If Your Homepage Could Only Talk - Usability, Search Engine Marketing and Web Design Humor

Written by Kimberly Krause Berg

Dear web site visitor.

I can't tell you how glad I am that you found my website. You have no idea the great lengths we've gone to get you here, let alone what we're about to do to keep you on this web site.

First, let me say, I have no idea who you are, or why you came, but believe me when I say, I built my site just for you. My company and products are the best there is to offer. You can find everything you need to know about me in my About Us page (it says "us", but there is only me, really. It's all about impressions you know?). I removed my address because Google Autolink will give you a map to my place and, like I said earlier, I have no idea who you are.

Contacting me is easy. Just fill out the form when you find it. When you find the privacy policy, please take an hour to read that. Basically it says I don't have time to record your data and don't care who you are. I'm only interested in selling you something that has my company name on it.

Speaking of which, did you find my site in search engines by using my company name? Being new to the web, I figured I had to do some things to grab your attention. I'm so sorry the "blinds" you searched for led you to my sunglasses page. While you're here, can I interest you in my e-book about ostrich feather arrangements?

The product catalog is to the left of that big fat image on the right of the homepage that's distracting you. Above the two global navigation schemes in the top header is your login area.

To register, you need to first give me your phone number so I can call you at 3am and tell you about my specials. I put the search box at the bottom of the page, so you can find things quickly. The sitemap needs to be updated, sorry. We put it there for search engines to crawl and then forgot we had it. Since we're not sure how you like to find our products, we figured we'd put a link to what we think are the most popular items in the left navigation. Unfortunately there's an endless need to scroll. We couldn't decide what you're favorites are, so we put everything there, just to be safe.

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Written by Kimberly Krause Berg

If you've been feeling like Tom Cruise climbing up the side of some remote jagged mountain in the blazing hot sun and concerned you're facing "mission impossible", chances are you own a web site.

Adding to the intense thrill of web site ownership are keyword comparisons and bidding for good keyword positions in search engines. You might hire a search engine optimization specialist who can track elusive algorithm clues and is unfazed by page rank drama. Your programmers and designers insist they get along. The marketing department actually believes deadlines are met. The new bank account is waiting for fresh revenue. And oh yes, it's assumed someone will come looking for your web site and wants to use it.

You did build it for them, right?

For every search result, there is the possibility that:

a. The engine will display a description that makes sense. Or not.

b. The page the search engine refers to does what the description said it would do and is about what the search engine said it would cover. Or not.

Your SEO/SEM, if you hired a good one, helped you write your title tag statement and Meta page description and structured it so it makes sense in SERPs (search engine results pages).

Your Usability professional, if you hired one, evaluated the page to make sure it would meet customer expectations and convince visitors there are other hot pages inside the web site to look at too. Without call to action prompts, well displayed, logically labeled navigation links and credible content, the chance of someone remaining on that page is pretty slim.

Says Gordon Hotchkiss, President and CEO of Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc., in a recent Search Day article written by Shari Thurow, called Creating Compelling Search Engine Ads and Landing Pages, "Once searchers arrive on your landing pages, you have 13.2 seconds to convince visitors that they are on the right site."
Impossible Mission?

Had enough of web page abandonment? Are those cost per click fees putting you further in credit card debt and not producing any bang for your buck? Which part of "understand your web site visitor" didn't make it to the drawing board?

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Written by Kimberly Krause Berg

There is a certain similarity between human relationship breakups and web site abandonment:

"Why do they always leave me?"

"What am I doing wrong?"

"It wasn't what I thought it was supposed to be."

"I tried so hard to make it work!"

"I just never found what I was looking for."

"Boy, was I ever taken for a ride! I was so fooled by what I was told."

The good news is that making a good first impression with your web site visitors is much easier than preparing for a blind date. For starters, you can be surfing in your pajamas, no makeup or with "bed-head" and the web site won't laugh its head off at you.

For good web design, you should have a good idea ahead of time about who will be knocking on your web site door. You need to be ready with at least one critical thing they're looking for.

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Written by Kim Krause Berg

As the mother of a teenage clothing fanatic I'm often at my local mall. It occurred to me that the shopping experience for my daughter is attractive to her not because she wants to spend my money, but because the experience of buying itself is so rich to the senses.

For example, when we enter her favorite stores the first thing that hits me is the music. If it's her kind of music, we're in the right place for her. If the signs near the front of the store have sale prices and notices about markdowns, we're in the right place for me. Immediately there are two user needs met. Mother's and daughter's.

Next, for me, is how products are displayed. I look for orderliness and logical groupings such as jeans in one place, the teeny tiny things she calls shirts in another place, "hoodies" in every possible color in another section. I also look for clean dressing rooms and clues as to how many items she can load up on before she meets their limit. Meanwhile, she's looking at colors, sizes, textures, and styles. She glides along in her beat up sneakers touching the items as she passes by. Her hands drift along piles of sweaters as if walking through a field of daisies. A certain texture will stop her dead in her tracks and I'll get that "Mom, look!" expression from her.

It strikes me that some of the stores she insists we stop into don't offer much for me to do or look at. The d%uFFFDcor is dark, black, and limited to a few racks mixed with hanging things on the walls separated by posters of half naked teenagers standing next to cars they can't possibly afford to buy. Clothing prices are hidden inside sleeves. Sale signs are taboo. But the music is hip, the salespersons are scary-looking and the smell of leather mixed with hair gel is making my wallet itch. Their website, I bet, has but one click-path designed for teens and their parents must be blindfolded so as not to read the content before handing over their credit card.

Finally in a store where I feel welcome, my daughter is admiring the merchandise and starting to find what she likes in her size. I'm avoiding the mirrors and marveling at the sales personnel with their size 3 bodies, smudged eyeliner and 35 bracelets on each wrist.

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