Applying human psychomotor behaviour models to website navigation

By Rachel | Published: November 5, 2011

When designing a website thinking, about colours and a ‘pretty picture’ is just one aspect.

Navigation is important and there is a lot of good experimental research to help get this right.

Go back over half a century and a psychologist named Paul Fitts was researching human psychomotor behaviour (the relationship between thinking brain and physical movement). He discovered that the movement time is affected both by the distance moved and also the size of the target area. This is used extensively in computer mouse design and in other areas of computer interface design.

For those interested in mathematical details, the movement time is actually a logarithmic function of both distance and  target size.

More practically, the above means that when designing menus the location of items on the top bar can affect how easy the website is to navigate. The best menu design varies according to page length as this is also a function of scroll bar use.

Basically, if the scroll bar is needed to reach all the content, then the mouse will be over to the right, and will make it easier to access contact or buy now links on the right hand side.

The most successful type of top menu (for left to right languages) moves from information on the left towards actions on the right. This is consistent with Fitt’s law and efficiency of mouse movement.

Of course, other factors such as eye movement and user expectations are also important.

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Metals fatigue research helps understand website usage

By Rachel | Published: November 3, 2011

It is interesting how the same types of mathematical modeling and research can be used for very different problems.

When studying how metals fatigue or crack with time then a type of statistical theory is used called the Weibull distribution. This is particularly useful for the distribution of objects with a long ‘tail’ and works very well with long tail keyword distributions.

Recent published research has used this to look at how long users stay on a web page. Research by Chao Lui (Microsoft Research) shows the time users spend on a web page follows a Weibull distribution. This means you can use a Weibull hazard function to show the probability that a user will leave a webpage after a given time.

But most webpages and bits of metal behave quiet differently with age. In the physical world metals tend to suffer from fatigue (aging) and have a positive aging Weibull distribution. But Choa’s research very clearly shows an negative aging impact. This means that probability of a website visitor leaving any webpage decreases the longer they have already been on the website.

This can be practically applied in several ways:

  • it highlights the importance of the first few seconds and initial page bounce rate for any website.
  • the subsequent few seconds are the next highest in importance for maintaining visitors.
  • the actual data shows a flattening curve after 30 seconds, so this can be used alongside heat maps to determine where the key attractive content must be located.

For larger ecommerce sites, having suitable model available enables more detailed analysis of pages in terms of their value to be carried out.

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Bounce Rate Blues

By ruth | Published: November 1, 2011

So your SEO is through the roof, you’re consistently hitting near the top (if not the top spot itself) on search engines, if not actually at the top. Your PPC is working overdrive and bringing tons of visitors to your site…yet your conversion rates are in the bucket. A quick examination of your analytics data reveals why – despite enormously high numbers of unique visitors you’ve got a homepage bounce rate that would put a rubber ball to shame. So what are you doing wrong?

Putting aside all the arguments about deep linking to pages in your site other than the homepage, and dozens of other recognised techniques to get customers landing closer to the key calls to action to avoid losing them, it might well be time to re-examine how you built the homepage itself. Good old index.html is more than just a placeholder saying hello which people click through quickly to get to the meat of the site. It is also a powerful advertisement which should hook visitors and draw them into the site, making it an immensely important and valuable page in its own right.

Think of casual browsers as window shoppers. When you walk down a high street, there is a good chance that you won’t walk into every shop you pass and spend ten minutes browsing its shelves and racks to see what is on offer. Instead, you look at the windows to see what the shop sells, how it is presented and priced and if they have any special or unique offers currently available. Only if you see something of interest will you actually enter the shop.

Of course some big, well known brands can get away with pulling customers in on name alone but that isn’t always a possibility, especially for smaller companies, so treat your homepage or other site landing pages as shop windows. Dress them up a bit and use them as a showcase to convince customers not just that they want to buy product x or service y, but that they want to buy it from you. Yes, you! Of all the millions of websites selling their desired product or service, why should they choose to spend their hard-earned cash at yours?

