6 Website Design Flaws to Avoid

6 Website Design Flaws to Avoid

BY ILYA POZIN  @ILYANEVERSLEEPS

Forget text--here's why a great website design is worth a thousand words.

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How long do you have to make a good impression online? According to researchers, the amount of time could be as little as 50 milliseconds. Your website design has to capture attention, and capture it fast to avoid losing out on customers and clients.

Here are the six big design flaws to avoid, so you can keep eyes on your website for more than 50 milliseconds:

Know where the eye wanders

What is your audience looking at when it first sets eyes on your page? Eye tracking studies have been performed for years, and the same pattern has been found multiple times. According to eye tracking research by the Nielsen Norman Group, people generally tend to view websites in an "F" pattern. This "F" pattern is true across articles, e-commerce sites, and even Web searches.

Therefore, the location of your most essential information is important, including links and call-to-action statements. Placing important information at the top of your website or in the upper lefthand corner means your audience is more likely to see and digest it quickly.

Choose the right images

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The images you choose will have a huge influence on how viewers see and respond to your site. Positive images evoke a similarly positive feeling for your audience, so you might want to include some smiling faces. In fact, research by Temple University found inspiration-related design elements had the biggest impact on first-impression formation on travel and tourism websites.

Sunny optimism is not only attractive but also more likely to leave a lasting impression on your target audience. According to research, positive expectations can actually positively affect user impressions. Ignoring upbeat images isn't an option. If your site paints a vividly upbeat portrait of your company, users will form a first impression built to last.

Design for everyone

There are plenty of audience segments you need to consider when designing, yet many companies and Web developers are leaving potential customers on the table. People living with disabilities are a huge audience, and you should build your site to be as inclusive as possible.

Consider using Alt tags, so a screen reader can pick up the images on your site. Create subtitles and transcripts for your videos, describe your links in greater detail, and provide larger clickable areas for those with limited mobility. Web design should be inclusive, not exclusive, because your site or company should want to make room for everyone.

Mind your color wheel

Speaking of disabilities, did you know approximately 0.5 percent of women and 8 percent of men have some form of color blindness? Unfortunately, few designers spend much time considering color blindness when putting together the color wheel on websites. Red-green color blindness is the most common form, yet most sites include red prominently as call-to-action items and error messages.

It can be hard for those living with red-green color blindness to, for example, notice an error made when filling out a form if the red color recedes into the background. Use color cues in combination with other images and graphical symbols when trying to grab the attention of users.

Use nonverbals to spur call-to-actions

As humans, we have a natural tendency to follow the gaze of others. Which is probably why a study called "Eye Gaze Cannot Be Ignored" found we tend to even follow the gaze in still images. For Web design, this is a powerful tool that some designers are missing. The nonverbal behavior in the images you select can influence the actual behavior of your site's visitors.

This means you might want the image of your company mascot to stare directly at the call-to-action item or at newsletter signup on your page. Visitors will be more likely to pay attention to what the image is looking at by following eyelines.

Know your target audience

One of the biggest design flaws is ignoring your target audience. Are you targeting investment bankers, AARP members, or tech-obsessed Millennials? The audience should dictate many of the design elements, from images to font size. Pay attention to what your competition is doing, and make sure you're on-trend instead of trailing behind the pack.

You should also know from where your target audience is coming. Smartphones and tablets have changed the game, meaning mobile optimization is more important than ever before.A study by Latitude found 61 percent of consumers feel more positive about a brand or company if they have a good mobile experience. Ignoring the new mobile reality is a huge design flaw, no matter what your target audience.

Understanding these common design flaws can help you build a better user experience and convert more visitors into loyal customers.

What do you think? What are some common website design flaws you've noticed? Share in the comments!

http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/6-website-design-flaws-to-avoid.html

Online PR: Should You Pitch or Ignore These 6 HARO Personas?

Ken McGaffin, August 20, 20140 Comments

HARO can be a great way to get coverage and links for your website – but it can also be a huge waste time with no results if you approach it in the wrong way. Understand these six personas and you’ll avoid wasting time and focus on the queries that could give you the media opportunity you’re looking for.

Online PR is an important part of any link-building strategy, but SEOs don’t always have the right skill sets to make it work for them. But one of the great things about HARO is that it can provide a great education at no cost – just dive in and keep at it!

HARO does have quality rules and the sites that pitch must have a certain score on Alexa. And the editors do scan the pitches and do refuse pitches that are not up to scratch.

