Tag Archives: Internet Explorer

Podcast 22: How your website sells

Posted in Classic shows on by Paul Boag

Whatever your website is about, it has to sell something. From selling an idea to a product or service, every site has its place in the sales process. This podcast looks at what that process is and how your website plays its part.

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News and stuff

This week we look at the new beta of Internet Explorer 7 as well as correcting a heap load of errors we have made in previous podcasts! However, most importantly we tell you about the geek dinner being held in honour of boagworld.com.

For more about the geek dinner check out my post

Win a ticket to SXSW by visiting the geek dinner website

Technobuster: Validation

This week’s technobuster section looks at Validation. What is it, why bother and how it work?

Read our validation post for more details

Main Feature: How your website sells

As I said at the start of this post, every website is selling something. Even the most dreary public sector site is trying to convince somebody of something (selling an idea). In many ways most of life is about sales, we are always trying to get people to see our point of view, to do something we want them to do. Unattractive though it is, sales are the cornerstone of web design and yet so often it is overlooked.

In this episode of boagworld, we explore some of the underlying sales principles that have been around for years and try applying them to the web.

Seven steps in sales

It is widely accepted that we pass through seven states in the purchasing process:

Satisfied ignorance

We do not believe we have a need and so are making no effort to fulfil that need. For example if you have just eaten, you feel no need to eat more.

Awareness of need

You are aware you have a need but have yet to take action. Gaining an awareness of your need can be triggered by external or internal sources. For example you may start to feel hungry (an internal trigger) or you might smell some food cooking, which makes you hungry (external).

Information search

You now actively look for a way to fulfil that need. Either we rely on internal sources such as a memory of a nice place to eat, or turn to external sources, such as a recommendation of a restaurant from a friend or family member.

Evaluation of alternatives

This search process will lead to a number of alternatives. Do I eat in a restaurant or cook something myself? We weigh the pros and cons of different options in order to settle on a decision.

Purchase decision

In this stage, we begin to look at the specifics of our decision. If we have decided to cook ourselves, we decide on what we will actually cook.

Purchase

This is the actual decision to act. In some cases, this will be a literal purchase while in others it might be a call to action like volunteering ones time or changing ones point of view. Understanding what your site’s objective is (your purchase point) will help you position it in the sales process outlined here.

Post purchase

This is the point where we decide if the "purchase" was the right decision and whether we intend to stick with that decision.

Applying the sales process to your site

Understanding these steps are one thing, applying them to your site is quite another. It is especially difficult if your site is not an ecommerce site. The goal is to understand which of these steps you perceive your site addressing and which are to be dealt with by other methods (such as on or offline marketing). Before you can do that, you need to understand what your ultimate goal (sale) is.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Headscape is a web design company that offers a variety of services that are tailored to individual companies needs. They do not sell a tangible off the shelf product and so the web is not an appropriate environment to complete the transaction. Instead, the actual purchase point needs to be reached from negotiation between the client and the Headscape team. Therefore, the Headscape website is primarily geared around helping prospects with the "evaluation of alternative" stage. Anything before this point in the sales process and the prospect wouldn’t have found the Headscape site, anything after this point and we would prefer to be talking to them face to face.

Knowing where your website fits in helps determine factors like supporting marketing, content requirements and general design/functionality.

Useful questions

The following questions might help you to better understand the positioning of your site:

  • Does your site need to convince the user of their need before you present them with a solution? For example, the majority of visitors to the Headscape website already know they need a site and so this part of the process is unnecessary.
  • Does your site need to explain the solution to the users need before selling your particular proposition?
  • Does your site seek to maintain the prospects attention while they investigate alternative solutions?
  • Does your site manage the purchase process online?
  • Does your site provide post purchase support?
  • Are there methods in place to raise awareness of their need and help in finding your site?

I realise that this is a bit of a tricky concept to explain so have a listen to the podcast and if it still isn’t clear post a comment on this site.

Web resources: Choosing a colour palette

This week Paul and Marcus looked at three sites that help you choose the right colour palette for your site.

