Draw Them In To Your Site With The Right "Scent"

Let me hit you with this one: Successful websites can be analyzed by understanding the visitor's sense of smell!

You think I'm kidding, right?

Yet, as crazy as it sounds this concept reflects scientific findings in human-computer interaction research which date back to the early 90's (a nearly pre-historic age in computer technology) at the Palo Alto Research Center in California. Back then Stuart Card and Peter Pirolli used the analogy of wild animals gathering food to better understand how humans collect information online. This led them to the concept of "information foraging." Hence the idea of information scent in predicting how people actually follow up on a spoor of data and then continue in following the path to hit upon the information they're seeking to find.

It's all so figurative, of course. But, that's what makes the analogy so appealing. You can't actually smell anything online (unless your computer keyboard becomes very dirty). But your eyes can translate what you're seeing and reading into a warmer feeling, which is akin to the scent a predator picks up as it follows a path to its prey.

The website developer's job is to make that scent appear when it should, to make it a bit stronger at every step, so the information forager continues on the right path and reaches his goal on your site.

There's an inversion of natural selection here. No prey wants to be caught; but your website does. You want your site to be easily found and captured. You want people to satisfy their quest on your site's pages and links. It's our job to make it as easy as possible. We want them to catch the scent of a successsful hunt and reinforce it as they click the links. To do this we make your site a nutritious meal (or even a delicious little snack) and allow the forager to sniff it out early as an easy catch.

Here are a few things we do to enhance the smell of success for information foraging:

1) Spend time on links and category discriptions. This takes some analysis and pre-production time, but it's very much worthwhile. With so many navigational options available through a search query, the hunter has too many choices at every step. She can loose the scent quite easily. There's work to be done here that you don't want to short-change.

2) Avoid using jargon and cute words that have no common usage or "scent." Slogans cannot be saught out ahead of time by people who don't know what they mean. Unless you have a universal household trade name, try to make use of short, common English nouns and verbs to in your headings, link names, navigational elements, and copy.

3) Keep it easy for the visitor to know where they are in your site at all times, and provide stimulating links and for them to continue their efforts in drilling down to interior pages and information that will satisfy their search.

4) Use informative product pages. Don't assume anyone knows your product names and model numbers. They won't know them or find them on their own. Too often product pages are nearly barren of any real meat (hence no real scent to smell).

5) Use great product photography with people shown enjoying product benefits. This helps the visitor identify with the information and understand how the product will help them.

6) Drawing the visitor with the right scent is a cummulative process. Make sure these message elements find their way into main topic pages as well as the "deep links" on your site.

Four Things Site Visitors Do Online That You Should Know

Today Web visitors use search engines as 'answer engines.' They have learned much about the World Wide Web and they now view it as a single, integrated resource (for a great discussion of this pick up a copy of "Prioritizing Web Usability" by Nielsen and Loranger). The result of this shift means they don't think or care very much about individual websites. Their information grazing habits have turned them into answer engine query animals turning stones to find digestible nuggets of information. Here are the four things they do when they visit your site:

1) They go to their preferred search engine and type a few descriptive words.

2) The look at the top listings of the search engine results page.

3) They visit some of the sites they find on that page, but leave quickly after a minute or two... at best.

4) They view most pages for less than half a minute.

With such pressure to communicate effectively, you'll want to avoid fluffy talk, vague language, misleading statements, or poor graphics and photography. You'll want to give them well written and concise information, and avoid the temptation to engage in a concentrated sales pitch. You'll want to make sure your site is lean, well designed, easy to navigate, and standards compliant.

This takes a fusion of marketing, research, strategy, creative thinking and some experience with usability studies on how people succeed in their tasks using the web, and how they fail.

How Scrolling Affects Your Website

Most Web users simply do not take the time to scroll down a web page, at least not very far down anyway. This may be disconcerting if you're a website publisher or marketer. It's likely you have worked hard on your site's content and delivered a lot of good material and data.

Did you do the right thing in developing longer copy that takes up several screens of information?

Or, should you start over with shorter pages which require less scrolling?

It is a question every site designer will consider at some point. Just how much information constitutes a page? Based on usability and tracking data, most site visitors don't scroll past the first screen of a landing page. Just over 40% of them remain for a short time on the first screen before choosing to move on, or back to the search engine results page (SERP) to click another link. For professional and business to business sites a higher proportion of users will take more time to investigate site offerings. In fact, more experienced web users will do more scrolling than people who are less comfortable on the web. The experienced user knows that important information is often hidden below the first screen on many websites. However, for any site geared to consumers, it's very important to think through the content that will appear "above the fold" (i.e. the top portion of a folded newspaper) on the first screen of the landing page.

