Here's yet another thing you can do in a couple of minutes to help search engines index your site better, so you could get more traffic within a week or two by 5-15%.
- "What?"
- "Ca-no-ni-ca-lization/canon-ica-lization/canonic-a-liz-ation issues."
Here's yet another thing you can do in a couple of minutes to help search engines index your site better, so you could get more traffic within a week or two by 5-15%.
- "What?"
- "Ca-no-ni-ca-lization/canon-ica-lization/canonic-a-liz-ation issues."
It is when your website can be accessed with www and without www in front of it (such as improvetheweb.com and www.improvetheweb.com) and you, the visitors and the search engines are not redirected to only one version.
To the visitors, this doesn't matter a lot, unless they prefer to identify website addresses with 'www' or without (there are pros and cons of either approach).
The issue is that for the search engines, both versions are two different versions of the website, because the search engines index URLs, not websites as a whole.
As the search engines see two websites, the number of pages with the same content doubles. As your visitors link to either of the versions randomly, both of them will have average amount of links.
Of course, the search engines will show one of the versions, but they will only count links that point to one of the versions, to which a specific page belongs to.
For example, if the page is http://improvetheweb.com/overdeliver, the search engines will count links that point to this page - most likely from the http://improvetheweb.com domain and sites that linked to that URL.
For the search engines to take into account all the links that point to your website (such as http://www.improvetheweb.com and http://improvetheweb.com), you need to redirect visitors and the search engines from one version to another.
Thus, the search engines won't be taking into account all your naturally acquired links and won't be showing your pages high in the SERPs as they rightfully deserve.
By redirect the search engines to only one version of the site, we confirm their suspicion that we only have only one version of the website (not two different sites with similar content).
This way, they treat links to both www and non-www versions as links to one website and thus, which ever version you redirect to, gets a boost of incoming link value from the redirected version.
That's why you'll get more visitors from the search engines, which will lead to more customers, links and profit within a week or two (Google, others may be slower) by 10-15% (the speed relates to how fast the search engines react to the redirect and whether the version you redirect to is fully indexed).
If the version you are redirecting to is not indexed for one reason or another (except outright ban), you'll need to wait while Google and other SEs index the site and start taking all links into account.
This may take a week more or longer, depending on how large your site is. In this case, and if the version you are redirecting from is stronger (has more links), you may notice a slight drop of traffic, which will later return to normal and start increasing.
Even though the search engines tell us only to do what is right for the visitors and want us to ask ourselves "would I do it if the search engines didn't exist?", this particular improvement is designed to specifically help the search engines understand how our website works, also bringing more search engine visitors to the website.
Naturally, you need to only have one version by redirecting one of the site versions to another.
If you want a shorter domain and your customers will be able to memorize and identify your address with the web, then you can go without www.
However, if you want to make it clear that the address belongs to the Web, use the www version.
Opinions split on which one to use, really.
To redirect from one version to another, you either need to edit your httpd.conf file, if you use a dedicated server, or update your .htaccess file in the root of the domain.
Ron Carnell suggests using two blocks in the httpd.conf file:
‹VirtualHost 192.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName domain.com
DocumentRoot /home/domain/www
‹/VirtualHost>
‹VirtualHost 192.xxx.xxx.xxx>
ServerName www.domain.com
Redirect 301 / http://domain.com/
‹/VirtualHost>
Basically, you only need to insert the correctly tweaked code in the corresponding part of your httpd.conf file (make sure you back it up first).
Please note that if you go this route, you'll need to tweak both parts, if one of the details changes.
If you are not familiar with the terminology and the whole process of fiddling with the Apache server, you'd rather designate this to your web admin.
If you read what Ron Carnell has said about this issue (you really should), you'll gain more insight why and how this is done.
But if you don't control the server, you can use the three lines of code:
How to redirect to www from non-www version:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain\.com [nc]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
(replace yourdomain.com with your domain)
How to redirect from www version to non-www version:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yourdomain\.com [nc]
RewriteRule (.*) http://yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
(replace yourdomain.com with your domain)
Note: using .htaccess adds overhead to the server, since it'll be processed on every request to the server. However, large websites are bound to use dedicated servers, so it is pretty smooth here.
