Increasingly, I'm seeing more sites designed with bigger font. Nowadays, 10pt font is considered "small", and we're seeing more and more 12pt fonts as standard. Even if paragraph text is still relatively small, headlines and titles are getting bigger.
I love it.
Bigger screen sizes now mean that we have the space. What used to be readable on the old 800 x 600 screens of yesteryear now requires a magnifying glass if you put it on a 1280 x 1024. Only a tiny percentage of users now have the small screens.
Silver surfers are driving the demand for simplicity. When you get older, your eyesight deteriorates. Larger font sizes it make it easier to read what's going on. Usability is now a common place discipline in e-businesses (although not common enough in my opinion), and time after time, usability studies show that small fonts can create unnecessary hurdles.
It's not just older folks that benefit. The rest of us can see what's going on from a distance, in poor light, on the move.
How many sites have you got frustrated with because the font was too big? I can't think of any. What about sites where the font was too small? Now, I could think of a few there.
To illustrate why big works, here's some examples of sites that use larger fonts...
The new rightmove.co.uk property search site
BBC news
Amazon
37 signals
Jakob Neilsen's alertbox
Note that you don't need to use large fonts throughout. There is still a place for smaller fonts, although they shouldn't be standard.
Set your browser to "larger" font and start looking at sites with smaller fonts. You soon realise how much easier many of them would be to use if they increased their font size.
Tuesday 20 November 2007
Sunday 18 November 2007
Free web-based mind mapping software
I do a lot of my thinking and work using Mindmaps.
Drop an idea on the screen, move it around, connect it to other ideas, and eventually build a map of how all the ideas fit together. For someone like me with a conceptual organisational mind, it's much more useful that just using Word, Visio or Excel.
I tend to use MindManager, a licenced application that is installed locally. A full licence is a hefty £199, although there is a Lite Version for home use at £49. If you want to send your maps to others you can export to PDF, and there is also a free MindManager viewer which others can install if they don't have the full software.
Recently however there are a couple of web-based alternatives to choose from.
Mindmeister and Mind42 are 2 web-based mind mapping tools which you can use for free. The big advantage of these is that you can collaborate with others and build maps together and store the map on the web.
Personally I found the user interface of MindMeister to be better. Neither are as smooth to use as MindManger, but of course - they are free!
Another free option is FreeMind, a free application (installed locally) written in Java. I haven't tried this as I already have MindManager, but it looks worth a look.
Get mapping! It's a great way to structure your thoughts and organise ideas.
Drop an idea on the screen, move it around, connect it to other ideas, and eventually build a map of how all the ideas fit together. For someone like me with a conceptual organisational mind, it's much more useful that just using Word, Visio or Excel.
I tend to use MindManager, a licenced application that is installed locally. A full licence is a hefty £199, although there is a Lite Version for home use at £49. If you want to send your maps to others you can export to PDF, and there is also a free MindManager viewer which others can install if they don't have the full software.
Recently however there are a couple of web-based alternatives to choose from.
Mindmeister and Mind42 are 2 web-based mind mapping tools which you can use for free. The big advantage of these is that you can collaborate with others and build maps together and store the map on the web.
Personally I found the user interface of MindMeister to be better. Neither are as smooth to use as MindManger, but of course - they are free!
Another free option is FreeMind, a free application (installed locally) written in Java. I haven't tried this as I already have MindManager, but it looks worth a look.
Get mapping! It's a great way to structure your thoughts and organise ideas.
Saturday 17 November 2007
Checklist For Reviewing Webpages
I'm often asked "what do you think of this web page"?
I immediately have a surge of mental activity that leads to a whole load of things I'd change. Increasingly though, the same old things keep coming up. So here's my basic checklist.
What is the user journey?
This is the most important question to ask first of all - what is it we are trying to get people to do here? Remove yourself from the page, the design and the clutter and write it down in simple steps. Go back to the page now and review the design against those steps.
Using font that people can read?
At least 10 point. Maybe 12 point if you can. Small sucks. Make it easy!
Is the contrast OK?
Text should always be either light text on a dark background or (preferably) dark text on a light background
Are text links underlined?
Ideally they should be. Exceptions are place where it's obvious that this is navigation (tabs or menus for example).
DON'T USE CAPS, Use sentence case
It's easier to read
Use only the words you need
On the web, less is more. Look at every detail of the page - forms, buttons etc - and only use the words that are needed
Is it obvious what this site is about?
If the site is well known, this is less important (e.g. Dell, Amazon, Google), everyone else should explain what the site is about. Either in simple terms (e.g. Bargainholidays.com - "more holiday than you bargained for") or in a sentence near the top of the page.
Is it obvious what this page is about?
Page title, big, saying what the page is about.
Is it obvious what I should / could do here?
The call to action, whether it be a price point, form button or text link, should be obvious. A few obvious calls to action are more effective than many obscure ones.
Is is clear where I am on the site...?
(...relative to the rest of the site). Which section am I in? How deep am I? How do I get to other sections/products like this? How do I get to the homepage?
Does the page use standard conventions?
Form buttons that look like buttons, text links that look like links (in blue), click able images having text appear to describe the link destination (alt tags).
Is the page design consistent with the rest of the site?
Thinking here about layouts, colours, imagery and copy
Do links describe what you're going to get on clicking?
("Click here" is absolutely banned in my world)
Do forms state what's optional versus required?
Make it easy using asterisks or other well recognised devices
Does error handling make sense?
Try and break the page - see what error messages you get
Is the URL meaningful, canonical and unique?
It should describe the content, avoid parameters & dynamic URLS
Does the page load fast?
Simple to say, simple to test
Does the HTML validate against W3.org standards?
Build it right first time
Does it work in all browsers, in all of the main sizes?
IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 as minimum, ideally Safari too, on Windows and Apple Mac.
Can we track the activity that we want to improve?
Install web analytics if need be, and use it.
I immediately have a surge of mental activity that leads to a whole load of things I'd change. Increasingly though, the same old things keep coming up. So here's my basic checklist.
What is the user journey?