Sign up at HelpAReporter.com and you’ll get three emails per day featuring queries from journalists who are looking for examples and good quotes to add color to their stories.

Scan through the queries (you’ll get between150 and 200 per day) and you’ll find that they fall into these types of personas.

Persona #1: Top-Notch

The BBC, Washington Post, ABC News, Fast Company, and many other top media outlets regularly pitch queries on HARO. These journalists use HARO to get quotes and add personal stories to their content.

This is one of the great advantages of HARO – it allows anyone who signs up to get access to top journalists.

Of course the payback can be tremendous, however for the top-notch journalists:

• You need to be exactly the type of person they’re looking for
• You’re going to face a lot of competition – lots of other people will be pitching
• You’ve got to have a great story and you’ve got to pitch it well – no mean task

If you can’t fulfill these criteria, then you’ll be wasting your time pitching.

And even if you do have a great story, that doesn’t necessarily, mean you’ll get a link. However, you can improve your chances (see 10 Ways to Increase the Odds of Getting Editorial Links).

Persona #2: General Business Sites

Probably the most common and possibly the most useful of the media outlets you’ll see on HARO. Most have good audiences and require a good standard of writing. These include sites like Open Forum from American Express, Entrepreneur Magazine, and BankRate.com.

Most of your online PR effort on HARO should go into sites like these.

They present a good opportunity because any business can respond, no matter what industry you come from.

The resulting articles are likely to be along the lines of "21 Small Business Owners Share Their Top Tips on…." That means you don’t really have a chance to stand out – the article will not be exclusively about you or your business.

There’s a high probability of getting a link because such sites understand the value exchange – give them a good quote and you get a link in return.

Of course others will see that too, so you’ll have lots of competition.

What is required is:

• Flexibility in being able to see how to make your business relevant to the subject of the article.
• A great sound bite – you need to write something original so that they can simply cut and paste into their article.

Persona #3: Niche Business Sites

These are queries from particular niches – lawyers, psychotherapists, dog trainers, and so on. You really have to be relevant to that niche – trying to twist your story to fit is a waste of time.

If you do fit the bill, you’re likely to get good editorial coverage and a decent link – but you must have a good story to tell.

The disadvantage is that any particular niche is not going to be featured that often and so your opportunities are limited.

Persona #4: Stingy Business Sites

Becoming a writer and posting queries to help you build content for your own site is a legitimate strategy (see Using HARO to Create Fresh, Compelling Content).

However, the value exchange mentioned earlier should be followed – any site that gets a good quote should give a link in return.

But "stingy" sites don’t follow this value exchange. They’re usually attached or related to a commercial business so they’re not strictly a non-partisan media opportunity. They’re often reluctant to give links because they want to sell their own good or services.

So choose very carefully before investing time in making pitches to these sites!

Persona #5: Authors Looking for Material for Future Books

These can be a mixed bunch. You may get some decent writers, with a publishing contract already in place, looking for interesting examples or case studies.

But you may also get a lot of people writing their first e-book who think they can fill it with material from HARO pitches. They still have to meet the Alexa threshold, but it‘s worth checking them out.

Remember:

• the book may never get published
• you’ll wait a long time for your publicity or link
• your contribution may be out of date by the time it’s published
,li>if the book does get published, it might bomb - no fame or fortune for you!

Are you really prepared to take the chance?

Persona #6: Anonymous

You’ll also see queries that give neither the name of the writer nor their targeted publication. For some reason, the publication does not want to tell you who they are.

Perhaps they’ve got a guaranteed spot on Oprah Winfrey and don’t want to be inundated with hundreds of pitches?

Perhaps, but you shouldn’t count on it. Your time could be better spent on other opportunities.

These six personas cover most of the queries you’ll find on HARO. But before pitching, you need to do some further checks.

Simple Checks on Queries That Interest You

When you do find queries that seem to fit the bill, check out:

• Is the site a place where you’d really like to be featured?
• Does the site readily link to sites that are featured in published articles?
• Can you find articles that have already been written by the journalist behind the query?
• Are there other ways to pitch this journalist or media outlet? A guest post or a press release perhaps?

Handling the media is something that won’t come naturally to all SEOs (see Jon Ball on SEW, "The Future of Link Building").

However, if you think you’ve got an aptitude for working with the media, then HARO is a great place to start.

