Yesterday, a new client found my site through a webmaster forum, and ordered my basic web usability and design analysis. What I found when doing the analysis was inspiration for this post, and a “oh man, they need to fix that” scenario. The site is Nibbo.com, and don’t let their current home page fool you. Give it a test search, and when the results page kicks in decide how much you like it then.

How did Nibbo inspire this post? It had an easy fix that could be applied to many sites, and I thought I would share that fix along with a few others.

Improving Your Website Quickly

Nibbo’s issue was a big one. If you read my recent post, Targeting Sources for Better Visitors, you can see how killer content can play a major roll. Killer content doesn’t start and stop with the written word though. It can also be a great feature, and this is just what Nibbo has. They blasted their left sidebar on the search results page with all sorts of killer content. They gave image results, Wiki results, news results, and more. The left sidebar rocks on their site, and if you have an account with them it just gets better. Their big mistake? They were hiding their killer content.

Hiding Killer Content

The Nibbo site looks and performs well, but it has one major issue. New visitors are all bouncing away. Why? The new visitors our bouncing because Nibbo is hiding their killer content. When you enter Nibbo’s home page you get the appearance of yet another boring search engine. If you were to go beyond the home page though, you would find a very powerful search. It’s a killer site with killer content, but unfortunately it’s all hiding away behind just one click. They have my analysis, and hopefully they will fix soon. The first tip here is: don’t hide your killer content.

Matching Your Visitors Expectation

Here is a huge one, and it is often easier said than done. Here is a scenario I came across Saturday. A site owner asked for reviews of their sandal site. I checked it out, and the first thing I saw was a large picture of several types of woman shoes. Scrolling farther down I found more pictures of shoes, but in fact, did not see one picture of a sandal. Without reading a word, you can bet sandal shoppers will skip this site right away. Don’t forget your target audience! They were expecting something when they landed on your site. Do you know what it is?

This concept sounds easy enough, but the reason I say that it is often easier said than done is because Mr. Time plays a big roll with all sites. Things change over time. Ideas are lost, sites expand, focus changes to better fit new demands. Time plays all sorts of games with a website, and the only way you are going to control it is by sticking to a written plan.

Invest Time in Your CSS File

One of the easiest ways to make your site appear more professional, and make it easier to use for new and return visitors is by having a consistent website. I honestly believe the best way to improve your website is to simply lay down the law in regards to how you handle every scenario, and your CSS file is the best tool to help you accomplish this. Make all paragraph text the same size, define all the different heading tags, identify all emphasized content, and the list goes on.

As web developers, we should all know by now that every second counts when a visitor lands on your site. Do you want a new visitor spending ten seconds trying to understand a new format on page two of your website, or ten seconds reading your call to action? Laziness in coding is similar to sleeping at the cash register. Avoid it, stand up straight, and stop letting your sites format be the excuse for a poorly performing website.

The Best Way To Improve Your Website

One of my favorite ways to improve a site, though it contradicts this sites purpose, is to stop going to other sites to improve yours. Right now you are wasting valuable time reading this post when you could be working on improving your site. Right now, besides you reading this, their are about a million or so part time webmasters out their looking to improve their own websites, and the first thing they do is search Google for ways to do it. Don’t expect to find a magic answer to this one. How could I possibly know what is best for your site without even looking at it or, or knowing what it is about?

The best way to improve your own site is by analyzing it yourself first. Then get test subjects to test your site. Test everything on your site. Get feedback for everything (not just stats), know what your target audience really wants, and why they want it. Those kind of answers are not available through other sites. Yes, their are some general guidelines you can find on other sites like this one, but the golden stuff, the stuff that is most influencial, can only be found by visiting and testing the site that means most, yours.

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