Dark-i.com
This site lets you view example sites based on palette to see how other designers have worked with certain colour combinations

Colour blender
This site allows you to quickly and easy try out different colour combinations together as well as making suggestions of colours that will work well.

Colour Schemer studio
The colour schemer studio is the best colour theory software around. This excellent little tool helps you create the perfect colour palette. A great buy!

Web standards at all costs?

Posted in Web strategy on by Paul Boag

So should you always build sites using web standards? Should tables really only be used for tabular data? Is it CSS at all costs?

I received an email today from a web designer called Keir with a question for the podcast. It is a question I have heard many times before, but because of work I am currently doing for Headscape, I have had to think twice about the answer.

Here is what Keir wrote:

Why would I want to design using CSS considering the amount of work that has to go into building a CSS site that is compatible with all major browsers, using hacks and work arounds when I could build one straight forward design through tables in a fraction of the time that would look practically identical in all browsers (aside from the ease of updating design?)

Actually taking time to think about the answer

Under normal circumstances, I would have just referred Keir to the article I wrote on the benefits of web standards, but today was different. Today I was building a disposable wireframe for usability testing, which for the sake of speed was being produced using tables for layout. Today, I have also been thinking about Headscape’s business strategy and the impact of web standards on some aspects of our productivity.

Not all approaches suit everybody

Sure, web standards have a huge list of benefits but is it always the right solution for every web design agency? Possibly not. Let’s live in the real world here, building table based sites is quicker for small, flat sites that rarely (if ever) change. Okay, you might have headaches later on but for some web design companies that is not an issue. Take for example a small web design company that is building cheap, flat sites for estate agents. Estate agents are not willing to pay more than a few hundred pounds for their site and care little about accessibility, or future proofing. All they care is whether it looks okay in Internet Explorer. Now, the web design company has a choice. They can do one of the following:

  • Explain to the client the benefits of web standards and why they should pay more for their site to be built properly
  • Take the risk of running at a loss and build the site with web standards anyway while still keeping the price low.
  • Churn the site out, tables and all, using a WYSIWYG like Dreamweaver

Commercial reality matters

I am sure some of the web standards evangelist would argue that the web design company should take the first option. I would suggest that in the real world of commercial design this would be a mistake. Not only would they probably loose the work but also even if they did win it I am not convinced that the estate agent would really feel the benefit. After all, will it help to sell more houses? Possibly, but I doubt it would generate a big enough return on investment to justify the extra expenditure.

So what am I saying?

I am not suggesting that if you are a small web design agency (or freelancer) who works on small websites, you should not bother with web standards. What I am saying is that you have to be pragmatic and that you can introduce some elements of web standards while leaving others aside. For example, probably the majority of delays with web standards come from positioning. Having to use floats and absolute/relative positioning can sometimes prove a lot trickier than simply adding the odd table.

Mix and match

Maybe for some it is simply easier to use tables for the basic layout and then use web standards for things like fonts, colours and design details. This does not have to be an either or decision. The transition from odd school design to web standards can be a gradual process and you can judge how far down the web standards root you go on a per project basis. Like all aspects of web design, the use of web standards has to be a compromise and it should be used as and when appropriate. However, remember, you cannot choose when you use web standards if you have never taken the time to learn it. Web standards should be another tool in your tool belt that you choose to use when appropriate.

For more on getting the balance right between business drivers and technical considerations read "the missing pillar of web design"

Get yourself a great WYSIWYG

Posted in Reviews on by Paul Boag

While in the process of rebuilding the Headscape website, I have come across the ultimate in WYSIWYG editors for your content management system.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I have been trying to rebuild the Headscape website for a very long time. One of the main reasons for a rebuild is that our current site does not demonstrate the web standards and accessibility experience that has become core to our company’s approach.

The problem with Content management systems

Of course, it is relatively easy to build a web standards site and ensure it conforms to the basics of accessibility but it is much harder to keep it that way. In my experience, it is the WYSIWYG editor that often lets you down. The whole point of having a content management system is to enable even those with no programming knowledge to make changes to their site. Unfortunately, the majority of content management systems rely on editors that provide the user with little or no help ensuring that the underlying code is clean and accessible. The result is that within days of launching a site becomes non-compliant and potentially no longer accessible.

