3 Steps to making your Website more User-Friendly

How long do users stay on websites? According to Jakob Nielsen, "not very long."

In an age of information overflow, user experience can be the key factor that determines whether visitors get the information they need from your website.

User experience is becoming an extension of the customer experience model—and, undoubtedly, experience matters. Companies that will stay ahead of the curve are those that are constantly refining their content, adapting to an always-changing technology landscape, and asking their customers what they want and how they want it delivered.

So, how does the user experience on your website measure up? Here is a three-step approach to analyzing the usability of your website, along with key guidelines for improving its usability.

1. Analyze the content

Odds are you wrote much of the content for your website. Well, maybe not you, but your marketing team or your company's management team. The point is that you are very familiar with your content. But are your users?

Consider the following when writing or analyzing content for your website:

• Does your content pass the "common knowledge" test? You may be familiar with your processes and product or service offerings, but visitors to your site may not be. Use language that a broad audience can understand, and avoid acronyms or terms that are confusing.
• Don't be long-winded. Your nine-paragraph description of your top-selling product probably sounded great when you first wrote it. You included all of the intricacies and specifications—anything anyone would ever want to know! But do you think your clients have time to read nine paragraphs? Probably not. Keep content concise, and break up text with illustrations or photographs when possible.
• Not all at once. People can't handle information in large chunks. That's why we add hyphens to phone numbers, and why text messaging is so popular. Try implementing a "progressive disclosure" system of displaying information on your site. Show small chunks of information first—enough for the user to get a good understanding of what you're saying. Then, give her the ability to drill down and obtain more detailed information.

2. Look at the layout

One of the biggest hurdles for Web designers is the ever-changing landscape of devices that can access the Web. During your last website redesign, your website probably looked great in the browser you viewed it in. But what does your site look like on an iPhone or an iPad? How does it look on a projector in a conference room?

Consider that by 2014, more people are expected to browse the Internet via mobile device than desktop PC.

Making sure websites look good across all platforms will be one of the biggest challenges for Web designers over the next couple years. Accordingly, consider the following:

• Investigate a responsive design. A popular trend is responsive design, which uses CSS (cascading style sheets) and media queries to determine a user's device resolution (size) and delivers a site's content in a layout appropriate for that size. Using responsive design is a much more efficient alternative to having a mobile site and a desktop site.
• Beware of "the fold." The fold is the area of a Web page that the user cannot immediately see without scrolling down. Many users interact with what they see first, so including important information above the fold is an imperative consideration for your design.

3. Run a few tests

Speculating about how your visitors use your website is very different from actually knowing how they use it. Usability testing, which will give you that knowledge, can range from quick-and-simple process to long-and-arduous one. Try to get a good mix of quantitative information (e.g., website statistics) and qualitative information (e.g., focus groups).

Here are a few tests that will serve as a good starting point:

• Website statistics. If you employ a Web analytics program (Google Analytics is a great one), look at the statistics. What pages are your users spending the most time on? Least time on? Where are people leaving your site? That information will give you quick insights into the effectiveness of various pages on your site.
• Performance tests. How easily are visitors able to use your website? If you have the luxury of gathering a test group of users or a focus group, create simple exercises to measure the speed and accuracy at which they complete common tasks. Document common barriers they encounter.
• Subjective tests. Ask users how they feel about using your site (and always take responses with a grain of salt). Do they feel comfortable using your site? Are they satisfied with their ability to complete a task? Be wary of the sample size and demographics of your group when considering the results.

10 Annoying Things About Your Website That Drive People Away

DIRECT AND TO THE POINT ARTICLE ON WEBSITE DESIGN AND FLUFF!

How many times have you visited a website and ended up be sorely disappointed?  Or worse, annoyed as all get out?  The answer for most people is an easy one: a lot!  So, here are a list of the 10 things that annoy people the most about websites. Maybe you’ll agree; maybe you won’t.  Let’s see…

10. Music

Music blares the minute I visit your site. That is unexpected, disruptive, and downright rude, from a customer experience standpoint. And, in case you weren’t sure, it ticks off me (and most people) more than just about anything. Wake up and smell the coffee! That is so 2001. Frankly, it wasn’t cool even back then—but today, music on your website can mean the kiss of death.