This is a quick business. People feel pressed having to go through so much information. They're impatient in searching through web pages looking for what they need. Since most web pages offer up convoluted writing and limited information at best, users often make the right decision to keep on clicking instead of scrolling and reading. It is important to be there with what they want by providing well written headlines, subheads, and pin-pointed copy above the fold, on the landing page for their keyword query.

Eliminate scrolling, or use longer copy? What's the best approach?

Shorter pages can be seen and assesed more easily. Yet genuine in-depth content requires longer treatment. Learn the proper way to engage the visitor with strong opening copy. Make sure the first two sentences effectively introduce and summarize what the page offers. Make good use of text links within the content so your visitors can find related information easily without leaving your site or returning to the search engine results page.

It's in your interest to keep them engaged and interested. Additionally, don't be shy in helping them find your product or service offerings. You must know how to present good copy headlines above the fold to gain their interest and engagement.

Targeted Searches Have Defined User Needs, How They See Your Site, & What They Want to Find

We used think about a website in a different way that we do today. It used to be that we were expecting people might visit our site, bookmark it, enjoy visiting, etc. But in truth, that's not the case, according to recent usability studies.

Instead, the web today is one vast integrated resource for users who are not looking for sites to visit. Instead, they want answers to immediate questions, often isolated pieces of data or information, such as how long it took Lewis and Clark to reach the Pacific. Or, where can I find the best price for the new ipod. Or, give me a nice hotel in San Francisco this weekend (as searched in google or yahoo, and not through Expedia).

For most users this targeted search activity has redefined how they use the Web. They seek focused information, usually the stuff that's found on the interior pages of sites, with no stop-over for the home page, and very little use or exploration beyond the immediate need or task.

In old days, before 1994, prior to the development of modern visual browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape, a few people used the Internet to find articles, technical information and arcane bits and pieces of research. There were perhaps, 30,000 websites on the Web. The idea of visiting a site for entertainment, pleasure, or a visual tour of a hotel room, or any other kind of "visiting" simply did not exist.

Today, we have gone full circle. In the aggregate, users worldwide hit the web for specific answers and don't bother to bookmark anything at all. Their loyalty is to a search engine, used primarily as an answer engine which can dredge up an endless numbers of interior web pages to address an immediate need or task. The user simply doesn't care about the sites themselves. This kind of behavior, called "information foraging" has allowed users to search out information by through keywords more easily than by sticking with one site and exploring the links.

Much of what exists on the web is out of date in this sense, not because it is unattractive or unprofessional looking. Instead, it just does not meet visitor needs quickly and simply. Visitors are not going to browse. Instead they arrive at a page, find what they need, and leave. Maybe twenty or forty seconds in all. No further visiting, fun as that may be. It's more like this: here they are. Now they're gone.

You cannot change their behavior, but you can redesign you site to catch the bird when it's in your hand.

Ask yourself, do users quickly find what they need on the interior pages of your site? Do you show them text based links within the content area for related choices or more information? When you give away free information, do they find your product shown immediately and clearly as the solution to their need? These links (called"Also See" links) can be placed strategically within your site, on each and every page, to keep them reading and discovering what you have, both for the intrinsic value of the information and for the main selling points of your product.

This is where usability, information architecture and page design naturally flow into each other. It is the place where search engine marketing resides. Natural, organic search results derive from the way you present your content, the link names you use and the way in which your site is designed.

In the pre-Mosaic age the web was a network of information where the base unit was an article about a certain topic. It was not about websites per se.

Search engines have become the user interface to the world's abundance of information. This is good news for users, who merely spend a few minutes making their query in a brief string of key words to find what they need. Unfortunately for the marketer who is building a website, this is not necessarily such a good thing. But you can set a course to take advantage of how today's web is being used.

As they once said in the stock market, "don't fight the tape. Make the trend your friend."

The High Price of Bad Writing. How It May Cause Your Website to Fail

The power of effective writing for the Web has been recognized as more marketers strive to create sites reflecting higher standards of usability.

