How do users find information on your website?

There are three primary methods for accessing, finding and exploring information on a website and each method must be optimized for usability standards so that they are easy and intuitive to use:

1. Access: The website’s first and second level information architecture;
2. Find: Search and information access through search engines
3. Explore: Guided navigation using content indexes to drill down to explore, find and access desired knowledge and information.

When is it time to refresh or create a new website?

There are some important new trends related to user needs and website usability factors that contribute to the decision to refresh and redo an entire website:

• Evolving User/Customer/Stakeholder Needs:

• User needs and audience expectations change due to organizational priorities, new methods of working, and new information.

• · Continually improving website usability standards

• Websites must remain fresh and relevant to users and potential users in order to have them continually return for knowledge acquisition and to want to contribute information and knowledge;

• User expectations for information acquisition, search, retrieval as well as usability standards change frequently as the world wide web grows and adapts therefore it is important that website managers respond to this by undertaking reviews of content, usability and bringing the system up to date regarding the most current standards for KTE (knowledge transfer and exchange) and usability.

• Other tools and information sources become available, therefore organizations wish to remain leading edge in understanding their audience and user needs for information in order to remain relevant; and 
•  Importance of establishing website goals: Organizations that wish to remain the leading or premiere sources of information and by extension have their users and stakeholder continually returning to their website must be cognizant that there are three primary methods for accessing, finding and exploring information on a KTE website and each method must be optimized for usability standards so that they are easy and intuitive to use:

1. Access: The website’s first and second level information architecture;
2. Find: Search and information access through search engines
3. Explore: Guided navigation using indexes to drill down to explore, find and access desired knowledge and information.

• To remain fresh, appealing and bring users back the website must have an easy, intuitive means to upload new knowledge and information in a variety of formats;

• That usability standards are present and systematically accounted for on the website to make the user experience as easy, simple and rewarding as possible.

It is important to note that new technologies and indeed a refreshed design may help to increase the awareness and penetration of the ideas, practices and methods as part of a broader marketing strategy. The corporate or product marketing strategy and any new directions for the website need to be aligned carefully.

Websites are living, breathing and need to be fed

To remain the premiere source of information and knowledge on a given topic, managers of web technologies are increasingly recognizing that their websites need to be living, dynamic tools which must be “fed” very regularly with the best and most current information.

These websites must be so useful to visitors by allowing efficient access and discovery such that their audiences and stakeholders continually want to return to retrieve information or offer new information to keep the website populated, dynamic and continually living, taking in and breathing out new knowledge and insight.

Establishing website goals

There are usually three over-arching goals for organizations that either want to refresh/redevelop their current site or plan a new website: 

• Goal No. 1: A website should have a detailed roadmap that sets out what new content should be added, the new fields required for its database and a set of detailed requirements that will guide the enhancement of the site’s user experience, web interface, its functionality and plot out the information architecture.

• Goal No. 2: Existing stakeholders and users should have access to the most current and robust information and research available that is easily accessible, easily found and available to them in a variety of formats that serve their needs and purposes.
  

• Goal No. 3: New customers, new users and new stakeholders should be able to easily find and access your website's information because the site and its content are optimized to return first page results from the leading search engines and because compelling marketing strategies are in place to promote the website and direct new users to the site.

By satisfying these three goals, your website becomes a leading source of information populated with relevant, timely, comprehensive, and current information that is available and published to the web in a variety of formats so that your users access your content in the way they want, in the format they want, when they want it.

Customer focussed websites

Want to know the secret of great websites? These sites are focused on how their customers find information. Sounds simple, but it rarely it unless intuitive usability principles are added. Check out these websites are my favorite example of great customer focus and design:

1. Web 2.0: iGoogle 

• customization, personalization, choice of many web parts, searchable, scannable web parts that can be displayed on my custom view, RSS options
  
• My iGoogle homepage contains many daily organization and inspirational web parts:
  

• to-do lists
• shopping lists
  
• sticky notes
  
• daily announcements/updates from my kids' schools
• motivational quotes

2. Commercial site: Kohler Bath and Kitchen

 

• excellent example of picklist guided navigation using Flash
• excellent use of search and access technologies
• excellent ways to navigate to get to desired information
  
• customer focused design, interest, movement
• best of smart web design driven by business objectives and satisfying customer needs

3. Non-Profit/Governmental Site: Centers for disease control and prevention (www.cdc.gov)

• best practice usability research went into site design
  
• smart indexing
• best of federated site search
• full level navigation by topic, audience, corporate

Finding and accessing website content

There are three fundamental ways that people find information and reports on a website:

1. By Navigation, i.e. a website's information architecture
2. By search
3. By an A-Z index

The secret is to ensure each one is properly configured and optimized.

One of the best search panels I have ever seen was used by the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) in the US.  I had the privilege of creating a search panel for another client pictured here and used some of the basis of the CDC's usability research into search best practices to create it:

Writing for the Web and Search Engines

It's simple really. If you've written well for the web, you've written well for search engines. That's because spiders crawl like people prefer to read on the web: titles, subheadings, highlighted words, bullets, hyperlinked text and use of short paragraphs with the most important information at the top of the page. All of these are listed in order of priority. For titles and subheadings, use plain language phrases that your users will Google and you'll start coming out on the top searches.

Who's Linking to You?

One of the best ways to get your site to the top of search engines, is to have reputable sites linking to your website. It's very easy to find out who and how many organizations and websites are linking to your website or blog.

In Google's Advanced Search, type your url into "Links: Find pages that link to the page"
To find out right now go to google, copy this link, and add your website name: link:www.yourwebsite.com

5 Steps to Getting Reports to the Top of Search Engines

These 5 steps in order from most important, are critical to being found on the web as search spiders go to these first in succeeding order:
1. Title your report to be found.
How would your clients/users/viewers google your information? This is what you want to name your report.
2. Add metadata such as keywords, descriptions, subjects and authors to your PDF document properties and save these to the PDF.
3. Add a title to your webpage.
Make it the same subject, title or keywords as for your report.
4. Use hyperlinks text descriptions on webpages to point to other relevant information within your site.
5. Get links from other organizations linking to your report, website or information.

Stay tuned to the next post to find out who and how many organizations are linking to you.

Corporate Web Marketing

This could easily be called "Powering the Invisible Web" because for corporate marketing using the web, the most important factors are what goes on behind the scenes. Today everyone googles: 91% of hospital CEO's google first to find information they are looking for. So things like search engine optmization, the 5 factors to get reports and information to the top of search engines, are critical to being found and providing credible information for an authoritative source.