This is the most important question to ask first of all - what is it we are trying to get people to do here? Remove yourself from the page, the design and the clutter and write it down in simple steps. Go back to the page now and review the design against those steps.
Using font that people can read?
At least 10 point. Maybe 12 point if you can. Small sucks. Make it easy!
Is the contrast OK?
Text should always be either light text on a dark background or (preferably) dark text on a light background
Are text links underlined?
Ideally they should be. Exceptions are place where it's obvious that this is navigation (tabs or menus for example).
DON'T USE CAPS, Use sentence case
It's easier to read
Use only the words you need
On the web, less is more. Look at every detail of the page - forms, buttons etc - and only use the words that are needed
Is it obvious what this site is about?
If the site is well known, this is less important (e.g. Dell, Amazon, Google), everyone else should explain what the site is about. Either in simple terms (e.g. Bargainholidays.com - "more holiday than you bargained for") or in a sentence near the top of the page.
Is it obvious what this page is about?
Page title, big, saying what the page is about.
Is it obvious what I should / could do here?
The call to action, whether it be a price point, form button or text link, should be obvious. A few obvious calls to action are more effective than many obscure ones.
Is is clear where I am on the site...?
(...relative to the rest of the site). Which section am I in? How deep am I? How do I get to other sections/products like this? How do I get to the homepage?
Does the page use standard conventions?
Form buttons that look like buttons, text links that look like links (in blue), click able images having text appear to describe the link destination (alt tags).
Is the page design consistent with the rest of the site?
Thinking here about layouts, colours, imagery and copy
Do links describe what you're going to get on clicking?
("Click here" is absolutely banned in my world)
Do forms state what's optional versus required?
Make it easy using asterisks or other well recognised devices
Does error handling make sense?
Try and break the page - see what error messages you get
Is the URL meaningful, canonical and unique?
It should describe the content, avoid parameters & dynamic URLS
Does the page load fast?
Simple to say, simple to test
Does the HTML validate against W3.org standards?
Build it right first time
Does it work in all browsers, in all of the main sizes?
IE 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5 and 2 as minimum, ideally Safari too, on Windows and Apple Mac.
Can we track the activity that we want to improve?
Install web analytics if need be, and use it.
Friday 16 November 2007
The Answer To Life, The Universe And Everything
Friday fun.
Google is pretty damn clever these days.
Try this search for answer to life, the universe and everything.
Love it.
Google is pretty damn clever these days.
Try this search for answer to life, the universe and everything.
Love it.
Thursday 15 November 2007
Geo-tag Your Location
Geo-tagging is a way of tagging a website to describe it's location.
This is particularly useful in the case of say a restaurant or hotel website or any other webpage that is about business in a specific location. If a page is tagged, other websites and search engines will recognise its position. You will most likely get better rankings for localised search requests.
Geo-tagging uses latitude and longitude coordinates.
One of the simplest ways to tag a page is to add meta tags in the page header using the following syntax:
meta name="geo.placename" content="New York, NY, USA"
meta name="geo.position" content="40.757929;-73.985506"
meta name="geo.region" content="US-NY"
(The numbers above are latitide and longitude coordinates).
If you are not sure what your location coordinates are, you can find it on a map the following website and generate your tags: Mygeoposition.com
Increasingly as mobile phone users take their world with them in their pocket, a user's location will be an important point of reference and can be triangulated from GPS technology to nearby businesses and services on the web.
Consider that the iPhone (estimated to have 500,000 users in the UK by the end of the year) has Google Maps built-in.
Giving a site a location in cyber-space has never been more important. If a business has a locations it needs to communicate that address to the wider world.
This is particularly useful in the case of say a restaurant or hotel website or any other webpage that is about business in a specific location. If a page is tagged, other websites and search engines will recognise its position. You will most likely get better rankings for localised search requests.
Geo-tagging uses latitude and longitude coordinates.
One of the simplest ways to tag a page is to add meta tags in the page header using the following syntax:
meta name="geo.placename" content="New York, NY, USA"
meta name="geo.position" content="40.757929;-73.985506"
meta name="geo.region" content="US-NY"
(The numbers above are latitide and longitude coordinates).
If you are not sure what your location coordinates are, you can find it on a map the following website and generate your tags: Mygeoposition.com
Increasingly as mobile phone users take their world with them in their pocket, a user's location will be an important point of reference and can be triangulated from GPS technology to nearby businesses and services on the web.
Consider that the iPhone (estimated to have 500,000 users in the UK by the end of the year) has Google Maps built-in.
Giving a site a location in cyber-space has never been more important. If a business has a locations it needs to communicate that address to the wider world.
Wednesday 14 November 2007
Last Days For Last-Touch Attribution?
News in from the PhoCusWright annual travel conference in Orlando this week was that there is a Doubleclick product coming that will enable multi-variable attribution for purchases.
Typically online marketeers use a "last touch" rule to attribute sales to a marketing channel using cookie technology.
Consider this scenario...
1. User first visits site through an affliate link
2. Later they come back via a paid search link (PPC) for the destination site
3. On their third and final visit (when they purchase), they type in the brand name to Google, click through on the natural organic results
Typically the booking is attributed to the last paid marketing channel. In this instance it would be paid search. This is often referred to as "de-duping" marketing channels. You don't want to pay the commission twice, so you pay the last touch point.
However, it was the affliate that created the initial introduction. How come the affliate doesn't get paid? In the real world of bricks and mortar that just wouldn't happen - everyone would get their cut.
If Doubleclick can produce something that allows a fair and reasonable distribution of marketing costs by channel for each transaction, and if this is adopted as an industry standard it will be a major coup.
A couple of implications if this is approach is adopted...
1. The value of SEO will become more transparent. Early purchase lifecycle "long tail" touchpoints will show their true worth
2. Affliates will deploy new strategies based on the new ROI models that they will face
3. PPC efficiency will be a truer reflection of actual spend
My guess is this move must be in Google's interest given Google's attempted takeover over Doubleclick. If multi-variate attribution were to show that PPC were less efficient that it currently is, companies would reduce their spend and put it into other channels. I'm not sure Google would want that.
