Usability/Conversion.
Website Usability is about people’s behavior after they arrive on your site, with the main goal being to increase the conversion rate. Is a well known factor that a website in order to bring any value to a business need to be very specific and very particular focusing on the product and the client. However the reality is that most websites fall short of this very important feature. Our main goal at Onadiva is to expose the product in a practical way which will benefit both the business owner as well as the customers.
1) A clear-cut navigation system so that the user does not feel as if he/she has entered into a maze. The content ought to be precised and containing every information within it, a site map, and, a but obvious, user-friendly search function so that it is easier enough for any of the visitors. We suggest for smaller sites, to keep the directory structure flat, meaning with a single or no sub-directories for the actual web pages. Whereas with a larger site, it is more appropriate to have two or three sub-directories. From the spider search engine standpoint, a flat directory structure is always the best. The only exceptions when avoidable are images, scripts, executable, and style sheets. Which should all be placed in sub-directories. Even though nowadays top search engines have the capability to crawl dynamic URLs, there are still many limitations. Though to a less extent Dynamic URLs (URL of a Web site that is produced by running a script) also can cause spider traps, which can result in duplicate content being indexed or pages of content being missed out entirely. Where possible it is best to use static URLs, if this is not possible the number of variables in a dynamic URL should at least be limited. A site rarely gets fully indexed when there are more than three variables in a dynamic URL. So ideally you should avoid using more than two variables in a dynamic URL.
Stepping into the shoes of the customers, lets say, an ordinary visitor becomes a very general, yet the most important stepping stone to the success of your site. But the question arises on the usability of the site. How easy user interfaces are to use …
Is your site simple enough?
Is it easy enough for the customers to find their way around?
Does the content of the website says it all? Is sufficient informative?
Or, is it just marketing? Has the site been thoroughly tested over and over?
Overall does you website provides satisfaction to your potential customers?
The usability has become a major concern for us and many web developers and their companies. It is essential in terms of the usability of the website to keep in mind the following points …
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Pop-ups
To be very frank, and being a user myself, pop ups turn out to be the biggest irritants while one visits a site. You are browsing the site and all of a sudden, the moment you move on to a page, a pop up appears and that too, being ‘out of the box.’ Just think about it… does it make sense to interrupt the session? POP UPS creates distraction and most of the time won’t be paid attention to. Further more the potential customer may get irritated and drives away fast. In addition it has been proved that most of the browsers these days, use a pop up blockerof same sorts… IE, Safari, Mozilla, and many others.
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Dead Links
They are one of the best way to drive your visitors away from your site!
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Blinking images
Time of your potential customers is the biggest constraint, frankly, almost no reader is interested in those flashy images and advertisements. And, everyone wants to read the content and concentrate on it. If they cannot be avoided at least they should be put only in the right places.
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Horizontalism rules
Vertical sliding menus immediately force the visitor to lose focus on the link that the visitor chose. What appears to be new innovation, turns into the opposite effect. Normal, Drop-Down menus are of a greater help. They are more clear and offers a greater range of detailed navigation without losing the customer focus.
Finally remember to open the doors for suggestions and feedback so that you can always improve the design and the development of the website in relation to the requirements of the customer. If a website is versatile about its usability, this will translate into: – Increase in productivity – Increase in the sales and revenues. – The development time and the maintenance costs will be considerably decreased. – Customer Satisfaction, in the end (word of mouth i.e.viral growth).
Navigation Architectural Logic / Navigation Easy access to home page Navigation consistency / pages / layout Search engine compatibility Site map Home, Privacy, Contact Us, etc Usability Visibility of services Quality of service information Special offers & promotions Product images and clear illustration Cross-selling capability Testimonials Quality of contact information Design Look & feel relative to your company’s branding Site design consistency Unique features Appropriate use of Multimedia or Flash
A website is the most important marketing tool a business can have. A URL is easier to remember than a phone number and a professional, well designed website with the right content, easy navigation and quickly accessible contact details greatly increases customer confidence and interaction with your Business.
Remember that the search engine spiders see web pages very differently then humans. It is generally a good idea to think of a spider as a very basic text-only browser reader which is limited and cannot understand JavaScript and generally ignores images, audio-visual and Flash files. Also a bloated code insertion and an unstructured page format will reduce the webpage’s effectiveness. In concluding good HTML structure is the foundation for building a search engine optimized web page. Search engine spiders do not interpret JavaScript well and could hinder or prevent any content positioned after it from being indexed. By inserting JavaScript in thetag the search engine spider will read this information first, causing the actual HTML text to appear lower on the page, this translate into the search engine spider having to read many lines of code before reaching HTML text it can actually index.
