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?

Depending on how popular your website is, its purpose, and how well your site is designed and built, you might be spending a fortunte on hosting.

If you are, it might be worth seeing how you can reduce the amount of bandwidth used.

Here’s what you can do:

• Are you using huge images and then resizing them?
• Have you got your CSS rules in your html pages?
• Have you got your Javascript in your html pages
• Are you still using tables for the layout of your website?
• Have you got too much content on each page?
• Have you got videos loading on your homepage?
• Have you got a Flash welcome screen movie?
• Is your site, or a particluar page  likely to become popular suddenly, or benefit from the “Digg” effect?
• Is your site seasonal, or likely to be busy on certain days of the year, or at holiday times?

By thinking ahead, and opimising your code and making your sites quick to load and easy to use, you’ll find that the amount of bandwidth used can be dramatically reduced.  Yhis means that as well as providing your visitors  with a better experience, and a more efficient way of finding what they want, your hosting costs will be less too.

If you’re an ecommerce site, you’ll need to make sure that you’re using the most appropriate hosting package. You won’t be able to afford the loss of business if your site goes down for a couple of days.

If you’re expecting lots of traffic on your website, perhaps you’re a news or fan website, or a technology site that reviews the latest gadgets, or a social networking site, or a company that’s in the news, you’ll need to make sure that your site can handle the traffic.  You won’t want visitors and potential customers or clients to get the wrong impression of your company.

It really does make sense to get the best hosting.  If you’re not sure what you need, or what it all means, then ring up the hosting company and talk to someone.

Why not take five minutes and make sure that your hosting package, and pricing structure is right for your visitors?  You’ll find all the visitor and page view information you need in Google Analytics.

There are many ways to tell how well your website is performing.  Perhaps you’ll measure:

• the number of sales
• the value of the sales
• the number of visitors to your site
• the amount of time visitors spend on your site
• how visitors find your site
• where visitors are from
• the most popular pages
• what time of day visitors come to your site
• where your site appears in the search results for your most important keywords
• number of newletter subscriptions
• number of memberss

and so on…

However, what you don’t know, is what people really think of your site.  You might be missing a trick by not offering a certain product or service, or by hiding your delivery details, or phone number.

Visitors might want to read more about your products, or your calls to action could be stronger, or maybe your visitors would liek to discuss your products or services with each other on a forum.

Unless you make the effort to actually ask your visitors what they think, you’ll never truly know what they think of your site.  It might be that people love your site, or that your site is the only one offering a certain product, or the lowest price, and that’s why people buy from you.

Why not encourage your visitors to suggest improvements to your site, so that you know what they think?  You might be surprised at the answers, but you’ll be better informed as to how you can meet their needs.

If lots of respondants want you to change your colour scheme, or have more product pictures, or have video demonstrations of your procucts, then you’ll be able to make more use of your website, and turn yiur visitors into customers.

By giving the respondants an incentive,  such as a discount voucher, or a prize for the best suggestions, you’re more likely to encourage even the first time, or casualy visitor to comment.

Whether you choose to email a questionnaire to your members and subscribers, or have a survey section on your website, you’ll want to make sure that your visitors have the opportunity to comment, without feeling pressured into it.

Oh, and by the way, it’s not a good idea to have the survey/what do you think about this website/tell us what you think form pop up on the first page that the visitor arrives at.  The visitor has just arrived at this page, and might not know anything about your website or company.  If they’re just looking for a price, or an address or phone number, they don’t want to be impeded by a form that’s not important to them.

Now you know what sort of things you can do to improve your visitors’ experience of your website,  and its usability, what’s stopping you?

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?

When thinking about who uses your site, remember to think about how and where they use it too.

Remember that not everyone will be sat at a desktop computer with a 22″ monitor.  Nowadays people will browse shopping sites, and use Facebook and Twitter on a laptop in front of the TV.   They will also be using their phone too.

If your site is for a venue, such as a restaurant, or a theatre, or maybe a theme park, or a car dealer, or even an electrical store on an out of town retail park, it’s essential that your site will work properly on a phone.

Don’t underestimate the importance of being able to find your site whilst on the move.  Think about the sort of people who will be looking for your site, and the situations they will be in.

