening. It’s just that it’s easier to keep things simple and to-the-point when there are fewer pages. This is why you don’t want to go overboard and make your website look cluttered – especially since minimalism is one of the trending topics right now.

Furthermore, you don’t need to use a ton of different images to make your website look good. Instead of having a bunch of images laid out one after the other (as in a traditional website), a minimalistic approach is to keep the images as streamlined as possible and to place them in a sequence. This helps to make the image load faster. And, since minimalism usually means using less resources, this usually results in faster page load speeds. This, in turn, makes your website more user-friendly. And, let’s face it, who isn’t friendly anymore?

The last thing you want is a slow-loading website that makes your users frustrated and dissatisfied. So, in order to have a good UX on your website, you need to keep these tips in mind.