Posts Tagged ‘user experience’

User Experience – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

We give our guests a great user experience. We want them to like it so much that they want to come back, and guess what? Most of them love it and we have our “regulars”. Here is our “Recipe for Success” :

The San Quentin Guide to Providing a Good User Experience.

Make It Easy To Get In

It sure is easy to get in here. Johnny Cash comes here all the time, singing to our guests. He even stayed overnight in Bubba’s cell. He said that he got the inspiration for his song “Ring of Fire” from his visit here. I think it was because of the habañero chilli soup.

Make It Easy To Stay

Our guests here don’t want to leave. Once they get in, we just can’t get them out. Take “Mad Mick” Murphy from Dublin. Please take him because we don’t want him. He shows up drunk before breakfast, starts fighting and upsetting the other guests. We tried getting him to sober up but then he got sad and started singing about Ireland. Twenty four of our guests escaped that night to get away from him, and they were happy before that.

Make Sure Your Visitors Remember You and Come Back

Rob “Razor” Capone will never leave. He signed up for 25 years, but wants more. He says the premises are great, and he can get apple pies “just like mamma used to make” for $4. Nobody has the heart to tell him that for just $5 he can get apple pies just like mamma thought she used to make.

Our User Experience is second to none. Yes, San Quentin is one 4-star Prison.

SERIOUSLY:

You want some candy. You see a store nearby. You walk into the store. The floor is dirty and the store is badly lit. The products are scattered all over the place in no particular order. There’s no signage.  You can’t  find your way around.  You can’t find the candy. You ask the sales assistant. He’s not very helpful and tells you to find the candy yourself. How would this experience make you feel?

Your Virtual Store

Your website is no different. It’s a virtual store. It’s vitally important that you provide a great User Experience to the visitors that cross your website’s threshold.  User Experience (UX) is all about the overall impression, satisfaction and feelings that a user gets from visiting a site. Your business success is heavily dependent on User Experience.  Do all that you can to give your visitors a positive User Experience. This will improve customer satisfaction and drive referrals and repeat business.

Chasing the User Experience

Matt Cutts (of Google) recently highlighted that “… by chasing after a good user experience, you help ensure that you and the search engines are both working in the same direction. That’s much better than you chasing the search engines, which are in turn chasing what we think is best for users.”

There are a number of elements to User Experience including functionality, design, branding and content.  It’s about the overall package. Things that you can do to improve UX include:

  • factoring in UX elements into the design,
  • ensuring site navigation is intuitive,
  • improving site speed (load times) and
  • producing relevant engaging content on an ongoing basis.

Content & User Experience:

When it comes to content, the folks at The Wittery believe that if your content makes your site visitor smile, then you have achieved something very special from a User Experience perspective.  Aim to make your content induce positive feelings in your site visitor.

Websites and the internet are full words.   Don’t let the collection of words on your website fall into the “instantly forgettable” category. When commissioning content (or when writing it yourself), always keep your reader in mind. Aim to reach into their heart, soul and mind with your content. That’s how you can distinguish yourself in your visitor’s mind and improve their User Experience. Your visitor will then be  more likely to stay longer on your site, remember you when they leave, buy from you, re-visit your site and tell others about you.

The Journey and the Destination

If SEO is about getting search engines to bring visitors to your site, then UEO* is about making sure those visitors have a good time when they get there. “Driving traffic to your homepage is important, but making the destination worthwhile is vital” according to Entrepreneur.com.

Next time visitors arrive at your site how are you going to make sure that your store is in order and that your visitors get the experience they deserve?

*UEO (or UXO) is an acronym for “User Experience Optimization”.

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content; Linkerati;   PageRank; SEO;  SERPS;  The Cloud

Welcome to The Wittery Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

You’re in the right place if you’re looking for Witty Freelance Writers to add zest to your business content. (Simply click here,  click the Register button [remembering to wipe your feet first] and give us some info about you. We don’t do spam (can’t stand the taste). There’s even a limited free trial where you can post your project for free.)