The .htaccess file is a file named .htaccess in the root of your domain. It has various directives used to tweak server performance. You can edit it, insert the corresponding three lines of code at the top of it (change yourdomain.com to your domain) and upload it back to the server.
To test this, you'll need to refresh the page in the browser. If everything loads fine and you can go from one version to another by entering the redirected URL, it works.
If you get a 503 error, you need to make sure you have inserted the code correctly. If you can't do this after repeated attempts, remove your edition to let the server work again and contact a professional.
You can also read a mod_rewrite manual from Apache about redirecting with .htaccess.
Frankly, it amazes how many sites I see often that don't redirect to only one of the versions, thus leaving plenty of money on the table. The thing is, the amount of money doesn't matter, because it takes a couple of minutes of work to implement the changes by the web developer.
And the funniest thing is that depending on the site total traffic, the profit increase can be very noticeable, comparable to general marketing activities, such as increase of conversions, promotions, etc.
]]>The thing is, you also need to think about how the unconsciousness of your visitors is affected by your website and how you can improve your website to make their experience better, because the unconscious mind affects how people act.
Though the unconscious in its general sense is described as:
]]>The thing is, you also need to think about how the unconsciousness of your visitors is affected by your website and how you can improve your website to make their experience better, because the unconscious mind affects how people act.
Though the unconscious in its general sense is described as:
"an abstract, silent, completely unified field of consciousness" within "an architecture of increasingly abstract, functionally integrated faculties or levels of mind" (guess the source, starts with W)
for our little design niche, we'll prolong the description by adding
"ultimately controlling most of the person's actions and influenced by his/her surroundings"
It means that whatever person sees, hears or otherwise experiences influences so many receptors that the person can adequately notice only a small part of the signals, leaving the unconscious mind free to hint him/her in any direction of action.
Of course, the person will be able to rationalize the reasoning behind his actions, when influenced by his unconsciousness, but most likely, the reasons will not describe the signals, but the inner motivation, which was prompted by the surroundings and his mind.
So, a person's unconsciousness is affected, when he/she:
So how exactly does one take the unconscious into account?
Given that the unconscious receives all the signals the surroundings send to the person, basically anything can and will affect it, regardless of whether the person has noticed it, obviously.
Thus, for us, people affecting site design, it is important that anything appearing on the website, from the opening to the ending html tag, affects our visitors and it is our job to make sure they are at least not turned off from the site, but also enjoy staying and interacting with it.
The range of factors, influencing the unconscious can be categorized in:
It means that for every element on the site, we need to consider how the unconscious will be affected by it and how we can improve it for people to get a pleasant experience.
Let's discuss the points in more detail.
Naturally, what we read affects our emotions. And not only that. So when designing websites for the people (apart from having great content at all), we need to remember to use the words that people can:
Though some may argue that an unknown word still influences in subconscious, a known word that a person has previous experience with will have a much larger impact.
If apart from understanding the text, the visitor can get specific thoughts and ideas, jumping from the particular choice of words, then his experience becomes more complete. In my opinion, words more precisely describing what the text is about and the people reading it, is most suitable for such experience.
Aside from creating a positive experience, words can be used to influence the reader. Here steps in persuasive copywriting, which implies that copywriters need to use words, motivating the visitor to take action. Naturally, it leads us to persuasive design, which describes action.
The visit to a website is prompted by a need of some sort, be it a need for information, something you use. On the other hand, while person's needs still influence some decisions on the website, his mind is also influenced by the factors.
Likewise, as it was mentioned, carefully put words can keep the person reading a piece of text or take action. By carefully wording link text (both in navigation and context links), you can make sure the person only visits the pages he really wants to read.
And, since we speak about actions, what and how one does on the website influences his experience, too.
