Search and Website Usability

A recent presentation at SES New York 2007 covered the topic of search and website usability. The speakers on this topic were Shari Thurow of GrantasticDesigns.com and Matt Bailey with Site Logic Marketing. This article outlines the highlights from the presentation.

Every visitor is important to convert. You need to think about making your website perform. Usability is an essential factor that can contribute to this goal.

Shari Thurow, at the beginning of her speech, references Jakob Nielsen’s view that usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces or web pages are to use. Thurow posits the question, “Are you giving users enough information when they arrive?” Usability measures whether a visitor finishes tasks such as clicking a button or adding a cart. And if they aren’t doing what you want them to do at your website, why not?

Thurow also says that usability addresses search behaviors such as queries, browsing, surfing, scanning, reading, and berry picking. She points out that search is not a linear process. A visitor alternating between search results pages is negative behavior and may indicate that they aren’t finding what they’re looking for. The speaker discusses in depth some of the key concepts of search usability:

Scent of information – An example of this concept is highlighting in search engines. Google uses it in titles, ad copy, and html title tags. Some urls can provide scent of information, but avoid too much highlighting because visitors may interpret this as keyword stuffing. Look at a webpage for eight seconds and then remove the page. If you’re unable to remember what this page was about, then there aren’t enough key words in the copy to give visitors a sense of place. The top left of a webpage is a good place to put keywords. Consider using H1tags. Breadcrumb trails are also good for keywords. 

Site navigation - What do you want people to do? Put that in the middle of the page or above the page fold. Embedded text links are good for keywords. Navigation links are also useful. These provide a sense of place for people and also rank well. Place keywords logically to support visitors to your site.

Navigation schemes - Use what your users prefer and put supplemental text links at the bottom as alt. Make sure you have relevant cross linking. Thurow says the number one design mistake is cross linking. Cross linking is internal and tells users “you are here.” Breadcrumbs help form a mental model of the site. Don’t make the homepage the main emphasis. Embedded texts are useful because you look at a page of content and it is boring, keyword focused links provide scent of information. 

Alphabetical navigation links can be helpful for some search scenarios. Provide alternative navigation for different types of users and needs. Alternative links for products are good for related products. Keywords in urls count. Characters in URls are stop signs to SE’s. Hyphens in urls are not the end of the world. What urls will your users remember better? Dynamic urls are hard to recall. Whenever possible your urls should reflect your site’s arch.

Matt Bailey shares his own insights about usability in his presentation. Important points of his speech included:

Homepage should have clear directions. There should be SEO links out to the rest of the site and keyword focused navigation. What you sell must be very evident. When visitors search and land on a page that has no information on what they just searched for will leave. They need a reason to stay and go somewhere from there. There must be a goal for your visitors. Ads from Google on a homepage are illogical because it takes people off your site. You need high contrast colors.

Address your users’ needs immediately from the homepage. Understand what your visitors are looking for. Bring it forward. You can divide up by categories such as by price, ratings, or popularity.

You need an established hierarchy of categories. For SEO, multiple links with keywords. Don’t hide links. Make them look like links. Avoid buttons that don’t look clickable. Don’t make people think about what they need to do. Use keywords in product links, Alt text, captions and labels. When you group in product pages, don’t put too many categories on one page which will force a long scroll down. Don’t clump all products on one page. Don’t be afraid to add new pages.

Once into a site, people want to focus on just the product and not all the other stuff thrown into the top and side spaces. Be product specific about product content. For SEO, call products what they are. Sales decisions are emotional decision. You need to appeal to the logical and emotional sides of visitors. Visitors need to know how your product will make their lives better. Use problem solving keywords and make your navigation solve problems.

Miscellaneous tips include avoid using slang and words that are lost in translation and show shipping costs to customers before they purchase.