ISEdb.COM

Performing a complete website review is rarely easy. I’ve
found that you can start a site analysis intending to spend just a few minutes
looking over it only to find that it quickly spirals into a multi-hour marathon
of research. Complete website reviews can be time consuming and often produce
many more hours of work beyond that.

One of the problems is that people tend want to skip
right to search engine optimization forgetting that users matter.
Many people want to rush into the marketing without realizing that the website
itself is part of the marketing process. This is a shame.

Investing in SEO and PPC marketing, without having performed
a thorough analysis of your website islargely an exercise in vain (and yes, even new websites often need a
usability analysis!) You don’t have to have a perfectly usable site in order to
rank well in search engines, but it is increasingly difficult to rank a site
without a strong usability focus, unless you’re in a very niche industry. And even
if you do rank well, without good usability you’re losing more customers than
you need or want to be losing.

Where
do you start in performing a usability review?

One of the hurdles many people have in performing a
usability review of their own site is that they don’t know where to start. Over
the past several months I’ve written a number of posts outlining various
usability and website architectural elements that should be a part of any
detailed review process. But going through each of those can take many hours.

Being able to do a quick-scan through a site can be a very
handy skill. It will help you uncover some glaring issues without having to
invest hours upon hours of time all at once. After you have performed your
quick scan and have fixed the bigger issues, you then have an opportunity to go
back and perform a more thorough analysis.

Here is what you need to know in order to do a quickie
usability review. I’ve also provided links to my previous posts that provide
you with a lot more detail and will help you perform a more thorough analysis
as time permits.

19 steps for
a quickie usability review

Website
navigation

Site wide navigation, including top, bottom and side
navigation, should be as user-friendly as possible, ensuring that your visitors
find what they expect when they click a navigation link. Check to make sure
your navigation shows a logical flow of topics, subtopics and subject matter
within the site and it enhances the user’s ability to find key information.

See: 20
Ways to NAVIGATE to Higher Conversions

Content

The content of your website is your #1 sales tool. Content
weighs heavily both in terms of how users interact with your website as well as
how visitors are able to determine what you offer and what each page of your
website is about. Always write for your visitors. Give them the information
they need in a way that spurs them to action.

See:9
(+1) Tips For Writing User-Friendly Content

Website
Design

How the site is developed, along with the underlying coding
structure, plays a significant role on whether your site meets the usability
requirements of your audience. Check to make sure the overall design looks
clean and doesn’t feel cluttered. Colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes
and should enhance rather than distract from the visitors experience.

See: 25
Ways to DESIGN Your Way to Higher Conversions

Home
Page

Your home page is the single most crucial page of your site.
It is essentially your store front. Your home page should identify your site
and direct your visitors to the most important information, the information
they are most likely coming to your site for. Keep it clean and focused and
drive your visitors quickly to the sections that are more apt for selling.

See: 7
Ways to Make Your Home Page a Home Run for Usability

About
Us Page

Visitors that find their way to your About Us page tend to
have a higher conversion rate than those that don’t. This is where the visitor
gets to know you and your company. Make sure the page contains information on
company history, biographies of managers and your mission statement.

See: 5
Easy Ways to Make Your About Us Page More About Your Customers

Contact
Us Page

The Contact Us page could be considered the absolutely most
important page on your site. Even if the rest of your site succeeds in the
goals, if visitors fail to find the information they need to contact you then
you will bring their shopping experience to a screeching halt. Always have
multiple contact options and be sure web forms are working properly. Having a
phone number listed is also extremely important.

See: 6
Ways to Get Your Visitors To Contact You From Your Contact Us Page

Product
Pages

Product pages maintain considerable strategic importance for
ecommerce websites. Your visitors enter your product pages not only with an
intention to buy something (the most desired end action) but to also learn,
research and compare what you have against a competitor. Your product pages
must provide enough information to help you visitors make the best decision
possible. Be sure that calls to action, such as “add to cart” are
readily available along with relevant pricing and shipping info.

See: 12
Product Page Conversion Strategies That Shant Be Ignored

Shopping
Cart

While shopping car abandonment cannot be completely
eliminated, it can be dramatically reduced. It is a failure of the shopping
cart page itself that leads visitors to abandon their items which they do, in
fact, wish to have. Make sure your shopping cart navigation buttons (update
cart, checkout, etc.) are easily found. If you have multiple steps in the check
out process, outline those steps and be sure to answer any questions regarding
security and shipping.