For example, if the visitor succeeds or fails in performing certain actions on your website, he will get the corresponding attitude towards your website. This is pretty obvious, though.
But another thing to remember is that people can be swayed by someone they trust. So a recommendating from other people or an email from a friend using the product will always change your attitude towards the product.
So, you not only need to make sure that your website works, but that any mentions of any actions on the website are related to using and enjoying your product (naturally, customer testimonials are a great way to do this).
Apart from words and actions, images can have an impact on your mind, too.
Visuals come not only from the images, but also from visual design, and not just graphic design.
Looking at an image allows you to experience what is shown there, be it a tasty, sizzling steak, a sunny grass meadow or a beautiful flower. You can almost taste the steak, breathe the fresh air and smell the flower.
What this means for you is that you need to use images and also use them wisely:
While irrelevant images are ignored and only waste visitor time and attention, relevant images show what you have to offer and may as well remove some doubts about buying the product.
Image quality allows you to show the product better, as well as the overall site quality. Products of high detail require images of better quality, while smaller, predictable things do not. Also, you need to remember about the dark side of image quality: file size.
Optimizing images for the Web is a must nowadays, as it allows you to make your site load faster. Not only you need to find the balance between image quality and file size just for your product, but you also need to use the right software.
There is a lot of image optimization software on the market, some of it reduces file size more noticeably, than just "Saving for Web" in Photoshop.
As site design is another thing that the visitor sees, it is also important, mostly the little things being more important than otherwise.
Visual design also plays a role on how visitors perceive the company, product and influences their decisions. It is not only about the first impression, but also how things look together.
For example, such simple things as the right use of alignment and whitespace can turn half-designs into great work.
When a visitor reads the text, navigates around and absorbs your site, he should certainly be thinking of something. Hopefully about buying your product.
Also, using natural colors in site design allows a smooth browsing experience, allowing you to distinguish elements, guide and inspire your visitors.
Just as everything affects the unconscious, the unconscious affects the thoughts you and your visitors are thinking. That's why you need to make sure the above elements on your site only contribute to the positive and efficient experience.
Naturally, by making people think about the problems your product solves, it gives them another reason to agree that your product is useful and is worth buying. It also gives them another thought of valuing the experience they get on your site, if they enjoy the process.
You can help people start their train of thought by providing useful, controversial, education, entertaining or even educational-entertaining content. Mainly, you'd consider such content to be great content.
Of course, call to action is the most powerful way to inspire people to take action, though.
Sometimes, thoughts can be prompted by previous experience.
In my opinion, we severely underestimate how our actions are guided by our previous experience. We are affected by our upbringing, our life experience, beliefs, principles and so on. How to make sure that people actually take action on your website?
Just as with anything, keeping everything in sync what site visitor's needs will help.
You can also hint at various habits or tastes people might have. For example, offering items, related to already bought items, or things people, who have bought the product, have ordered might trigger a habit of ordering complimentary items, becides just reminding the visitor that he needs something.
Another moment is to keep site navigation and elements consistent with most sites on the Web. Sounds anti-innovational, but people spend most of their time on other websites. If you do want to innovate, how about making your website extremely useful to use?
Steve also thinks that designing for visitor performance can help. Technically, this is the same as improving site usability: the idea is to make each site action as efficient as possible.
Marco Dorantes says that in order to create an unconscious design, one has to design unconsciously. Here's the definition of "unconscious design" as a verb:
The action of designing and the outcome of such an action that fulfils functional requirements and simultaneously is unaware of any in-context or temporal implications of its properties.
As also noted, professionals can "produce unconscious designs but with temporal properties attached to them, temporal unconscious designs". Professionals take into account the temporal influences, which change over time, which explains why designs age.
I'd also add that website professionals know that everything influences the people, so they pay special attention to every site element: everything should be focused on the site goal.
That's why solid web builders (not just designers) know
Designing easy to use websites greatly contributes to the overall website experience, which not only affects the subconscious mind, but may also become obvious to the conscious mind, if the website has been greatly improved.