You will get editorial and often that will be accompanied by quality links. But perhaps more importantly you’ll get the opportunity to develop your skills by working with and building contacts within the media – and that could be very valuable indeed.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2361107/Online-PR-Should-You-Pitch-or-Ignore-These-6-HARO-Personas?utm_term=&utm_content=Online%20PR%3A%20Should%20You%20Pitch%20or%20Ignore%20These%206%20HARO%20Personas%3F&utm_campaign=08%2F20%2F14%20-%20SEW%20Daily&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Daily

For Retailers, Being Social is Harder Than It Looks

August 7, 2014 by Catherine Salfino

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Retailers are constantly being urged to up their social media presence. But that doesn’t mean they should simply join another social network and then forget about it. In the rush to be part of modern retailing, some stores forgot the communal, interactive aspect of social media.

Michael Weiss, managing partner for C-4 Analytics, a Boston-based digital marketing agency, says most retailers – and not just apparel – are still struggling to understand social media. They need to discover how social media can deliver customer research and customer service, and fill gaps that a marketing program cannot. While most consumers start their online apparel shopping through retailer or brand sites (55 percent), e-commerce sites (29 percent), and search engines (25 percent) according to the Cotton Incorporated Lifestyle Monitor Survey, almost 1 in 10 consumers start shopping through social media sites (7 percent).

“Anyone who’s looking at social media as just another place to put advertising is missing the point,” Weiss says.  “Social media is not just another place to post your weekly circular or hype your latest sale. Understand who you want to reach and what goals you want to achieve. Once you have that information, you can identify the social media platform and communication strategy that is most likely to work.”

In the low-margin world of fashion retail, apparel stores that manage to navigate the diverse social media landscape can benefit greatly, especially given that shoppers still say clothes (30 percent) are their top item of choice to shop for, followed by electronics, (23 percent), groceries (25 percent) shoes (10 percent) and cosmetics (6 percent), according to the Monitor survey. And the majority (55 percent) continue to “love or enjoy” clothes shopping.

The problem for retailers is that social media isn’t as simple as setting and forgetting a Facebook page or Twitter account. It’s about geo-location apps that can alert shoppers to local deals, wallet apps that show mobile users where they can shop nearby while paying via smartphone, as well as reward apps that alert shoppers to deals when they walk near a store. Complicating matters is the fact that new apps continue to pop up regularly, making it tough for stores to figure out where to spend their social media dollars.

It’s expected that U.S. social media advertising revenue will jump nearly 200 percent to $15 billion in 2018, from $5.1 billion last year, according to a recent report from media research and consulting firm BIA/Kelsey. This year, the firm expects social ad revenue to increase 62.7%, to hit $8.3 billion.

Much of the social media budget revolves around ads that appear in, say, the Facebook newsfeed. But shopping apps can be quite beneficial to both the retailer and the consumer. Again, the problem is picking the right player.

Some apps, like Instagram, are really just geo-social, while others — like Shopkick or iBeacon — incorporate commerce. Geolocation apps, meanwhile, appeal to the tablet or smartphone user. The Monitor stats show 45 percent of shoppers browse on their phone, while 39 percent use their tablet, and less than one in five (18 percent) use a smart TV. However, the majority (84 percent) turns to their traditional desktop or laptop computers to browse apparel online.

Weiss says a big drawback to geolocation apps is the “spying” factor they inherently possess.

“Some of our established retail clients have been very resistant to geolocation because they see it as intrusive, and it’s hard to argue that point,” he says. “If you’re a national brand, people know who you are and where you are, and they don’t necessarily want another one of your ads showing up every time they walk by your store. They may want something very personal that’s interesting to them, such as an alert when a shirt goes on sale.”

Weiss points out that apps like Scoutmob are more of a service — and C-4 would recommend it to a new business or a regional retailer with just a few storefronts. “Platforms like this can get a local business some consideration and ‘even up’ things against the onslaught of advertising from larger retailers.”

On the other hand, he says, Shopkick is a loyalty program that gets shared across competing retailers. “You probably don’t want your customer redeeming loyalty points at the store down the road. It’s better to run your own program.”

The fact remains though, today’s consumers like various aspects of pre- and social shopping, whether it’s on a retailer’s site or social media. The majority of shoppers “always/usually/sometimes” compare prices (77 percent), browse styles (73 percent), look-up coupons (71 percent) and read customer reviews (58 percent) online before purchasing an apparel item in store, according to the Monitor. A total of 68 percent of shoppers say online product reviews are “very or somewhat influential” when shopping for apparel, up significantly from 61 percent in November 2010. And most (68 percent) read these reviews on retailer or brand websites, followed by e-commerce (30 percent) and community-based social media sites like Facebook or Twitter (15 percent) and media-based social sites like Instagram and Pinterest (13 percent).

