| As a busy search engine optimization
consultant, I don't have a lot of time to manage my website. But recently I learnt the
hard way about the fickle nature of website visitors and the damage that having a
user-unfriendly site can do to a business. Now I give my website usability much more
priority than ever before.
Here's what happened. I had written a research report late
last year and was selling it as a downloadable e-book via the site. However, I was relying
on an offline press release and links from other sites to lead visitors to the specific
page from which the report could be purchased. Although this report resulted in
considerable press attention, much of the media coverage did not include a link direct to
my report page, or in some cases, even my website, meaning that interested parties were
forced to conduct a search for my site.
It wasn't until I received an email from a potential
customer advising me that he had searched my home page and couldn't find a link to the
report that I had my "Duh!" moment. I had forgotten to include a link to the
report page from my home page! My old website had no site map or site search tool either,
so potential customers finally arrived at my site, only to click away in frustration after
not being able to easily find information on my research report. Goodness knows how many
sales I missed out on due to this oversight. Embarrassed, I quickly added a link to my
home page and made a mental note to study up on website usability, pronto.
Since then, I've learnt that improving your website
usability isn't time-consuming, it isn't expensive and it's certainly not difficult. It
simply involves common sense and dedication to the task. Here are 10 easy steps that
anyone can implement to make their website more user friendly:
1) Create a Site Map
No matter what the size of your website, you should include
a detailed, text-based site map, with a link to every page and preferably, a short
description of what each page offers. An excellent example of a site map can be found
here: [http://www.seoconsultants.com/site-map.htm]. The advantage of using a site map is
that you don't have to link to every page from your home page, but you should link to your
site map from every page. Not only are site maps useful for visitors looking for specific
information on your site, but they are great "spider-food", meaning they are a
way for search engines to easily find and index every page on your site.
2) Use a Logical Navigation Structure
When designing your site navigation menu, use logical
headings and link descriptions. For example, "web site design services" is much
more intuitive to a visitor than "Internet services". Use Cookie Crumbs to show
visitors where they are on your site at any point. These are headings you often see at the
top of websites and search portals showing what category and page you are currently
browsing (e.g. Home > Travel > UK > Bristol > Bed & Breakfasts). Guide
Visitors to specific pathways throughout your site. You can do this using Call-to-Action
links instructing visitors what page they should view or what action they should take next
e.g. "Click Here to Order", "Bookmark This Page", or "View Our
Catalogue Now".
3) Check for Errors Regularly
There's nothing worse than browsing a site or following a
link only to find it leads nowhere. Make sure you check your site at least once a month
for any broken links. There are low cost link checking tools such as Link Defender
[http://www.webposition.com/linkdefender.htm] available to help you keep on top of this.
Make sure your HTML code is designed to display correctly in different browser versions.
Also ensure that your site hosting provider is stable and reliable to avoid any
unnecessary downtime of your website. Services such as Internet Seer
[http://www.internetseer.com] can help you monitor your site uptime free of charge. Make
sure your site does not contain spelling or grammatical mistakes. If you're not the
world's best speller, have trusted friends and colleagues check your site copy for errors.
When proofing your site, remember to take into account regional spelling usage for
different audiences worldwide, e.g. British versus American English. A webmaster service
such as Net Mechanic [http://www.netmechanic.com] can be used to check for many of these
errors via the one location.
4) Use a Consistent Design and Layout
Common sense rules here - make sure you use a consistent
design and layout for each page on your site. This means using the same general color
scheme, logo, consistent navigation menu, header and footer in the same location and
consistent link attributes (e.g. always underlined). This way you never alienate your
visitor or cause them to become confused and lose their momentum to keep looking.
5) Include a Site Search Tool
A user friendly website provides the visitor with the
ability to search the site for specific keywords. Thought this one was too hard? Me too.
Until I discovered Atomz Site Search [http://www.atomz.com/search/trial_account.htm]. This
is a software program that provides site-wide search for websites of 500 pages or less,
for free. It's a quick and painless way to setup and customize your own site-wide search
tool. They also offer a paid version for larger sites.
6) Ensure All Forms Work
It sounds obvious and it should be. If you're going to make
your site interactive with feedback forms, newsletter sign-ups, guest-books and the like,
then make sure they work! Double check each form field is large enough to accommodate even
the longest of names. Think about your international visitors when creating fields such as
Zip Code. Make it clear which fields are required by marking them with an asterisk. Test
the form to make sure it submits correctly and displays the right confirmation message
upon completion.
7) Ensure Shopping Carts are Functional
This is vital for any type of e-commerce site. Ensure you
have adequate product descriptions, pictures, specifications and crystal clear pricing.
Include information on shipping and freight costs and integrate any taxes within your
price list. If selling internationally, include a foreign exchange calculator such as the
free one provided by XE [http://www.xe.com] for visitors to compare costs in their local
currency. Make sure your shopping cart pages are protected by SSL or a secure certificate
to give visitors the confidence to reveal their personal and credit card information
without threat or risk. Provide simple instructions for completing the online transaction,
give them the ability to back out easily and provide a help email address or phone number
on every page of the process in case they get stuck. For instant transactions, provide a
receipt immediately and confirm their transaction was successful. As with your online
forms, test, test and test again. It only takes one bad experience for you to lose a
potential lifetime customer.
8) Include Obvious Contact Details
With all the scams proliferating the web these days, people
are understandably skeptical when it comes to online business. To build trust, you
absolutely, positively need to display contact details prominently on your site. If you're
not willing to provide a way for people to contact you, why should anyone be willing to
buy from you? You should include your business address (preferably your street address and
a postal address), a telephone number and at least one email address. If you are concerned
about spam email harvesters, you can either hide your email address within a HTML encoder
such as Natata [http://natata.hn3.net/antispam_encoder.htm] or use a contact form for
people to submit to contact you with (although many people, including me, find the latter
annoying).
9) Use Easy to Understand Language
The Internet is no place for verbosity. People are in a
hurry - they want to find what they seek quickly and easily with the least hassle
possible. You can help them in this quest by ensuring your site pages use simple language
and easy to grasp concepts throughout. For example instead of "brand-building web
information architects", use "website designers specializing in brand
promotion". Keep the text on each page to a minimum, using bullet points and
sub-headings to get your main points across or to demonstrate your product benefits. Use
the old WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) adage when composing your body copy to keep the
user's interests at top of mind. Remember your international visitors by avoiding regional
word usage or technical jargon that could alienate. Want your visitor to take a particular
action? Spell it out for them in plain English.
10) Make it search engine friendly
Last, but by no means least, make sure your site is search
engine compatible. A user friendly site is generally a search engine friendly site too.
Use body text and headings in place of graphical text. Use a text-based navigation menu
instead of a graphical or drop-down JavaScript menu. Avoid frames, Flash or any code that
could trip up a search engine spider trying to index your site. Use logical Title and META
tags for each page, tailoring these to match the content found within. Scatter target
keywords and search phrases throughout your body copy to give your pages better ranking
potential on engines and directories for related searches. Don't compromise the
readability of your copy to achieve this - hire an expert copywriter to strike the right
balance if need be.
So there you have it. 10 easy steps to making your websites
more user friendly. Now you have no more excuses for avoiding usability. Implement one of
these per week and your visitors will repay you with loyalty. |