Of course, the main reason to take all aspects into account, when creating websites, is to make sure customers gain a better understanding of the offer, can navigate better around the website, as well as get more reasons, both conscious and unconscious, to buy the product.
Another reason is that search engines (alright, Google) become more and more sophisticated. They learn to understand intent behind search queries (also including locations) and also understand how users rate web content and apply their knowledge to the results.
All this becomes possible, when people provide precise, detailed information on websites. On one hand, this may cause privacy issues, but can also enhance user experience, both on the website and when using third party web services.
For example, take a look at this video from ted.com (15+ min). It shows a glimpse of how bits of information about people can show a deep picture of the Web, a close look in a person's life or a broader view on the situation.
The examples of which are when the software collects instances of phrases "I feel" or "I am feeling" and tries to associate location and web content with the user.
Now, not that we do everything for the search engines, but it shows that sufficient information can allow people make reasonable decisions, enjoy the Web and get more from it.
All that said, it may seem the thing is pretty complex and can't be mastered. But if you understand that people follow certain habits when viewing websites, such as the F pattern or following the scent of information, as well as focus on delivering value to the customers, they will be receiving plenty of positive signals from your website.
I call this creating natural websites. It means knowing the people and designing for them. Pretty simple.
Read more:
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Before changing the site layout, it is important to understand the nature of human behaviour on the website. It helps that certain known patterns apply to human behaviour, such as:
Before changing the site layout, it is important to understand the nature of human behaviour on the website. It helps that certain known patterns apply to human behaviour, such as:
In essence, the metaphors used to describe human behaviour stand on known natural principles, such as animal instincts and a flow of water. Let's look at them in more detail.
When a predator stalks its prey, it uses its senses, such as smell and sight, to find the victim. It follows the trail of paw-prints, spots of fur and blood to track the target.
Humans are very similar: they use words, related to their target (be it a product, an article, or a person's name) to find what they want.
This fact is emphasized by people reading from top to bottom and from left to right, which creates a top-left triangle of attention. It means that in order to get noticed, you'll need to use the words your people will recognize as useful in the top-left part of the page.
Read more about:
The concept of a funnel is less wild and more down to earth. Here, visitors are compared to water and the funnel represents the pages they visit.
The upper, broader part of the funnel is the entrance page and the bottom part is the page of the final conversion.
The intermediate funnel part is pages a human visits before converting.
The different, in my opinion, lies in that in general, the visitor path may not be linear, because people click on the link that they think will answer their needs most - and people are different. But the funnel theory splits the visitor stream in many springs and guides them with relevant clues, aka in a funnel.
Read more about:
The water flow concept, which I introduce here (or maybe introduced by someone else elsewhere), is based on the fact that water flows the shortest way to the downside. The concept is not different from the other two, but it describes as clearly as the scent trail theory the attitude towards the trail: a visitor only goes where it sees a need to go.
In the water theory, people are compared to springs, which go where they can, and when they can't go somewhere (no path), they just return to them main stream and flow another way.
In general, this is no vastly different from the two above, but I prefer to see it this way.
All the models, however simple or complicate they are, are based on a couple of principles that people follow:
In essence, you should provide the people the words that they will recognize, associate with themselves and use them to find what they want on your website. Formatting the text, combining the call to action with links should help draw attention to the most relevant pages from the current page.
Read more about providing clear click path.
This goes in line with providing various paths for various kinds of customers, such as researching, comparing or buying, as well as different types of people, such as thoughtful (use facts, well-written articles, figures, graphs) and emotional (call to action, various benefits, etc).
You can read more about various types of customers from the Eisenbergs:
Obviously, the sooner you take into account how people view websites, the better off you'll be. As it doesn't take long to understand the basic idea of hunting for information, you'd rather implement such website usability concept before you build a website.
It may be hard to redesign later, not to mention it'll take more time and you'll have other issues at hand.
In essence, designing for natural consumption should work best: it involves clear information, no distractions and positive user experience.
It also goes inline with various values that you provide to your visitors. The more valuable your website/product is to the people, the more likely they'll stick around and do what they and you want.
