Archive for May 2011

Google have increasingly been accused of listing lots of websites in their results pages that offer little or no value to people searching for products or information.

These websites often contain very ‘lite’ information, and have been developed purely to rank highly on Google and make the owner some advertising revenue.

Farmer time

Google have responded to these criticisms with an update to their search algorithm called ‘farmer’, which aims to weed out these built-for-ads sites, often called ‘content farms’.

Site Exclusion

To help with this Google are adding a feature called ‘Site Exclusion’. If you – as an individual – see websites that you think should not be ranking highly in the results page, you can add these to your site exclusion list and you will no longer see them.

This is what you’ll see:

The sites that you exclude will only be removed from your personal results pages – everyone else will continue to see them.

You can manage the list of sites that you’ve excluded from within your Google account:

A Ranking factor?

But what’s interesting is that Google may in the future take into account whether a site has been added to thousands of people’s exclusion lists, and use that information to reshape the results for all.

According to Google: “While we’re not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future”.

Once you have the site exclusion feature enabled let us know what you think. But please don’t exclude ‘webeden.uk’!

Well who’d have thought it? That tiny crying baby is no longer – YouTube is now fully grown up. Well, 6 years old at any rate.

And do you know the quite scary facts?

Fact 1: There are over 48 hours of video uploaded onto YouTube every minute.

Fact 2: There are 3billion views every day on the site.

Here’s a nice infographic from YouTube to sum it all up.

A fan? Or had enough of the big ‘Y’? Leave us a comment below.

Your website is often the first and only way potential customers find out about your business. And as website visitors make a decision in the first 6 seconds about whether to stay or leave, it’s vitally important that you present your business in the right way, and give your visitors the information they’re looking for.

Yet so many small businesses make classic mistakes with their site, effectively showing all these customers the door before they’ve even got inside.

So what are the important web design tips you should follow?

1. Make it easy to move around your website

People usually arrive on your website looking for specific information. If they don’t find it quickly they will leave, and have the impression that you’re a disorganized business.

The reason that websites have menus along the top or down the side is because user expect a particular format for websites. Stick to this format, and make the most important information the first thing they see.

Have a think about why people are on your website. Are they looking for your address or contact details? Do they want to know your opening hours? Do the want to know if you stock a particular item? Are they interested in the trade bodies you’re a member of? Answering these questions will help you organise the pages that should be easiest to find.

Here are a few tips

*Try icons. They’re visually appealing and easy to use
*Group related links together, such as ‘your account, support, contact us’ and ‘Ts & Cs, legal, privacy.
*Make it clear to users which page they’re on by using clear headlines

2. Use Clear Calls To Action

What is the aim of your website? Do you want people to buy something? do you want them to get in touch? Do you want them to sign up to your newsletter? The biggest mistake small business websites make is not having a clear call to action that asks there users to commit to something.

Whatever you want your users to do, make it clear by using a call-to-action button that grabs their attention. Here are a few tips:

*Think about the colour, size, shape and position of your call to action. Make it clear, make it stand out, and put it in an obvious place.
*Don’t confuse users by having multiple calls to action. Decide the main thing that you want them to do and stick to it.

3. Pick the right colours

This might seem a little obvious, but choosing the right colours is critical to your website. I’m not just talking about picking those colours that reflect your logo, your brand or your stationary. But it’s about making sure your colours stand out on the page, making it easy for people to read your content.

The right colours can also effective at sorting out the hierarchy of a page. Here’s some ideas:

*Look at how popular websites use colour and contrast to make stuff easy to read and understand.
*Try using size rather than just colour to make important text stand out.
*Test drive a Colour Contrast tool to check your colour choice such as http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html

4. Organise Your Content

This is where most small businesses make the biggest mistakes. In a desperate urge to show website visitors how much stuff a business does, many put so many words on their site that it becomes impenetrable to readers.

The truth of it is that most website visitors can’t be bothered to read much text, and will avoid doing so unless it’s absolutely necessary. Even those embarking on a page of text will scan and skip to the end.

So when adding content to your site it’s important to get it into the right hierarchy, making it easy for users to jump to the most relevant section.

Here are three tips:

*Make your font big enough to be easy to read.
*Make significant use of white space, to focus the user on your content
*Make use of titles, subtitles, paragraphs, bullets, block quotes and other tricks to break up long passages.

And never make spelling or grammatical mistakes.

5. Reduce Clutter

This point follows on from content. Generally speaking, the more elements on a page, the harder it is to read. Websites with crammed homepages are difficult for visitors to take in and understand.

And website visitors who leave because they are overwhelmed, are not likely to return soon.

Clutter includes images too – they should only be there to capture attention and guide the user.

Here’s how to reduce clutter:

*With every element on a page, ask yourself the question: ‘can visitors understand this page if I took this away’. If the answer is yes, then you probably don’t need it.
*Make your most important content the easiest to find. Don’t let minor items get in the way of major ones.
*Help your users find what they’re looking for – don’t bog them down with other items like advertisements or promotions.

That’s it

These are five of my web design tips to make sure your small business website gets settled on the right course. Got any others? Leave a comment below.

This is the typical pattern of events.

I’m looking at Google Analytics, and then all of a sudden a Tweet about running marathons pops up in the corner of my screen. I click on the link and end up on a website reading about a new marathon running technique.

Whilst I’m there I see an advert for a pair of lightweight trainers and click on it to visit the advertiser and check out the shoes.

Having read about them on the site, I then go looking for reviews to find what other runners thing of the shoes.

After reading a few reviews on different websites I then start searching for the best price of those trainers, until I’ve found a few different places to buy them.

For a final check I try eBay and Amazon just to make sure I’m not being ripped off

And then I think: “where did the last half an hour go? What was I doing?” It’s only at that point I see tab for Google Analytics and go back to the original job.

If that pattern of events chimes with you, then here’s a new idea that can save you a bit of time.

LeechBlock

The LeechBlock Firefox browser extension blocks time-wasting websites during the hours you specify. Just type in the website URLs you find hard to resist, and enter the maximum length of time you want to spend on them.

LeechBlock imposes self-discipline by closing your browser when you’ve reached your limit!

Take a look and let us know what you think!

In the next couple of weeks (16-20 May) there’s an event called Spring Online Silver Surfers Day.

This is a national campaign with the intention of getting older people to use computers and the Internet. There will be thousands of events across the UK.

Anyone including businesses, organisations and individuals have been invited to run ‘digital awareness sessions’, to help older people get to grips with the medium.

The events can be held anywhere, from people’s homes to school halls to boardrooms or libraries. There’s no fixed agenda for organisers, but each one will be supported with a marketing toolkit. This includes leaflets, appointment cards, and posters.

There’s also a cash prize of £1,000 to help with developing future computer learning activities!

Want to get involved? If you’d like to run an event, or find out more, follow this link.