Sitegeist Blog - Beitrags-Archiv für die Kategory 'User focus'

Game changers: links and economics

Friday, 26. February 2010 8:08

In the space of a decade, the thinking around how to attain (and measure) success online has changed.

We used to count ‘hits’. But a hit was defined as a file download – a file request on you server (not a visit) – and so image-heavy web pages – containing 10 or 20 or more image files – racked up the stats. The measure was meaningless.

It’s all about unique visitors now.

We used to talk about time on site. It’s still an interesting measure, but not always in the way we might imagine. Time on some pages is good. Time on other pages might be bad.

If your page is the ‘verify your purchase’ page within your shopping cart, a user glancing over everything and moving on is ideal. 5 seconds. Maybe 10. If that page is taking up 30 seconds or 1 minute of your customers’ time, it might be an alarm bell masquerading as a compelling page.

But here’s proof positive that the game has really changed. I recently stumbled across an article called The Economics of Surfing (PDF 45kb), written by Adar and Huberman in 2000 for (I love this journal title) the Quarterly Journal of Electronic Commerce (Vol 1, No 3).

The basic argument in the article is that if your site has multiple pathways to the same end point (which it should), then users are putting different values on getting to that point. If I click once, that’s ok. But if I click 3 times, I’ve paid a higher price (where cost=time) for the information or content or sale or whatever.

So the thing the user wants varies in value, and actually becomes more valuable (to the user) the longer the user traverses your site to reach it.

Check this:

“One can construct a web site that changes its link structure to lengthen the path traversed by a given user, thereby making him visit many more pages. For example, if there is a short route (in the number of clicks) to a given page, one may wish to turn that off if the user is likely to visit more pages in between.”

The Economics of Surfing, p 5

Make a user visit ‘many more pages’ and they’ll value your site more highly. Ha!

At the heart of web use is the demand for speed. Don’t waste our time is the online mantra (unless I want my time wasted, of course…).

I recently posted about possible moves by Google to change their algorithm to reward faster web pages. People want stuff…fast! And while a web page’s load time is not the same as a site-wide search for information, Adar and Huberman’s thesis remains astonishing for its lack of insight into what web users demand: Speed and precision.

Or am I being too harsh. Is this criticism just 20-20 hindsight? Were we different? Did we want to click and surf and play and browse more in 2000 than we do now, a decade later? If so, why?

Has the game really changed, or is it us?

Thema: Being bad, Trends, User focus | Comments Off on Game changers: links and economics | Author:

It’s not about you

Friday, 29. January 2010 9:15

Really. It’s not.

Think about the biggest and most successful online players:

  • Google
  • Amazon
  • YouTube
  • eBay
  • Wikipedia
  • Flickr

Not to mention the social networking juggernauts such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter…

Think about your favourite shop, cafe, designer…

Being successful online and offline is about having something other people want. Any good salesperson knows that people don’t buy products – they buy the dream, the promise, the attitude, the story…

Do you have something other people want? Or do you have something you think other people should want?

It’s not about you. It’s about them.

Thema: User focus | Comments Off on It’s not about you | Author:

Benefits beat features (aka: So what?)

Friday, 15. January 2010 9:56

This one is simple. It’s straight from Marketing 101:

Customers are more interested in benefits than features.

Here’s why, and – more importantly – how to make it happen on your website…

The bulk of your online activity needs to be devoted to explaining why potential customers should buy/use/contact/believe you. Yet too many businesses spend all their time explaining their products or services – often in painful detail.

Of course, describing what you do (or what your product does) is important, but it should always be done with your potential customer in mind. What benefit do they want from your business?

Here’s Sitegeist’s simple 5-step plan to improving your website content, and boosting effectiveness at the same time:

  1. Look at a claim or product feature on your site.
  2. Ask the question, “So what?”
  3. Write down the answer. This is the benefit.
  4. Now, delete the original copy, and replace it with the benefit.
  5. Repeat throughout your site.

Benefits vary, and include:

  • saving time
  • saving money
  • making it easier
  • improving status
  • feeling good
  • getting rich
  • knowing more
  • looking better

Here are some examples of product features that become stronger when pitched at a customer need:

We’ve got the best-tasting coffee
So what?
Our coffee might be the best you’ve ever tasted; perfect for turning a 10-minute break into an island of indulgence in your busy day.