Witty Freelance Writer with a burning desire to join the wit mob? Click here, remove your shoes and then come through to the application form (you can’t miss it. It says “Apply”)

If you’d prefer to follow the scenic route instead, start off at the home page. See you soon.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Jargon Buster - Serious/Not Serious Series, Witto | No Comments »

SERPS – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

SERPS is an internet word that stands for “Stop Entering Restricted Porn Sites”. It is used as a warning sign that appears to sleazy surfers when they repeatedly try to access highly unsuitable web pages.

Being clever, those running the internet know not just what search term has been entered, but what are the intentions of the user. (This is known as “Just Ask Core Knowledge On Form Filtering” or JACKOFF.)  For example, users who search for “how many laid” will get different results depending on whether their previous search was for “fresh eggs” or “Debbie Does Dallas”.

The SERPS warning appears after 69 consecutive rude search phrases, although teenagers do not usually get this far.

“Stop Entering Restricted Porn Sites” is not just a warning sign. It is not a “suggestion” from the search engine either, it is a command. As well as the full-screen warning sign, the computer of the user is infected with a virus. SERPS may therefore be thought of as the virtual clap, and it cannot be cured, even with a visit to www.cure-my-pox.com

No, SERPS is serious, and results in the destruction of the user’s online life. No respectable website will go near a SERPS-infected user, especially not www.virgin.com.

SERIOUSLY:

SERPS stands for Search Engine Result Pages. They are the pages that are returned by  search engines  (ok, let’s just call this Google from here) when you enter a query in the search box. The pages contain a list of website pages that Google (Bing, Cuil) thinks are relevant to your search term.  Your site is likely to benefit from organic (unpaid) traffic if it appears in the organic listing on Page 1 of the SERPS.

Let’s Get Personal

Things are happening with SERPS.  Personalized SERPS is now here to stay and it will be interesting to watch the effect of this on traditional SEO practices over time. Personalization of the SERPS means different users get different SERPS results, depending on their browsing history.  Google is serving up results which it thinks are best suited to you, based on what it knows about you (and it knows way more than you think).

Personalized SERPS is the default setting and most users are unlikely to change the default setting.  Personalized SERPS applies even if you’re not logged into a Google Account.

As a website owner, it’s important to be aware when you’re being served personalized SERPS. The reason?  If you check your site’s SERPS on a regular basis, you’ll get a false sense of where your website appears in the SERPS for others. Google will return your most visited sites high up in your personalized SERPS results. You may end up gloating that your site is appearing in the number one position for your search term, when in fact it could be buried deep down in the SERPS for other users.

Incognito

There are a few ways to get a better indication of where your website appears in the SERPS for others. One of those ways  is to go “incognito” using Google Chrome (please correct me if I’m wrong on this one).  Get your dark shades and grubby rain mac on before taking the following steps:

  1. Click on the wrench icon at the top right of the Google Chrome Screen.
  2. Click on “New Incognito Window”.
  3. “You’ve gone incognito” the new window tells you.  There’s even a spy icon to remind you what you are up to.
Ignorance Can Be Bliss

Probably the best way to improve your site’s positioning in the SERPS? Try Ignoring it most of the time. Don’t spend too much time trying to understand Google and how its algorithm works. Try to understand your users instead.

Concentrate your efforts on developing your engaging content, learning to understand and connect with your website visitors, building relationships and working on elements that will improve the User Experience.  Your efforts in these areas will help your site in the battle for position across personalized SERPS.  These efforts will also help you to get traffic from sources other than search engines. Whilst you’re chasing after your position in the SERPS remember that the search engines are chasing after websites that are optimized for the User Experience. Remember also that SERPS is very fond of dancing.

How much attention do you pay to your website’s position in the SERPS? Do you spend as much time concentrating on User Experience Optimization?