The key to this is USPs, or Unique Selling Points. Don’t just tell people what you’re selling, tell them why they want it and why they want it from you as opposed to any of your competitors. Are you cheaper? Do you guarantee free postage or next day delivery? Does your service plan give free lollipops to everyone who signs up for the monthly billing option? That’s the information that will grip passing visitors and turn them from idly curious window-shoppers into genuinely interested potential customers, driving them out of the bounce rate statistics and into the sales conversion funnel where you want them.

How you present this information is of course an entire library in and of itself, but the most critical thing is to get it on there. It is truly shocking how many homepages we see every day which consist or just basic image splash (that most heinous of crimes against both content and SEO!) or a boring intro blurb along the lines of “We sell product x, and product x does this.” Don’t fall victim to the bounce rate blues, and make sure your pages are as attractive to real people as they are to search engines.

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EU Changes to eCommerce Trading Laws

By ruth | Published: October 11, 2011

A new form of EU consumer rights legislation came into force this month which has particular relevance for online retailers (or indeed any websites engaged in eCommerce activities). By October 2013 all member states governments must be implementing the new rules at a national level, but what does it mean for you, the online retailer?

The key changes which online merchants need to take into account are

  • Pre-checked tickboxes which opt customers into additional products or services such as warranties, newsletters etc, are now banned.
  • Customers can now withdraw from a sale within 14 calendar days rather than the previous seven days rule. Additionally, when a merchant has not clearly informed the customer of their rights to withdraw from the sale the cooling off period is extended to a full year.
  • All total costs including VAT, shipping etc must be displayed (particularly relevant for ticket sellers, low cost airlines and other “hidden cost” sellers).

Read More »

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The dangers of link building

By Rachel | Published: October 3, 2011

Google has stated for many years that is hates link building.

And it especially hates link buying and selling for artificially manipulating rankings.

Yet so many ‘reputable’ SEO companies resort to very dubious link building techniques.

Search on phrases such as “link building” and you will see large numbers of companies offering you the chance to get blacklisted or de-listed from Google. And you can pay for the privilege with a monthly fee. Many link building agencies will provide monthly reports on the progress towards expulsion from the search results.

Well – they don’t usually mention the last part!

In late 2010 and early 2011 many SEO agencies became complacent; they saw the real short term gains by dubious SEO and simply followed suit. Partly because much SEO work is actually outsourced offshore and partly as clients keep clambering for ‘reports of links’. But also because it worked … in the short term.

But then came Panda and some very red faced agencies had to explain just why their SEO clients were no longer enjoying top positions. Especially as all ‘link building’ has been carefully chosen, or so the marketing material goes.

But how can you acquire ‘safe paid links’?

Google phrases such as ‘safe paid links’ ‘purchase paid links’ and ‘purchase safe link’ and you will discover some SEO agencies best avoided if you wish to maintain your website visibility. Google can and does visit such websites, so is fully aware of which websites and agencies are exchanging links for cash.

Yes, some will win in the short term but this is whilst the Google team are developing an objective algorithm to hit these sites. In the medium to longer term there is no substitute for hard work and excellent copy and content to gain top rankings.

ExtraSearch do not use paid links. And ExtraSearch do not actively promote or waste time with dubious link exchange schemes, preferring to concentrate on more effective SEO techniques.

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Panda and SEO

By Rachel | Published: September 28, 2011

The latest big update to the Google search engines has been called Panda. This Google update has left many websites with lower search engine rankings as Google has included penalties for techniques such as  ‘keyword stuffing’ and masses of links from articles sites such as EzineArticles.

However websites marketed using SEO made up of Google approved marketing techniques were not affected. ExtraSearch saw no clients drop in rankings as all our SEO work is designed to be robust to all possible changes in search algorithm. We do effective search marketing aimed at providing good content for search robots and visitors alike.

But many websites that were relying on outsourced link building, lots of article generation or keyword stuffing have seen rankings drop.

Google did this as a way of trying to improve search results. Good SEO now is about web pages which are free from errors, web pages with just a few useful links, and web pages with good content not over stuffed with keywords. Google is giving more preference to reputable and established sources.

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Why blogs are bad for business

By Rachel | Published: September 9, 2011

The information on the web about blogging is one sided. It is mostly written by individuals, software or website companies interested in promoting blogs. There is very little consideration to the downside of a blog.