An outstanding solution

Enter XStandard.

Unlike many WYSIWYG editor that rely on native Internet Explorer Active X components, XStandard has been built from the ground up to provide standards based code and highly accessible content. Not only that it has been beautifully designed to be easy to use and novice friendly.

Superb features

Just some of my favourite features include:

  • The user selects from a list of clearly named tags that define what content is NOT what it should look like. The designer’s style sheet then automatically controls the appearance of these tags.
  • Encouraging the user to conform to accessibility guidelines. Wherever possible it automates this process and if it cannot it prompts the user.
  • Enables drag and drop of both images and files directly from your desktop
  • Microsoft word documents can be copied directly into the editor and it cleans the code and marks it up appropriately.
  • It has a multi-lingual spell checker built-in.

The list above refers to the best features from the users’ point of view. There are also numerous benefits from the programmers’ viewpoint as well.

Responsive customer support

The other thing that particularly impressed me is their customer support. We have received fast responses to our email enquiries and they have done everything possible to deal with all of our queries.

Problems with pricing

I have only one criticism of the product and that is its pricing policy. The price is calculated on both user licenses and site licenses which gets very complicated especially when integrated to a cms that can generate unlimited numbers of users.

Highly recommended

However other than pricing I can thoroughly recommend this product. Not only will we be adopting this editor for our own site we will also be integrating it into all of our content managed sites moving forward. In fact I would go as far as saying that if you already have a content management system that uses another editor that you should seriously look at the possibility of retro fitting this editor into your site.

Sample site review

Posted in Web strategy on by Paul Boag

A part of my job at Headscape is to provide site reviews for clients. These range from short overview reports to detailed studies on particular aspects of a site. I recently completed a review for a small ecommerce site called TrapAWasp and felt that it neatly tidied together a number of different issues I had been discussing in this blog. The client has been kind enough to allow me to publish it here so hopefully it will be of some use to others. Please bear in mind that this is only a condensed site overview and doesn’t tackle issues in much depth.

Summary

As with all ecommerce sites there are two key factors that dictate its success or failure. These are the number of visitors that are driven to the site and the number of those visitors who are then converted into customers. It is these two factors that Headscape uses to assess the effectiveness of an ecommerce site.

Without looking at the web logs of a site it is hard to tell just how successful the site is at converting users. However, the initial indications for TrapAWasp are good. The site is generally well designed, has few significant usability problems, and addresses most of the major questions raised by users considering purchasing online.

A more important problem exists with regard to driving traffic to the site in the first place. Although good use is being made of Google Adwords the organic listing on search engines (in particular Google) is very poor. We believe there is significant opportunity here as a cursory analysis of the competition makes us believe it would not take much to push TrapAWasp to the top of Google’s ranking.

Visitor conversion

In many ways TrapAWasp is an example of good design. It is clean, simple and focused on enabling users to complete a purchase in the minimum number of steps. However, as with all sites there is always room for improvement and so below we outline several issues which should be addressed.

Design

The site has a strong visual identity. It is well branded: the site name, use of imagery and introduction leaves the user in no doubt as to what the site is about. However, two issues are of concern and should be addressed.

Screen resolution

28% of users are still viewing their computers at 800×600. Unfortunately TrapAWasp has not been optimised for this resolution and therefore requires limited horizontal scrolling in order to be able to read the product descriptions. This also creates problems with the number of products the user initially sees on page load. At 800×600 it appears TrapAWasp only offers 2 products while at 1024×768 the site offers only 4 products. Although users will scroll they tend to make judgements on whether a site has what they want without scrolling down a page. Jakob Neilsen a leading usability expert suggests that key content and products should be visible without the need for the user to scroll. One possibility would be to move the "view details" link to below the description so compressing the amount of space required for each product. Although this wouldn’t make all of the products visible it would help the situation as well as correcting the visual imbalance of white space next to the last two products.

