Is Your Website a Unicycle?

Is your website a unicycle, a vehicle that requires much training and skill before it can be used? While there are so many “beautiful” websites online, some simply don’t make sense. Have you ever found yourself on a website that seems quite impossible to use? Even worse, landed on a website after doing a search only to wonder why you are there at all?

Site usability is possibly one of the more important factors of a top performing website. While so many will argue that the site is nothing without a genuine web presence, I will argue that some websites rely purely on offline marketing. At the end of the day, if your website is impossible to use, nobody will be able to (or even want to) use it. Points to ponder when designing your website:

1. Navigation
2. Login/Signup
3. Onsite search
4. Flash and other multimedia
5. Bookmarks/Favourites
6. Contact

1. Navigation
This may seem like an obvious point but as most visitors are more likely to find your homepage, are they able to navigate to the section of the website that best relates to their needs? Simple text navigation will also make it easier for the search engines to index the individual pages of your website (where have you heard the design the website for a human visitor before?).

2. Login and Signup’s
Does your website require that visitor’s to login; do you want new visitors to signup for your newsletter (or other services)? If so, is it possible to do so from the homepage? While you may not want to place a login on the homepage, a link to a login page will suffice. Again the key is to keep it simple and clear as to what you expect of the visitor.

3. Onsite Search
This is crucial for any website that offers a large quantity of information or products. Can you imagine trying to find an item among 2,000 by going through a product list 10 items at a time? I didn’t think so. Offer you visitors what they are looking for by adding a simple search to your website. This should help speed things along. Many websites have a quick search option towards the top right-hand corner of the homepage (sometimes this spans the entire website in all the headers). Keep it simple, visible and obvious. Make sure that the average visitor knows that this is a search function.

4. Flash and other Multimedia
Okay so Flash is a pet hate of mine. But the same could be said of all multimedia that simply clutters a website. Remember that while multimedia and other interactive agents can at times seem really cool or even a good idea, some visitors don’t have advanced updated browsers. That said, sometimes the best way of doing something is through the use of these tools. Make sure that these are placed on well marked pages with an explanation of what they are about. This way, if the visitor is unable to view the contents the at least know what it is about and why they can’t view it. Otherwise they will simply think that the website doesn’t work and leave. After all, what use is a website that is broken?

5. Bookmarks and Favourites
If you want returning visitors (who doesn’t?) then it is usually a very good idea to offer a “bookmark this page” or “add to favourites” button. I’m pretty sure we are all in agreement that traffic is valuable so there is no excuse for letting it get away. The “favicon” is a useful way of separating your website from the others. Once made a favourite this icon will be found next to your websites name. This is an ideal spot to promote your logo and brand.

6. Contact
Even after making the site as foolproof as possible there will still be occasions where even will all that planning something will come along that you hadn’t factored. When this occurs make it as easy as possible for the visitor to contact you. Be it by making your contact details (phone, email and fax) available on each page, or by placing a quick contact us form that is accessible from each page. Again, you’ve worked hard to drive the traffic to your website; don’t let it simply get away.

Remember simple is best, leave no room for mistaken functions. Signups, Logins and searches should be clearly marked so as not to confuse the visitor. Make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find what they are looking for. With a well structured website you will notice that the conversion from visitor to customer will increase. At worst the few questions on where to find something or how to use the website will decrease. Your website is after all supposed to make your life easier as well as save you time.

A Design for AI

While creating a website can either be a simple or complex procedure it is always advised that you start simple and add on from there. Once you have a basic design it is a lot easier to add in advanced functionality.

Create a standard design that runs through the website, this is usually done by using base templates or include files. The search engines will read each file once per visit. What this does mean is that once the bot has cached the file it won’t need to reload it each time it views a page. More importantly this will also prevent these lines of code being replicated and taking up a good percentage of unique content on each page. Although it is now suggested that the major search engines can now recognise boilerplate content and filter it out for the most part.

CSS while being valuable to human visitors as it quickly styles a page with quicker load speeds this advantage can also be carried over to the bots. It has long been speculated that the quicker a page loads the more likely the bot is to continue indexing your website. It would almost seem that a time limit is posed on each visit, the more pages the bot can index in that time frame, the better for the site.

CSS has also widely taken over from the old frameset style of design used in what seems a totally different age. Frames are a bad way to design as the frameset page only holds details for where the how the frames are applied – there is no useful content. CSS enables you to place what you want exactly where you want it, no frames required.