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content;  Linkerati; PageRank;  SEO; The Cloud; User Experience

Other Resources:

Nathan Thompson has an informative post over at MarketingExperiments.com which covers the effect that the roll-out of Google Caffeine will have on SERPS results. It is well worth a read. We mentioned  Caffeine in January in this blog. Google announced last week that this new indexing system is now complete. The essential thing to note about Caffeine is that it aims is to provide fresher results to users. In the context of content, this will of course mean that fresh content will continue to become more important and will influence where your website shows up in the SERPS.

Welcome to The Wittery Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

You’re in the right place if you’re looking for Witty Freelance Writers to add zest to your business content. (Simply click here,  click the Register button [remembering to wipe your feet first] and give us some info about you. We don’t do spam (can’t stand the taste). There’s even a limited free trial where you can post your project for free.)

Witty Freelance Writer with a burning desire to join the wit mob? Click here, remove your shoes and then come through to the application form (you can’t miss it. It says “Apply”)

If you’d prefer to follow the scenic route instead, start off at the home page. See you soon.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Jargon Buster - Serious/Not Serious Series, Witto | No Comments »

SEO – Jargon Buster [Search Engine Optimization]

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

SEO stands for “Scrabble Equality Organization”. This group was formed after the highly controversial World Scrabble final earlier this year. Trailing by 50 points to his opponent, Mr J. Smith of London, the Polish finalist Mr W. Iwillwinski scored 575 points, including his triple word score, for the word “JZCZWIZYQZZY”.

Mr Iwillwinski was incensed when the word was rejected for being a proper noun. “They cheated me,” he said after losing the final, and picked up his runner-up prize of $25, missing out on the $26 winner cheque. “The word was valid – it is my mother’s favorite flower,” he complained.  “Not only  that, but I saw it on my optician’s test chart last week,” he continued.

Such was the uproar that Scrabble World Series organizers have decided to clarify the rules. Rejecting claims of discrimination, they say that they treat all entrants equally, even the delegation of Somali pirates who stole the show, literally.

The Scrabble Equality Organization is charged with restoring the battered reputation of the sport. “This is a respectable sport and the top players are true athletes,” said Dr. Etymological, SEO Chairman. “We have a fine history of sportsmanship,” he went on. “This has really shaken our sport – it is the biggest upset since 1972, when the Italian competitor was caught eating alphabet spaghetti before a match.”

SERIOUSLY:

SEO is all about making your website attractive to search engines.  It stands for “Search Engine Optimization”. It’s the technical side of search (as opposed to the marketing side). SEO can improve your website’s positioning in organic (unpaid) search results.

It’s also about making sure that Search Engines know what your site is about and making it easy for the search engine spiders to find their way around your site. If your site is optimized for search engines, this can increase the volume and quality of traffic that you receive. It can therefore impact significantly on your bottom line.

I have grown to dislike the term “SEO”. Too many dubious SEO practitioners have given it a bad name. It has become a negative term in many people’s minds.  This is especially true when used in the context of Content.  “SEO Content” has become synonymous with poor quality, bland, keyword-stuffed content not fit for human consumption. I think it’s time for genuine, technical SEO practitioners to find themselves another name.

SEO, in its purest technical sense, remains valid (for now). As an online business, it is important that you make sure that the technical bits and pieces of your website are optimized for search engines. There is little point in having great content on your website if the search engines can’t find you, or don’t know what your site is about or can’t find their way around when they visit.

Google advises webmasters to “make pages primarily for users, not just for search engines.” Don’t overdo it on the SEO at the expense of the User Experience.  The ultimate aim of search engines is to ensure that they return quality results for search terms entered by the user. Make sure you put your user first too.

Welcome to The Wittery Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;  Duplicate Content; Linkerati;  PageRank;  SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Jargon Buster - Serious/Not Serious Series, Witto | 3 Comments »

PageRank – Jargon Buster

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

The Serious/Not Serious Series on Jargon

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS:

Yo bro.

