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Easy fixes to web site problems Here is a back issue of Marketing Booster, the email newsletter that Richard Groom writes and sends free every fortnight to subscribers. You can subscribe here or read over 60 back issues using the back issues index page. I often receive emails from Marketing Booster subscribers who want to tell me how much they value these emails. Obviously I love getting positive feedback. But often, they also say something like 'if only I had enough time to try all these techniques'. I know exactly how they feel. I read marketing books, attend several seminars each year, subscribe to a few e-zines and encounter new ideas and techniques in other ways too. It can be a bit overwhelming and in the real world we are all too busy to do even the things we know we 'should' be trying. So I was keen in this edition to suggest some things that really should take just a few minutes each. I also wanted to write about some of the things that most annoy me about web sites. So to bring the two ideas together, here are easy fixes for web site problems. 1. Add dates to your news archive. When I'm doing research to help me write new material for my clients, one of the best sources of information is the plethora of press releases on companies' web sites. But too often, there isn't a date in the press release. It's really annoying, but even worse, it makes me question the value of the information and so I look elsewhere. I'm sure the web site owners won't be too depressed to hear about my problems, but is there really any reason to miss out something as important as a publication date? So here's easy fix number one: make sure every news item on your web site includes its publication date. (Have a look now to see if they already do.) 2. If there's no information own up to it. As an example of what I mean, you often click on a button that says 'job vacancies' and reach a page with information about working for the company, how to contact the HR department and so on. But there don't appear to be any vacancies. Easy fix number two: set up a default function so that if there aren't any vacancies the first sentence of the page reads something like: 'sorry, there aren't any current vacancies'. This applies to all pages where there might not be any relevant information at any given time. 3. Use a readable font size. I had a long day yesterday. So it didn't help matters when in the later afternoon I had to use a web site with tiny text. It was very hard to read and actually gave me a headache - surely the opposite of a great site? Easy fix number three: don't rely on visitors changing the text size through their web browser - many won't bother. Make sure your web designer uses a font size that is big enough. Have a look at your site now: is the text too small? If it is, get on the phone to your web people and ask them to fix it. 4. Get an objective view. Here's the biggest problem with your web site: you know how to use it and you know where the information is. So you are entirely the wrong person to evaluate its usability. Easy fix: ask someone who's never used your site before to take a look and then get their objective feedback. Did they understand how to use it? Where did they get lost? Which information was unclear? You could hire a professional to do this, or simply ask a friend or business contact. You could offer to return the favour. 5. Help them get back to home. I just tested this one and the results didn't surprise me. I put in a random product type and city name into Google and hit the first site that came up. It was a link deep into a site and there were no navigation buttons, so I couldn't easily get into other parts of the site. The site DOES have navigation buttons on its home page and main section introduction pages, but once you get to the detailed product pages the buttons go missing. That's a big problem for people who come straight into a deep page, rather than via the home page. Easy fix number five: get your web designer to put AT LEAST a 'home' button on every page. Better still, have consistent navigation buttons on every page. I know that I write about web site problems a lot in Marketing Booster (maybe too much). But it's such a shame when companies go to the time and expense of creating a site, only to reduce the chance that they will win new customers by making the site hard to use through silly errors. Copyright 2005 Richard Groom |