Posts Tagged ‘Usability’

Many businesses owners focusing on SEO for the first time, especially those with limited budgets, can often find themselves caught like a deer in the headlights wondering just where and how to begin. SEO, even for smaller sites, can often be a big project, especially if you’re trying to run the business at the same time.

The question becomes, how many hours a week can you afford to invest (or pay for,) and what should you do first with the limited time on hand? There are several aspects to the SEO process and each one is important in it’s own right. It’s not always easy to say “do this first” until a site evaluation has been performed, as each site’s needs are different. But you have to start somewhere, right?

While I can’t put together a definitive path that you can use to work through your own SEO process, I will provide a general order of importance of different areas. This can be used as a guideline for analysis to determine where you do need to begin the optimization campaign.

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What this is about: This list contains a few items that pertain to site logo, how it’s placed and it’s functional implementation.

Why this is important: The logo lends directly to brand identity and site identification. It also creates a certain element of appeal and professionalism in the mind of the visitor. It holds an important role in visitor assurance and navigation.

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What this is about: This list covers a handful of browser functionality and compatibility issues, as well as user interface with the site via the browser.

Why this is important: The browser is (obviously) what we use to view websites. The goal is to give the visitor the best browsing experience possible, but we have to keep in mind that not all browsers are the same. We must make sure to accommodate different users, ensuring that they get the most value out of the site possible.

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Marketing a website isn’t particularly difficult. It’s usually just a matter of knowing what to do, how to do it, and having the skills and time to get it done. With that said, marketing a website isn’t particularly easy either. There are so many factors and variables in play that at any given time that the job can be quite overwhelming. Obviously I can’t address the issue of whether or not you have the skills or time, but I can help you out with the “what to do” piece of the puzzle.

I’ve always been a lover of checklists, especially when it comes to getting things done. Especially when it comes to remembering what things need to be done! So over the last several years I’ve been putting together checklists for all kinds of things pertaining to website marketing.

Below is my master website marketing checklist covering over 400 specific items over 23 topics. These topics include things such as website development, SEO, usability, accessibility, etc. This list doesn’t cover any “how tos,” which are an essential ingredient to successful online marketing, but sometimes you need to first know what to do so you can then discover how to do it.

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While back I wrote an article about how having a search engine friendly website does not make it search engine optimized. The article discussed how many web developers promise to “search engine optimize” the websites they develop. While I don’t mean to discount the value of a good web developer (I rely on them heavily) many developers really know no more about SEO than than they do about pluming. Sure, they can plunge a blocked toilet, or write some decent titles and meta descriptions, but there is so much more to SEO (and plumbing) than that.

A good web developer will undoubtedly build a very search engine friendly website. But it takes someone steeped in SEO to truly optimize it. Very few web developers study search engine marketing they way an SEO dedicates their time to learning, studying and practicing the art of on- and off-page optimization.

One of the comments I received from that article really struck home to me and did a great job of fleshing out what I have always believed about SEO:

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• See Like An Outsider In 3 Not-So-Easy (But Worth It) Steps
• We’re Not In Search-Land Anymore, Toto
• Spank My Relevancy
• 10 Ways to Increase Your Site Crawl Rate
• Get Your SEO/M & Usability Groove On

When performing a site architectural review, one of the first things I look at is the site’s main navigation elements. This includes top, side and footer navigation. Together, they all play an important role in both the ability of the search engines to properly spider your website, as well as allowing your visitors to find important areas and information quickly and efficiently.

Site navigation can come in many different flavors. There isn’t just ONE way to do it correctly. If there were then every site would have navigation that looked exactly the same. So while navigation can vary greatly between sites and industries, there are certain navigational elements that should be implemented to ensure solid usability and effective website architecture.

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When a website goes into development most of the attention is usually paid to the design elements. That’s obviously the most important thing, right? The images, the layout, the colors, the navigation, how the user will interact with the site? These are all important elements to consider and necessary for developing a site that provides the best usability experience for your visitors. But what often doesn’t get enough attention is the site’s directory structure.

When I talk of a site’s directory structure I refer to both the file directory and internal link structures. They are two very different things, but in reality they should often mirror each other very closely, but not always…

Yesterday we rolled out a a brand new design for EMP. Aside from the design improvements (the first in three years) we added a lot of customization that will benefit us and hopefully make for a better usability experience for all of you. We’re still tinkering with some things, fixing broken links, etc. so be patient.

One of the biggest changes we’ve made is moving (EMP) E-Marketing Performance back to our company domain. As of now, www.eMarketingPerformance.com redirects to www.PolePositionMarketing.com/emp, it’s new permanent home. All the redirects are in place but if you’ve linked to this blog recently and you would like to go back and change the URL of the link, that would be greatly appreciated!

We’ve removed all the Google ads and fully integrated the PPM navigation bar into the blog for easy access back to the money site! Of course, now we just got to start posting some fresh content. Oh, and the sight is lightning fast.

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• Web Usability: As Few Clicks As Possible
• How to Manage Problems You Can’t Fix
• How to be Successful in Social Media: Be Yourself
• Agency + Client = Superhero Link Building Team
• Achieving Balance in a Social World
• 5 Ways to Make Money from Blogging
• An Embarrassment Of Dead Link Riches
• How to Get Content and Earn Credibility with Old News