A mother might be looking for an all night chemist with a poorly baby in the car.  A family lost on their way to a theme park after a long and hot drive on a bank holiday might need to know how to get there avoiding the motorway.  Somebody looking for a museum, or a zoo, a football ground or a stately home or an art gallery might need to check opening hours, or where the best car parks are.

If your site does give directions, then make them useful.  Not everybody knows road names or numbers, and just because the road name is listed on the map, it doesn’t mean that there is a street name sign at the junction.

Why not think about using local landmarks, or prominent buildings.  It’s much easier to suggest that drivers follow signs to Somewhere, and then take the turning after the Pub, than it is to tell them to follow the A123 for 2.3 miles, and then take the B456 for approximately 1 mile.

If you’re located directly opposite the Supermarket, or behind the church, or next to the post office, then why not tell people.  Not everyone is local, and so it’s easier if they have a landamark to look out for.  In addition, if they need to ask for directions, they’ll know what to ask for.

Don’t forget to put your post code prominently on your site,  so that those using satellite navigation can quickly get directions.

Why not make sure that you have your opening hours or entrance prices clearly visible on your site?

Why not make sure that visitors can find out where the branch of your shop is in Anytown? If people are searching for Your Company Name in Town, does the relevant page come up showing them the directions, address and phone number? Is the top result a complaint about your company?

It’s worth making sure that you perform searches like these, so that you know what results your potential visitors and customers will get.

How else can you make it easier for those people on the move to find you?

Thanks to Boagworld Podcast 211, at http://www.boagworld.com for inspiration and the nudge.

If you’re using relying heavily on images on your website, then it’s essential that you use them well so that your visitors can easily see them, and understand their purpose and relevance.

If you’re selling products, then the product image is just as important as the description, specification and price.  You’ll want to make sure that your images are clear, big enough, and relevant.

No matter what sort of site you are, any products that don’t have images, but have an “image coming soon” message instantly reduce the credibility of your website.  Why haven”t you got an image? If you haven’t got an image from the manufacturer, why not create your own image? Surely you can take a photograph, and amend it as necessary, at least until you can get an official image.

For each and every site, especially those selling clothes, or jewellery, you’ll need your thumbnail product images to link to much larger images, so that visitors can see what the product looks like, and can then decide whether or not to make a purchase.  If you have a link that says that it goes to a larger image, then why would you use the same small image on a new page?  A larger image should be just that.

Images need to be in focus, and clear.  If there is any text or specific design, such as a slogan on a T shirt, or feature on the product, it’s important that his can be seen.  Why not have a separate image of the slogan,  so that it can be read.  Why not have the ability to zoom in, or rotate products to make them more attractive to your visitors?

However, too many images or  products on a page, will be off putting, and instead of visitors exploring more, they probably won’t explore much at all.

How could you make your images better for your visitors? Why not see which ecommerce sites images you like? Why do you like them? Which sites would you, and wouldn’t you buy, from based on their imagery?

Remember, your website is helping visitors find what they are looking for,  they won’t want to spend time having to look for product details.  They won’t be impressed with your clever carousel, or lightbox method of showing images, if the images on your website are poor quality and don’t show what they want to see.

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 was the last time that you checked out your forms?  Really?  By checking that your forms work properly, and that they are easy to use, and provide the information that both your visitors and you want .

Forms are an essential way for your visitors to find the information they want, and for you to to get the information you need too.

Every drop down box, radio button, and check box, as well as free text area is an annoyance for visitors.  Especially on ecommerce sites.  If your visitors are ready to buy, then they want to buy now.  The more questions you ask them, the more barriers you put up, and so the more likely they are to go elsewhere.

Whilst some questions have to be asked, such as size or colour, and delivery and payment details, do you need any more information?

If visitors are signing up for your newsletter, then surely all you need is their name and email address.  If visitors are enquiring about your service, then why not ring them back and find out what you need to know.  People are much more likely to tell you what you want to know over the phone, than by a series of check boxes, or from a drop down list.

Why not consider making your site even easier to use, by allowing purchases to be made using Google Checkout or PayPal? What about using Facebook Connect to register?  Do visitors really need to register at all?  Although it might be a great data capture method, what are you going to do with all the animus and email addresses?

Perhaps you will make the time to look at your forms, and the way you direct visitors to your site, and how easy you make it to find the information or products they want.  Remember, they’re doing you a favour by visiting your site, make it a pleasant experience!