To get by in the hood, you need street cred. In the web hood, street cred is called PageRank.

To get the top street cred in the hood you gotta be connected. You gotta be connected to names – big mo-fo names, like Google and Apple. You’ve gotta run with the big dogs, the bigger the better, and the more the better too. When you connected with a big gang of bad-ass dudes, you get respect and cred.

Street cred goes from 10 down to 0. To get a “10” you gotta be Google, Bo Derek, or Superman, but “3” is common enough for the average brother in the web hood. Nerds get a great big zero, but there is a “N/A” for kids – who ain’t got their cred assessed yet. (The Google-man’s a busy guy, and assesses every crib in the web-hood every three months or so).

To make sales, you gotta make a connection with a user. The user puts out the enquiry with the Google-man, specifying what kinda shit he wants. Google-man acks all the brothers who can supply what the man needs. If a brother can supply, his name goes on his list, then he sorts the list, and the brothers with the biggest cred cahoonies get their names top of the list.

Then the Google-man gives the list to the user.

SERIOUSLY:

PageRank is Google’s way of determining the importance of a webpage or website. A website’s PageRank influences where that site will appear in search results for relevant terms. It can influence the amount of organic (unpaid) traffic that comes to your site from the search engine. It can also influence and inform potential advertisers, partners and others interested in your site. They often check out your PageRank to see what Google thinks of your site before doing business with you.

Google’s view is that if another site links to your webpage, that site is saying that it likes you. Google builds up a picture of your website’s likeability by examining who is linking to your site, how important the linker is and by looking at the context of the link. Not all links are equal and not all links are counted by Google. PageRank Values range from PR0 to PR10.

Google watches out for websites that try to manipulate rankings so it’s not a good idea to engage in dodgy SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices in an attempt to increase your PageRank.  The complete magic recipe for calculating PageRank is known only to Google and the big “G” works on this recipe (algorithm) all the time.

Probably the best way to improve your website’s PageRank is to ignore it. Concentrate instead on improving the User Experience, creating great content, and building relationships online. A good PageRank will follow. Pay attention to this extract from the Blog of Matt Cutts (who happens to be Head of the Webspam Team at Google):

“….A lot of bad SEO happens because people say “I’ll force my way to the top of Google first, and then everyone will find out about my site.” Putting rankings before the creation of a great site is in many ways putting the cart before the horse. Often the search rankings follow from the fact that you’re getting to be well-known on the web completely outside the sphere of search…. By chasing a great user experience above search rankings, many sites turn out to be what search engines would want to return anyway.”*

Remember that PageRank is a Google thing. If you’re building a business online, don’t obsess about Google all the time. Organic search engine traffic is great but look for other ways to bring visitors to your site. Don’t let your business model become solely dependent on Google.  For long-term viability try to think beyond the big “G”.  There’s an insightful post in the archives at DoshDosh.com which gives lots of food for thought about why PageRank may be overrated.

What do you think? Do you think your business model is overly-dependent on Google? If so, are you thinking about taking steps to deal with this?

*This quote is buried deep in the Comments section of the particular blog post. We’ve extracted it to make your life easier but read the entire blog post (including comments) if you have the energy and inclination.

Footnote: The information in this series is stuff that we’ve picked up along the way when setting up The Wittery. We don’t claim to be experts but we’re happy to share what we’ve learned.  The stuff in the “You Cannot Be Serious” section comes straight from the noggins of witty writer members at The Wittery.

Other Jargon Buster Articles:

Attraction Marketing;  Buzz Marketing;  Content Strategy;   Duplicate Content;  Linkerati; SEO; SERPS; The Cloud; User Experience

Welcome to The Wittery® Blog (aka The Witty Writer Marketplace)

Visit The Wittery to find Freelance Writers to write Witty Content for Your Business.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Jargon Buster - Serious/Not Serious Series, Witto | 4 Comments »