Yet company blogs have many downsides.

The disadvantages of a business blog can be categorised into different types depending on how often and how well your blog is updated. These can be summarised as:

The poorly designed blog

The badly written blog

The super-duper excellent blog

The poorly marketed blog

Four of the above reasons for a blog being bad for business arise from poor implementation or maintenance of the blog. The surprising one for many might be why the super-duper excellently written and very interesting blog can be bad for your business. But it can.

When a website has a blog that looks poor it can give bad impression and negative PR, and the same occurs when the content is full of unsuitable or incorrect content. This is obviously bad for business. But a super-duper one? This will take time, a lot of time to maintain and this will be taking staff away from other potentially more profitable work. So unless the blog is generating new business, it may be decreasing the profitability of the business by taking too long to maintain.

And also many blogs are poorly or not marketed, so they are not found. They are therefore useless. This is clearly a waste of paid staff time and is another reason why blogs can be bad for business.

The truth is that large numbers of businesses implement blogs without considering the business benefits. But blogs can be used a powerful social marketing and search marketing tool, and can be very beneficial if done right.

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The value of the new generic domain names

By Rachel | Published: June 22, 2011

Generic domains will be available from next year (2012). This means businesses and organisations can acquire almost any domain name they want with anything after the last dot. So the widget company could acquire and use the .widget domain.

Will this be worth is?

For most business, no, but for large corporations then yes.

There will be a cost to this process, proposed to be over £100,000, and you need to show you have a legitimate claim to this name. So buying .microsoft or .apple will not be possible.

This application cost and the fact you need to prove legitimacy means that the publicised ‘new domains for all’ is not quite accurate.

The proposed start date for applications for these domain names is 12th January 2012.

Should I use a generic domain name?

This would involve purchasing a second level domain from one of the new owners of the top level domains.. It will be interesting to see how this works in practise.

There will be legal issues with any domain being owned by ‘anyone’. Legally, in the UK, Nominet is an independent organisation able to deal with domain name disputes, but these safe guards are unlikely to exist with the new top level domains.

There will be practical marketing issues of the value of these new domain names in search engines. Currently, some top level domain names are more valuable than others. For example .co.uk and .com carry more weight than .org or .eu. In future it is probable that the search engines will rank these new domain names according to their perceived quality.

For non Latin languages the new generic domain names will be more useful,  as the new domain names will allow full flexibility with characters used.

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PPC Strategy 10 : Right strategies for success

By Rachel | Published: May 28, 2011

So earlier posts in this series of articles have shown what an effective PPC management process will not concentrate on, as this is an effective manner of highlighting the best strategies for success.

The best strategies for success therefore include:

  • Focus on Search Queries not Keywords
  • Focus on Quality Score not Bid prices
  • Use ad groups for grouping by search query and not for organisation or reporting
  • Use campaigns for optimising performance not organisation or reporting
  • Ensure you have a strategy for company name and branding keywords
  • Consider other PPC providers and the content network
  • Consider which languages you will use
  • Ensure there is ongoing keyword, search query and market research

Looking for help with enterprise or multilingual PPC?
Contact ExtraSearch to find out how we can help with a multilingual international or enterprise level PPC campaign.

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PPC Strategy 9 : Wrong completion of keyword and market research

By Rachel | Published: May 21, 2011

We do not believe you can have ‘done’ keyword, market or competitor research. At the start of campaign management some initial extensive research will be carried out, but this will be based on historical data which gradually or quickly becomes out of date.

An effective PPC campaign will have ongoing keyword, market and competitor research

As time goes by the search market changes:

Your product offering may change or website landing pages be improved which change the PPC market you are in.

Competitors change; as competitors invest more or less in paid search or vary their product offering the competitiveness of the market will change.

External environmental factors impact the market; there are many seasonal variations due to climate, holidays, and festivals. But there is also a significant impact of major sporting events or new legislation. This all impacts the search market. The last group of issues are often poorly addressed by agencies relying too heavily on bid management tools.

Key point: Monitoring and research the search market is an ongoing task, not a task done once at setup.

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