9. Flash

Your “awesome” Flash website takes forever to load and then blasts me with all these neat-o visuals that require me to twiddle my thumbs and waste precious time. I need information, not entertainment. Get over yourselves. Quit listening to your creative team (and if they’re recommending Flash, hire a new team), and maximize the three seconds of attention I’m willing to give you by telling me something I want or need to know.

8. Pop-ups

Pop-up ads (and that’s what they are) make me want to kill you. Yeah, I know they’re effective at boosting click-through rates. I still hate ‘em. Stop it. Using pop-up ads tells me you don’t care about my experience—you just want to sell me crap. It’s like going on a first date, and having the date say, “Let’s fool around” before dinner hits the table. It’s too much. Too soon. I don’t care what the experts say. Pop-up ads make me want to leave.

7. Contact Info

Sure, I have a lot of patience and free time. I really WANT to have to dig through your bleepin’ site to find your contact information. That makes my life super-easy. Go ahead, hide it! Or better yet, don’t put contact info on there at all. That’s one way to ensure we don’t ever work together.

6. Mystery

Websites that don’t tell me what you do (or no call-to-action), why I need what you do, and what it’s gonna cost me are downright ineffective. I don’t want to dig for pricing. I want the information, and I want it now. Being coy might work when you’re dating, but when it comes to business, I’m like Sergeant Friday on Dragnet. Just the facts, ma’am. You’ve got about three seconds of my time and attention—use it wisely. And copy that’s “mysterious” is not.

5. Down the Rabbit Hole

Contact pages that make us feel like Alice in Wonderland? Not prudent. And when your contact form leads us to default email programs that we can’t stand, they cause us to immediately leave your site. For instance, I don’t use Mail; I don’t want to use Mail. And when your contact form automatically loads Mail for me, it makes curse words flow out of my mouth that are very unladylike. WHAT are you thinking? Stop it. Please.

4. Black Backgrounds

Black backgrounds are nearly IMPOSSIBLE to read. With very few exceptions (there are some sites done very well by people who know what they’re doing, but they are rare), cut it out. Black backgrounds stink. And if your Web-design team thinks those backgrounds are cool, do your homework. Ask people who know about converting the leads that come to your website to sales about the performance of sites with dark backgrounds. After all, isn’t that what you’re really interested in—leads that you can convert to sales?

3. Miniscule Text

Fonts that are too small can be remedied by a surfer; I’ll give you that. But it annoys me when I have to manually bump up the type. And I’m thinking that if you really think about what you want from a site visitor in terms of actions, it’s not making themdo something to learn more. Tell your Web developers with young eyes that it’s often old folks like me who are making the buying decisions. The “default” font most Web developers use is almost ALWAYS too small. Bump it up a notch. Or three. You’ll be amazed at how much happier your Web surfers will be. Know who your customers and prospects are; serve them information that is easy for them to consume—without the need for modifications.

2. An Undesired Delivery

I consume a lot of content. And when I find yours—and I like it—I want to read more. And I want it delivered to my email inbox, not my Reader, which I use for different things. When your blog doesn’t take that into consideration, I know you’re not paying attention. And I know you don’t care about me as a consumer, you’re only thinking about how you like information delivered. Newsflash: It’s not about you. A vast majority of content consumers are just like me. They want content delivered to their email inbox rather than subscribing via an RSS feed. When you overlook that and when you don’t offer me an option that suits my consumption preferences, it tells me you’re not paying attention.

1. Anti-Social

Where are the buttons displaying where to find you on the Web? I keep running across websites that have social sharing buttons on them, but when you click on the buttons, instead of taking you to say, for instance, someone’s Facebook page, it allows me to share your page of content on Facebook. Seriously? As if I want to share your “About” page on Facebook? No, dummy. What I’m looking for is your brand presence on Facebook (or Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)—maybe because I want to “like” you there and pay attention to what you’re doing. Not having social sharing buttons shows me that you’re not participating in the social media space (whether that’s really the case). And it also shows me that you have no idea that I’m judging you—and your level of savviness about the digital space and the importance of social networks—based on their absence. Is that what you want? Really?

