After finding myself explaining this concept quite a lot recently, I decided to put it into words and post it on The Escape Blog - The Website Traffic Funnel. Worth reading, if I do say so myself.

Once again, I was reminded about the importance of testing your own website after discovering that some Google Analytics code was breaking some pages on a personal website I run.

Things change on the web and things change on your website. You make a change, you view it on YOUR browser and it works so you move on.

Then a few weeks later, someone tells you that a web page is throwing up an error in Explorer (the bain of my life).How many sales did it lose, how many leads did you lose? All for the sake of an extra twenty minutes.

It makes sense to do this once in a while even if you haven’t changed anything.

Yes folks, even I am not perfect.

Unwritten protocols are powerful things. For instance, I was driving home last night and I saw an ambulance in my rear view mirror coming my way, so I pulled to the side of the road to let them get past, as did all the other drivers. We knew the unwritten protocol.

The reason I mention this is because it got me thinking about a I had meeting recently with someone who wanted horizontal scrolling on their website. I have had to listen to people who want buttons in strange places.

It’s no coincidence that search engine interfaces all pretty much look the same and on most sensible websites you know that the main navigation should either be across the top or down the left hand side of the screen. It’s what people expect - it cuts out the confusion.

Some, may say it’s boring, but I prefer to not make a website like a puzzle. Ultimately, I am looking to get something from it and surely I need to make that easy for the user?

So, if you find yourself having a ‘wacky’ idea that will make your website stand out, because “they won’t expect that”, don’t be surprised if you get nothing back in return.

Further reading: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.

With the increase in use of broadband by consumers and the talk of video on demand, etc., I have the feeling that some people building websites are taking the whole streaming thing too much from granted. And, also, assuming that all their users have broadband in the first place. Two thoughts to go along with this:

Reach

Last week I was in Pervolia, Cyprus, and had to access the web through my mobile phone connection. To keep the costs down and the speed up, I turned the graphics off in my Firefox. I was amazed at how many websites I couldn’t use because graphics were being used as navigation with no ‘alt’ text behind them. If I can’t see them, what chance has a search engine spider got of making sense of these websites?

Overload

We are working on a project for a client where they have requested a video on a page to automatically run. This means two negative things for them:

1. The person viewing the website has an unnecessary element, a video, forced on them - 6mb in size.
2. Their website becomes slower, delivering a web page just over 6mb in size and this eats up their bandwidth allowance.

Sometimes, it’s just the information that people want. Sometimes, the bells and whistles get in the way.

Navigation on your website is important - we all know that. As are ‘call to actions’ in the right place. One other aspect of a website that can often play a very important part in the user experience is their comfort in knowing exactly where they are on your website at any time.

This is usually done with navigation and sometimes breadcrumbs (the little bit of nav at the top of the page that shows you where you are).

A website like Amazon does this extremely well considering they have millions of products - you know where you are all the time. And it can be done on any site with a few levels of navigation.

Before you wonder whether it is worth the effort, let me tell you about a man I have followed to work every day this week. He has his satellite navigation displayed proudly in his window. He knows where he is, he must do, he does it everyday, but he still uses the system for a bit of comfort.

And, driving around the town I live in, he’s not the only one.

Jakob Nielson, the Usability Guru whom many of the web community listen to when he speaks has a good post about wasted words this month.

Don’t go wasting valuable word-count or ‘fluff’ when most people want to cut to the chase.

• What? (What will users find on this page — i.e., what’s its function?)
• Why? (Why should they care — i.e., what’s in it for them?)

I used to use a companies website home page content as a good example of this. I blanked out their name so see what they have to say about themselves…

Our Product Range
xxxxx has a vast product range on offer, giving our customers the very best choice. By offering a wide range of products, we are confident we have the right solution for you. Our aim is to focus on our customers requirements, so we can use our knowledge and expertise to provide the best product to improve your lifestyle.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Do you want one? Even if I told you that they sell mobility scooters?

I know nothing about cars. In fact, it’s fair to say I feel intimidated when I go to a garage, which is something I had to do today and it wasn’t pretty.

The mechanic knew his stuff but everytime he answered what was wrong, he stopped and looked expectantly at me. He didn’t notice that I didn’t know the next question and it was uncomfortable for me. Add on the fact that every person in the garage had about as much charisma and customer service technique of… well… most english shop assistants on a Saturday and you should get my drift of the situation.

When I demo web ’stuff’ to people, they sometimes say, “treat me as if I know nothing because when it comes to the web I’m just stupid”.

It doesn’t mean they are stupid, they just feel uncomfortable in the presence of someone else talking about something they may not have much confidence, or experience with.

