Business Website Usability

Sadly, many local businesses feel that they do not need a website since people need to come in to their business to buy. While they may not need the typical cart or buy now buttons of an online business, they still need a website. These businesses need to be taught about the importance of having a website…but a good website!

Many local businesses finally decide they need a website, but without knowing exactly what to do, they create a bad site! The website is full of technical jargon and figures. They forget about designing the website for the average consumer and providing that person with valuable information.

Fortunately our post today explains in more detail what a local business website needs. If you are working with a local business or are a local business, then his information can help you create a website that helps build business now and in the future.

Local Internet Marketing is about two things:

1. Driving Traffic
2. Conversion

When referencing conversion and Local Internet Marketing, a local business is referring to their website. Website Usability discusses achieving the desirable call to action.

Website Usability in a Nutshell

Web usability means designing an online website for your users and visitors instead of for yourself or your client. A website that addresses user expectations will increase the number of visitors who take the intended call to action, or otherwise accomplish the goals set out for the website. Good usability is critical to your site’s success.

We are mostly focusing on business-to-business websites for local businesses. Business-to-business websites face usability challenges far beyond those of regular B2C (business-to-consumer) sites. The products are more complex, in fact, they are often services, the customers and audience are more diverse, and the buying process has many more steps and complications.

Many B2B sites are stuck in 1995. For example, they often highlight internally focused design, fail to answer the customers’ questions and simply are a digital version of their brochure. Thus, they fail to achieve a call to action, and in most cases the user leaves and never comes back without any lead information.

Such websites haven’t realized that the Web has reversed the company-customer relationship. Most online interactions are demand-driven: you either give people what they want, or watch as they abandon your site for your competition.

Considering that there is immensely more money at stake for B2B than for business-to-consumer (B2C), it’s astounding that B2B sites offer a much worse user experience.

Push button vs local business buying

One of the biggest differences between ecommerce stores, or online retailers and local business would be that most local retailers don’t see themselves engaged in e-commerce. Perhaps this is because the typical B2B product can’t be purchased through a simple Add to cart button.

The lack of an Add to cart button doesn’t mean that B2B businesses should ignore their websites or make them digital brochures. The site should still support the many other stages of the buying process — including the post-sales, which are crucial to customers’ long-term brand loyalty.

The website represents the company to prospects. Users don’t save brochures because they assume they can find equivalent information on the Web. Most people say that when they were thinking of doing business with a company, their first action was to check out its website. So, a site that improperly communicates the credibility of a vendor and its products can seriously hurt incoming website leads.

With proper tools in place to measure activity, the numbers are simply astounding and how subtle improvements drastically improve conversion, those website visitors who beg to give you their email and contact information.

User impeding Design

Local business web sites often prevent users from getting the information they need to research solutions. Sometimes this is deliberate, as when sites hide the good stuff behind registration barriers. Sometimes it is with confusing navigation that prevents users from finding information, or when the information they do find is written in such a marketing language that purchasers and influencers simply get confused.

Many sites use website segmentation, unfortunately, these segments often don’t match the way customers think of themselves, and thus require them to peek through multiple site areas to find the right one.

Another common local business tactic is to require users to register or complete lead-generation forms. We typically call this an opt-in. Users are sometimes reluctant to do this. I like this approach and has worked well. In most cases, though I recommend moving more information outside the opt-in barrier so it’s available to users during their initial research.

You must establish a certain level of credibility before people are willing to give out their contact information.Offering an instant download of a video or report is an easy was to capture their email address, and people are much more likely to provide just their email address rather than their contact information. Business people are too busy these days to have time for sales calls. This is education sales.

If you sell highly technical products to a highly specialized audience, you can’t assume that all users understand the key considerations that distinguish the product or service from the competition. If you can properly capture how people think about their problem, you’re half way to selling them.

The most user-impeding element of most local business web sites is a complete lack of pricing information. From a study done by Nielsen, when they asked users to prioritize which of 28 types of B2B site information mattered most to them, prices scored the highest by far. This was 29% higher than product availability, which ranked second.