The Bottom Line

Don’t be egocentric when it comes to Web design. Know who your audience is and what they come to your site looking for. Or what you want them to come to your site looking for. Let your Web analytics play a huge rule in this process. Focus on creating a user experience that respects users’ needs and makes it easy for them to find the information they seek. Make sure your site has a navigation system that makes sense. And when you’re developing it, step outside the group of people working on the nav design and ask for feedback from others. Test your theories before implementing them. You’ll be surprised how often you’ve made assumptions that aren’t quite right. Sometimes, we’re so close to our own businesses and our own designs that we can’t be objective.

Great design is cool. And cool is nice. But that isn’t enough when it comes to effective online marketing. A beautifully designed website that has a crappy user experience serves up zero results. Great design paired with navigation that’s well-thought out and content that does the job it’s supposed to do? Those make a website work. Creating an effective Web experience that actually turns site visitors into leads and allows you the opportunity to convert those leads into sales—that’s what effective online marketing is all about.

WHO SAID THESE BRIGHT THINGS?

"No News is Good News" and "All publicity is good publicity."  

One would have to wonder.  I do!

  

Click Here to read about a Florida Parking company 

who received some free press.   Click Here to watch

the news channel brought to you by WFTV.

When it comes to SEO, listen to Google!

Three SEO Don'ts Straight From Google

Published on April 30, 2012

When you work in SEO, it might seem that Google is always trying to trip you up. But that's not really the case, argues Brandignity: "They don't dislike all SEOs because ... we actually help catalog information and pages; that in turn helps their search identify which pages make sense to showcase." In fact, the search engine giant is more than happy to give advice—such as a video from Google's Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye, in which she discusses common errors that SEOs make.

Here are three:

Working on SEO before your site has a value proposition. What sets your company, product, or service apart from your competition? Perhaps your retail shop is the city's oldest independent dealer, offers free repair estimates—or is actually a nonprofit business. "If you want to stay on top," Ohye advises, "searchers need a value prop to click on your site, to come back and revisit your site, and to recommend your site to their friends." 

Implementing SEO strategy from an isolated silo. Tear down those walls. With open communication among your marketing, business development, and SEO teams, your optimization efforts properly address the entire user experience—from marketing campaign to conversion. "And, potentially, repeat business," Ohye adds.

Getting caught up in SEO trends. In the beginning, websites and search engines both chased the user. But then something went wrong and websites began chasing search engine algorithms. Around 2005, for instance, many SEOs started gaming the Google algorithm with optimal keyword density. "Not a great use of their time," Ohye notes, since they'd have achieved better results with compelling, informative, readable content.

The Po!nt: Use your noodle; listen to Google. If you're going to take SEO advice from anyone, Google is as reliable a source as it gets.

SMC is helping parking customers all across the country with a proven internet strategy.  As stated many times over, it begins with an professionally structured (friendly architecture) website for search engine spiders and crawlers to find your company.  The internet is game, and the rules are changing faster than the U.S. Tax Laws.

Five Tips to Increase Email Click-Through Rates

Here are five things you can do with your message to generate more clicks in your emails.

 

 1. Restate your key benefits
 

Hopefully, you've made your point in the body of your email and provided the key reasons recipients should take action. Usually, those reasons are the key benefits of responding to the call to action. For example:

• No Reservation Fees
• Park 7 Days and get One Day Free
• Complimentary Shuttle, Water, Coffee, etc

2. Make another promise or introduce a surprise benefit

If you're following basic copywriting guidelines, your message is focused on a single powerful idea (called, appropriately, the "Big Idea").  Let's say you've made a promise and talked about the key benefits, but, unfortunately, email recipients have read all the way to your signature and haven't clicked the link. Try offering another promise or a surprise benefit in your post script to jolt them from their stupor and move them into action.

• LIKE US on Facebook to receive special offer

3. Provide more credibility

Perhaps your email recipients aren't clicking because they don't believe you or what you're saying. Maybe you're pitching too soon in the sales cycle; maybe your offer doesn't offset their doubts at this point; or maybe your email address is not believable (i.e. joepark@aol.com). You must demonstrate a credible image to offer more proof or credibility ... hopefully pushing readers over the edge.

4. Communicate urgency

You can communicate urgency in many ways, and most of them aren't believable. I'm sure you've been to a landing page that shows the number 500 crossed out with the phrase "only 19 remaining!" next to it. Return to that site a year later, and you'll see the same numbers. Some sense of urgency! Urgency works only when it's real. You can't say you've got a limited supply of e-books, for example. Even the most naive shopper would see through that ploy. You can, however, use urgency when a timeline or limitation exists.