Mind you, the Doubleclick deals is still far from certain. Yesterday the EU commission refused to approve the proposed takeover and the Federal Trade Commission has yet to rule on the merger.
Typically online marketeers use a "last touch" rule to attribute sales to a marketing channel using cookie technology.
Consider this scenario...
1. User first visits site through an affliate link
2. Later they come back via a paid search link (PPC) for the destination site
3. On their third and final visit (when they purchase), they type in the brand name to Google, click through on the natural organic results
Typically the booking is attributed to the last paid marketing channel. In this instance it would be paid search. This is often referred to as "de-duping" marketing channels. You don't want to pay the commission twice, so you pay the last touch point.
However, it was the affliate that created the initial introduction. How come the affliate doesn't get paid? In the real world of bricks and mortar that just wouldn't happen - everyone would get their cut.
If Doubleclick can produce something that allows a fair and reasonable distribution of marketing costs by channel for each transaction, and if this is adopted as an industry standard it will be a major coup.
A couple of implications if this is approach is adopted...
1. The value of SEO will become more transparent. Early purchase lifecycle "long tail" touchpoints will show their true worth
2. Affliates will deploy new strategies based on the new ROI models that they will face
3. PPC efficiency will be a truer reflection of actual spend
My guess is this move must be in Google's interest given Google's attempted takeover over Doubleclick. If multi-variate attribution were to show that PPC were less efficient that it currently is, companies would reduce their spend and put it into other channels. I'm not sure Google would want that.
Mind you, the Doubleclick deals is still far from certain. Yesterday the EU commission refused to approve the proposed takeover and the Federal Trade Commission has yet to rule on the merger.
Tuesday 13 November 2007
What Is SMO (Social Media Optimisation)?
It's simply promoting and distributing your proposition to potential customers through social networks.
To do so requires that the individuals in networks do your promoting for you, and that they are motivated to do so in a compelling way. You can't push, you have to let them pull. Give them something interesting to pull in. Instead of your site being the destination, the users' own webpage is the destination - you invite them to pull your content to them in a way that adds value to them.
In practical terms this means enabling your content to travel (through widgets for example), sowing seeds that will grow of their own accord. You also need to know where to plant your seeds. As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in "The Tipping Point" there's usually a few key individuals in any growth phenomenon that can trigger the critical mass needed to gain hold on a large scale.
Social Media Optimisation therefore requires
1. Site infrastructure flexibility to allow for distribution of content
2. Strategic thinking, idea generation (from the "pull perspective")
3. Tactical execution - knowing where and how to get your "campaign" off the ground
To do so requires that the individuals in networks do your promoting for you, and that they are motivated to do so in a compelling way. You can't push, you have to let them pull. Give them something interesting to pull in. Instead of your site being the destination, the users' own webpage is the destination - you invite them to pull your content to them in a way that adds value to them.
In practical terms this means enabling your content to travel (through widgets for example), sowing seeds that will grow of their own accord. You also need to know where to plant your seeds. As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in "The Tipping Point" there's usually a few key individuals in any growth phenomenon that can trigger the critical mass needed to gain hold on a large scale.
Social Media Optimisation therefore requires
1. Site infrastructure flexibility to allow for distribution of content
2. Strategic thinking, idea generation (from the "pull perspective")
3. Tactical execution - knowing where and how to get your "campaign" off the ground
Saturday 10 November 2007
The User-Centred World
I predict a move from user-centred design to a user-centred web, and eventually to a user-centred world.
Imagine a world where all of your relationships, communication, interests and interactions are wrapped into a single digital communication portal. This portal would save all of your contact details, conversations & messages, whether these be phone calls, instant messages, emails photos, videos, music & other media.
Importantly, this portal would transcend any one device and any one software or hardware provider. It would not be just on your PC. It would not just be on your mobile phone. It would not be just through your TV. It would not just be through Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Facebook. This portal would sync with any device that you use, at any time, for any reason.
Imagine also that this portal could interact with you in your real world as well as your virtual world. It would track your position through GPS on your mobile phone (say) and give you directions to reach your friends in the vicinity. Maybe you would exchange contact details with new contacts just by bluetooth, and this would automatically sync with your online services such as your email, blog or birthday reminders list.
Why would we want this?
Why not? The digital era is getting ever so complicated. I've lost count of how many logins I have for different sites and services. Even keeping my contact lists up to date gets a little crazy... Mobile phone (personal, work), Outlook (personal, work), social networking site A, social networking site b, webmail a, webmail b, webmail c, address book at home.
Why should I have to keep of these devices in sync? As a human being my life is being carved up arbitrarily by the fact that different companies supply me with different devices, software and services. Do I care? My friends are my friends. My family is my family, and my work colleagues are my work colleagues. Real life is not divided into mobile phone, email, IM and social networking providers.
I want to interact with the real world as easily as possible. I want to have everything in one place. That one place is ME!
YOU are the centre of your universe and I am the centre of mine. (OK, some wouldn't agree, so don't get all philosophical on me now - let's keep this simple shall we!?)
I want to interact with people I like, need or can help. I don't want to interact with the rest of the world - life is too short!
I want to interact with companies that offer me things that I am interested in. I don't want to interact with companies that are polluting my life and time with things that I don't care about.
(Don't try and sell me a bed shorter than 2 metres in length (I won't fit in it). Don't try and sell me a steak (I'm vegetarian). Don't try and sell me shoes unless you stock size 12 - you're wasting my time. However, if you offer me a DVD subscription service better and cheaper than the one I have now, I might just be interested).
Anyway - if I could interact with all these people and companies through one profile, in any place, on any device, in a way that suits me, well that would be the user-centred world.
User-centred design can deliver commercial success. I predict though that the user-centred world will be absolutely more commercially successful than our current world. It's the ultimate "long-tail" in action.
This is already happening and I believe it will accelerate over the next few years. What example trends are there in this direction?
