Internet Marketing Blog » Web Design

How to conduct a website review

Rory — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:00:41 +0000

For an internet marketing agency, it is always worthwhile looking over clients’ sites, and maybe even their competitor sites, and conducting a website review. Regularly conducting these can help search marketing experts and SEO programmers maintain the quality of their websites by asking a few simple questions. In this blog I’ll cover what questions might be useful to ask when a website is under review.

Website Review Questions:

1. Why does the site exist?

This is a simple, but highly effective question. Why is the site there? Who exactly is going to benefit from it? Why should visitors keep returning to the site? If you are able to look at the website and come up with a definite answer as to why it is there, then that is a good basis to form an opinion of the rest of the site.

2. What are the user experience issues?

User experience issues can relate to website design, usability, conversions and content. Does the website design reflect the content of the website and is it user-friendly? Are all the links working and pointing where they should be or is the site seemingly unstructured and a bit chaotic?

Is the on-page content useful, reliable and relevant to the search query that led you to the webpage in the first place? Do you trust the quality and would you consider sharing it on social networking sites? If the answer to both of those questions is ‘yes’ then that website is generally of a high quality.

3. Has the website been optimised for indexation by the search engines?

There are a few tell-tale signs that can be spotted to find out if a website has been optimised for the search engines – some aesthetic and some may require a bit of further exploration. Firstly, look at the Meta Title tags and find out what keywords are being targeted and if they reflect the content on the webpage. Have the Meta Descriptions been optimised and do they also reflect the content on the webpage?

Other metrics that take a bit more effort to judge include finding out the quality and quantity of inbound links pointing to a site. Are they coming from reliable sources that other authorities in the industry might use? Is the content optimized to target the keywords that are being optimised for while remaining useful and informative? Again, you would ideally be looking to get the answer ‘yes’ for all these questions; if not there is work to be done!

4. What social channels does the website use and how active is it?

Looking at blog posts, for example, and researching how much activity (shares, likes etc.) they have received on social networks is often an important indicator as to the overall quality of the site. The more social shares, the better the quality of the content.

The ‘social’ strategy of a website can also be linked to usability; how easy is it for a visitor to share the content on their social profiles? Why would they want to share the content in the first place? What is incentivising them to share the content? Again, finding answers to these various questions all help build a holistic interpretation of a website that is important when a website review is being conducted.

These four categories should form the basis of all website reviews, but the depth with which each is explored should depend on the content of the website and the detail required to complete the website review.

Here at Click Consult we have a team of expert internet strategists and web developers who are equipped with vast experience at improving websites from a range of industries. If you have any queries about our search engine optimisation services then please feel free to contact us via our website.

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How Google’s Design Principles can improve Web Development

Rory — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:01:01 +0000

In a previous blog I discussed how Google’s founding philosophies can be applied to internet marketing campaigns. They also have another set of philosophies related to their principles of design, so I thought it would be beneficial to blog readers to write another entry for this serialization, but applying the design principles to web development. Again, I believe with the power that Google holds within all internet related industries it is pertinent for internet marketing agencies to understand their philosophies and apply them to the search marketing campaigns they run.

1. Focus on the user.

Those following this thread of articles will notice that this was also the first point on Google’s general philosophies, and this leads me to the obvious conclusion that is of great importance. When creating websites it can be easy to overindulge in technical design features such as JavaScript and HTML5, leaving the resulting site unspiderable for the search engine bots and unusable for website visitors. The best web developers know that a fundamental principle of excellent web design is to promote accessibility. A website with a clear, structured, easily navigable design will naturally be more popular than a website that is over complicated and seemingly unsystematic. The most successful web development services will build their campaigns around the needs of the user.

2. Make every millisecond count.

Another appearance from the previous blog and another reminder from Google that ‘speed is the killer app’. Statistics from a 2009 survey conducted by the University of Nebraska reveal that 47% of people expect a webpage to load in less than two seconds and 40% will leave and won’t return to a webpage if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Now, two or three seconds might seem very quick in offline circumstances, but the advent of high-speed broadband connections has left users craving instant gratification and nothing else will do. Google do offer tools to help webmasters check the speed of their websites, and the free advice that tool provides will help web developers boost the speed of the websites they design.

3. Simplicity is essential.

Google state in their design principles that simplicity drives the other components of good web design such as speed, ease of use, aesthetic appeal and accessibility. Consequently, simple design is often a feature of many successful web development enterprises. The overriding takeaway point for this design philosophy is to not sacrifice simplicity at the behest of additional features. These additional features may only add to the complexity of a website while diminishing accessibility and causing visitors to lose trust in a website.

