What is Website User Experience (UX)?
As a point of comparison, office space is classifed A, B, or C based upon a combination of factors used as relative measures, including those that enhance user experience such as location and accessibility. Website user experience (UX) is far less subjective, and has evolved to include tools that quantify and audit critical UX factors: desktop/mobile performance, accessibilty, best practices, and SEO.
What is Google Lighthouse?
Google Lighthouse is the industry standard for apples-to-apples comparison of website UX, and is used regularly by both website developers and top-flight marketing professionals across all industries. It can be downloaded as a Chrome plugin and run against any public web page, and therefore allows you to compare your company’s website vs. the competition – which is exactly what we have done in advance of ICSC Las Vegas!
The Process.
The process was straightforward. As a first step, we identified 5 direct competitors – vendors focused entirely or primarily on CRE website design and development. They happen to be based in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, and New York and offer websites at a variety of price points ($5K-$50K). We then reviewed their online website portfolio and ran Google Lighthouse on client websites advertised as their very best. Finally, we ran Google Lightouse on every site in our own portfolio, which includes sites launched 2010-Current.
The Results – Who Gets the Trophy?
Good news for us! CREgrow was the consistent winner across every category – and it wasn’t close. The competition was particularly poor on mobile – zero out of 40 sites scored above 60, which was CREgrow’s average!
Next Steps.
For us, we’re scheduling meetings for ICSC Las Vegas, where we look forward to fielding questions related to the study, as well as showcasing our services and property displays. Headed to the show? Let’s connect!
