Improve Your Website’s Usability in 30 Minutes or Less
You can eat lunch in 30 minutes. You can watch a primetime TV show in 30 minutes. You can even organize your sock drawer in 30 minutes.
Given that an easy-to-use website is one that is much more likely to generate sales for your business, it would behoove you to take 30 minutes out of your day (in addition to organizing your sock drawer…) to implement fixes to your site that will improve usability and deliver better results.
Five Simple Steps to Improve Website Usability in 30 Minutes or Less
#1 Eliminate the Technospeak
Don’t assume that all of your website visitors are going to understand your industry lingo and acronyms. Strive to use easy-to-understand language.
#2 Focus on the Site Visitor’s Goals
Think of the major objectives of your website visitors. Why are these people on your site? Make it clear right on your home page what they should do next in order to accomplish what they set out to do.
#3 Get Right to the Point
State the most important information at or near the top of each page. Remember that many people do not scroll down web pages.
#4 Include Contextual Links & Make Sure All Links Work Properly
Add links to the copy within your website to guide your readers to more detailed information and answers on specific topics found on other pages in your site. Internal, contextual links is a great way to add usability without cluttering the page. There are a variety of tools on the market to automatically check the links on your site.
#5 Give the Site Visitor Options to Contact You
Make sure that you are offering your prospective customers at least three options (e.g., telephone number, email address, online form, chat functionality, Twitter, etc.) to contact you with questions.
These are just a few suggestions to help you quickly crank out a number of usability improvements to your website. If you need additional help, let me know below or at www.WebsiteMarketingNOW.com. Thanks!
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Ouch. I think I’ve been focusing on my goals for my site visitors, not my site visitors’ goals. I’ll need to review this a bit more. hhmmm…
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Great tips I love the first one, it’s so easy to cater your website to people who speak your lingo but that’s not what’s going to draw in new customers especially if they can’t understand the information on your website!
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Good stuff. I especially like the idea of making contact info easy to find. Have noticed some websites even adding their phone number to their page title that shows up in Google. I have a similar list that include a few others: http://websiteblueprint.com/7-sins-of-small-business-websites
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:49 am
Great points! I provide a free website assessment to small business owners that looks at a site from a HUMAN visitor’s perspective. After doing more than 50 site assessments, I have noticed that there are common error and omissions, and you have pointed at several of them.
Great advice for making websites more effective!!!
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
Great post. Very effective and simple considerations.
Nice.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:02 am
Good points and major point that I push is understand that the search engines can only read. So forget the pretty stuff and the great flash tricks because that’s only seen once to get attention. After that they don’t want to see it over and over again regardless of how cool it is.
1. Attractive image is good and can be a women or landscape but as long as it looks professional.
2. As they’ve stated get to the point & in a language they understand.
3. If someone wants your product or service, tell them what you can do or what you’re selling.
4. Have the ability to edit your own site as to information and keep the information current. There is nothing worse than visiting a site were it reads that in 2006 requirements are and this is 2009.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
So true when it comes to web site dev. And yes, a well-arranged sock drawer is much easier to navigate… I got it, thanks!
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Good point from Conrad! It would be smart to get a group together and each review each other’s websites. I think we all get so close to our own product and ideas that it’s tough to see past our own hopes for our sites. Thanks!
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Simple ideas but very effective when executed properly. I especially like the get to the point concept because simplicity is elegance, and it works.
September 4th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Nice, Tom!
September 7th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Thanks for the tips. The contact information is so important. Most new Customers contact me after viewing my site. Early on, I was advised to include that info in a very visible manner on nearly every page. Think about the site pages as pages of a catalog or sales flyer; most visitors will view only one or two pages before browsing on!
September 8th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Vista Print did such a nice job that I was so proud of…they gave me the tools to do it myself…then I erased it all now need the courage to redo it from scratch…
September 8th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Thanks for all the positive feedback, everyone! Glad to see that you found the post useful.
-Tom
September 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Another excellent blog - - one other thing I might add would be informative streaming videos.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am
i took your suggestion and added several links to my home page. Visitors are staying on my site longer which should lead to more sale
September 13th, 2009 at 10:23 am
[...] Improve Your Website’s Usability in 30 Minutes or Less (The same amount of time it takes to clean your sock drawer!) [...]
September 25th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Awesome!
I agree.. Good thoughts on how to promote a website… I also like how these ideas can really be used to promote a range of products.
September 28th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Great Tips, Easy to understand and follow.