4. Engage beginners, attract experts.

This is a principle that is an offshoot of simplicity. Google reference their own designs (unsurprisingly) to reinforce this point; claiming that the simplest designs should be merged with powerful features to appeal to both beginners and experts. The simple veneer will engage the beginners to your website while the in-depth features will appeal to the power users whose influence can be used to build brand awareness within the relevant community. For those practicing web design, striking the equilibrium between involving the new visitors and not alienating old users can be the most difficult proposition. However, finding that balance is often integral to a successful web development campaign.

5. Be Innovative.

While consistency in website design builds trust with the core client base, it is innovation that transforms a mediocre website into a work of art. Web developers should always be on the lookout for new ideas that could reinvigorate a stagnant website.

6. Design universally.

This is a philosophy of Google’s that relates to the exponential increase in the number of portable devices (such as smartphones and tablets) that are currently used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. It is important to cater for these users in web design because the underlying rules of web development change significantly when being designed for a portable device with a smaller screen. There is an incredible opportunity for success in mobile search optimisation for businesses looking to invest in internet marketing.

7. Plan for today and tomorrow.

Google’s seventh principle of design relates to them striving to create profitable products that are helpful to users. They also state that they would never attempt to increase the revenue of one of their products if it meant sacrificing the number of users or accessibility. For web developers this serves as yet another reminder that Google wants to look after its users, and so should all other websites. User-friendly, innovative and structured design is more likely to increase profits than adverts that clutter a page – conversion rates are more likely to boost ROI than ads.

8. Delight the eye, don’t distract the mind.

Google products can often be described as having a ‘simple elegance’, although the audience and the context in which that product is released often have an effect on the design. An instantly pleasing aesthetic that appeases first-time visitors to a site is a fantastic asset. While this can’t be achieved in every web design, it is something that web developers should strive for as it can hugely increase the chances of improving visitor experience on the site.

9. Be Trustworthy.

Google conducted a survey in the early preparatory stages of the Panda algorithm update in which they aimed to establish how human users determine the ‘quality’ of a website. One of the questions they asked was ‘would you trust this website with your credit card details?’ This notion of trustworthiness is increasingly important in web design, as evidenced by the Panda update where webpage design was an influential factor in determining the quality of a website. This could relate to the amount of adverts on the page, or the amount of original content above the fold – either way, the takeaway point of this philosophy is that websites that build trust within the user base will be much more successful.

10. Show your human side.

Again, in relation to the Google Panda update, the sites that received the most penalisation were those that appeared to be built by bots, for bots. That means that in the construction of a website little or no effort was made to satisfy the human users but rather to farm content and attempt to appease the search engines. Fortunately, this tactic no longer works and it is much more beneficial to web developers to have their human nature reflected in the websites they design. Vibrancy and personality are big plus points in web design as long as they serve to improve the experience of the users. Exhibiting passion in the sites you build is good, overindulgence is not.

It is fitting that the final point and the first point are very similar. It reflects the emphasis that Google places on accessibility and improving user experience, and this is something every web development expert knows. If you have any other queries about web design or web development, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

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The use of colour in web design.

Chris — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:21:28 +0000

A website is now, more often than not, the most common and easily accessible source of information about any company. With this in mind it is very important to ensure the use of colour on the website is appropriate.

Colour is one of the first elements that a user registers when viewing something for the first time. Users naturally make associations based on the colours they see and react differently to the various embedded meanings of each colour.

Choosing the right colour scheme is dependent upon your brand, product or image. Colours can be used to evoke emotional reactions and transcend deliberate associations.

For example the colour black and dark shades of grey are often used to depict sophistication and elegance whilst vivid bright colours such as pink/magenta depict flamboyancy and are attention grabbing. Websites should use colour schemes that correctly reflect and engage their target viewer to create a more rewarding user experience.

Whilst selecting the correct primary colour to be used it is also important to get the accompanying colours right too. There is a distinct relationship between many colours and finding a harmonious scheme is not always simple. Some colours just don’t complement each other together or look nice side by side, no matter how hard the designer may try.

Once the correct scheme has been found, it is important to ensure each element is used in a way which enables easy retrieval of information from the website page for the user. Bright, attention grabbing colours should be used as spot colors to highlight key areas of information but should not be spread over the page in a way that causes a breakdown in the flow of the information.

Colour coding, contrast and shades of colours can be used to organize different types of information and make elements simple and easy to process by the user.