Users requesting information (pull, not push)
Google's iGoogle (personalised homepages)
RSS feeds
Customisation of desktops in Windows Vista
Tivo TV / Sky Plus
Podcasts
Contact across multiple devices
IM on mobile phones and PC
Email on a Blackberry
Mapping relationships and sharing interests
Social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, Reddit)
Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and others)
Business networking tools (Plaxo / Linkedin)
Infrastructure
Open-source software (e.g. Linux, Android)
Open source knowledge bases (e.g. Wikipedia)
Web enabled phones
GPS
Fingerprint based payment systems
Retina scanning security systems
Wi-Fi
10 steps to the user-centred world
1. User interests will be saved against user profiles and will be updated in real time in response to user activity
2. User relationships will be saved, categorised and constantly modified
3. There will be eventually a single user profile for each user
4. User locations will be tracked in the real world as they move about
5. Profiles in the digital world will transition to real world
6. All communication devices will centre on the same user profile
7. Content will be delivered to the user at the user's request
8. Advertising will be requested by the consumer, (pull not push)
9. "Popularity" will become increasingly more important in driving brands
10. Globalisation will allow faster networking of individuals and companies in a single digital reality that is entwined with the real world
Consumer demand for simplicity and convenience will ultimately take us down this path.
Remind me to read this post in 15 years time to see if we've done it.
Imagine a world where all of your relationships, communication, interests and interactions are wrapped into a single digital communication portal. This portal would save all of your contact details, conversations & messages, whether these be phone calls, instant messages, emails photos, videos, music & other media.
Importantly, this portal would transcend any one device and any one software or hardware provider. It would not be just on your PC. It would not just be on your mobile phone. It would not be just through your TV. It would not just be through Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or Facebook. This portal would sync with any device that you use, at any time, for any reason.
Imagine also that this portal could interact with you in your real world as well as your virtual world. It would track your position through GPS on your mobile phone (say) and give you directions to reach your friends in the vicinity. Maybe you would exchange contact details with new contacts just by bluetooth, and this would automatically sync with your online services such as your email, blog or birthday reminders list.
Why would we want this?
Why not? The digital era is getting ever so complicated. I've lost count of how many logins I have for different sites and services. Even keeping my contact lists up to date gets a little crazy... Mobile phone (personal, work), Outlook (personal, work), social networking site A, social networking site b, webmail a, webmail b, webmail c, address book at home.
Why should I have to keep of these devices in sync? As a human being my life is being carved up arbitrarily by the fact that different companies supply me with different devices, software and services. Do I care? My friends are my friends. My family is my family, and my work colleagues are my work colleagues. Real life is not divided into mobile phone, email, IM and social networking providers.
I want to interact with the real world as easily as possible. I want to have everything in one place. That one place is ME!
YOU are the centre of your universe and I am the centre of mine. (OK, some wouldn't agree, so don't get all philosophical on me now - let's keep this simple shall we!?)
I want to interact with people I like, need or can help. I don't want to interact with the rest of the world - life is too short!
I want to interact with companies that offer me things that I am interested in. I don't want to interact with companies that are polluting my life and time with things that I don't care about.
(Don't try and sell me a bed shorter than 2 metres in length (I won't fit in it). Don't try and sell me a steak (I'm vegetarian). Don't try and sell me shoes unless you stock size 12 - you're wasting my time. However, if you offer me a DVD subscription service better and cheaper than the one I have now, I might just be interested).
Anyway - if I could interact with all these people and companies through one profile, in any place, on any device, in a way that suits me, well that would be the user-centred world.
User-centred design can deliver commercial success. I predict though that the user-centred world will be absolutely more commercially successful than our current world. It's the ultimate "long-tail" in action.
This is already happening and I believe it will accelerate over the next few years. What example trends are there in this direction?
Users requesting information (pull, not push)
Google's iGoogle (personalised homepages)
RSS feeds
Customisation of desktops in Windows Vista
Tivo TV / Sky Plus
Podcasts
Contact across multiple devices
IM on mobile phones and PC
Email on a Blackberry
Mapping relationships and sharing interests
Social bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us, Reddit)
Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and others)
Business networking tools (Plaxo / Linkedin)
Infrastructure
Open-source software (e.g. Linux, Android)
Open source knowledge bases (e.g. Wikipedia)
Web enabled phones
GPS
Fingerprint based payment systems
Retina scanning security systems
Wi-Fi
10 steps to the user-centred world
1. User interests will be saved against user profiles and will be updated in real time in response to user activity
2. User relationships will be saved, categorised and constantly modified
3. There will be eventually a single user profile for each user
4. User locations will be tracked in the real world as they move about
5. Profiles in the digital world will transition to real world
6. All communication devices will centre on the same user profile
7. Content will be delivered to the user at the user's request
8. Advertising will be requested by the consumer, (pull not push)
9. "Popularity" will become increasingly more important in driving brands
10. Globalisation will allow faster networking of individuals and companies in a single digital reality that is entwined with the real world
Consumer demand for simplicity and convenience will ultimately take us down this path.
Remind me to read this post in 15 years time to see if we've done it.
Friday 9 November 2007
How Facebook Will Break Into Search
Earlier this year Sproose was launched, a new kid on the block in search.
Using the principle of combining regular algorithmic search engine results with "votes" from users, it's kind of a cross between social bookmarking (think del.icio.us / Digg / Reddit) and the established search engines.
Why is this significant?
Search engines depend on relevancy. If users say "yes this is great site", it probably is. If you can capture that democracy and add it to a wider crawled base of sites, you end up with potentially relevant results.
Does it work?
Not yet. This project really depends on getting critical mass. I looked at the high volume terms for the travel sector "cheap flights" and "hotels" and there were 1 or 2 votes for the top 10 sites listed. These terms get hundreds of thousands of searches a month yet there's only 1 or 2 votes for the top ranked sites.
So if Sproose doesn't work, what will work?
If you combine an established bookmarking site such as Facebook, with an established search engine such as MSN, you could do the same thing, and (most importantly) get it in front of millions of users who would adopt it. If you had an advertising network to monetise that traffic, you'd be onto a winner.
Now didn't Microsoft just buy a share in Facebook?
Using the principle of combining regular algorithmic search engine results with "votes" from users, it's kind of a cross between social bookmarking (think del.icio.us / Digg / Reddit) and the established search engines.
Why is this significant?
