Have you ever looked to see which search terms your visitors are using whilst on your site?

Using Google Analytics can ensure that you know what people are looking for whilst on your site.

Perhaps you sell a product or brand that is hard to spell, or is know by what it does as well as a specific brand or model. Think about generic terms, such as Hoover, Sellotape, Post It Notes, Kleenex, Band Aid and the many others.

What about sizes, quantities or colours? What about model names, or equivalents?

Ensuring that you know what your visitors are looking for will help you to have the right products or information available, and how else you can meet the needs of your target audience.

If you want to know what your visitors think about your website, why not have a survey on your site?

You’ll be able to find out what people think, and what they like and don’t like, and how you can improve things.

However, you don’t want to make your survey too intrusive. Having it pop up the minute a visitor lands on your site, and asking what people think about your site will be pointless.

People won’t bother to fill in your survey if they just want some information, or prices or opening hours. Putting up barriers will discourage visitors from being customers.

A survey that pops up quite discreetly and asks relevant questions as your visitor is leaving your site is more likely to be completed.

Knowing want to do with the results of your survey will also be important!

Another way of finding out what your visits think is to either ring them or to send a postage paid survey form with each order.

Richer Sounds use surveys and customer satisfaction forms to see where customer service can be improved.

Using incentives such as a prize or vouchers or other ways to convince people to fill in your surveys is a good idea too.

What other ways can you think of to get people’s opinions and find out how you can improve your website.

It’s important that your website shows your passion for yourproducts or services.

You might be a firm of solicitors needing a formal and corporate website, or you might be selling adventure and sports products aimed at teens, but your passion still needs to be visible.

People will often need a solicitor at a delicate time of their life. Think about divorce, criminal, wills and probate or employment law cases. You’ll need to ensure that you can reassure visitors to your website that you are right for them.

If you’re selling sports products it’s much easier to show your passion with a brighter and more creative looking website. You can have lots of information, or FAQs or buyers guides that show your target audience that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about what you do.

Keeping your website updated, and remembering to remove time sensitive content will also show that you’re keen on making more of your online prescence.

When was the last time you looked through your website and checked it for passion? Could you change your copy so that it’s more engaging, or includes call to action or is more positive? What about “we will” rather than “we can”? What about making sure your content is easy to read and offers plenty of opportunity to show off your product knowledge or experience?

When thinking about your content, it’s important to explain fully what you do, and how you can help your visitors.

You can’t assume that your visitors will know what you do, or how you do it. They might have arrived at your site on a product page, rather than your homepage.  They might not know what tool they need, or which plumbing service, or air conditioning unit will be right for them.

Why not make sure that you have  plenty of information for first time buyers, or those who aren’t likely to know what they need.

Alternatively, if you sell a very niche product, or provide an extremely specialised service, then you shouldn’t patronise your visitors by only offering basic information.    If you know that people will only find your site, or look for you, if they know exactly what they want or need, then give them what theyre looking for.

How can you make your site better for visitors and help them find what they need?

If you’re in the process of redesigning you website, or adding and removing pages, or revamping your content, it’s essential that you make a note of the existing pages, and redirect them to the new pages, as necessary.

People who have bookmarked you pages, or who link to your content will be greeted with your error page the next time they visit, and will think that there is something wrong with your site.

Using 301 redirects will not only help your visitors find what they are looking for, but will also help the search engines to know where your content has moved to as well.

If you decide to add more content,  or have separate pages or sections, or are adding and removing products from your range, then think your users, and how they will find what they need, if you haven’t used redirects.

In addition, have you got redirects in place if there are common misspellings of your products, or staff names, or other ways in which you can make it easier and quicker for people to find what they want.

Why not take a moment to ensure that all of your redirects are up to date in your .htaccess file?

What other ways can you make redirects more useful?

When you’ve designed your website, and everything looks great, and works asa it should, you might be tempted to put it live, sit back, and watch visitors flock to your site, and become customers.

