Posted on July 30th, 2008
Sadly, it happens all the time - a business hires a web design agency and they develop the most creative and visually pleasing site in the field, and everyone sits back and waits for the website to start bringing in the customers and clients.
Crickets.
That beautifully designed website is getting no attention, not showing up in the search engine results, and getting a mere couple visitors a day. So what went wrong?
More often than not, the problem lies in the site’s usability - the optimization for both human visitors and search engine spiders. Here are the ten common usability errors that end up costing businesses both time and money.
1. Neglecting Search Engine Optimization - Ignoring SEO and search engine marketing is probably the biggest usability error of all, because if people can’t find your website with the search engines, it practically doesn’t exist. Google, Yahoo, MSN, et al have replaced the Yellow Pages, the newspapers, and the Better Business Bureau when it comes to discovering, locating, and learning information about all sorts of companies, from real estate agents to restaurants.
2. Murky Navigation - If there is no way for users to easily scan through your website and find the information they are looking for, they will probably leave. Remember that your most important information should be above the fold, your main product offerings, services, or categories must be listed on the home page, and users should have a simple way (most likely a search box) to precisely sort through your site’s content.
3. Broken Links - All your links should go to the places that you say they do, end of story.
4. Unreadable Text - Odd or overly elaborate fonts, light text on a dark background, low contrast text (when the background shade that is too similar to the text color), tiny or strangely varying font sizes all make your content difficult to read - and the vast majority of the time, visitors will just leave rather than trying to decipher it.
5. No Contact Info - This seems obvious but we still come across company websites that do not offer a contact form, a phone number, or email address (and sometimes not even a physical address).
6. Mixed Messages - Is your brand and message immediately clear when visitors first arrive at your website, and is your branding consistent throughout? There are plenty of visually stunning company websites that do not deliver a clear message or quickly let people know what they are all about, and those companies are missing out on potential conversions. It is essential to remember that the vast majority of web users have a very short attention span, and they need to understand the purpose of your website immediately.
7. Registration Hurdles - Forcing your visitors to register and provide their email address to access most of your content or use even the most basic functions of your website typically leads to a high bounce rate. Furthermore, this can make many features of your website invisible to the search engines.
8. Customized Error Pages - A helpful error page (ideally, it should contain an email address and phone number so that users can still contact your business if necessary) can turn a negative user experience into one that is somewhat positive.
9. Visual Clutter - Don’t be afraid of empty space - leaving wide margins and other white space reduces eye strain and lets the most important elements of your website take center stage. On the contrary, using lots of moving/blinking elements and other visual clutter that all competes for your visitors’ attention usually increases the bounce rate and lowers conversions.
10. Pop-Ups - Most browsers have pop-up blockers nowadays, so your visitors won’t even see them, but this annoying attention-getting tactic has no place on a business website.
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