Click here for more on scrolling and screen resolution

Browser compatibility

Although well over 80% of users’ access the World Wide Web using Internet explorer it is a mistake to ignore other browsers. Due to numerous security scares more and more users are turning to alternative browsers such as Firefox. Firefox has now captured well over 8% of the marketplace and is continuing to grow rapidly. Although not serious, http://www.trapawasp.co.uk/ does have some problems displaying in non-IE browsers. Some examples of the problems encountered include text being rendered with the wrong font and images being incorrectly positioned. Although it could be argued these problems do not affect the usability of the site it can knock consumer confidence leading to the belief that the site is in some way unprofessional.

Usability

Usability is an extremely important area of ecommerce design. If a user finds a site hard to use they will often choose to turn to the competition rather than struggle to overcome the obstacles they are facing. Generally the usability on this site is excellent. However, three issues should be addressed.

Delivery address

One minor but very frustrating issue with the checkout form is the need to enter address information twice. Even if you do not check the box marked "Check if you require goods dispatched to an alternative address" you are still required to enter the delivery address. Small problems like this can prove incredibly frustrating and should be avoided if possible.

Deteracat

Another potential cause of confusion is the sudden appearance of a link back to Deteracat on both the checkout and credit card pages. We have no problem in principle to the advert for Deteracat on the right hand side of these pages as cross selling is a good idea and one that should be encouraged. Our concern rather, revolves around the "continue shopping at Deteracat" button in the main body of the page. This immediately generates doubt in the minds of users at a critical stage in the buying process. The user is left wondering if they have selected the right products or whether they have been transferred to another site. We understand the motivation for this approach and the ability it gives the user to purchase products from both sites at the same time however we believe that the confusion this causes outweighs the benefits.

Addressing user concerns

One final issue with regard to usability is the "how to buy" section. It is good practice to have a section that addresses many of the frequently asked questions users have regarding online purchases, but we feel that there is still room for improvement. More information needs to be provided within this section with regard to security. Users are hesitant to give credit card and personal details unless they know it is secure. Although you do provide this information on the credit card page this is late on in the process and after the user has already given you significant amounts of information. On a similar vein it would also be wise to provide some form of privacy statement here. Again we are aware that this information is available from the footer but we do not believe this gives the information the prominence it deserves. Finally we believe that the how to buy section should include information on delivery times as this is another common question and a significant number of users will be unable to view the flash animation on the homepage. In short there needs to be greater emphasis placed on answering users queries and that this section may need a name change to accommodate this kind of information.

Accessibility

It is easy to dismiss accessibility as being an issue solely about the disabled however the truth is that it is a much broader issue than that. Accessibility refers to ensuring a web site is accessible to the widest possible audience including disabled users, those with poor vision or motor skills such as the elderly, and those working within various technological constraints.

Disabled users

Disabled users in the UK have a spending power of £50 billion annually according to the Disability Rights Commission. What is more this figure does not include the elderly who have poor vision or motor skills. Catering to this audience provides a unique way to separate you from your competition. That is not to say that you ignore your abled-bodied users. Rather, we recommend that you make some modifications to your site to make it more disabled-user friendly. There is not time in this report to catalogue every problem disabled users might encounter with this site, but we can say that the site fails to meet even the most basic level of international standards on
accessibility (WAI Level A or Priority 1).

Click here for more on accessibility and business

Technological barriers

As well as creating barriers to the disabled a site can also create technological barriers which force users to turn to the competition. One example of this is in the use of JavaScript. JavaScript has been used in order to carry out the validation of the checkout form. These scripts check that each field has been correctly completed and informs the user of any potential errors. The problem is that 5% of users do not have JavaScript available so these users simply cannot purchase from the site. This is the equivalent of turning away one in twenty customers who try to enter a shop.

Another technological barrier is download time. Although broadband has exploded over the last year still over 50% of users still access using dial up. http://www.trapawasp.co.uk/ takes approximately 17 seconds to download on a 56k modem compared with say http://www.waspbane.com/ which takes only 7 seconds to download over the same connection. With a 10-second difference per page and a 6-page purchase process that is a minute of unnecessary waiting. It may not sound like a lot but website users are incredibly fickle.