Sites have many excuses for not wanting to display prices, but they are just that: excuses. Users expect to get a basic understanding of products and services during their initial research, and they can’t do that without some idea of what it’s going to cost. Even if your company can’t list exact prices, there are several ways to indicate price level, which is really all people need initially.

The average local business website user experience is not very supportive of customers. As a result, the websites fail to provide business value because they ultimately turn prospects away rather than turning them into leads.

Guidelines

Here are some very basic, high level guidelines that you should follow for any local business website. It’s best to have fresh eyes on a site to ensure each of these guidelines is met. They are pretty simple, let’s take a look.

• Clear and Simple Navigation. We know that navigation should be easy, with clear navigation in the top or the left side of the side. It’s like you driving my car, you know where the steering wheel it and the brakes, but you might fumble with the less important controls like the radio. Your navigation is like the steering wheel. I cover this next.
• Clear and Simple Content. Consider the education level of your audience. Consider culture. Consider objectives and motivations. Use your audience profile extensively here. Write for you audience, not your client.
• Brand Support. This is accomplished through imagery and repetition. Find a unique way to mention the business in content. Have a memorable, solid logo prominently displayed in appropriate places on the site. Get the logo out there.
• Visitor Feedback and Support. Using Web 2.0 channels, forms, contact information of whatever other tools you chose, the site is a doorway to the business. Make sure visitors can easily communicate through various methods, not just one form.
• Measuring and Testing Conversion. Google Analytics and Website Optimizer. Refer to the website video in the ’setting up your agency’ module under Online Properties.
• Testing Design Usability. Get feedback from users. Do they recognize the major CTA on the site? The fallback CTA? Are they just confused? List perhaps 10 questions for new users to accomplish, such as ‘find this’ or ‘if you are in the market for a widget, does this website help answer your questions?’

Website Navigation

Website navigation is the function of providing the user with the easiest and most logical information on how to get around the website and what can they do.

A good navigation system should answer three questions

1. Where am I?
2. Where have I been?
3. Where can I go?

There are a variety of ways to answer these questions, and there are several methodologies on the thought process for this. There really isn’t a cookie cutter process, but following these key points will unequivocally help you implement the desired navigation system.

1. Consistency. The navigation system should be in the same place on every page and have the same format. Visitors will get confused and frustrated if links appear and disappear unpredictably. Don’t veer too much from top or left navigation.
2. Use appropriate text inside links. This is a critical component in search engine optimization. Don’t make the website visitors guess where a link is going to take them. Make it plain and simple.
3. Blue Underline links. Some designers don’t like underlined text links inside page content – although visitors expect to be able to click on underlined text.
4. Always include text links. You can create some great looking menus using JavaScript but never rely completely on a dynamic menu system. I personally recommend staying away from these good looking JavaScript menu systems all around. Every page should have basic text links that link to all major sections of the site.
5. Add a text-based site map. All sites should have a text based sitemap in addition to text links. Every page should contain a text link to the site map. Lost visitors will use it to find their way, while search engines spiders will have reliable access to all your pages.
6. Include a home page link inside your main navigation system. Visitors may have entered your site through an internal page. Having a homepage link on your top or left navigation in the same spot on all pages will help users find their way, and they’ll possibly want to head for the home page.
7. Site logo links to home page. Your website should include the logo somewhere at the top of every page – generally in the top, left-hand corner. Visitors expect this logo to be a link to your site’s home page. They’ll often go there before looking for the home link in the navigation system.
8. Include a site search box. A robust site search feature helps visitors quickly locate the information they want. Make the search box prominent and be sure that it searches all of your site – and only your site. Google has a great tool for this and be sure to include your company blog in the search.
9. Breadcrumb trail at the top of the page is nice to help users navigate back up the website hierarchy (e.g., Home > Solutions > Customer Relationship Management).

You may attract visitors with an eye-catching design, but content is what keeps them at the site and encourages them to return. Content is also the best way to boost your site in search engine rankings.

Contact us to get a free website analysis and see if they will come to your site.