Search engines depend on relevancy. If users say "yes this is great site", it probably is. If you can capture that democracy and add it to a wider crawled base of sites, you end up with potentially relevant results.
Does it work?
Not yet. This project really depends on getting critical mass. I looked at the high volume terms for the travel sector "cheap flights" and "hotels" and there were 1 or 2 votes for the top 10 sites listed. These terms get hundreds of thousands of searches a month yet there's only 1 or 2 votes for the top ranked sites.
So if Sproose doesn't work, what will work?
If you combine an established bookmarking site such as Facebook, with an established search engine such as MSN, you could do the same thing, and (most importantly) get it in front of millions of users who would adopt it. If you had an advertising network to monetise that traffic, you'd be onto a winner.
Now didn't Microsoft just buy a share in Facebook?
Thursday 8 November 2007
Will Social Networking Sites Be The New Portals?
In the heady first days of the Internet, portals were king. In those days Lycos, AOL, Altavista, Excite and Yahoo! were the first port of call for users. Remember Compuserve anyone?
For the last few years, search engines are the new portals; Google, Yahoo!, MSN being the big three.
Are their days numbered? Are Social Networking Sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook going to dominate?
There's an interesting report just out from Jupiter Research, (Published November 6th) SOCIAL NETWORKING ACROSS EUROPE, Using Localization to Drive Growth.
Alert yourself to their predication: "Young online consumers will increasingly Use social networking sites as primary online portals".
That means Google will be increasingly under threat as an online advertising medium.
Also, 3 important announcements in the last week or two to bear in mind;
1. Google (Orkut is their social network platform) have got together with Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING to launch OPEN SOCIAL. It was officially launched last week.
This is an open-source platform that allows developers to build widgets one time and deploy them across multiple social networks. Important, because it will allow rapid deployment and spawn a micro-industry of widget building specialists.
2. Microsoft announced that they will open up the MySpace platform to outside developers
3. Facebook have announced (November 6th) that they are launching an ad platform.
What this all means is that the online media space could start to change radically in the next 12 months.
Ads will be distributed throughout social networking sites, with many users using these sites as their home portal rather than Google. Of course, Google realises this. and needs to keep access to it's audience, hence Open Social.
Add to this the announcement on Monday that Google is launching the Open Handset Alliance (dubbed "Android") for mobile phones, and you can see that the war is really hotting up.
If they can offer an open platform where developers can build mobile phone applications, you can see a clear convergence coming from social networking on the web, social networking on handsets and monetising that medium.
So, whilst search engines are not dead, they face a challenge to their dominance. Google so far have proved to be strategically very astute, so no doubt they will rise to the challenge.
For the last few years, search engines are the new portals; Google, Yahoo!, MSN being the big three.
Are their days numbered? Are Social Networking Sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook going to dominate?
There's an interesting report just out from Jupiter Research, (Published November 6th) SOCIAL NETWORKING ACROSS EUROPE, Using Localization to Drive Growth.
Alert yourself to their predication: "Young online consumers will increasingly Use social networking sites as primary online portals".
That means Google will be increasingly under threat as an online advertising medium.
Also, 3 important announcements in the last week or two to bear in mind;
1. Google (Orkut is their social network platform) have got together with Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING to launch OPEN SOCIAL. It was officially launched last week.
This is an open-source platform that allows developers to build widgets one time and deploy them across multiple social networks. Important, because it will allow rapid deployment and spawn a micro-industry of widget building specialists.
2. Microsoft announced that they will open up the MySpace platform to outside developers
3. Facebook have announced (November 6th) that they are launching an ad platform.
What this all means is that the online media space could start to change radically in the next 12 months.
Ads will be distributed throughout social networking sites, with many users using these sites as their home portal rather than Google. Of course, Google realises this. and needs to keep access to it's audience, hence Open Social.
Add to this the announcement on Monday that Google is launching the Open Handset Alliance (dubbed "Android") for mobile phones, and you can see that the war is really hotting up.
If they can offer an open platform where developers can build mobile phone applications, you can see a clear convergence coming from social networking on the web, social networking on handsets and monetising that medium.
So, whilst search engines are not dead, they face a challenge to their dominance. Google so far have proved to be strategically very astute, so no doubt they will rise to the challenge.
Wednesday 7 November 2007
Web 2.1 - Reviews From People Like Me
The surge in user generated content, and specifically "user reviews" has been the backbone of many sites such as Tripadvisor and Amazon.
Why are user reviews so important? How do they need to evolve?
The importance of user reviews centres around the power of peer approval. Put simply, if other people rate something, it must be good - right? This concept is one of the 7 key methods of influence discussed by Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence".
(See my essential reading post for further information).
Peer approval has been a mainstay of marketing techniques since time began. However, it doesn't work for everyone. Some buyers couldn't give a monkeys about what other folks think. Jupiter Research found however that about 50% of users found them helpful.
(See Greg Howlett' summary at Marketing Pilgrim: Five More Important Facts About User Reviews in E-tail).
The other 50%? At the point of purchase on the web, other methods of influence are also in play. These are discussed by Bryan Eisenberg in "Call to Action". One example would be the person who is persuaded by the emotional longing created by enticing copy and lovely pictures. "Imagine yourself here / doing this / owning this" - this does it for them. Some others are influenced by the technical ctiteria of the product. In the case of a computer this might be the hard drive capacity, screen resolution, memory etc. In the case of a hotel maybe it would be the detail on the amenties, location and facilities. For others however, the price really really matters.
The important thing to realise therefore is that for a truly compelling product offering needs to relate to and pursuade on all of these fronts. You need good copy (inspirational, not just factual), great photos, lots of facts & specifications, and you also certainly need user reviews. User reviews therefore are an important part of the equation, but they're not the be all and end all.
Let's not forget though how powerful they are. They give a certain transparency to the product which gives the buyer a level of confidence that they would not get otherwise. They provide unique content (good for SEO). They give users a sense that the retailer has a wide and satisfied customer base. They also show a range of opinions.
User opinions do need to evolve though. We are only now at a very basic level of using them effectively. What does the future look like?