We have the cheapest printing service
So what?
Save on printing so you have more of your marketing budget to spend on the great copywriters at Sitegeist!

We have the most experienced climate scientists in the country
So what?
Our climate research is the most highly respected, so you can be sure that you are 100% correct at your next dinner-party global-warming discussion.

Our political party has the best policy on refugees
So what?
Our refugee policy allows us to look the rest of the world in the eye and say, “We’re doing the right thing”.

So if you know what your customers actually need, give it to them.

And if you don’t know what your customers need, maybe it’s time to ask them.

Thema: Being good, User focus | Comments Off on Benefits beat features (aka: So what?) | Author:

Online content and narrative: choose your own adventure

Friday, 1. January 2010 9:01

Happy new year! A change of years puts us in a reflective mood. We ponder the year we have just left behind; and we think about the one that’s just started. We get nostalgic; and we try to predict the future. It’s all about personal narrative.

Narrative…now there’s a good topic. (seamless link, John…)

If you were a teenager in the 1980s you’ll probably remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

They were little paperback adventure stories. What made them interesting was that throughout the book, the reader had to make decisions:

If you decide to start back home, turn to page 4.
If you decide to wait, turn to page 5.

The books – though sometimes circular and sometimes very brief – were nonetheless interesting artefacts, and – in hindsight – successful precursors of hypertext.

The only thing disappointing about these books was that they ended. Concluding was inevitable, though. Being a printed book, there was only a certain number of pages available.

The End of Narrative?
You don’t have to spend long online to know that context-rich links are pure gold; they enable your search to continue, hopefully bringing you closer to the information you need.

Web pages with no useful links (either internal or external) are like a locked door on the Internet…or like the disappointing final page of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Having your online journey halted before you’re ready is disappointing; but not in the inevitable way of a 116-page kids’ book. The disappointment is felt more keenly because finding the ‘last page’ of an online trail is a betrayal of the promise – even the very purpose – of the World Wide Web.

So good site writers always strive to provide quality, contextual links wherever possible. If links are to another page on your site, great! Encouraging internal site exploration is good for business. If the links are external, that’s great too.

Block the Exits!
But many site managers are still worried that linking to external sites will drive away business. Why, they ask, would we provide arrows to the exit?

But every web user already knows where the exits are: the back button, the big X in the top-right corner, getting up to make a cup of tea, typing in the letters g-o-o-g-l-e, etc. And web users are very happy to use these exits if they think they’re otherwise wasting their time.

If You Love Something…
If your site hasn’t sated a user’s information needs, allow them to continue their journey. Allow them to create a useful online narrative. Tear down the wall. Users will be happier.

And they might even remember you later…

Thema: Being good, User focus | Comments Off on Online content and narrative: choose your own adventure | Author:

Fast websites, Flash intros and Google

Friday, 18. December 2009 9:25

Speed. When we’re online, there’s nothing like it. Click and load; fast and easy.

And then we arrive at a site with…wait for it…wait….still waiting…a Flash intro. And faster than you can say ‘skip’, momentum has been lost and we’re annoyed. A waste of our time. And there’s nothing that makes a user hit the close box or the back arrow faster than having their time wasted.

I’ve been trying to think of a legitimate use for a Flash intro. And I can’t. How about a funky designer showing off what they can do? No – not if ‘what they can do’ is encouraging their clients to build sites that waste our time.

Here it is again, in case you missed it: There is no excuse for a Flash intro.

And it looks like Google agrees. In a December 2009 interview on WebProNews, Google software engineer guru Matt Cutts hinted that Google search results might take a site’s speed into account:

“Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast,” says Cutts. “It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.”

At Sitegeist, we believe that the content on the page is of paramount importance. If the words are right, then we’re happy to wait an extra second or two for the page to load. But the problem is that we don’t know the content is good until the page loads. And we hate waiting for a slow site with bad (or not relevant) content.

So we approve of Google’s move to reward faster sites. Content and reputation are still the reigning monarchs at Google, but a dose of speed can’t hurt either.

For developers, Google has some speed tools and tips. For the rest of us, expect things to get just a bit quicker online in the next year…

Thema: Being bad, Being good, Trends, User focus, Web dev | Kommentare (4) | Author:

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