Ideally, you need to at least think about the way the information is presented on the website (site, page structure/layout). You can rewrite the text later. In fact, you will have to test your website copy and rewrite it for better effect, so you can simply focus on the page layout first-hand.
But what you need to do as soon as possible is to make it obvious for your visitors where to go next.
]]>As mentioned in the earlier article, graphics should only be used, when it is absolutely necessary, such as:
]]>As mentioned in the earlier article, graphics should only be used, when it is absolutely necessary, such as:
As seen from the list, graphics should only be used, when absolutely needed, and its use has to be thoroughly considered, as graphics impose some limits on website performance.
The most obvious case of using pictures on your site is when you sell something that people need to see before buying, such as clothes, vehicles, furniture, etc. What is more is that you'd rather use large, high quality images (at about 1/4-1/2 of the screen, the other part being occupied by the description), so that people could look closer at what they are buying.
If you discuss complex schemes, structures and so forth, a graphical explanation would be nice. Not to mention that using simpler language may help, if appropriate.
When creating graphical content, there are a couple of things to remember:
For example, if you are selling shoes, it'd make sense to be able to rotate them, as, mostly, it is important to look not only at the sides, but also at the sole.
If you are selling clothes, it is usually more helpful to showcase them on real people, not on some background or dolls.
When selling an apartment, you may want to use a video, showing the interior, possibly with your comments. You can host the video on Google Video or YouTube - make sure to leave your coordinates, though.
Another moment to remember is that a 3D box helps selling digital products, even when there is no real box available.
Normally, I'd argue that anything that does not serve the goal of informing the visitor of anything shouldn't belong to a website. And that anything may be extra graphical design, extra images or unwanted sound/video.
In his post about text and graphics balance on a website, Steve points out that a website has milliseconds to impress a visitor.
Some believe that impressing the visitor means absolutely shocking the visitor by something astounding and magnificent, such as a large image of something completely unrelated to a website. As seen from the studies, such banners don't work.
On the other hand, "impressing" means just making an impression, whether positive, negative or neutral. A site, made of text, such as this one, may very well make a quite distinct impression. Hopefully, it has the right audience not to scare it off, though.
So, in the end, it only matters who your target audience is and how you can find the right balance between the use of images and text on a website. You can learn more about the balance of function and graphics in the Sphere of Design and see more examples of good designs here.
While some may want to use graphics just to impress their visitors, it'd rather be used only to help the visitors to get more information and understand what the site talks about.
Finding the right balance between information and visual presentation just for your target audience will prove much more efficient than deciding on your own.
]]>Let's see what is the best way to use the h1 heading tag on your website to appease both the humans and the search engines.
Judging by the HTML 4.01 Strict specification:
A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section* it introduces.
*- bolding mine.
Let's see what is the best way to use the h1 heading tag on your website to appease both the humans and the search engines.
Judging by the HTML 4.01 Strict specification:
A heading element briefly describes the topic of the section* it introduces.
*- bolding mine.
It means that not only a h1 tag can be used multiple times on a page, but it also determines a topical section of the page. Depending on the page type and structure, there may be several sections, so it can be pretty handy.
So, as mentioned above, the right way to use h1 tag is to either describe a page or a section of a page, if the page has two distinct topics.
Of course, it may need some styling up with CSS, as default browser h1 styling leaves much to be desired, mostly. Especially, if you are using a custom theme design.
There are several cases, when a page can have numerous topics, and, thus, h1 tags:
For the title of each of the page sections, you'd rather be using the h1 heading tag.
Here's a desrcription of why the headings should be properly used from Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
WCAG also has a test for the headings:
Test Process
Procedure
1. For each h1 element, find the header element that follows it.
Expected Results
1. The header following an h1 is h1 or h2.
Fail Instructions
1. Rearrange the header order so h1 or h2 elements follow h1 elements.
Pass Instructions
Any accessibility check may be performed after this test.
