There are countless tools available to make incremental improvements to your website ranging from free to thousands of dollars per year.  I'm taking a look at five categories of tools and presenting some low-cost starter options as well as how to take it to the next level.  We've looked at external research,  content optimization, SEO and web analytics tools.  Today, we wrap up this series with usability.

Part 5: Usability

User-interface design and usability are frequently overlooked in web design projects because they seem overwhelming and expensive.  While it is true that you could spend $10,000+ on a usability lab, participants and analysis, for most, that is not required or even the best approach.

As with almost all of the topics I've discussed in this series, I recommend starting small.  Certainly you personally are doing some usability testing when you review a design or prototype.  Unfortunately, if you've been working on or with the project for more than a few days, you area already too deep into the forest to be objective.  To solve this, grab a co-worker or better yet, your spouse or children.  Have them take a look and get some feedback. 

From there, you can get a little more refined and have actual system users (customers, clients, etc.) use the site and provide their feedback in a comparable format.  Give them a task and ask about their experience (easy, hard, etc) and also ask if they had any challenges along the way.

Finally, if you don't think their feedback is detailed enough, watch them perform your tasks and YOU record their actions.  The ideal setting is one where they are comfortable (not a stark conference room), but use what you have.  Take all this feedback into consideration as you update the design and user interface for the website.

There are a few websites that offer user interaction logging where every mouse movement is tracked for playback.  ClickTale and CrazyEgg are two of these sites and they both will allow you to use the service for free up to a certain threshold.

Thank you for joining me over the past month to look at ways to improve your website on a budget.  Tools will change, but these five areas will continue to be key focus areas for website improvement.

Technorati Tags: clicktale, crazyegg, digiknow, scott chapin, usability

It's 2008, nearly 13 years since we formed DigiKnow, but I'm still amazed at one thing: how companies fail to plan sufficiently before they embark on digital initiatives. (I suppose architects say the same thing about people who build home additions without an architect.)

I know there are lots of reasons for this lapse in judgment, but I'm guessing a fear of consultants (and their fees) is the main reason. Or maybe it's just not knowing who to turn to for help.

I'm happy to say that I think we've got a solution to this. DigiKnow has formed a Consulting Group, headed by Scott Chapin, a long-time strategist here, along with John Katila, Ian Verschuren, Susan Lowry and myself. Our team has more than 10 years experience with a wide range of interactive marketing and technology situations, from CPG and B2B and government clients to professional sports teams and specialty applications. We believe this great experience should be shared with our clients and others we hope will join their ranks.

If your company is about to start a digital marketing campaign or technology implementation, we can probably help. We can help you ask the right questions and we can get the answers to inform your decision making. And we can do it without breaking the bank.  If you have needs for consulting, we hope you will consider contacting Scott.

DigiKnow Consulting Group Services:

Online Business Consulting

• Strategic Planning
• eBusiness planning and evaluation
• Requirements discovers/ RFP development
• Content/Knowledge Management audits

Web-based Application Consulting

• Business process evaluation
• Current systems evaluation and gap analysis
• Prospective system evaluation

Interactive Marketing Consulting

• Information architecture
• Competitive analysis
• User segmentation/CRM
• Performance Measurement/ Web analytics
• User Experience/ Usability audits

Program Management

• Requirements management
• Program performance measurement
• Stakeholder training 

Technorati Tags: Circle44, Consulting, DigiKnow, Ian Verschuren, IT Consulting, John Katila, King Hill, Online Marketing, Scott Chapin, Susan Lowry

There are countless tools available to make incremental improvements to your website ranging from free to thousands of dollars per year.  I'm taking a look at five categories of tools and presenting some low-cost starter options as well as how to take it to the next level.  We've looked at external research,  content optimization and SEO tools.  Today, we move on to our next topic, web analytics.

Part 4: Web Analytics

Analytics is a passion of mine, so I couldn't wait to get to this week's post (and you've been waiting because I'm very busy).  I'm a firm believer that 1) following the traffic and trends on your website is the #1 way to drive improvements 2) any analytics is better than no analytics.  If you don't know what your top pages are, stop what you are doing and look (or get analytics setup).  If you do, great, take it to the next level and look at slicing and segmenting your traffic looking for those nuggets of information.  While I'll praise web analytics until the cows come home, numbers can only tell you so much.  They tell you the what, but not the why.  Combining Google Analytics with 4Q surveys will give you both the what and the why.

Google Analytics

If you've spent much time in online marketing, you are probably familiar with Google Analytics.  It may not be perfect, but given the price (free), it's hard to beat.  The setup is much like web optimizer: 1) register 2) put code on your site 3) watch data flow in.  The reports are easy to use and and mostly intuitive.  Where I think Google has started to take this to the next level is their integration not only with their AdWords PPC system, but also with the Google Mini and Google Custom Search.  Analyzation of your internal and external search traffic is a very powerful way to see what customers want and are having trouble finding.  Google does not have any native integration with email marketing like some of the for-pay commercial packages, but it's only a matter of time.

