In Part 1 of this article last month (read Part 1), we discussed how to increase the effectiveness of your website through improving the design and enhancing the search engine optimisation of your site. We provided tips and some do’s and don’ts.
In this month’s section, we will focus on the usability of your site to enable customers to find what they want and more importantly find what you want them to find, and how to measure the success of your web strategy and any changes you implement.
USABILITY
Attracting more people to your site is only half the answer. Imagine the increased impact of also getting those additional people to convert more often. This is where usability comes into play.
Usability is a measure for how simple or difficult users find your website to be when they wish to perform their desired action. It is also how easy or difficult it is for users to perform the actions you desire from them. Usability is a necessary condition for survival.
If a website is difficult to use – your customer will leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what your company offers and what can be done on the site – people will leave. If users get ‘lost’ on a website, they will leave it. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer key questions… you get the idea.
How can I improve the usability on my website?
One method is user testing. Recruit 5 representative users and ask them to navigate around your site. Ask them to perform certain tasks and let them find their way through on their own. Watch where they succeed and where they get stuck. Most importantly, be quiet, observe closely and let them do the talking.
Another method we recommend is to perform AB testing. AB testing is creating two versions of the same web page and analyse the conversion results to see which one entices your visitors to convert in greater numbers. Google has a handy (and free) tool called “website optimiser” that you can utilise for this testing process.
So what makes a “usable” site?
Here are a few BrandQuest tips:
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Avoid the “front door mentality”:
It is important that each page on your website features a means of determining what your site is for, what you offer and how to get from one place to the next. Since search engines rank all site pages, it makes it possible for a visitor to come into your site through a page other than the home page. |
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The 3 click rule:
Research has indicated that users will give up looking for what they want if they don’t find it after three clicks. Your site needs to be so simple that your customers know where they are and how to quickly get where they want (and back again). |
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Use a sitemap:
While only 7% of people utilise sitemaps to get an overview of a site’s structure, a sitemap is the best method of achieving this. |
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Make your links clear:
You will confuse your users if you employ the same colour for links and for ordinary text. Links should be clear, should change colour once clicked on and the text should not be too long. |
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No splash pages!!!:
Splash pages are defined as the introductory pages to a website. Most of the time they are animations, graphics or a flash movie. According to relevant studies, up to 25% of visitors leave a site when a splash comes up. |
MEASUREMENT
If it cannot be measured, it cannot be managed.
The key to any successful marketing strategy is setting appropriate goals and measuring your success against them. Decisions regarding layout, design, content and usability are next to impossible if you don’t have reliable statistics to support your decision making process.
There are several tools available that will measure relevant statistics about your website’s visitor activity. One of the best is Google Analytics as it is simple and free to use. It measures the number of visitors to your site, what pages they visit and what pages they exit your site from, how long they spend on your site, how they found your site etc.
All you will need to do is add some simple HTML code to each of your web pages to enable google to track your statistics.
However, Google does have a few downsides, primarily being that the data is not available in real time. Data is usually available 24 – 36 hours after the end of a day, so if you are in a company that needs your web statistics in real time, you will have to use commercially available software. Some people are also wary of providing all this data to Google who already dominate so much of the web activity.
Once you are collecting and analysing your data, you will have measurements that allow you to constantly review, refine and renew your site in order to maximise its effectiveness. You will be able to determine which tactics are working and can edit your site appropriately.
Conclusion: Your website should be an organic and constantly evolving sales tool.
Most businesses have a current web site. Like any sales process or salesperson it needs to be constantly reviewed and up-skilled in order to remain relevant to the customer it serves and to maximise its return to your business.
This BrandQuest article provides the basics that you should be deploying within your current site. Using our simple 4 step check: Design, Optimisation, Useability and Measurement will lead to an improved marketing tool that will ultimately deliver increased sales and/or enquiries.