Driving traffic

You can have the best website in the world but if nobody is aware of its existence then it means nothing. Unfortunately TrapAWasp does not have the online profile it should have and this will be having a direct impact on the number of sales being made. The problem is the most pronounced on Google where TrapAWasp does not feature within the top 100 results on valuable keywords such as "wasp traps" (results on google.co.uk were slightly more positive but not by much).

Not that things are entirely doom and gloom. TrapAWasp does appear to be supported by a very effective Google Adwords campaign that goes a long way to redressing the balance of poor organic listings. It also has better ratings on sites such as MSN search (listed 7 th) and Yahoo (listed 8 th). However with Google owning 69% of the British search market it is vital that TrapAWasp receives a good listing there. Pay per click campaigns can prove very effective but they also dramatically reduce profit margins and so should only be seen as a stopgap or compliment to organic listings.

After comparing TrapAWasp against other sites listed under rated keywords it became obvious that the problem laid in the sites link popularity.

Google uses a complex algorithm to calculate your position in the ranking. However, two factors dominate that placement. One is keyword density and the other is link popularity.

Keyword density refers to the number of times a particular keyword/key phrase appears in the content of the site. For example the phrase wasp traps appears 17 times in your homepage giving it a keyword density of about 11%. After comparing this to other web sites we discovered that TrapAWasp is on a par with the competition. It is therefore fair to say that this is not the factor that is limiting your rating. That leaves the factor of link popularity.

Link popularity refers to the number of sites who link to TrapAWasp and the perceived popularity of those sites. The more sites that link to you and that you in turn link back to, the higher your ranking. However, it is not just about numbers. It is also about the perceived quality of the site that links to you as well. For example a link from the BBC website would be worth a lot more than a link from an unknown name. Another important factor is the words used in the link to you. The words "wasp trap specialist" will rank you better on the words "wasp trap" than a link using the words "The Jones family business". Currently not a single site listed on Google link to you and this explains your poor ranking.

There is, however, good news. Even the sites ranked in the top positions on Google have very little in the way of sites linking to them. It would not take many good quality links to move TrapAWasp to the top of Google’s organic listing.

Click here for more on link popularity

Below I outline a few techniques that would significantly help your placement on Google:

Look for link partners

Firstly look for as many sites that will link to you as possible and get them to add your site. One way of doing this is to search on Google for the words "add url" and a related keyword phrase such as "wasp traps". Doing so led me to this site: http://www.backyardgardener.com/ph/gardenproblem/gardenproblem.htm which actually has listed a wasp trap that is no long available! There is an add url link at the bottom of the left hand navigation that will allow you to add your site.

Copy the competition

Go to Google and search on a key phrase that is related to your site. Copy the url of the site listed number one in the list and then search again using the following search phrase "links: <url of competition>". This will show you all of the sites that link to that url. Contact each of those sites in turn and ask them if they will also link to you. Once you have done this return to Google and repeat the process all over again but this time with the next site down on the list.

Message Board seeding

Another very effective approach is to take part in message boards on related subjects such as gardening. When posting on these boards you can add a link back to your site and so improve your link popularity. However, a word of warning on this approach. If you just post adverts on peoples forums they will remove them and probably ban you for good. A more successful approach is to contribute to the forum providing useful advice and insights. Almost all forums allow you to add a signature to your post and it is in this signature that you include a link to your site.

Increasing keywords

Although this approach is not related to link popularity it is a vital component of increasing the traffic levels to your site.

One of the problems with securing high ranking is that short keyword phrases such as "wasp traps" are highly competitive. However, users often use much long search terms and it is sometimes easier to target these. The best way of targeting them is to include a lot of copy on your site that is related to the subject matter. This is normally achieved by adding an articles section on your site. This can prove very effective
. Take for example the Headscape site. Web design is a highly competitive sector and competition for the keyword "web design" is immense. However because we have an extensive archive of articles we gain a lot of traffic through longer phrases. Search on "how do I become number one on search engines" and you will see what we mean.

