When figuring out how to increase traffic to your website, we should consider maximizing repeat traffic as well. This will account for a certain amount of your visitors, and someone who looks at the same thing multiple times may be more interested than someone who hasn’t. It’s internet marketing 101. Make sense?
This article is going to be about one thing. Website usability. It’s a topic that I’m passionate about, and I decided to share a bit of what goes through my mind when I visit a website. Hopefully it will spark an idea or two about how you could improve the usability of YOUR website for YOUR visitors..
Now.. I just visited a site where the top half of the screen was filled by the logo and navigation… Really? I had to scroll down to view the page content? Why? Couldn’t that header have been presented more elegantly from a visual standpoint by shrinking the logo and moving it to the top where it balances with the navigation?
Now.. I get that most people aren’t “web guys”, but if you’re putting up a website, it’s in your best interest to learn some basics about things like browser compatibility and website usability. Also, have others use your website and provide feedback.
Consider Your User’s Experience
Back in the day there was an ad that read “Make your own website? Sure, why not do your own brain surgery”. Although UI design is not rocket science, it’s easy to do wrong! Investing 5-10% of your time learning about the web marketing strategies and technologies you are working in will be worth it in the long run, even if you just understand the basics of html and web usability.
For example, if you visit browsershots.org, you can see how your page looks in all major browsers. This will help identify and isolate browser specific inconsistencies that can frustrate and alienate your visitors. Keep an eye on older versions of IE as there is still a fair amount of people using these outdated browsers.
In terms of visual appearance, it’s generally good advice to balance form with function. Flashy headers, auto-play videos and oversized text are often misused for blog posts, when a squeeze page would be a much better use for them. Now, if you are targeting Brittney Spears fans by all means, make the sparkle “pop” more.. And if you’re a professional business, keep the flash animations to a minimum.
Just remember to take your audience’s needs into consideration. They are most likely on your site searching for an answer to a given problem.. Give it to them, and give them compelling and specific direction on what action to take next. Do you want them to read another article? Perhaps you would like them to look at a sale or special your company is having or opt into your mailing list. Have a clear call to action on every page, to keep your visitors interacting with your content.
Also, learning basic seo concepts will help with organic search engine traffic, which is a free and steady source of new prospects. When you understand the importance of concepts like backlinking,the h1 tag, keywords in article writing, etc., you can create and format your content in a way that makes your content more relevant in search engine results. The only marketing toolkit I use, MLSP, has some resources for SEO if you would like to learn about this topic further.
Exessive use of plugins adds bloat to your code, and decreases load times and has the potential to introduce browser inconsistancies. If possible, install plugins 1 by 1 and evaluate the performance, load times, etc. of your site in between each installation.
Finally, are you testing for mobile usability? You should be. That could be 5-10% of your traffic. Check your analytics to determine this figure, and determine if it makes sense for your campaigns. Also, if you’re tech saavy you may even want to use css for iPhone visitors specifically.
Unless you’re building a pitch page, it’s not who can yell the loudest, it’s who can deliver something that provdes value and solves the need of your visitor. At it’s most basic level, people are usually online searching for information to solve a specific problem. Simple as it sounds, internet marketing is all about figuring out what that is and giving it to them in a way that makes them hungry for more.
For a limited time, I’m offering a $299 consultation/web profit strategy recommendation. I wll provide a 1/2 hr phone consultation to identify your specific goals (more traffic, more leads, higher conversion, more sales, etc.), then analyze and suggest changes you can make to increase the effectiveness of your web campaigns.. or your money back! Contact my assistant Jen () to schedule a consultation.
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