Navigation is crucial for deep indexing. The search engines love text, they can follow a hyperlink to any page, but the anchor text in these links gives a very quick title of the page it links to. Use the anchor text wisely, if you are linking to a page about koalas, let the anchor text say “koala”. By following this format you will help identify the page as being about koalas.

Many people like to use flash for navigation. While this often looks pretty the search engines are unable to follow objects embedded in flash files. More often than not it would seem you could create a very similar effect by using CSS.

Links, links, links… This seems to be one of those things that everyone has on their mind constantly. From a design point it is important to remember a few simple things:

• 
  Don’t put too many links on a single page as this weakens the links strength.


• Make sure that the links are text based and are clearly labelled; this will let the search engine know about the page it is linking to.


• Try to link to all important pages from your homepage as this will help the bot create a hierarchy. If at all possible try to make each page accessible in just 2 clicks from the homepage.


• Link to a static text sitemap from the homepage – This will help link each page just 2 clicks from the homepage. Also remember that when the bot finds this page it also finds every page on your website.

There is a lot more to linking but this is keeping it simple.

Breadcrumbs (No, I’m still not talking about the type that Hansel and Gretel used – but close enough) are useful once again to create a link to a page with related text as an anchor. In the case of our koala the pages that most likely lead them to where they are would be something like: animals – marsupials – koala. While we find ourselves on the koala page there is no need to link back to this page but you can link “animals” to the animal’s page and “marsupials” to the marsupial’s page. Again you get to make best use of anchor text.

Keep your pages uncluttered. This not only refers to the content but code of a page. By keeping the number of lines of code to a minimum you will be able to increase the download speed of the page. By doing this you will also prevent your content being diluted with what the bot may find to be little more than garble.

The content on your pages should be unique and specific. Going back to our friend the koala, many will know that koala’s eat eucalyptus. But it would be more beneficial to make short reference to this and then create a separate page for each of these related topics. While it won’t do any harm to mention eucalyptus on the page try to keep the info on that page predominantly about the koala. If the visitor is looking for koala’s then give them koala’s but by all means link to the eucalyptus page. Again you can make use of anchor text to link to eucalyptus.

As you can see by keeping it simple you can present the website in a manner that bot would really eat up and one that should also be focused on an exceptional visitor experience. The search engine engineers have tried their best to create a bot that will spot a website or page that is the most relevant for a particular search based on what would be best for a human visitor. As you can see in many cases the benefits of doing this is beneficial for both parties.

A Design for Life

Creating a website is a fairly simple or very complex exercise depending on your needs. The best way to start is always go simple. Create a standard design that you will use to run throughout the website. The reason for creating a stock standard look and feel is so that the visitor very quickly gets used to navigation on your website and is able to find exactly what it is they are looking for. With a standard design it is also a lot easier to help drive home the branding of your service or product.

CSS, that’s Cascading Style Sheets, is a great way to keep a constant look and feel of a website consistent. Even better than including style to each page you can create individual files and simply include them in your pages. While the benefits are too many to remember at the moment, I see the greatest benefit of using CSS being the fact that you can make a single change to a single file and the changes will be global. You update one page and all your pages are updated in a single move.

Include files are wonderful. Depending on the language you are using to create your website much of the boilerplate design can be set in a single file and simply included. Much like CSS the biggest benefit from doing this is being able to make a single change and it updating every page on your website. These files could be the search function or a sign up script. They needn’t be full pages of information but rather standard snippets of code. Imagine you changed the subscription email address and had to update a script on 1000 pages? When you could simply update one include file and every page is instantly updated.

Navigation is vital. While it may seem sensible to categorise things the way that you have, remember that not everybody knows the finer details of your business. Imagine you had a website that was about mammals, separated into distinct sections (such as feline, canine, bears and so on). Not everyone would know that a koala is in fact not a bear despite often being referred to as a koala bear. For the record it’s a marsupial.

If you have many products or articles that people may need to look through then a search function is crucial. Even if I couldn’t find koala under bear if I used the search it would eventually bring up a link to the koala page.

Returning to the concept of keeping things simple it is notable that all of this could be incorporated into a single page.

Links, links, links… This seems to be one of those things that everyone has on their mind constantly. From a design point it is important to remember a few simple things:

• Don’t put too many links on a single page.


• Make sure that the links are clear and indicate where they lead to.


• Try to link to all important pages from your homepage.


