As a busy search engine optimization consultant, I don't have a lot of time to manage my website. But recently I learnt
hard way about fickle nature of website visitors and 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 site. However, I was relying on an offline press release and links from other sites to lead visitors to specific page from which report could be purchased. Although this report resulted in considerable press attention, much of media coverage did not include a link direct to my report page, or in some casese, 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 report that I had my "Duh!" moment. I had forgotten to include a link to 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 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 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 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 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 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 same general colour scheme, logo, consistent navigation menu, header and footer in 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 visitor with ability to search site for specific keywords. Thought this one was too hard? Me too. Until I discovered Atomz Site Search [http://www.atomz.com/search rial_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.