We would recommend that an article section relating to wasps is added to the site. This could build on the existing content which talks about how to find a wasps nest and general information about wasps.

Conclusions

This review has outlined a number of areas in which TrapAWasp could be improved. However, our recommendation is that increasing the levels of traffic should be the number one priority. Poor ranking on Google is significantly damaging the levels of traffic and with a minimum amount of work we are confident that the site’s ranking could be dramatically improved.

Accessibility debates, more harm than good!

Posted in Accessibility on by Paul Boag

There is a growing rift between web designers over the issue of accessibility. Three camps exist, those who believe accessibility is about disability, those who believe it is broader than that and those who really do not care either way. As normal, my position is a foot in two camps.

There is currently a virtual fistfight ensuing between numerous well-respected figures in the accessibility community that represents of a wider gulf that is emerging between web designers.

The two positions taken are as follows:

Accessibility is about the disabled

Many believe that web accessibility is entirely about meeting the needs of disabled people. It is about helping those who have no control over how they access web sites because of some physical or concoctive disability. These developers believe that if people chose to use incompatible software, whilst there are compatible options available, then this does not constitute an accessibility issue.

Accessibility is not just about the disabled

The other side of the argument is that accessibility is not "just" or even "primarily" about people with disabilities. Rather, it is about going to all reasonable lengths to ensure the widest possible access to information you provide on your site.

Feet in two camps

With fear and trepidation, I would like to wade into the middle of the debate by suggesting that the pragmatic and socially responsible approach lies somewhere in between.

Socially responsible

I believe that accessibility should be about more than meeting the needs of disabled users. It should certainly extend beyond the sometimes-limiting checkpoints of the WAI guidelines.

I do not believe we can always expect users to upgrade or change their browser options simply because it is theoretically possible. As web designers, we work with computers and browsers all the time. It is easy therefore to forget that the majority of people do not know how to upgrade their browsers or even change their default settings. Hell, many of them have trouble completing online forms! Even if they do, there are many environments where that option is unavailable to them such as in some corporate offices or in a public library where configuration is limited or non-existent.

Pragmatic

After saying all of that you have to draw the line somewhere. The real world, with limited timescales, and finite budgets, does not allow you to develop around every browser bug or accommodate every possible limitation. In the real world, you have to worry about return on investment. Is it worth 2 weeks work to get your site working successfully on a Mac when your selling a product that only runs under windows? Is it worth making sure your site works with screen readers when you are offering driving lessons? In some situations the answer to both those questions could actually be yes, but what you need to ask yourself is how often is that the case. In addition, some functionality is just impossible to reproduce in an entirely accessible format. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is impossible to make a site entirely accessible anyway. We need to resign ourselves to the fact that accessibility is full of grey areas and we have to endeavour to do the best we can with the resources available to us. We need to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Don’t forget the third camp

At the beginning of this entry, I mentioned three camps. It is important to remember that there is a huge number of web site owners out there that have not faced up to the issue of web site accessibility at all. Arguments like this can just make an intimidating subject even more so. In my opinion, taking one-step into the world of accessibility is better than doing nothing at all. If all you do is ensure your site runs in a browser other than internet explorer or that colour-blind people can still read your copy then that has more value than all the endless theoretic debates in the world.

RSS web feeds set to explode

Posted in Marketing on by Paul Boag

If you do not know what an RSS feed is or if you have not added one to your site then now is the time to act. Microsoft is the latest in a long line to integrate RSS into their product offerings.

Microsoft has recently announced that their next version of Internet explorer will use RSS to inform users of changes to their favourite web sites.

In my two previous entries on this subject, I have explained what RSS is and why you should add an RSS feed to your site. However, since those articles the adoption rate of RSS has sky rocketed. Microsoft’s major competitor in the browser market, Firefox, has already integrated an RSS reader into its browser, while Yahoo and many others allow users to add RSS feeds to their personalised homepages.

The number of sites offering RSS feeds has also increased dramatically largely fuelled by the almost universal adoption of the technology in blogs. However, RSS is not just the domain of blogs and technology sites. Major sites such as the BBC have also adopted the technology believing that it is a valuable communication method with its users.