Quite often, you will find that most WordPress and Drupal themes have h1 used for the site name (company name, etc). This is not the right way to use it, as every page has site name and, thus, the title does not describe anything page-specific.
Since we are talking about how not to use the h1 tag, you shouldn't use it only for the search engines - use it for the humans only by pointing out a heading, which describes a page or a page section.
Of course, the main reason to use the h1 right is the process of doing things right. A perfectionist that I am, it seems quite important.
Also, it gives people and spiders that can't see a chance to use the software to understand what the page is about. While using h1 for the page-specific titles may bring you a tiny little bit of traffic, you can create much better titles by writing them for the people.
Learn more and discuss the topic at Cre8asite and learn more about semantic markup at Pearsonified.
]]>You can make a product profitable online by doing a couple of things:
]]>You can make a product profitable online by doing a couple of things:
Simply put, you need to have something of unique value that people can use in order to sell successfully. Let's examine the points in more detail.
The only reason people will buy your product is if you offer something they need. Now, there are a lot of useful and semi-useful products out there, but the more value your product offers, the better.
Normally, you'd rather look at the new areas, where you can provide value, that have not been discovered. Can you create a tool that no one has thought about in your industry? Can you develop a piece of software or a web service in your industry? Can you write an e-book, filled with your experience and expertise in the industry?
Of course, if you are one of the thousands of similar products online, it is pretty hard to sell anything. That's why you need to stand out from the rest of your rivals. Go in a more specific direction in your industry. Focus on a certain aspect of what you were going to offer. If all else fails, offer more value than your rivals, by providing free materials on the topic.
Though something unique and useful is a lot and most people will buy anything of the kind, you can greatly boost your sales by createing something that is easy to use as well. People will be likely to buy something they can use without additional education or skills and will be more likely to refer their family and friends to you, too. Sometimes, ease of use is the thing that you can differentiate from your online competition as well.
Basically, the uniqueness and ease of use are the aspects that add even more value to the product. So your product value is the core thing you should focus about. The more you put into the product, the greater the output will be.
Read more at Stuntdubl: 18 questions your CEO forgot to ask
]]>Is it only the search engine algorithms that have affected the amount of energy one needs to invest in a website, or there are other factors at work? Let's see.
]]>Is it only the search engine algorithms that have affected the amount of energy one needs to invest in a website, or there are other factors at work? Let's see.
The search engines have spent years on fine-tuning their algorithms to provide the most relevant results to their users. Often, they worked reactively to those, who have found exploits, to close the gaps in the algorithms and continue working efficiently. The search engines need to provide quality results to keep the people using them to be able to show them advertising to earn money.
Becides the search engines, people need good websites as well. They not only need to find a working website, but they need to find and use what they need on your website. Of course, a usable and human-friendly website will be more efficient with its visitors and more successful as well.
Thus, site owners, who want to succed in online business, need more people-friendly websites, after all, so their potential clients could use their sites to buy from them.
So, it is not only the search engines that need good websites, but the visitors and the site owners, too. What's the problem then?
With barriers to enter the Internet business being so low, everyone tries to make money online. And while the focus is purely on making money, a thought about the potential customers and their success rarely comes to mind. That's why most Web start-ups fail - they are not useful for the people and are thus ignored and forgotten.
Quite often, site owners are busy with building their online business and pay little attention to what happens around them. However, the best thing they'd do is to consider everything before building their websites. Often, just thinking, whether they could provide the value to their customers, could save their time and energy.
Unfortunately, it takes time and persistence (or a simple focus on the value) to know that website usability and accessibility can not only make a website more human-friendly, but can also bring more profit to the site owner.
To create a website, to be efficiently used by the people and to be crawled easily by the search engines, several factors need to be considered, such as SEO, copywriting, usability, web design and accessibility. An important thing is to focus on the customers and the value, while keeping basic search engine friendliness principles in mind (such as more text, clean URLs, more links, etc)
If you are new to the Web, then you absolutely to learn some basic SEO/web design/usability facts to know your way around. You'll need to get a professional to consult or develop a website for you and you'll need the basic knowledge to estimate the quality of their past and present projects.