Let's take the example of purchasing a day trip, say a tour of New York City. It might include visits to several key sites and have a tour guide. The website would include perhaps user reviews of customers who have previously been on the trip.
Let's take 3 different prospects:
- John and Mary from Los Angeles, in the early seventies
- The Schmidt family from Berlin, with 3 children aged 2, 3 and 5
- Trixie and Noah, a young couple from London, backpacking around the world
Do these people have different needs? Of course. Would they rate their experience based on different measures? Definitely.
Consider each of the parties against each of these criteria...
The pace of the tour
The accent of the tour guide
The comfort of the transport
The cultural commentary
Highchairs and baby-changing facilities
The amount of commentary at each stop
The range of attractions
What could have been a wonderful tour for John and Mary could be a nightmare for Trixie and Noah. What could have been a fun experience for Trixie and Noah could have been hard work for the Schmidt parents. On every level each customer would view their experience with different rating scales on different criteria.
User reviews need to evolve to enable customers to filter reviews so that they can see reviews just from "people like me".
This is particularly important in the case of experiences. Experiences include things like destinations, hotels, restaurants, theatre, travel and other services. The use of a tangible product (e.g. hairdryer, camera) is less affected by personal preferences. With experiences, preferences do count. Peer reviews can actually be misleading rather than assisting.
The challenge in filtering peer review for experience-type products is three fold:
1. Identify the customer as they arrive on-site
2. Gathering customer profile information to store against the review
3. Filtering the display of reviews so that they match a customer
Imagine how powerful this could be.
- I want summer holiday recommendations, but only from vegetarians travelling with children under 2
- I want restaurant reviews, but only from business users
- I want ski resort reviews, but only from people that enjoy skiing off-piste
If you can deliver this content at the right time, you can provide real relevancy. It does however require some clever customer segmentation and profiling to get right.
Retailing is often cited as providing the right deal to the right person at the right time. I would argue that for online retailing of services, it also involves giving the right information to the right person for the right product.
That means giving the customer reviews "from people like me".
This is where the future of user generated content lies. It's a massive challenge and I look forward to seeing who can get it right and how they do it.
It would be web 2.1.
Why are user reviews so important? How do they need to evolve?
The importance of user reviews centres around the power of peer approval. Put simply, if other people rate something, it must be good - right? This concept is one of the 7 key methods of influence discussed by Robert Cialdini in his book "Influence".
(See my essential reading post for further information).
Peer approval has been a mainstay of marketing techniques since time began. However, it doesn't work for everyone. Some buyers couldn't give a monkeys about what other folks think. Jupiter Research found however that about 50% of users found them helpful.
(See Greg Howlett' summary at Marketing Pilgrim: Five More Important Facts About User Reviews in E-tail).
The other 50%? At the point of purchase on the web, other methods of influence are also in play. These are discussed by Bryan Eisenberg in "Call to Action". One example would be the person who is persuaded by the emotional longing created by enticing copy and lovely pictures. "Imagine yourself here / doing this / owning this" - this does it for them. Some others are influenced by the technical ctiteria of the product. In the case of a computer this might be the hard drive capacity, screen resolution, memory etc. In the case of a hotel maybe it would be the detail on the amenties, location and facilities. For others however, the price really really matters.
The important thing to realise therefore is that for a truly compelling product offering needs to relate to and pursuade on all of these fronts. You need good copy (inspirational, not just factual), great photos, lots of facts & specifications, and you also certainly need user reviews. User reviews therefore are an important part of the equation, but they're not the be all and end all.
Let's not forget though how powerful they are. They give a certain transparency to the product which gives the buyer a level of confidence that they would not get otherwise. They provide unique content (good for SEO). They give users a sense that the retailer has a wide and satisfied customer base. They also show a range of opinions.
User opinions do need to evolve though. We are only now at a very basic level of using them effectively. What does the future look like?
Let's take the example of purchasing a day trip, say a tour of New York City. It might include visits to several key sites and have a tour guide. The website would include perhaps user reviews of customers who have previously been on the trip.
Let's take 3 different prospects:
- John and Mary from Los Angeles, in the early seventies
- The Schmidt family from Berlin, with 3 children aged 2, 3 and 5
- Trixie and Noah, a young couple from London, backpacking around the world
Do these people have different needs? Of course. Would they rate their experience based on different measures? Definitely.
Consider each of the parties against each of these criteria...
The pace of the tour
The accent of the tour guide
The comfort of the transport
The cultural commentary
Highchairs and baby-changing facilities
The amount of commentary at each stop
The range of attractions
What could have been a wonderful tour for John and Mary could be a nightmare for Trixie and Noah. What could have been a fun experience for Trixie and Noah could have been hard work for the Schmidt parents. On every level each customer would view their experience with different rating scales on different criteria.
User reviews need to evolve to enable customers to filter reviews so that they can see reviews just from "people like me".
This is particularly important in the case of experiences. Experiences include things like destinations, hotels, restaurants, theatre, travel and other services. The use of a tangible product (e.g. hairdryer, camera) is less affected by personal preferences. With experiences, preferences do count. Peer reviews can actually be misleading rather than assisting.
The challenge in filtering peer review for experience-type products is three fold:
1. Identify the customer as they arrive on-site
2. Gathering customer profile information to store against the review
3. Filtering the display of reviews so that they match a customer
Imagine how powerful this could be.
- I want summer holiday recommendations, but only from vegetarians travelling with children under 2
- I want restaurant reviews, but only from business users
- I want ski resort reviews, but only from people that enjoy skiing off-piste
If you can deliver this content at the right time, you can provide real relevancy. It does however require some clever customer segmentation and profiling to get right.
Retailing is often cited as providing the right deal to the right person at the right time. I would argue that for online retailing of services, it also involves giving the right information to the right person for the right product.
That means giving the customer reviews "from people like me".
This is where the future of user generated content lies. It's a massive challenge and I look forward to seeing who can get it right and how they do it.
It would be web 2.1.
Monday 5 November 2007
I See What You're Saying, But...
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to spend a day with Alec Grimsley where we focused on amongst other things, how to run effective meetings.