Yet, despite this good news, there's an overwhelming abundance of bad writing on the web. Convoluted prose, complex paragraphs, repeating phrases and vague navigational elements may cause visitors to abandon pages that might have the information or products they want, but which they're not willing to wade through to find.

Here's a few points to remember:

• Effective web writing... is clear, concise, descripitive. It reflects and reveals interior contents and site purpose.
• Ineffective web writing... is repetitious, complex, convoluted and wordy.
• Bad web writing... is disorganized and poorly written, to the point where visitors fail in performing basic tasks.

The irony is bad web writing may be rhetorically admirable, well informed, and possess an interesting style or personality. This comes from a distinction between pixels and printing. Whereas we're conditioned to read printed books, articles, and magazines in a linear, sometimes reflective consciousness, the web is about delivering usable data and nuggets of information that visitors are actively seeking. Usually, their quest is very specific and directed.

So, the writer's style can get in the way, even when the writing itself may work reasonably well in print (say in a book or article). Dump that article online and it looks daunting! A dense sea of text which fails to reveal its contents easily or quickly. In usability studies, visitors may navigate to right area of a site, only to find themselves defeated by a thicket of words. Sometimes the content is vague. When attempting to caraefully read through, many visitors simply don't get it, and leave the site.

You may be thinking, "this isn't true for me. Not for our site." However, you may want to recheck just to be sure. Sometimes site managers and content experts are too close to what they're doing. They don't realize the phrases, acronyms, common industry terms, or products they work with everyday, may not intuitively easy or accesssible for others. Also, attempts at clever writing, metaphor, lengthy descriptions and examples often break down on screen, as visitors lose their patience.

Great images help.

Good design helps.

The right words help.

Especially when you get to the point right away.

Effective Writing for The Web

Writing for the Web is very different than writing advertising copy or corporate white papers. Web visitors surf and search with specific goals. They scan for simple descriptive labels. They make decisions quickly. They avoid complex, busy pages, with confusing labels and link names. They're impatient with over-written copy that's boastful or filled with marketing hype.

Some direct mail writers do poorly at first in this new medium due to their hard sell conditioning. Yes, product benefits should emerge. But the writer must remember the visitor is already in search mode, looking for solid, creditable information. He's landing on the site, fully prepared to investigate; she's predisposed and ready to learn. They want technical information, product comparisons, frequently asked questions, etc.

This is not the time to hit them over the head with your marketing. When people enter a query, they end up with a "million hits" on their desktop. Their first task is a ruthless leap through the pages they don't want to see. And, these days it doesn't take long. Usually, a smart marketer has figured out how to design, write and optimize a site with great usability factors, one that ranks high in the search engine response pages.

The short of it: if your site won't satisfy; they won't stick around (assuming they even find your site).


Style Tips

Serve up the major point of each page in the first two sentences.

Give 'em text bullets, short sentences and short paragraphs. Get to the point!

Support Deep Link Visitors to Your Website. Here's Why

An important aspect of web usability has to do with the "deep link" and what it may mean to the success of your website.

A deep link is the initial visit to an interior page made by a new visitor. Instead of entering through the home page, these visitors will see an interior page through a search engine or third party link.

What's important about this? According to Jacob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger in their landmark book, "Prioritizing Web Usability" deep links account for nearly 60% of initial page views. Additionally, the visits to the interior pages account for an average of 60 seconds, well past the 20 to 30 second average for the typical home page.

The important thing for you to remember is to actively support this characteristic of the web. Don't fight it, as many still do, because you're proud of the home page and want everyong to gain access to your site through the "front door." It's virtually impossible to control where the traffic will come from. As the old stock market saying suggests, "don't fight the tape; make the trend your friend."

Many rich sites are akin to a house with a thousand doors. Deep linking will enhance usability of your site. It gives visitors a chance to find the very nugget of information, or point of discuassion, their looking for. An unmediated, inside scoop direct to the most cogent page. Why try to control their access to this information? Deep links enhance usability "because they are more likely to satisfy user needs." A generic link that takes someone to the home page of a site is often less useful than a direct link to an article, or a product, which is the real subject of the search engine query.

Supporting deep linking is not a difficult thing to do. But you must consider this aspect of your site when you design it and build out the site.

Better still, when you create your strategy for search engine optimization, you should consider which pages on your site are the most useful and optimize them accordingly. You should encourage search engines and third party sites to link directly to these high content, high value pages, the ones that address specific issues.

You'll end up with more traffic, more satisfied readers and visitors overall.