Hopefully, (s)he'll either know SEO/usability/accessibility or know someone that can do that for you. In essense, you need to make sure that your website is good in all its aspects to keep it well balanced and successful.
If you know your way around website building, a friendly consultation may be in order. However, if you are not a web designer/developer yourself, you'd still need to hire one to create a website for you.
When on the Web, building a so-so website is not equal to success. You need to have such a website so the people would forget they are using a website, do what they came for, pay you for your quality service and leave happily. After all, it is all about the value and the pleasure you and your customers receive, when they use your website.
]]>As a matter of fact, yes. There is one answer to any question about a website. And it is..
"It depends."
Of course, there this answer may suit other questions, such as
]]>As a matter of fact, yes. There is one answer to any question about a website. And it is..
"It depends."
Of course, there this answer may suit other questions, such as
Yes, whatever you want to do for your website, depends on your goals, your site itself, your skills and your budget and on the weather on the other side of the globe.
The thing is, every situation is unique. For a start, there are so many little steps from thinking up an idea for an online business to promoting your website - and every website will be in its unique circumstances, as well - that you can not possibly apply the answer to the same questionas yours, given to someone else. You are unique (hopefully), so your solution has to be unique, too.
For example, you may have something the same things as the other site owner, but quite differently. Or have done completely different things. But you'd both need to know how to promote your website - each with different goals to achieve, too. So "how do you promote your site?" - "It depends."
You'll have to seek the general information on handling your topic and you'll have to apply the knowledge you learned to your website. What works for someone else may not work for you. A charity organiation is quite different from a business corporation and they all will need to choose different ways to go.
While you may look at this picture as a huge disadvantage (that you can't find a ready answer for your case), you can view this situation under a positive angle. You are unique and you'll have your own unique ways to create, develop and promote your website.
You won't be copying other websites - you'll be unique and, thus, be noticeable among your target audience. Also, you'll only focus on things that work for your case only, thus making your work much more efficient.
Whatever you do, remember to tune your offer, efforts and your website to your customers. This will allow them to get precisely what they want and you'll be seeing happy people, too. Needless to say, being unique will help you to develop your own trait your customers will differentiate you among the competition, which should be helpful to your business.
P.S. In case you wonder if there is a single answer about web development..
]]>But reality is that what works isn't what people, who barely know anything about web design, think to work.
]]>But reality is that what works isn't what people, who barely know anything about web design, think to work.
Numerous eye-tracking studies, done by multiple large research companies (many of which having been researching website usability for a while), have shown that, though humans are sometimes attracted to graphics, they also
Of course, all those thorough studies have many more points to add. Let's look at them a bit more closely.
The first and the simplest disovery from eye tracking is that people read from top and left sides of the page. Big news, eh? In the industry, it is called the F-pattern, or the golden triangle (whichever you prefer).
It means that the most important information should be presented first, in the top-left part of the screen.
If you look at how people view pages, you'll see that they also view the main part of the page, but neglect the huge banner, too.
Graphic blindness comes from the fact that people have learned to avoid advertisements (also called banner blindness), and the more graphics and ads themselves resemble ads (placed outside of the content, graphics with huge fonts, photos and people), people are less likely to look at them.
The top-left eye movement pattern also suggests that people scan pages, not read them. They are drawn to what interests them, then they scan it the first words of the heading or sentence and move on to the next.
For the website developers, it means that the site text should be crafted for the Web: shorter, punchier headlines, shorter paragraphs, lists, subheadings, etc.
Read the latest study results and see the example here.
Of course, it is known that something bright and screaming can attract one's attention. It is natural. Such things could be:
Also, faces and images do attract attention.
As you can see from the heatmaps from the link above, though images do get people to look at them, the text attracts much more attention (the redder the area, the more it was viewed).
If you want people to read what you write or otherwise pay attention to your website, you'll need to:
Nothing new or unexpected about getting people to pay attention what you have to offer: provide unique value and they'll love you.