Developing a colour scheme for a website requires a good understanding of what is meant to be conveyed to the user, a technical development of the use of this colour and the information on the webpage. This can be achieved by using colours with significant meanings and dependent relationships but sometimes trial and error finds the most attractive solution.

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Be Specific in Web Design for SEO

Click Consult — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:31:28 +0000

How often, do you think, the search engines encounter the word ‘home’? Once a second? Once every hundredth of a second? ‘Home’ is one of those words that have crept its way into the language of the internet, and this has doomed it to become a word that’s ignored. In terms of web design, it’s a word that’s best left out altogether.

The use of the word ‘home’ to indicate the home page is a very well established convention. There was a time when it was a useful shorthand in sometimes crowded navigational systems. That time has passed. Now, with SEO and search marketing such a prominent concern for businesses, newer descriptions for the home page should be put in use in navigation.

Alternatives to ‘home’

When you drop the shorthand of ‘home,’ however, you need to replace it with something, and it’s not that easy to find something that fits in so neatly. Replacing a four-letter word with anything too big will look clunky, but this is a web design issue that you need to consider.

There are about as many alternatives to the use of ‘home’ to indicate a home page as there are web design clients, and you can discuss this with us at Click Consult. The first, and most obvious one, would be to use the business name, although this needs to be worded not to take up too much room. The business logo is another option. Regardless of the path you choose, the important thing is to be aware that your ‘home’ navigation is valuable web design real estate. Use it wisely.

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Be Ambitious With Your Web Design!

John — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:00:01 +0000

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. But when internet and search marketing, good web design can attract new, unique users and visitors. A great design will stick in their mind, encouraging them to come back in the future and tell their friends, giving you great free advertising through word of mouth.

But how do you know what’s attractive to users and what will encourage them to return? One method is to leave it in the hands of a talented web designer, but you might want a more hands-on role when it comes to the design of the online face of your business.

Communication is the key word when it comes to designing your website. You probably already have a number of people visiting your site on a regular basis. Don’t keep them in the dark – if you have a forum then it might be an idea to post a poll or a topic asking for their opinion or what they’d like to see. There are also a number of websites out there that allow you to create a survey, entirely free of charge. Why not set one up and send it to people in an email to generate some ideas?

Social media can also be an incredibly handy tool when you want people’s opinion on an almost immediate basis. Post an update on your company’s Facebook page, asking what your visitors like about your site in its current form and what they feel could be changed for the better. Or circulate a blog post about the potential redesign on Twitter to not only get a broader opinion, but to get word of your brand out there.

Though beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, when it comes to your website, the more constructive opinion you can get on your design the better!

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Is it Important to Have a Tablet Presence?

John — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:00:54 +0000

Apple is releasing their iPad 2 model on Friday, with anticipation reaching fever pitch across the globe. Slim, light and with a faster processor than the first incarnation, it’s expected to sell thousands of units as soon as it hits the shelves and give users whole new options when browsing the internet.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs says: “We’re experiencing amazing demand for iPad 2 in the US, and customers around the world have told us they can’t wait to get their hands on it. We appreciate everyone’s patience and we are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.” Not just Apple’s products – tablets themselves have become something of a success story over the last couple of years.

There are a lot of portable platforms around that websites would do well to optimise for when search marketing. A lot of companies are investing to make their presence felt on smartphones, for instance, to attract more and more searchers and organic traffic when on the move. Tablets, because of their popularity, are a real alternative to browsing at your desk as well as being an attractive piece of kit!

When looking at eCommerce web development for your website, it would be an idea to spread your brand across as many different platforms as you possibly can to increase your brand exposure and show what an accessible company you are. Think of it from your own point of view. Do you regularly click an app on your smartphone to access a website on the go? Having such a simple way to access websites is proving to be very popular with smartphone and tablet owners – having an application appear on a tablet may be a great way to get more people interested in visiting your site.

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Has Play.com Been Breached?

John — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:06:52 +0000

We wrote a while back about the problems Lush was facing when it came to security, and how more than anything, its reputation will have been hit hardest after the hack attack on its sites. Though, sadly, there’s not much you can do when people decide to try and break your online boundaries, you can always make sure during the web development stage that your defences are as tight as possible at all times.

But no matter how large or secure you think your site is when internet marketing, there’s likely to always be someone around who’ll take a chance to the chagrin of everybody else. Play.com has found that out to their peril today, when they confirmed that customer details in the form of names and email addresses may have been stolen.

