One of the most important aspects of a website is usability. Web usability is defined as the flow of your website from page to page. In other words, it is a measure of how well your website is put together and whether improvements are needed to clarify or completely redo a part of the site. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Ask.com, are all masters of usability because their graphical user interface (GUI) is easy to use and accessible for even the least tech-savvy Internet users. There are a few steps and tests (like http://www.usability.gov/) that you can utilize to test the usability of your website.

The best way to test the usability of your website is to imagine situations related to visiting your website, and then asking people to act out these scenarios. While family and colleagues may be a varied (as far as Internet usage) and reliable source, the best results will come from people who are randomly selected. Ask the participant questions to make them feel at ease and discover their background (“How often do you use the Internet? How long each day? What do you use it for?” etc.) to better understand where they are coming from and how technologically inclined they are.

One of the most important aspects of the usability test are the scenarios that you provide for participants. For example, if I own a sporting goods store, I might give the user a scenario in which they must be able to find out if they can rent equipment, what the estimated cost would be, and how long they can rent the equipment. I may know that my business provides a special, 6-month rental deal but if the participant is unable to easily find this information on their own, then my website has a usability issue. Missing information, “dead” links (502 forbidden error), and a misleading or confusing layout are a few of the concerns that can be fixed after a usability test.

The goal of a usability test is ultimately to create clarity to your audience for all aspects of your site. Recognizing and deleting or renovating ambiguous terms or actions, as well as noting the efficiency (namely for eCommerce sites) of your site, will allow you to improve and strengthen your online presence. A web usability test is incredibly helpful and should be considered as an essential part of creating and maintaining your website.

Today almost everyone has a website of some sort. Whether it’s for business or pleasure, we are all connected to the Internet. Social media websites give you a generic, yet customizable theme that allows you to express yourself by posting text, pictures, videos, and listing your likes and dislikes. The World Wide Web encompasses so much information that it can be daunting to consider it on a holistic, international scale.

One element that all websites have in common is the language behind the images and information seen on a webpage. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the language that web pages use and translate to create the words and format of a webpage. Most likely, you will go your entire life without having an actual conversation in HTML but it is important to understand the language behind what our websites display.

In the early days of the World Wide Web, HTML code had to be painstakingly typed to the point of perfection for a webpage to appear the way you wanted it. While HTML and CSS (design/appearance code) are still major components for all websites on the Internet, sites like WordPress or Dreamweaver can now make the HTML-illiterate feel like the most tech-savvy person in the room by furthering your interaction with web design.

If you are interested in learning more about HTML and CSS, there are a plethora of resources available on and offline. Most colleges offer classes on HTML and hundreds of books and articles examine, explain and expand on HTML, its importance, and effect. Merely glimpsing at any webpage’s HTML code will make you marvel and appreciate the complex, attractive websites we visit daily.

Spring is often synonymous with renewal. Whether it’s our habits or the conditions of our environment, spring is often used as a metaphor for change and cleansing. “Spring cleaning” applies not just to our homes, but our businesses as well. During this season, consider these few tips to “clean up” and adjust your website that will make it clearer and more attractive to your clients.

One of the most distracting aspects of websites, and a major pitfall in some cases, can be the ability to add pictures and YouTube videos into your site. While these graphics certainly enhance the user’s experience, too many graphics can overwhelm and distract your audience from the message you’re trying to propose. However, there must be some element of attraction within your website via pictures or videos to grasp and hold the audience’s attention. While the information about your business may be clearly displayed, the customer will only glance at your site for what they are looking for and nothing else. This may be the intent of your website, but overall, a strong website will find a way to hook the reader’s attention. The videos, pictures, and whatever other media you place on your website allow customers to converse and connect with each other (and you) if you convey the subject in a way that can enthrall your audience. In other words, while the information on your site may be abundant and useful, many people in today’s society are able to fully immerse themselves in a subject through accompanying pictures and videos.

Another tip you may want to reflect upon when cleaning up your site is to think about the people who visit your site the most. If a majority of your clients are young to middle-aged professionals, consider writing a blog post about or pertaining to the interests of that demographic.  If an audience, in most cases customers, is willing to visit your website to learn more about what you do, why not connect with them through a series of targeted information (blogs/insights, videos, pictures etc.). By putting more of your personality into your site, customers will be more likely to understand and invest in the business if they know exactly who they’re dealing with through your website.

Because spring often brings the best weather, it may be difficult getting to cleaning right away. But at some point during the season, try and write a post or adjust your website to connect with your customers more directly. They must be interested in your business, because they made it to your website. Now, the only challenge is keeping them there and holding their attention.

This is a term that gets thrown around like biscuit dough in a Southern cafe.  But I expect few people actually know what it means.  According to Wikipedia:

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page, used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set.