In reality, this won’t happen unless you use calls to action in order to persuade your visitors to buy from you.As well as Search Engine Optimisation and Usability, you need to think about tempting your visitors.

In your Meta Description tags, don’t for get to use persuasive text so that searchers become visitors. Give reasons for people to click on your link.

Here are some examples

• Contact Us To Find Out More
• Call Us Now
• Subscribe Today
• See How We Can Help You
• Download A Brochure Today
• Add To Basket
• Buy Now
• Join Online
• See Our Complete Range
• Click Here
• Send To A Friend
• Buy Now While Stocks Last
• Only 5 Left
• Offer Ends Iin 4 Days
• For Less Than The Price Of A Coffee A Day, You Can …
• Must End On Monday

These are all examples of calls to action that can be used in your Meta descriptions, as well as in your content.

Remember that you will need to tell your visitors what you want them to do next. Don’t assume that they will know what to do.

Once visitors have heeded your call to action, you need to ensure that the process of signing up to your newsletter, or buying from you is quick and easy, so that they are not tempted to abandon part way through.

What Calls To Action can you think of that will encourage visitors to become customers? What ways can you find of making your product descriptions more tempting? What effects will time limiting your special offers, or saying how much stock you have left have on your sales?

Whilst I’m not a designer, or a style guru of any sort, I understand the importantance of using the right sort of colours on websites.

• Depending on the type of website, who it’s aimed at, and what it’s promoting, the colours will need to be different.
• A social networking site for teenagers will need to use different colours than an ecommerce site with a target audience aimed at the over 60s.
• Some colours are calming, whilst some encourage anger, some colours are cold and others are warming.

What do the colours on your website say about your company, your products, or your target audience?

How can you use different colours, or different shades of colours to help your visitors navigate your site and find what they are looking for?

What other usability benefits can using the right colours have on your traffic or conversion rate?

It’s important that your website remains consistent in terms of navigation, style, tone and layout.

By making sure that visitors know how to find what they are looking for, and to see where they have been, and keeping page features in the same place on each page, you can reassure visitors, and encourage them to explore your site more, and find the content they are looking for.

You might have to have a particular corporate style for your website, or your company colours or logo, and your visitors will have certain expectations from your brand even before they land on your website.

If you change the navigation around, or add unexpected features, change the tone or layout of your website, you’ll confuse visitors, and they’ll leave in order to find a website that’s easier to use, and easier on the eye too.

What can you do to improve the consistency of your website? What do other people think about the tone and layout? What does it tell your target audience about your website?

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Websites are becoming increasingly more important, and whether you’re an individual posting family pictures on your blog, or a company selling your products online, you’ll want to make sure that your website is easy to use by your target audience.

Because technology and design are making websites potentially even more complex to navigate and use, it’s essential that the basics are not forgotten. You need your website to be easy to use, no matter how complicated and technical it is in the background.

• As a huge ecommerce site then you’ll need your search facility to work well, so that visitors can find what they are looking for.




• Your content needs to accurate, and compelling, and explain the features and benefits of your products




• You might want to have additional helps, such as buyers guides, or additional used for our products.




• Your visitors might benefit from an FAQ page so that they can buy from you with confidence, and that you can eliminate a lot of support calls and emails.




• A glossary can help your visitors understand the terminology used on your website. This is essential on websites where visitors might not know much about what they are buying




• Your calls to action need to be strong, so that your visitors know what to do next




• Your delivery details and costs need to beasy to find, so that customers know when to expect their purchases.




• Your checkout and payment procedure needs to be as simple as possible so that people actually make their purchases

These are just some of the factors that can help make a successful ecommerce site, but are not always apparent on many websites.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s also important to design, develop and market your website for the right intended audience. There’s no point in making a social networking site aimed at teenagers look like a corporate website. A company website designed using primary colours and cartoons won’t look professional. A site aimed at the over 50s might need to take into account additional usability and disability requirements, such as text size and bigger buttons.

Perhaps now is the time for you to think more about some of the issues that your target audience and visitors might face when visiting your website.