One thing in particular has stuck with me since that day (it's not the only thing of course)...the effect of using the word "but".
"But", as it turns out is quite a polarising word.
Consider these two sentences....
A: I know we need to change customer behaviour, but I think we should follow this course of action.
B: Mary, I agree with you that we need to change customer behaviour, and I'd like to suggest that we could do it better by following this course of action.
Phrase A is our default, hard-wired way of talking in meetings. When you hear the "B" word, it instantly sounds like the person opposes you. Opposition means you veer towards a defence and/or attack. Immediately tensions can get raised, issues become amplified bigger than they need to be and sides are taken. Polarisation of opinion develops, especially when these two people both use "but" in everything they say - especially when they start sentences with "but".
Phrase B however has very little confrontation. The first part of the sentence suggests common ground/agreement, whilst the second part of the sentence takes the discussion to a new area without creating an aggressive front.
Read through the two examples again and you'll see what I mean.
Now, listen out for the word "but" in your next meeting. I guarantee you will hear it all the time.
Next, just try once in a meeting to avoid using the "but" word and replace it with "and". Almost all "but" sentences can be turned into "and" sentences. Try it and you'll realise just how hard it is to overturn your natural tendencies.
You could also try to use it in your day to email communications, your proposals, your family conversations. It's incredibly powerful.
Every day I try and remove the word from my sentences. I find it difficult and it is never easy. It is quite amazing how it can diffuse a situation that would have otherwise unnecessarily escalated.
Try it - no more but. Just use and. Good luck!
One thing in particular has stuck with me since that day (it's not the only thing of course)...the effect of using the word "but".
"But", as it turns out is quite a polarising word.
Consider these two sentences....
A: I know we need to change customer behaviour, but I think we should follow this course of action.
B: Mary, I agree with you that we need to change customer behaviour, and I'd like to suggest that we could do it better by following this course of action.
Phrase A is our default, hard-wired way of talking in meetings. When you hear the "B" word, it instantly sounds like the person opposes you. Opposition means you veer towards a defence and/or attack. Immediately tensions can get raised, issues become amplified bigger than they need to be and sides are taken. Polarisation of opinion develops, especially when these two people both use "but" in everything they say - especially when they start sentences with "but".
Phrase B however has very little confrontation. The first part of the sentence suggests common ground/agreement, whilst the second part of the sentence takes the discussion to a new area without creating an aggressive front.
Read through the two examples again and you'll see what I mean.
Now, listen out for the word "but" in your next meeting. I guarantee you will hear it all the time.
Next, just try once in a meeting to avoid using the "but" word and replace it with "and". Almost all "but" sentences can be turned into "and" sentences. Try it and you'll realise just how hard it is to overturn your natural tendencies.
You could also try to use it in your day to email communications, your proposals, your family conversations. It's incredibly powerful.
Every day I try and remove the word from my sentences. I find it difficult and it is never easy. It is quite amazing how it can diffuse a situation that would have otherwise unnecessarily escalated.
Try it - no more but. Just use and. Good luck!
Thursday 1 November 2007
Next Generation Breadcrumbs - Internal Linking For SEO
Five steps to internal linking heaven...
Breadcrumbs are a useful navigation tool indeed. Nowadays they have been given a "best practice" vote by the customer experience minded folks. Indeed Jakob Neilsen, king of usability says in a post Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful.
I know I like a page to have breadcrumb navigation. It makes it easy to jump up a level or up a couple of levels without going back to "home".
I often think of pages as being "parents" or "children" in a site. If the home page is your Matriachal Great Grandmother, the category homepage might be the grandfather (her son), the product group page the mother (his daughter) and the product page the child (her son)...
Home > Category > Product Grouping > Product
or...
Great Grandmother > Grandfather > Mother > Child
What have breadcrumbs got to do with SEO?
Breadcrumbs have everything to do with SEO. The search engine spiders will use your internal linking structure to determine which pages you think are most important. If you link more often to a page yourself, you must think it's important and search engines take that logic onboard when mapping out your site. Given that a breadcrumb consists of many links on all pages, it's a good place to start.
Step 1 - The basic state
Imagine the following (hypothetical) site with 4 levels in it's heirachy:
Home (1 page) > Category pages (8 pages) > Product grouping pages (30 pages per category) > Product pages (200 per category grouping).
This gives me a site with 6,249 unique pages.
Assume that the homepage does not have a breadcrumb, but that all the others pages have one do according to the site structure given above.
The total count of links into each page type created by breadcrumbs will be
Homepage: 8 + 240 + 48,000 = 48,248
Product category page: 6,030
Product grouping page: 200
Product page: 0
In this example, the homepage gets a huge number of links. After that, the page that gets most links from breadcrumbs is the product category page. The product page itself is not getting any links.
Step 2 - The medium state
You may not be happy about sending all of your links to your category pages. Perhaps on your website these pages are not the ones that you want to rank highest. Maybe your aim is to get the product grouping pages to rank higher. What can you do?
The next step is to try and add in some peer to peer linking. By this I mean linking from every page to all of it's "brothers and sisters". This could be done using say a side navigation bar. From a a usability point of view it might make sense as well - your users will be able to browse in a horizontal fashion. We do all the time in the real world. When we look at a pair of trousers in a clothes shop, we look at many pairs before trying some on - you wouldn't expect to have to go to the aisle end every time you'd looked at a pair.
The lower down pages in the heirachy have more sisters and brothers than the ones above them in the heirachy.
New links from "brother / sister" linking:
Homepage: 0
Product category page: 7
Product grouping page: 29
Product page: 199
Let's also assume also that your site template has "tabs" in the header that link to all of the category pages, plus the homepage.
New links from primary navigation (tabs)
Homepage: 6,248
Product category page: 6,248
Product grouping page: 6,248
Product page: 6,248
The new totals for internal links now stand as follows...
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 6,477
Product page: 6,447
We're getting there, but our category grouping pages need more help.
Step 3 - The advanced state
I'm still need more links to my product grouping pages. These are the ones I want to see top of Google's rankings.
What can I do?