But it shows that, although your on-site security may be as tight as it can possibly be, you still need to compensate for external problems depending on your size. Play.com uses an external company for their marketing, which is where the breach took place. Did that external company have tight security, and did Play.com investigate to find out the strength of its security?

Luckily, it could have been much worse. Apparently no credit card details have been farmed, only names and email addresses. But still, we can’t imagine that many of their 7 million registered customers will be too happy at all…

“Our database is maintained on a secure internal server that is not connected to the internet,” says a statement from Play.com. But you can understand customers’ concerns, and they have every right to ask questions if they feel their private data has been compromised in any way shape or form.

As happened with Lush previously, the way Play.com handles the episode will be crucial to their reputation and generating customer confidence.

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Don’t Forget About Marketing Your Website During Website Development

Susie — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:03:40 +0000

Hiring a web development company to create a website for your business is an incredibly exciting time and at this point of development there will be many ideas swirling within your head and eager to get out. You will likely have an idea of how you want your website to look, the different pages you want it to include, the information that will feature on each of these pages and how you want your products to be displayed.

All of these issues are important in web design and will have a big impact on your website. At the end of the day, you need to create a website that represents your business appropriately and that is suitable for your target audience and experts in web design will be able to help you to do this.

However, optimising your website for searchers is not the only thing you should be thinking about during the website development stages. Optimising your site for the search engines is also extremely important and it is during web design you must begin using a website marketing strategy. If you work with a web development company experienced in web development and also internet marketing, this will be the most useful to you.

We at www.clickconsult.com understand the importance of web design and internet marketing and how the two are linked. We can create a website suitable for your target audience and your business and also a site that will be ranked highly by the search engines and will be easy for your target audience to find.

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Could HMRC Benefit from Better Web Design?

John — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:04:20 +0000

The internet has become such an integral part of most people’s lives that quite a lot of people work their daily routine around it. Grocery shopping, for instance. Buying new clothes, the latest music and everything in-between. But there’s one essential that we still can’t get our heads around…

More and more people are doing their tax returns online as the years roll by. But whenever we visit the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website, our heads swim with an enormous mass of links, subpages and information. We know doing a tax return shouldn’t be fun or interesting, but it also shouldn’t be confusing to the average person.

The front page of the HMRC website contains well over fifty links to subpages across the site, all housed in a cluster in the middle of the page. Clicking on these links (let’s try ‘Pension schemes’ and ‘CIS’) takes us to more pages with, surprise surprise, even more links!

While we’re being critical, we understand that HMRC need to be as intricate as possible. It’s a government website, after all. They need to make sure that as much information as possible is accessible to all areas of the public. From a web design point of view though, we’re unsure as to the benefits of having pages with massive blocks of text and information – we think it’s incredibly hard to digest, and having so many visible links makes it easy for people to get lost.

But HRMC aren’t looking at things from an internet marketing point of view. And they rightly shouldn’t – they’re there to give as much information to the public as possible to help them do their taxes online. But those massive blocks of text need to be broken up, to make them easier to read and understand.

Tax doesn’t have to be taxing, or so the saying goes…

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Getting your eCommerce as Lush as Possible

John — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 11:01:22 +0000

Poor Lush. The cosmetics chain was subject to an aggressive hack attack over a period of months, between October 2010 and January this year. Not their fault of course, and a statement on their website shows that the company is looking to get back up and running as soon as they possibly can:

“We are currently building a completely new website, which we hope will go live in a few months. Meanwhile, we are hoping the launch a temporary website soon, which will be linked to an external secure payment gateway direct to the credit card agencies.”

Sadly though, the problem doesn’t just extend to Lush. Customers who placed an order over that period have been advised to contact their bank, as their credit details may have been compromised. Lush, who are based in Poole, are feeling the widespread negativity associated with a hack attack. It won’t be the hackers who bear the brunt of the public’s anger (unless they’re caught!), but Lush itself.

We have just always regarded Lush’s online services as secure – and still do. We’re also sure that their temporary payment gateway will see no problems, and that this attack has been a valuable experience for the company.

But it underlines to everybody associated with internet marketing how important a strong, secure eCommerce platform is when building a website. We can’t think of any technology at the moment that allows you to grab hackers by the proverbials and give them a good telling off, so the best offence is always a strong defence when it comes to web marketing.

When looking at strong eCommerce web development it’s important to make sure all internal nuts and bolts are as tight as possible before going live. We have no doubt that Lush regarded their system as foolproof. Sadly, somebody with a bit of time on their hands has proved otherwise.

Lush will probably need a lot of time to recover, both site-wise and in a reputation context. We wish them all the best for the rebuilding process.

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