Online Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Tips for Small & Medium Businesses

You are here: Home / Archives for Web Usability

Why Your Website Sucks (and How to Fix It)

January 6, 2011 By 2 Comments

graphic of a man falling and his business on declineEver been in the grocery store and witnessed a whiny, bratty kid when the mother or father can’t control him?

Throwing a tantrum in the middle of Aisle 3, you might roll your eyes and wonder as you walk away: “Why do some people even bother having children, if that’s how they’re going to let them turn out?”

Bad Websites = Spoiled Kids

Bad websites are a lot like bratty children. Like spoiled kids, a bad website requires a lot of attention, yet never does what you ask it to do. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Featured, Search Engine Optimization, Web Analytics, Web Design, Web Usability, Website Optimization Tagged With: ,

Is Page Load Time Going to be a Ranking Factor on Google?

November 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

Google wants your website to be faster. Matt Cutts recent interview at PubCon clearly indicates this. So if your website is slow, pull-up your sleeves and start working to make it faster. It would not only make your visitors happy, but can also improve your search rankings.

  • Identify garbage codes on your pages and remove it. Html, css, javascript, any junk that has piled up there should go. 
  • Follow web standards. Check w3c validators to remove and correct your codes.
  • Happy talk should die. Check, edit and remove unnecessary content that does not create value.
  • Reduce graphic images and file sizes or other media which is creating overload without creating much design and usability benefits.
  • Be real stingy

Website load speed is a usability issue. By making your site faster you are providing users a pleasure equivalent to driving on the freeways.

Matt Cutts Interview Video on Page Load Speed



Filed Under: Blog, Search Engine Optimization, Web Usability, Website Optimization Tagged With: , , ,

Speak User’s Language

March 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Using plain and simple language that users type in their search queries is the key to higher rankings on search engines. By using marketing slogans and technical jargon you are doing more harm than good to your web pages, unless yours is a technical website. Users will never use your search terms to find what they want in their queries.

Writing plain language in page titles and headlines will increase your rankings and findability. Your search logs and user testing are two effective methods of finding user’s terminology.

Filed Under: Blog, Web Usability Tagged With: , , , ,

Opening New Browser Windows

March 5, 2009 By 2 Comments

Users expect new pages to open on the same window on which they were currently working. By making pages to open on separate windows, even those outside your website, you are going against their expectations.

  • Don’t make pages to open on separate windows, except when they are PDF and similar documents.
  • Think about your older and visually challenged audiences. They can’t manage many windows.

Web developers and designers are often afraid of opening the links on the same windows for the fear of losing the visitors. But that is a lost cause in any case. If people want to leave, they will. You can do nothing about it. And if they want to come back, they can always use the back button (back button is the single most used button on the web).

There are several usability problems that come from opening pages in different windows. The Usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, provides a detailed study of the associated problems in his book Prioritizing Web Usability.


Filed Under: Blog, Web Usability Tagged With: , , ,