• Link to a sitemap from the homepage – one that visitors can easily navigate to where they need to be.

There is a lot more to linking but this is keeping it simple.

Breadcrumbs (I’m not talking about the type that Hansel and Gretel used – but close enough) are very useful in letting the visitor know where they are and how they got there. In the case of our koala the pages that most likely lead them to where they are would be something like: animals – marsupials – koala

It is useful to link each of those back to the page that they represent (koala need not as they are already there) so link marsupials to the marsupials page and animals to the animals page.

Keep your pages uncluttered. This not only refers to the content but code of a page. By keeping the number of lines of code to a minimum you will be able to increase the download speed of the page. This includes optimising the images on your web pages for optimal display but also for the smallest possible files size. Again this will help speed up download times.

The content on your pages should make sense. Going back to our friend the koala, many will know that koala’s eat eucalyptus. But wouldn’t it make more sense to create a separate page for each of these topics. While it won’t do any harm to mention eucalyptus on the page try to keep the info on that page predominantly about the koala. If the visitor is looking for koala’s then give them koala’s but by all means link to the eucalyptus page.

As you can tell by keeping it simple you can give the average visitor a pleasing browsing experience. By building a good solid page the visitor will know where they are as well as why they are there.

Sick Websites

It seems that no matter the time of year, someone is just getting over what ever bug it was that was doing it’s rounds (nothing worse than a summer cold). But I have been thinking how it is a good idea to have an annual check-up for your website. How often does your website get sick? When was the last time you checked for broken links? While the list could be endless here are a few things to check up on:

The Home Page
While this may seem like a no brainer it should always be your first stop. Does your homepage correctly describe your business, services or products? Often as time passes so to does the nature of your business and the home page needs to reflect your business accurately. Just recently we had a client inform us that the products on his website were a little outdated. As it turns out most of those products are no longer on offer, but more than this it would seem that they have changed the entire direction of their business – the website (and importantly the home page) needs to reflect this.

The main title of your website should always describe your services and products or at least grab the attention of your targeted audience. Many visitors sum up their interest in your website in the first few seconds so be sure to reassure them that they are at the right spot.

Navigation
As with the home page, many things change over time. Is navigation effective, quick, simple and easy to follow? Many websites are continually being updated; can these updates be reached from the homepage? Are internal pages correctly linked and grouped together? Have any of your pages been moved or removed? If so, has this resulted in any broken links?

While quick navigation is important to your visitors it is also vital for those search engine bots. The easier it is for the visitor to find your pages the easier it will be for the search engines to reach your pages. I always suggest a plain text sitemap for websites as this is ideal fodder for the search engines and requires no more than a simple text link from the home page.

Outdated and Up to Date
Is any part of your website outdated? While it is easy enough to explain face to face with other people what you many offer in terms of products and services (okay, so not always that easy – I used to sell rocks!) it’s often not that easy to convey this online. When was the last time you checked your website for industry updates or product updates. Is your latest news still current? While we all know that bad dress sense makes a comeback every 20 years or so, do you really want your website to have to wait that long before it is seen as current?

When adding pages did you make use of a template page? If so, have you modified the title and description tags?

User Friendliness
While navigation is possibly the first place to start on this one, a few other points to consider would be:

Email subscriptions, useful links and other end user products you may offer. Do all those documents you uploaded still exist? Are they compatible with the majority of browsers/readers that your end user may be using? Do you offer links to useful resources such as a document reader? If so, it may be helpful to offer installation tips or a how-to guide. Does your website encourage visitors to sign up to your mailing list? Equally important do you also have an unsubscribe option? And often overlooked does this work? So many websites have an automated mailing service and often the unsubscribe option is also automated – does this still work? I have had dealings with web hosts in the past that changed operating systems or scripting resources that left some of my code useless. I only found out once the complaints started rolling in. Keep checking that that scripts work. While an annoyance to you it could be the reason you lose a potential client.

Do you link to other resources? If so, you may wish to check that they are still there or that they are still the kind of resource you would like to link to. Sometimes websites like people can be struck down by disease. Be sure to remove links to any infected websites as this will reflect upon you and your website.

While design and overall content are vital factors in the functioning of a website these are often too large to be overlooked once they become a problem for one reason or another. Put together your own check-up list and check these factors every week/month/year depending on your needs. The real point here is that you should never assume that once it’s healthy up and running it will remain so without a little boost now and then – we all get sick from time to time.

If you have a few checks that you run regularly let me know.