Microsoft’s adoption of RSS in its next generation browser is part of a wider move to integrate the RSS format throughout its upcoming version of windows. Dean Hachomovitch, general manager of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team said:

"We want RSS everywhere. I want it in more than just the browser and aggregators. We want to help RSS get even bigger and better than today."

To learn more about RSS select one of the articles below:

RSS explained

Why add a RSS feed to your site?

Validation: What? Why? How?

Posted in Development on by Paul Boag

Whether you are building your organisations web site yourself or whether you are using a team of web designers to do it for you it is important that the web pages which are built validate. But what is validation? Why is it important and how do you check for it?

What is validation?

Validating your web pages is about checking that they are correctly written. The pages are checked against a number of rules to identify any errors or non standard code. These rules are defined by the W3C who is responsible for setting the standards for web development.

Why is it important to validate your web pages?

There are a number of good reasons for making sure your web site is written in valid markup:

  • If your markup has errors in it then it might not appear correctly on all browsers. Just because it looks ok on your machine doesnt mean it will be so for everybody
  • Well written markup is more likely to be compatible with future technologies
  • Well written markup will appear quicker in your browser because the software that renders the web page won’t need to work around mistakes in the code
  • Poorly written markup often does not perform as well in search engine rankings
  • Well written markup is more likely to be compatible with related technologies such as Javascript or CSS

How do you validate your web pages

There are a number of automated tools out there which will check your markup for you. Probably the most widely used is the one developed by the W3C themselves. However today many web site development packages such as Macromedia Dreamweaver has validation software built in.

My personal favourite at the moment is an extension for Mozilla Firefox called HTML Validator which appears as a small icon below the main browser window. Surf to a page you wish to validate and you either get a green cross if it validates or a warning sign if it doesn’t. This is easy to use and allows you to be constantly checking pages for validation while surfing the web.

Accessibility outrage!

Posted in Accessibility on by Paul Boag

A lawyer’s letter has taken an accessible website offline and the BBC technology analyst Bill Thompson is not impressed.

Yesterday I read the following article on the BBC technology web site: Building a web fit for all I can honestly say I was horrified.

Summary

Bill Thompson was writing about a case where a talented programmer called Matthew Somerville got so fed up with the fact that the Odeon web site was inaccessible to anybody but those using Internet Explorer that he wrote his own accessible version of the site.

The Odeon in their wisdom decided that this was in breach of their intellectual property and forced Matthew to take the site down.

When so few truely accessible web sites exist it horrifies me that a company like the Odeon are actually forcing people to remove accessible sites from the web.

If only somebody had the determination and cash to prosecute the Odeon under the 1995 Disability Disrimination Act for not making their own site accessible.

Also as Bill Thompson suggested it would be good to see the government extend the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002 to cover web sites. Currently the act allows people with a visual impairment to make their own accessible versions of printed copyright material where there is not currently an accessible version available. If this was extended to cover the web it might force companies like the Odeon into taking accessibility a bit more seriously even if only in order to protect their intellectual property.

Creating an effective list of keywords

Posted in Marketing on by Paul Boag

I was creating a list of keywords yesterday for a google adwords campaign and thought it was worth sharing some of the techniques I used.

I don’t know about you but creating a list of keywords for apay per click advertising campaign or for META tags can be a mind numbing process. After a while its hard to come up with anything new. However I have picked up a few tricks that make it more bearable:

Actually read your own web site

I know its obvious but its surprising how often you make the assumption you know all the keywords in your site. Systematically work through your site a page at a time trying to spot key phases and names which you use. As you find them copy and paste them out into an excel document.

Check your keyword density

Although manually checking your site for keywords is by far the most effective method it is also worth using this handy tool to confirm you haven’t missed anything. You can enter a web site address and it will read the page and work out what keywords and phrases it contains and how often they are used.

