The 12 Do’s And Don’ts Of Website Usability - Seo Basics Part 5
September 6, 2007
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In this article we’ll take a look at some of the dos and donts of website usability.
First, lets explore the dos:
Do make the call to action more prominent visually and make it stick out more on the page.
Do include a one sentence tagline that says what the site or company does.
Do add a search box to any website over one hundred pages.
Do give the visitors at least one call to action on each page, because each page should specify what it wants the user to do. For example, a call to action would be a link under an article that says “read more on this topic” or “read more.”
Do use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.
Do ensure that people are able to find what they entered the site or page looking for within three clicks. If you have a large website, this is more difficult, but keep it as low as possible. Also, even though you might have a hundred or more pages, you can still arrange the individual pages on your site to have information readily available in three clicks.
Now that we’ve heard some of of the dos of web design, let’s take a look at the donts:
Don’t make the font on your page too small. 12 point font and up is the way to go if you want to avoid straining people’s eyes. Also, stay away from fancy, hard to read, or all bold text. Go with web standards like Verdana or Arial. Remember that both Verdana and Arial were developed through hours and hours of research by Microsoft to find the font that was easiest on people’s eyes. And there is a reason these fonts are used on many major websites. These legibility problems are a major factor in the usability of a website.
Don’t have text that in one long block. Breaking it up into paragraphs, and better yet, paragraphs with headers, makes it easy to scan with the eyes. Text that is one long block is difficult and often annoying for users. People want information quickly and efficiently. Bold key words and break your information into paragraphs under specific headers to help your users find what they need.
Don’t have graphics and animation that don’t connect to page content. This is important for cohesiveness, and if its lacking, everything else on your site will be far less effective.
Don’t have a website that is compatible with some browsers and not others. Your browser needs to work in all major programs, like MozillaFirefox and Internet Explorer.
Don’t make your users fill out big, long forms. People hate long forms that take forever to fill out, and you probably agree. So stay away from them when optimizing your website for usability.
Don’t forget to check the log for your website periodically to see what pages your customers are entering and exiting on your site. If you find a large amount of customers exiting on one particular page on your website, that can be a sign of a usability problem.
For previous articles in our SEO basics series, please see below:
Creating a Usable Website That Converts - SEO Basics Part 4
Researching Your Keywords - SEO Basics Part 3
What is Search Engine Optimization? SEO Basics Part 2
You are so right about attracting viewers and keeping them. I believe website design is a “main key” in website marketing. A great website shows the viewers that your business is very organized and sophisticated. It will attract customers and readers because people will refer. And social marketing is crucial these days with the technology advancing so rapidly.
Great article. It should help me out and other readers.