“Don’t Make Me Think!”

The provocative title for Steve Krug’s book is only the beginning of his salient observations on how people use websites. He opens chapter 5 with his Third Law of Usability ‘Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half what’s left’.

Try to look at your website with a fresh pair of eyes,

• Is the path you want the visitor to take obvious enough for even the most inexperienced web user?
• Are you using your website to explain every detail of your business at the very first opportunity?
• Does your website look up-to-the minute but lack any real guidance for the visitor?
• Most importantly are you making it hard for the visitor to get to where you want them?

The Harris Interactive Research Survey identified that over half of all visitors experiencing problems would leave the site and potentially be lost to a competitor. This figure is rising consistently, with more web users expecting a better quality of service on the web. As well as this, business owners must contend with the fact that 77% of online adults share bad web experiences in forums, chat rooms and social networks. This goes beyond the traditional word of mouth and bad references about your business can be seen by millions of people across the web.

When over 50% of all online adults have a preference of conducting business online, the answer is clear. Online businesses need to make every effort to streamline and improve the visitor experience.

When designing a site, if web developers, designers and experts in visitor tracking worked together to create visitor journeys towards an end goal, it has been proven that the conversion rate naturally increases. This is further enhanced by continued development of the site as a reflection of visitor usage. If people are able to find what they want quickly and easily, you are not losing them to your competition.

If a site is designed and built with this in mind, then the conversion efficiency for the journey (which could equally well be a shopping basket) can be measured using Analytics.

And if it can be measured it can be improved.

Following this philosophy Realnet have been able to triple the number of visitors to a client website that reached the Goal we had set.

A website should be helping your business – and it should have targets that can be monitored. It is no longer about being just a presence on the web, a website is an important marketing tool that many aren’t using to it’s full potential. A successful modern web solution needs to pay its own way in the sales it is generating for your business.

If you would like a consultation about upgrading your current website, please call us on 01223 550 800