5. Restate or expand on your guarantee

If you've got a good guarantee, by all means, flaunt it in your message.  For example:

• Book Online on our Website for the lowest rate....Guaranteed!
• Best Price Guarantee found at www.takecareofmycar.com!
• No Reservation Fees!

 

Key Components to your Long Term Internet Strategy

If you are reading this post for the first time, I highly recommend reading it over and over again until you do something about it.  Or what?  Well, for starters, you will lose market share and watch your profits shrink.

If you want to make your business fly, there’s no good excuse for not having a small business internet marketing strategy.   A common bad excuse is, I don’t know how to grow our organization with more customers, clients, or sales using the internet.  Working with SMC, this excuse is no longer valid. 

Please review these bullets and then review the four points below to support these key components:

Don't Be Penny Wise & Pound Foolish

• MODERN, STRUCTURED WEBSITE with Mobile Application and Flexibile for Landing Pages
• SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
• PAY PER CLICK (PPC)
• VIDEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (VSEO)
• EMAIL MARKETING
• SOCIAL NETWORKING
• REAL TIME CENTRALIZED RESERVATIONS SYSTEM (CRS)
• CHANNEL MARKETING PROGRAM 

1. To save time and money

A well-planned internet marketing strategy will assure that you’re allocating your time and your small business’ resources optimally by eliminating excessive trial and error, misuses of marketing budgets, and sporadic efforts. Sadly, most small business entrepreneurs aren’t aware of the tremendous impact that an online marketing strategy can have on their business’ bottom line.

2. To gain a competitive advantage

The online marketing your competition isn’t doing is your competitive advantage – but only if you seize the opportunity. If you’re following a solid small business internet marketing strategy, you’re putting yourself in a position to gain a competitive advantage over your competition. Why? Because you’ll be making consistent improvements to your tactics in the areas in which your competition is most likely lacking.  NOTE: Spend plenty of time planning and outlining your small business’ internet marketing strategy prior to investing in pay-per-click PPC campaigns and other online advertising; following a plan will assure that you have the foundation necessary to fully capitalize on online advertising.

3. To yield consistent results

A systematic approach to internet marketing yields systematic results. Consistency is key to unlocking online marketing success; a solid strategy will lay the foundation to make it happen. Religiously following a strategy (while making adjustments as necessary) assures that you’ll keep up with your online marketing efforts; that, in turn, will yield long-term results.

4. To build a foundation for long-term internet marketing success

Online marketing is evolving at a rapid pace; staying on top of the latest and greatest trends can feel daunting. The need for online basics, however, aren’t changing: a website, search engine optimization (SEO), social media presence, email marketing, and great content are all must-haves. A solid internet marketing strategy will provide you with the basic core elements that your business needs for long-term online marketing success – a foundation to build upon.

Implementing a successful online marketing strategy is a learning process; the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be on your way to seeing the results in your business.  And the sooner you get started, the faster you will find your company branded in the market place.

SMC is ready to help you with your online strategy.  It starts with a plan!  To begin, go to www.smcsoftware.com and click on internet marketing.

Email Marketing Advice and Sample

Make sure your marketing emails practice the K.I.S.S. method: Keep It Simple and Smart!

Whatever the offer is in your email campaign, it is good practice to keep your message direct, short and action-driven.  It is a known fact that people are more visual than they are readers in today's society.  Don’t blast your list offers everyday or every week because they’ll drop off your list faster than you can blink an eye. Treat them like you would a friend, by sending relevant information mixed in with soft pitches to buy your service on a monthly basis.

Marketing emails must have a familiar preview and subject line!

Most people decide if an email is interesting by previewing the subject line without opening the email.  Use the subject line to summarize the email content. The subject line should tell the email content, not sell the email content. Keep your subject line to 50 characters or less. Avoid writing your subject text with capital letters. Avoid using flashy promotional texts or exclamation marks.

To increase the success rate of your marketing emails, make sure your sender name is visible, trustworthy and easily recognized.  This is important:   Do not send marketing emails from generic-looking email addresses, like joesparking@aol.com or gotparking@gmail.com.  Send your marketing emails from an email address that triggers the feeling "I know who sent this email".   Knowing and trusting the sender is the primary reason for opening an email.