4Q

A second free tool that is very helpful in understanding your site traffic is 4Q.  4Q is a four-question survey that is presented to visitors after their visit to your site.  This system is easy to implement (register, add code) and allows for some customization, has basic controls and web-based reporting.  The main drawback is that you are limited to four questions (it's called 4Q for a reason), but I think this is a great starting point to get some subjective feedback on a visitors' experience.  Avinash Kaushik has a lengthy post discussing the merits of the 4Q system.  Avinash is a partner in this system, but I think his amazing blog as well as his involvement as an Analytics Evangelist for Google and with Market Motive make him a trustworthily resource, even when connected to the solution.

There are countless other analytics packages available, both free and for-pay.  Some of the biggest names you might be familiar with are Webtrends, Ominture, Coremetrics, ClickTracks.  There is nothing wrong with just dipping your toe into the pool.  Any analytics is better than no analytics, so start small and see where it takes you.

Next Time.. Usability (coming soon)

There are countless tools available to make incremental improvements to your website ranging from free to thousands of dollars per year.  I'm taking a look at five categories of tools and presenting some low-cost starter options as well as how to take it to the next level.  We've looked at external research tools and content optimization.  Today, we move on to our next topic, search engine optimization.

Part 3: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engines can easily drive 50% of your site traffic.  (If you don't know where your traffic is coming from, checkout my top 5 useful filters).  SEO is the practice of monitoring your current positions on search engines and working to improve them over time by optimizing content and other factors.  Since Google currently controls 68% of all US searches (Hitwise), it only makes sense to start with their tools, but there are others that can be helpful too.

Google’s Webmaster Tools

The webmaster tools from Google allow you to look under the hood of Google and see how your site is doing and what consumers are searching for relative to your website.  The setup is relatively simple, registration and site verification, and the benefits are immediate.  Once you've setup your account, you are given access to some great information like diagnostics on what Google is finding on your site, links to and from your site and any pages that might be in Google that are no longer available.  But the best feature is the "Top search queries".  Through this, you can not only see what the top search terms that are receiving clicks (available in your web analytics), but you can also see the top 20 searches that were performed (in a month) where your site was listed in the results.  This is a very unique view of how you might be better found by those that don't even know you exist.  Analytics show what people did click, but "Top search queries" shows what was searched on, even if they didn't click.  You may find search terms where your rank is low that you might want to consider for optimization.

SEOQuake

Google's tools give you a great look at the back side of searching, but other tools like SEOQuake give you a front-side look at overall site positioning.  SEOQuake is a browser plug-in (for IE or Firefox) that displays publicly available data for the page that you are viewing.  Some of the stats displayed include Google PageRank, # of pages indexed (Google), inbound links (yahoo), and Alexa rank.  My favorite feature here is the Density measurement.  This tool simply indexes the content in any give page and displays the counts for each word, including a keyword cloud of the most popular words.  It's not rocket science, but it is very handy.

There are countless other tools both free and paid available.  I regularly use include ClickTracks and Web CEO for search engine site rankings and other general analytics.

Following SEO best practices and using tools like these to monitor your overall rank is an important step to improving and maintaining your website.

Next time... Web Analytics (coming soon)

There are countless tools available to make incremental improvements to your website ranging from free to thousands of dollars per year.  I'm taking a look at five categories of tools and presenting some low-cost starter options as well as how to take it to the next level.  Last week we took a look at external research tools Alexa and Compete.com.  Today, we move on to our next topic, content optimization.

Part 2: Content Optimization

Content is king in any medium, but on the Internet good content not only drives consumer engagement, but also provides fodder for the search engines to index, bringing more (and hopefully better) visitors to your site.  The methodologies pioneered by direct mail agencies for years can now be easily and inexpensively ported to the Internet, allowing for efficient testing of multiple messaging or content strategies.

Which is a better headline for your main product page "Product X saves you time and money" or "Make your business more efficient with Product X"?  I don't know and even after working with a great copywriter, you probably don't really know either.  Tools like Google's Web Optimizer allow you to perform an A/B test, randomly displaying one of the headlines to each visitor and tracking their response.  I recommend starting small, even with just one page and getting familiar with the tools, then consider larger scale implementations. 

Google Web Optimizer

As with most things Google, they have provided a free tool to help website owners improve their sites (and of course let Google collect/analyze even more web data).  To start you need to have a Google Analytics and AdWords account.  You don't have to use them for your analytics or SEM, but they are the core of the Optimizer tool.  Once you have an account, using the system is pretty simple

1. Identify your test page(s)
2. Develop multiple content options
3. Load the content into Google and generate the site code
4. Put the code on your site
5. Watch the results pour in. 

At the end of your experiment, you've got empirical data that shows which content your visitors react most positively to.  Tom Leung and Brian Eisenberg have a great presentation, Website Optimizer, What Should I Test?, that provides an overview of the system and how to use it effectively.

As you grow in your content optimization process, if you find that Google is not meeting your needs, some for-pay solutions I'd recommend are Offermatica, Optimost, and SiteSpect.

Next time... Search Engine Optimization (coming soon)