If you use ads, make them blend with the design, though find a balance not to offend your visitors by unexpectedly leading them off your website
Eye tracking isn't the only solution to the problem. It can only guide the Web developers to understand how people surf websites. Some even believe that eye tracking isn't that useful.
However, in some situations, such as determining whether to use graphics and what to use, eye tracking can provide answers and clues to some questions that arise during the website improvement process.
So, as you can see, the eye tracking studies have clearly shown that people prefer text over images and also use it more efficiently, than images. This thing alone should make any reasonable web designer or business website owner to think deeply about using text.
However, there are even more advantages of using text on websites.
Text has more benefits, other than simply driving visitors' attention to itself, other than spending time and energy on graphical elements that don't contribute to understanding of the page.
When a website is build primarily of text (such as this one), it loads much faster, than the one, which uses
Though website loading speed isn't the only factor that influences conversions, it is one of the most important ones, considering that visitors start to leave, when the page loads slower than in 8 seconds.
Another, more important factor, is how well visitors can find what they want on the website.
As you might know, the search engines primarily work with text. Sure, they can crawl JavaScript, Flash and even collect information about images (from the alt attributes and their surroundings), but the primary source is text.
When you use text mostly, the search engines have better chances at categorizing your site properly and showing it to its visitors. Especially, if you use words people use to describe it and place them properly.
Thus, as you might guess, the more text you have on your site, the more visitors you'll be getting from the search engines, which can only help a website.
Text specially helps, when used in logos, slogans and homepages. This way, the most important information is available to the search engines and your homepage is more likely to come up for a series of long tail phrases.
Though relevant, clear images can draw visitors' eyes to it, the text, containing the information the people were hunting for, draws much more attention. That is why text should be the cornerstone of the web page design, not graphics (which it seems to be right now). Especially, when text can boost search engine traffic and conversions greatly.
In that respect, it is of primary importance to format the text for the Web to make it readable and write it for the people.
An alternative to graphics, white space and carefully styled with CSS text can replace most graphics (especially text in images).
Something to think about, right?
]]>Lately, Lee Odden has written a post, discussing whether web designers without any SEO knowledge are evil, or should exist as cash cows for SEO consultants.
Apparently, every SEO (and web designer) has his own answer to this question.
]]>Lately, Lee Odden has written a post, discussing whether web designers without any SEO knowledge are evil, or should exist as cash cows for SEO consultants.
Apparently, every SEO (and web designer) has his own answer to this question.
Of course, we can neglect web designers and milk them (and their clients) for ages. But how will that go along with our desire to be working on something more complex and challenging? Do we want to perfect our knowledge and skills? Do we want to make a positive impact on the Web?
Moreover, knowing web designers, there will be much more things after you educate them. Crawlability (search engine friendliness) and on-page optimization is good, but how about conversions, accessibility? You'll spend plenty of time training your web designer to think about "don't make me think" and "conversions", let alone AAA accessibility compliance.
I guess this is a common way of improving things. Remember the websites of the early 90s? What do you see now, something a bit better?
From a designers perspective, at least knowing how search engines work will allow them to create SE-friendly websites. This will drive more traffic to their clients' websites and make their clients happier, so the designers will get more referrals and more loyal customers.
When basic on-page optimization is done, web designers can start improving website usability, such as click path, website accessibility and such.
After web designers create more or less SE and human friendly websites, SEOs can still have their jobs, because no websites is perfect and there always will be something to fix. Moreover, just having a crawlable website doesn't get traffic alone. The website needs some promoting and that's what SEOs can do (now transforming to marketers or jacks-of-all-trades, really).
Moreover, web designers should also remember about content, if they are in charge of creating it, but that's another story. Most SEOs, however, know what content needs to be created and how.
Overall, in my opinion, SEOs should rather educate everyone involved, not just web designers, because it will improve the overall Web experience for everyone, not just the web industry people. And there always will be something to work on, such as usability, conversions, accessibility, customer loyality and so on.
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