What? Larry Page?  Gee, I thought it was something about a Google index page. Interesting, isn’t it?

In SEO it is enlightening to periodically run a ranking report of the website to get a picture of how the site is ranking for certain terms over periods of time.  This helps us gauge how “relevant” the page is according to what changes or enhancements we have made to it – basically, what is working or what isn’t making an impact.

At the end of every November, my fall road racing season winds down.  After 6 months of training for a championships race, my body needs to take a couple of weeks for active recovery. Not only is this recovery important for adaptation to the thousands of miles of work put in, but it also serves as a time of analysis and planning for the future. By keeping records of my training, racing, and nutrition, I can see what type of training works and how I can improve.

Every December I begin the planning for my spring season. I start by setting attainable goals based upon last year’s performances. From there, I build a training schedule that will help me to track my performance and growth along the way. Without proper planning days, weeks, and even months in advance, I know that the likelihood of achieving success is minimal.

Like athletic endeavors, the business world operates best when properly planned and monitored. You can’t make the proper decisions to advance and strengthen your business without having clear, definable goals and a plan to obtain them.

One avenue that you may consider this year for improving your business could be through your website. Would you like your site to be more visible on the web so that it’s easier for customers to find? Do you think that your site needs an updated look to stay contemporary, competitive, and attractive to those who may see it? Set your goals and make a plan.

Maybe obtaining more business through your website should be in your 2011 overall strategic plan. We would be happy to help you out with anything from an SEO campaign, to site design, to adding an e-commerce option. Whatever it may be, give us a call or shoot us an email and we will be happy to accommodate your needs.

Happy 2011 from WEBii

In a November 2010 issue of Working Mother magazine, Linkedin was sited as a “top tool” for working moms:

“The ability to multitask is a must for the working mom. LinkedIn is one of the tools you can use to maintain your work-life balance while also gleaning key insights from other career minded professionals. The site is also a fantastic way to establish your professional identity online, let other professionals know about your recent career accomplishments and even nab your dream job.”

The Web in general can be used in wise ways to make a professional woman’s life more efficient.  I believe that Linkedin is a strong contender because of its concentration on a business environment; unlike Facebook, Linkedin is solely focused on harboring and maintaining only business contacts.

Your website should also be used as a “top tool” in your work strategy.  Websites are really a multi-tool, and like a Swiss Army knife, they can be a “life saver”.  Your custom website will serve as a marketing device, a reputation manager, a sales generator, and an efficiency tool.  Imagine how much more time a working mother can save by offering information, downloadable forms, and product ordering on your website – rather than being constantly tied down by the telephone.  Plus, make sure your Linkedin and other community profile links are present on the website, so people really get several touch points.

A tip for Linkedin: if you have had an active profile for a while, remember to log in periodically and review your entire list of contacts.  Have you communicated with these people in any other way?  Do you see any opportunities to reach out to someone either in another online medium or offline with a personal note or networking engagement?

I surprised myself one day when reviewing my list of contacts at Linkedin, realizing that I had nearly 100 untapped people in my database who I had not talked with in a long while.  I took the opportunity to locate some of them on Facebook and help boost our profile there.

Sometimes a little bit of javascript is necessary to control certain features in a website, such as a simple slideshow element on a page, which was a better choice over the heavy Flash animation.  But as organic SEO becomes more prominent, we must learn to minimize the presence of javascript among our web page code, and strive for “clean” search-engine-friendly code.

Instead of including your javascript directly on the web page, link to it as a source.

In the head of the page, create the script tag, but instead of including the script code within the container of the script tags, link to an external javascript file.  For best organization, store your javascript file in a /js folder (or /scripts or something similar).  Your linked tag will appear in this format:

<script language=”javascript” src=”js/filename.js” /></script>

Now, as your page code is read, this is referenced on one line and the search engines (or other resources) do not need to wade through a long javascript to get to the important meat of your website – the content.

Do the images on your website have alt tags?  If they do, are the alt tags something like abc123.jpg?  A very basic yet helpful search-friendly design practice is to include alt and title tags in each of your graphics to better describe what they are.  This tells visual impairment devices what those pictures are, and it tells search engines what they are. If the alt tag is “Austin event planning company” instead of “abc123.jpg”, your website is recognized as more relevant to its actual subject matter.

Have You Heard?

After years of speculation, it’s official: Google’s Matt Cutts stated that Google’s indexing formula ignores the ‘keywords’ meta tag.  What does this mean?  The meta keywords tag does nothing for your position on Google.  However, they are still used by many other search engines and directories, so don’t be too hasty and delete them from your web pages.  As I have mentioned before, having some extra meta tags in your site code is not going to harm you, so it is not a “bad” idea to keep up with your meta keywords.