Check the competition

Once you have checked your own site it is now time to turn to the competition. Repeat the two stages outlined above on their sites. However also check the sites source code to see what keywords they have added to their meta tags. In Internet explorer you do this by visiting the competitions home page and right clicking on the screen. Then select view sources. Somewhere near the top of the page you should see a piece of code that looks something like this:
meta name="keywords" content="usability, accessibility, web accessibility, online marketing, emarketing, e-marketing, web design"
Check all of the keywords listed for any that you might have missed.

Add typos

Users often mistype words when they search. It is therefore a good idea to include as many misspelled versions of your keywords as you can think of. Few people take the time to do this stage and so you often find misspelled words can be added to your pay per click campaigns for a fraction of the cost of correctly spelt words. However adding misspellings is a time consuming process so I would recommend you focus on the most popular of your keywords. You can also make the process less painful by using this tool which automatically generates the misspellings for you.

Bulking out your keyword list

Once you have your final list it is time to bulk it out with the myriad of variations and phrases people use which you would never think of. There are a number of tools that will help you do this however by far the best is a site called Wordtracker. You enter your list of keywords and it will return all of the variations that have been entered over the last three months. It will also “think laterally” creating entirely new keywords you might not have thought of. The big advantage Wordtracker has over the google or overture keyword suggestion tools is that Wordtracker allows you to enter multiple keywords at a time. The downside is that although Wordtracker has a free trial it is a pay for service.

Cleaning your keyword list

The final step that I like to perform (although it isn’t entirely necessary) is to clean the list you have just created to remove any duplicates. The reason I like to do this is because when i organise my keywords into different ad groups I don’t like having to categorise a keyword twice because it is duplicated. Cleaning your list is a painless process and can be done if two minutes using another handy tool.

Product review – ClickTracks

Posted in News on by Paul Boag

Do you have trouble understanding the statistics on your website’s traffic? If so then ClickTracks could be for you.

The problem with website statistic packages

I don’t know about you but I am a visual person. If I am trying to understand a new concept I grasp it quicker if I can actually see it in action or at least see a diagram of how it works. Perhaps that is why I used to find website statistics so hard to get my head around. I found it hard to get any real value from all of those columns of statistics. Sure they are great if all you want to know is how many people viewed your site yesterday or what percentage of people use internet explorer. However I always found it hard to get a feel of how my visitors were moving around the site and where they were encountering problems.

A different approach

Clicktracks takes a different approach and one that is superb if you want to really understand how users interact with your site. Sure it provides all of the normal statistical reporting allowing you to bring back information such as; most common entry page, most common exit page, number of visitors per day etc. It even allows you to generate reports that focus on specific user groups such as pay-per-click customers or those that stayed at the site over 30 seconds. However what really sets Clicktracks apart is the ability to overlay powerful statistical reporting on top of your website. In other words you can actually browse your website and see who clicked on what and when. It is even possible to follow individual users through the site and see exactly what pages they hit and in what order. Still confused? Then take a few moment to watch the demonstration available from their homepage . It really helps to explain the potential of this application. Visit the ClickTracks website now

The Benefits

The benefits of this approach our obvious. It allows you to gather huge amounts of usability information without running usability test sessions. Although weblogs are never going to replace test sessions Clicktracks does give detailed information about visitors surfing habits. ClickTracks gives you the ability to really get under the skin of your users. For example it is possible to isolate the users that have completed your call to action (whether that is buying a product or completing a contact us form) and analysis how they came to that point. How did they enter the site? What pages did they view? How long did it take them between arriving and completing the call to action? It also allows you to do the reverse with users that fail to complete your call to action. Why did a user abandon their shopping cart? ClickTracks would allow you to discover for example that many people abandoned their carts after visiting the delivery information page. That might tell you that your postage is too expensive or it takes too long to deliver. You can also track users that arrived after searching for a specific keyword. How long did it take them to find the page on your site that specifically relates to that keyword? Did they go to other pages that were not relevant first? I am sure you get the idea.

Conclusions

Although this kind of tracking is available through most statistics packages Clicktracks makes it available in a much more intuitive fashion without loosing any of the flexibility or power of more traditional software. Combine this with the lightning processing of even large sets of weblogs and you really do have a winning package. To see for yourself just how powerful Clicktracks can be click here and download a demonstration version.