That said, many websites do exactly the same as my mechanic. They leave dead-ends and questions un-answered. This tends to backfire with the visitor feeling they are doing something wrong. This may be because you are seen as the expert (you’re the one with a big clever website) and it may be their own lack of confidence or experience.

Now, there will always be a place for some websites to detract people; it’s an affective way of filtering customers but, how many people take that feeling of ‘feeling stupid’ with them when they give up and go somewhere else because they just can’t understand your website?

I am trying to build a list of marketing companies in my area for possible partnerships and am amazed at how unfindable some companies are on the web.

First I used Google, but was bombarded with online marketing companies, not geographically localised, so I headed to Yell - which has been surprising useful. Then, using Credit Safe (to make sure they were a correct match financially) I headed back to Google to find the exact company name, even using the post code and/or address.

Man, I can’t believe how many of them didn;t come up in the listings. What chance have their customers got?

So, if you have the same problem… try this on your website (replace the bold bits):

Create a Title Tag

On your contact page create a bespoke title tag with your full company name (or the name you are known by). In your HTML between the <head> tag and </head> tag add the following:

<title>company name - town</title>

Create a Meta Description

Again, on the same page, between the same tags, create the description:

<meta name=”description” content=”Contact details for your company, a what you do in town, county” />

Create a Heading

You could also make sure the heading of your page (the main title that people see), which is usually the first bit oif text after the <body> tag, is tagged up using <h1>Contact Details For Your Company</h1>

Signposts Drive Traffic

Remember, you are not just helping yourself, you are helping the people actually trying to find you!

By the way, if you are based locally to Basingstoke, in Hampshire, Surrey or Berkshire and you are a marketing agency or a PR agency looking to hook up with a digital design agency with online marketing skills, why not contact me.

I love it when you get a bit of feedback on a website. This isn’t about me, but I found Goldcoaster ranting and I agree with what he says. It’s just nice to hear it from someone else once in a while and know I’m not alone. It’s worthwhile visiting his site and seeing his comments as well but paraphrased, they are:

1. Pop Ups
2. Extra software to view site
3. Registration required to visit the site
4. Slow pages
5. Outdated content and dead links

snoskred chips into the comments and Snap - Yep - I agree with that too - although I did need to go through my testing stage of course.

I have been playing heavily with Google Analytics last week and I like what I see. I last looked at it some time ago and wasn’t impressed but it has come on a hell of a lot and I think I may be converted from Hitslink, which does cost, compared to the Free Analytics, but stays right up to the second, which Analytics doesn’t.

I intend on highlighting some of the better features of Google Analytics in future posts as I get historical data, but this article on Search Engine Land is a good introduction in terms of this Google tool and three others. They are definitely worth investing some time into learning for your small business online marketing:

1. Google Analytics
2. Google Maps / Local
3. Google Base
4. Google Web Optimizer

I have toyed with all but the Optimizer so far as I haven’t had the right website to do it on. The others, however, all have their place.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is great for measuring your traffic, sources, etc. but the real initial benefit I am seeing is the goal setting feature.

Basically you can set various goals and measure how well they do. Most of us need people to do certain things when they get to our websites.  I need conversions into leads or sales, for instance. By goal setting we can get a better picture of how that process is (or isn’t) working for us and, if necessary, change it.

Google Maps / Local

I only see a real benefit to this feature for businesses looking for geographical customers. eg. a retail outlet, or local business (hence the name Google Local - doh!).

I have used this for the beauty salon in Farnborough, although I still don’t think Google Maps has really taken off yet. I certainly don’t see a noticeable amount of link-throughs to the website. That said, it’s free and easy to get in there and localises your offering.

Google Base

Google Base is a database of content within Google. This could be any data and is used a lot for products in Product Search (formerly Froogle).

I have played around with this for both articles and beauty products, but to be honest, have not had the time or patience to create enough. It does create quality links into your website though and it is an area I need to spend more time on making effective for my sites.

With the product side of thing, many shopping directories interact directly with Product Search, enabling you to put your catalogue of products into the Google Base directories to create links and sales.

Google Website Optimizer

Imagine changing one little thing to a page that could transform the amount of conversions you make when someone lands on your web page (landing page). Then imagine how you could test different versions to find out what the tweaks could be that would make the difference.

Through Adwords, you can use Google Website Optimizer, that lets you test your landing pages automatically and measure the results.

Conclusion

Investing a little of your own time and doing some of the basics tactics, can make a difference. You won’t necessarily see the benefits for a few months, but if you have the patience, and more importantly a longer term vision, you can make the value work.Also, if you find out where your business is really coming from online, the benefits may even surprise you further.