See: 8
Items Every Shopper Needs In Their Shopping Cart

Forms
and Errors

If your web forms don’t function properly or it’s difficult
to correct information input errors then you can lose a lot of visitors from
frustration alone. Be sure to make inputting data easy by labeling fields
properly, keep required information to a minimum and make sure errors are easy
to understand and correct.

See: Converting
Visitors Through Errors and Form Fields

On
-Site Search

Implementing a search function improperly is often a greater
source of frustration than not having one altogether. My rule of thumb is if
you can’t deliver perfect results 80% of the time then you’re probably better
off not having an on-site search. Pay attention to the location of the search
bar, place it where it is typically expected, and test, test and test some more
to ensure that the results are as expected. Misspell products and search for
products you know you don’t carry just to make sure you can deliver relevant
results for products you do carry.

See: Searching
for Better On-Site Search Usability

Help
and FAQ Pages

Building up your Help and FAQ pages can greatly enhance your
visitor’s experience with your website, giving them much needed information and
possibly saving them a phone call. Keep these pages focused on providing
information that isn’t available anywhere else and make sure they are easy to
find and easy to read.

See: Four
Quick Ways to Improve Your HELP and FAQ Pages

Login
and My Account Pages

Sites that require users to log in to access certain
information and/or purchase products add an additional layer of potential
complication to the usability process. Think carefully before requiring
visitors to login. Do you really need that? If not, don’t force it. Be sure to
provide the benefits of creating an account and link to pages that outline your
security assurances.

See: 14 Usability Tips for Login and My Account Pages

Privacy
and Security Issues

Your website’s privacy information and security settings can
be significant hurdles when it comes to gaining trust with your visitors. Be
sure you provide links to these pages where best suited and applicable. Be sure
to provide as much information you can that gives assurances that their
information is safe.

See: 12
Privacy and Security Issues Your Customers Care About

Site
Maps

Site maps provide a dual purpose: They provide search engine
spiders easy access to all of your site pages and they provide site visitors
easy access to all of your site pages. The best advice is to make sure all your
site map files stay current and are easy to find.

See: 9
Tips for Creating a Site Map for Visitors and Spiders

Audience
Engagement

Customer engagement goes beyond just getting the customer’s
attention, you must keep their attention. This can be done by providing your
visitors near immediate gratification. Your content needs to get their
attention, tell them what they need to purchase and link out to other important
pages that can help them make the purchase decision.

See: 5
Engaging Ways to Engage Your Audience

Customer
Satisfaction

Above all things you need to make sure your website provides
strong customer satisfaction. You can do this by making sure information is
easy to find, eliminate broken links and keep pages and images relatively small
so they don’t take long to load.

See: 4
Easy Ways to Dissatisfy Your Visitors

Point
of Purchase

Since the “purchase” is the ultimate conversion, it is
imperative that you remove as many obstacles from the customer’s
research-to-buy cycle as possible. Make sure your products are available or
otherwise noted. Adding product reviews and up-sell opportunities can lend to
increased sales.

See: 11
Ways Fill Your Shopper’s Cart

Visitor
Trust

Your ability to convince your visitors that yours is a
trustworthy business is one of the key components to getting visitors to
convert into customers. Always providing prompt and complete responses to
visitor inquiries. It’s also valuable to provide multiple delivery options,
discounts and allow your customers to provide feedback.

See: 10
Ways to Help Your Visitors Trust You

General
Issues

The selling process–from initial interest to the very last
checkout page–must be able to grab shopper’s attention and proceed to drive
them through to the finalization of the sale. In other words, once you have
them, you don’t want to lose them. Keep your content organized and
clutter-free, make sure the site looks good across the most popular browsers
and make sure that you follow up after the sale.

See: 14
Website Usability Guidelines That Keep them Coming Back for More

Overall
Accessibility

As more and more users gain access to the web, it becomes
increasingly important to ensure that your website is accessible to all, not
just a few. Be sure your website is constructed in a way that it is accessible
to mobile phones, text based browsers and screen readers.

See: 6
Quick and Easy Accessibility Issues That Make Your Visitors Happy

The one thing to understand about usability is that nothing
is set in stone. You can go point by point of any usability guide and still get
it wrong. You can overcome that by testing.Whenever a change is made test the results. Make sure it has the
intended effect and you get the results you want. If it doesn’t help, change it
back and try something else. Over time you’ll incrementally improve overall
site usability and find conversion rates climbing as each successful change is
implemented.