Here's a simple idea. Link to every product grouping page from my site footer. This appears on every page of the site, that's another 6248 links (one from every page on the site) to each product grouping page.
New totals:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Step 4 - The enlightened state
Here's the crunch point. Here's where you might want to mess with your nice neat site structure to benefit SEO. It could comprimise your usability, maybe not.
Here's what you do.
Change from:
Home > Category > Grouping > Product
To
Home > Category
And
Home > Grouping > Product
The Category page still has home as it's parent. However, if you navigate from this page onto the Grouping page your breadcrumb does not show the category page as the parent, it will still show Home as the parent.
"No no!", I hear the purists cry. I agree that this is less than optimal for usability, but just remember this - that your category pages are still accessible through the tabs.
Why do this? Well, if I do some calculations on the resulting link count per page it now ends up like this:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Apart from my homepage, my product grouping pages (all 30 of them) are the highest linked pages on the site.
Job done. Or maybe not. You could still do more...
Step 5 - Linking nirvana
You might want to consider adding some "children" to your product pages. How about "product reviews", "colour options", and "sizing options". That's 3 pages per product page (6000 products), so that's another 18,000 pages you've just added to your site. That's 18,000 footer links, 18,000 header links and 18,000 breadcrumbs from pages you're not too fussed about whether they rank or not. What does that do to your link count?
Homepage: 72,497
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 48,726
Product page: 24,448
Now we're rocking.
Summary
Every page should have it's position in the hierarchy (family)
The URL does not need to reflect the hierarchy
The hierarchy does not always need to reflect the user journey
The hierarchy should create more links to your most important pages
Breadcrumbs are a useful navigation tool indeed. Nowadays they have been given a "best practice" vote by the customer experience minded folks. Indeed Jakob Neilsen, king of usability says in a post Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful.
I know I like a page to have breadcrumb navigation. It makes it easy to jump up a level or up a couple of levels without going back to "home".
I often think of pages as being "parents" or "children" in a site. If the home page is your Matriachal Great Grandmother, the category homepage might be the grandfather (her son), the product group page the mother (his daughter) and the product page the child (her son)...
Home > Category > Product Grouping > Product
or...
Great Grandmother > Grandfather > Mother > Child
What have breadcrumbs got to do with SEO?
Breadcrumbs have everything to do with SEO. The search engine spiders will use your internal linking structure to determine which pages you think are most important. If you link more often to a page yourself, you must think it's important and search engines take that logic onboard when mapping out your site. Given that a breadcrumb consists of many links on all pages, it's a good place to start.
Step 1 - The basic state
Imagine the following (hypothetical) site with 4 levels in it's heirachy:
Home (1 page) > Category pages (8 pages) > Product grouping pages (30 pages per category) > Product pages (200 per category grouping).
This gives me a site with 6,249 unique pages.
Assume that the homepage does not have a breadcrumb, but that all the others pages have one do according to the site structure given above.
The total count of links into each page type created by breadcrumbs will be
Homepage: 8 + 240 + 48,000 = 48,248
Product category page: 6,030
Product grouping page: 200
Product page: 0
In this example, the homepage gets a huge number of links. After that, the page that gets most links from breadcrumbs is the product category page. The product page itself is not getting any links.
Step 2 - The medium state
You may not be happy about sending all of your links to your category pages. Perhaps on your website these pages are not the ones that you want to rank highest. Maybe your aim is to get the product grouping pages to rank higher. What can you do?
The next step is to try and add in some peer to peer linking. By this I mean linking from every page to all of it's "brothers and sisters". This could be done using say a side navigation bar. From a a usability point of view it might make sense as well - your users will be able to browse in a horizontal fashion. We do all the time in the real world. When we look at a pair of trousers in a clothes shop, we look at many pairs before trying some on - you wouldn't expect to have to go to the aisle end every time you'd looked at a pair.
The lower down pages in the heirachy have more sisters and brothers than the ones above them in the heirachy.
New links from "brother / sister" linking:
Homepage: 0
Product category page: 7
Product grouping page: 29
Product page: 199
Let's also assume also that your site template has "tabs" in the header that link to all of the category pages, plus the homepage.
New links from primary navigation (tabs)
Homepage: 6,248
Product category page: 6,248
Product grouping page: 6,248
Product page: 6,248
The new totals for internal links now stand as follows...
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 6,477
Product page: 6,447
We're getting there, but our category grouping pages need more help.
Step 3 - The advanced state
I'm still need more links to my product grouping pages. These are the ones I want to see top of Google's rankings.
What can I do?
Here's a simple idea. Link to every product grouping page from my site footer. This appears on every page of the site, that's another 6248 links (one from every page on the site) to each product grouping page.
New totals:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 12,285
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Step 4 - The enlightened state
Here's the crunch point. Here's where you might want to mess with your nice neat site structure to benefit SEO. It could comprimise your usability, maybe not.
Here's what you do.
Change from:
Home > Category > Grouping > Product
To
Home > Category
And
Home > Grouping > Product
The Category page still has home as it's parent. However, if you navigate from this page onto the Grouping page your breadcrumb does not show the category page as the parent, it will still show Home as the parent.
"No no!", I hear the purists cry. I agree that this is less than optimal for usability, but just remember this - that your category pages are still accessible through the tabs.
Why do this? Well, if I do some calculations on the resulting link count per page it now ends up like this:
Homepage: 54,496
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 12,726
Product page: 6,447
Apart from my homepage, my product grouping pages (all 30 of them) are the highest linked pages on the site.
Job done. Or maybe not. You could still do more...
Step 5 - Linking nirvana
You might want to consider adding some "children" to your product pages. How about "product reviews", "colour options", and "sizing options". That's 3 pages per product page (6000 products), so that's another 18,000 pages you've just added to your site. That's 18,000 footer links, 18,000 header links and 18,000 breadcrumbs from pages you're not too fussed about whether they rank or not. What does that do to your link count?
Homepage: 72,497
Product category page: 6,256
Product grouping page: 48,726
Product page: 24,448
Now we're rocking.
Summary
I hope I've got the maths correct in this post. If you find any errors be sure to let me know, but either way, the principles behind it do work.
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