Archive for October, 2005
I went to visit the Ann Taylor site this past week for a simple reason: I wanted to know how late the local store was open. Was I able to find this information? No. While it was intuitive to click on "Store Locator," and search for the local store, the lack of store hours was annoying. While I could’ve picked up the phone, called, and gotten the hours, being the "look it up on the Internet" Queen, I could do no such thing! I canned going to Ann Taylor’s that day assuming it was only open till 6. If it was open later, well, they missed a potential client.
While I was there, I took a brief look around and thought I could make a few comments on their site for this newly launched weekly review.
- While there was a Sitemap, there was no link that said Sitemap, which users have come to expect. Instead the sitemap was found under Help.
- From the shopping page for a pair of pants I was interested in, I was unable to find the return policy or shipping information. I could not find prominent links to these critical visitor considerations on their home page either. Guess where it was? Under Help…as part of the site map. At least as far as I could tell from my quick assessment (which is the length of any users’ assessment on the Internet). Returns and shipping are critical considerations during the buying process and should be easy to find within the purchasing steps.
- Users must register and create an account to buy anything. The more steps you require users to go through, the less likely they are to complete the transaction. Think simplicity here!
On the flip side, their search function worked well when I searched for "return." They have integrated some nice photos to explain the fit of their pants. They also offer several ways to shop–directions that users can take once on the site: by outfit, by trend, by category, and sales. And while the font on some of the navigation can seem a bit small, the overall site design reinforces the classic style that Ann Taylor clothes are known for.
October 27th, 2005
It seems that every week some company comes out with a new software tool to magically make your site climb the search engine listings. Of course they all say they’re the best, and only THEY have "what it takes" to get the job done. None of actually believe all of the claims - it’s marketing after all - but are they even worth your time?
I own TrendMX and I’ve been happy with it in general. However, it’s now officially pointless to submit to Google, and you do have to be very careful or you’ll get banned. A tool like TrendMX is helpful and useful for analysis and checking rankings (with anyone but Google, since, as they state, it’s against their rules to do ANY automated queries) - but the key is to NOT do it more than once a month - and to be safe, once every other month. It doesn’t change often enough to warrant checking that often anyway. Yahoo has fewer restrictions, but the results are different - I once had a site at #15 on Google and #3 on Yahoo.
Overall - if you get TrendMX or any tool (don’t bother with Web Position Gold, it’s really not worth the money in any way) just don’t OVERuse it, or your site is toast.
By the way - submitting still does help on the lesser search engines, but one could argue that it’s a waste of time to submit to those as well, since nobody uses them and they require an email to submit a site (which they put on every SPAM list in the universe - that’s where 95% of my spam comes from).
And - I hate to say this - the more Google gets "better" (thereby placing more restrictions on a site and it’s rankings), the less SEO is even worth your time or your money. Google is fast making being an actual GOOD website the ONLY way to get ranked - no more shortcuts.
Spend time on increasing inbound links from reputable sites (no link buying or sharing), writing good interesting content, and increasing usability so people will want to come back. Basically, just build a better site.
No more shortcuts.
October 17th, 2005
Imagine working on a Website project for weeks or even months. This is typical. It is so easy to take a very narrow view of the project because you are so close to it. In fact, there may only be a handful of people making the key decisions on how the Website will look, function and be used by site visitors. And they all can have a narrow view. They can also argue about their narrow views. This so often leads to very serious user problems because site visitors don’t understand what the developers had in mind. They have not been part of your development meetings. However, the Website’s architects have no problem understanding it because they have lived it for months!
So the challenge is to get out of your head, out of your own work, and into the head of the user. It is almost like you are in a different country and you are learning new customs and languages. Unfortunately, there are no handbooks that translate the language of your customer’s and targeted user’s usability. You have to find out for yourself by observing them in action. This may involve letting go of a few things that seemed extremely important during the development process.
If you want your Website to get results, listen to the user. I recommend having someone in the development meetings actually represent the user. A staff member form sales or marketing should be good at this role. Keep in mind your Website users will out number you many times over. Ultimately, the users will determine the fate of all the planning and work that went into the Website development, so why not make it easy on yourself?
Tom Wood-Young
October 5th, 2005
One can write volumes about Internet marketing and driving traffic to a Website. Here are the first important steps you can take within the areas of online branding, search engines, email and links from other Websites.
1. Building a Brand Online
- Your online brand is how you position yourself on the Web, your strategy and what Web visitors think about your company when they come to your site.
- A solid brand results in valuable word-of-mouth and referrals.
- Understand why anyone would want to come to your Website.
- Give site visitors the content they want.
- Make the site very intuitive and better than your competitors.
- Load the site with many pages of content that help the user.
2. Search Engines
- You must understand how search engines work and drive traffic through organic listings and paid placement.
- Learn all you can about Google Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture.com. Do this by visiting their Websites and running their tutorials.
- Start with a targeted group of search key words you want to pull up your Website.
- Optimize your Website for Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
3. Email Programs
- Focus on collecting email subscribers form a clearly visible link on your home page.
- Only ask for their name and an email address. Make sure you state your privacy rules.
- People read important emails and discard those of no value. Write your email so that it is important to your Website users.
- Manage your list on an external email server and avoid running your email list from your own computer.
- Use your email list as your primary stay in touch program. When your customer is ready to buy, they will remember you.
4. Clicks from other Websites
- Think of a getting traffic from other Websites strategically. Where do your users go for information? How can your Website be part of that information process?
- Your content can easily be placed for free on sites that need content. Content is like oxygen for the Web, without it the Internet does not breathe. Your content must be of value. Website editors looking for great content for their users will take this hot content.
- Be careful of paying to be listed on someone’s Website. Pursue a cost per click strategy if possible and watch out for set up fees. If you do plan on paying, always call references and randomly pick companies that have links on the Website, rather than references given to you.
More to come… we will get into more details later in the Blog on all these areas.
Tom Wood-Young
October 4th, 2005
Users come to a Website for content. This content may be a variety of things including photos, videos, pricing, or product or service information, but the bottom line is that content will motivate users to contact you or buy from your Website. Websites have a bad habit of letting graphics, navigation issues, link titles, banner ads and other distractions get in the way of the user’s search for content.
Make sure good content is on your site and that users can find it easily with graphics that enhance the site and links that are titled in ways that make sense to the user. Avoid distracting banner ads or movement on the site that takes away from the user’s path toward content. In user testing these ads are usually ignored anyway.
Why are Blogs popular? Because of the interesting, first hand content that offers much more vivid detail then the mainstream news media is currently offering.
Talk to your users to find out what kind of content they want and make it extremely easy for users to find it on your Website.
October 3rd, 2005
Previous Posts