Weiss says once a store understands who it wants to reach, it then must start listening to its customers.

“If people are asking for a specific service or information on Facebook or Twitter, find a way to provide it,” he says. “Social media has made it easier than ever for retailers to talk with their customers and learn what they want. Note that I said ‘talk with,’ which means real, two-way dialogue. If you’re just talking at them with promotions or canned questions like, ‘What’s your favorite weekend getaway?,’ you’re just going through the motions, and a lot of users will tune out. Actual conversation builds real engagement that becomes a powerful way to promote your business.”

This article is one in a series that appears weekly on sourcingjournalonline.com. The data contained are based on findings from the Cotton Incorporated Lifestyle Monitor™ Survey, a consumer attitudinal study, as well as upon other of the company’s industrial indicators, including its Retail Monitor and Supply Chain Insights analyses. Additional relevant information can be found at CottonLifestyleMonitor.com.

https://www.sourcingjournalonline.com/retailers-social-harder-looks/?utm_source=Sourcing+Journal+Basic&utm_campaign=1fb28d69a2-SJ_Email_May_29_20145_28_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_88a97246c8-1fb28d69a2-56243677

What Lady Gaga Can Teach You About Analytics

July 02, 2014 

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What do meat suits and analytics have in common?

A lot actually.

It turns out, Lady Gaga and her (now former) manager, Troy Carter, realized the importance of social media early on. In 2008, she was one of the first artists to begin utilizing Twitter to interact with fans. It made sense, because of her brand platform, but they soon realized that, while they didn’t own their Twitter followers or Facebook likers (Gaga has an amazing 66 million likes), they could drive them to their own space, LittleMonsters.com, and use the resulting data in fascinating new ways.

Gaga can customize set lists for concerts based on the listening habits of her fans in a particular location on Spotify—be sure to play this song, leave that one out. She’s taken fan-created artwork, uploaded to her website, and printed it on t-shirts, driving merchandising sales up more than 30 percent.

And the music industry is catching on. A service called Next Big Sound, which counts all the major record labels as customers, can predict (with great accuracy) which acts will be huge hits before they’re ever signed to a label by mining social media.

But it’s not just the music industry that can use big data to its advantage. Any company—or indeed anyone—can, and should use data to make better decisions. And companies who don’t do that will be left behind.

Data is changing your cabs, cigarettes, and corn.

When it comes to the impact of data, there are other great examples of how some companies are challenging traditional industries by learning more about their customers with data and technology.

Uber, a much talked-about car sharing service, has made waves both with it’s app-based bookings to request a car, and it’s acquisition by Google for a huge price. It’s also just one example of a new wave of services that are part of what’s being called the disruption economy. Companies like Uber, AirBnB (a web service that allows people to rent out rooms in their homes as hotels) and Coursera (a free education company) are using data and technology to outpace their traditional counterparts in the service economy.

They’re also being hit by a wave of regulatory backlash, but as Bloomberg notes, the writing seems to be on the wall, that service companies which don’t embrace technology will be on the way out.

The rise of ECigarettes, the smokeless electronic nicotine inhalers, isn’t due solely to the technology that makes the actual physical product possible; they’re also utilizing technology in other ways. Smokio is an eCigarette that comes with an app that monitors your nicotine intake. QuitBit is a “smart” lighter that connects to your phone via Bluetooth to keep track of your smoking habit, and IntelliQuit is the world’s first smoking cesation biosensor—a lighter-sized carbon monoxide detector that purports to help you quit smoking the way you started: one puff at a time.

Even the good, old fashioned family farm isn’t so old fashioned any more. Tractor and farm equipment manufacturer John Deere now uses data and analytics and many farmers rely on data to optimize fertilization and productivity. The company employs automated crop reporting that provides in-depth information about crops for farmers to assist in filing crop insurance claims. The data can also help farmers make difficult decisions about planting, harvesting, and more. Deere also provides a web-based solution for farmers to manage their fleets, decrease downtime, and save on fuel all based on sensors built into the tractors.

Companies that are embracing technology and finding ways to put data to use for their customers are not just ahead of the curve, but setting the standard for the way their industries will work in the future.

Does your industry embrace technology and data? Or are you lagging behind? I’d love to hear your ideas, concerns and examples in the comments below.

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