Language Icons

Mar 102009
 

The internet is global, and if your company or your company’s website reaches out to all the corners, mulit-language support is required. There are several techniques into supporting multi-language sites, but the one problem I repeatedly find is lack of quality control.

Don’t Stop Half Way

If you are supporting multiple languages on your site, don’t give up half way by showing just tiny little flag icons where a visitor may not even see them, and don’t do it in a way that could confuse the visitor either. Pretend they don’t understand your default. Make it obvious, and make it clear. It amazes me how many site owners invest so much into supporting a second language on their site, but then fail to support a menu to help visitors find the second language site.

Quality Control

Here is an example of an air gages site, that at first impression tackled the issue head on with big icons, and supporting text. The problem was, they sent a confusing message with duplicate icons for different languages. I can only see that as a big “Oops!”, and that there has been no real quality control on the site yet. The home page uses Canada’s flag to represent English, and Canada’s flag to represent French. Yes, both are spoke there, but that is not a normal way to represent those languages.

language

It was great that this site made it clear they supported multiple languages from their home page, and that they supported the icons with text. If the flags were all red we would still know what language click because of the text representation that supported it. It was just unfortunate of the mistaken flags. Before you cry out “Stupid”, check your own site. These guys were not the first to make a mistake like that, I guarantee.

Support it Site Wide

Now here is the opportunity to use those tiny little flags icons. When you have determined the users primary language using a method such as the gage site has done, don’t quit supporting it. If you were to dig into the site a little, support for multiple languages is lost. Imagine if you came from a search engine looking for gages, and landed here: functional gages. You are missing out on a customer if they don’t speak English. All that money wasted on multi-language support. You could have, you did the work, you paid for the service, but you failed to tell he visitor. Ouch.

If it’s a worthwhile investment to support multiple languages on the site, then take the time to make it clear that you do, and make it clear on what means what by using obvious icons or text. This is something that is often done just half way, and it could be killing many opportunities for you.

Help Needed!

Sep 252008
 

PC Enclosures needed my help. They were not making conversions. They sell pc enclosures, and industrial pc enclosures. As with most companies, budgets  are limited, especially for testing websites, so I agreed to help them out in exchange for posting a few of the obvious ones here.

Where to Start

Two things are obviously important while trying to sell a product or service. A professional appearance, and an easy method to buy. PC Enclosures, unfortunately had neither. I wonder if the site made any conversions.

helpneeded

Quality of Site

The first thing I looked for was company name, and what exactly did they do. I was shocked, no logo. If you look at their home page, they do have a title underneath the header, but that was it. Then I started looking at the quality of the site. Multiple font types, poor quality menu, drop down arrows that did nothing. A digg button as if I would. My first impression is, who are these guys, and are they for real. Well they are for real, and though they may be good at building pc enclosures, their web building techniques were not.

Credibility

Credibility lies heavily on site layout, but their are other factors that help remove the fear factor from the customer. I always like to say phone number first, and fortunately they got that one right. The problem is though, I usually say phone number first because I assume that the name of the company is obvious. I’m not going to buy anything from a company that does not reveal their name. There company name is on this site, it’s just hard to find.

Here is a little test for you:

Using the comment section below, let us know how many clicks it took you to find the name of the  company. It’s on their site, but can you find it? Post a comment below how many clicks it took you to find it. Hint: It is not on the home page, and it is not “PC Enclosures Direct.com”. PC Enclosures nw

Easy Method to Buy

Now here was the killer. It was hard to buy anything. Try to buy a lan rack. You can’t. Try to buy anything, and you can’t. I understand certain products like the enclosures would be a specialty product, but I see really no excuses for lan racks. When searching on Google, my first result produced a site, where I could pick one of their many options, customize it, order it, and all within four pages of navigation. On PC Enclosures, there was just an estimated price, and no method to contact for a quote, not even a phone number. Easy to buy? No.

What’s Your Site About?

It’s my favorite questions for new clients, what’s your site about, and what do you want to do with it. I think it’s safe to say that with this site they want to sell their products. Is that what this sites is though? No way. It’s an information site at best, and if that is the case then they really need give more information out their products, services, and what the next step is for the would be customer. Use the website as a brochure, not a selling platform.

Feel free to use the comment section below, and let us know if you would keep looking for another company after finding this one, or would give them a call to make a buy. Don’t forget the little test I made for you!

Quality Control

Sep 172008
 

My dad was a quality control manager for his whole career in the frozen food industry. I guess a little of that rubbed off on me because, it is how I often see myself reviewing sites. I have heard of all sorts of stories about how food has been handled, good and bad. Mostly though, those in charge understand the value of quality, and will spend thousands, to millions of dollars to achieve it. With food, it can mean life or death to the customer, and to the company producing it, it could mean good press or the press that can destroy a business. A bad website won’t kill a visitor, but it could certainly influence how a visitor thinks about your company.

Do a Quality Control Check

After examining the site BusinessLights.com, I found a site that was built to sell, and had obviously spent some extensive time and money properly optimizing their site for search engines. They sell light bulbs, a lot of light bulbs. Something they may have skipped though, was a simple quality control check. Something my basic analysis would have easily picked up on. Fortunately for them though it’s an easy fix.

If you look at their footer on the home page, you will noticed the font style does not match the rest of the site.

footerfont

Consistency in font type is an easy fix, and can make a huge difference in giving your site that professional appearance. Looking at another page, I even found an inconsistency in font type within the footer itself. If you look at the footer in their Light Bulb Product Index you can see the font displaying the phone information on the right does not match the address information on the left.

It’s the little differences like this that give visitors clues about the trustworthyness of a site. Would you buy a bag of frozen corn if the bag didn’t look like it was sealed properly? The same visual indicators effect websites the same way.

The Power of the Home Page

Aug 282008
 

Well if you check your stats, like I am sure most of you do, you will most likely find that the number one page on your site is the home page. There are several factors that lead visitors to it like marketing, search results, or simply the need of the visitor to find a starting point on your site. The best reason though should be its almighty power.

Give It The Power

Knowing that most of your visitors will visit the home page at least once, why not give it some power? When I say power, I mean site function. Identify most, if not all, the common things users do on your site, and make them available from the home page. If it gets too crowded there, or interferes with site design make sure it is no more than just one click away.

The site Dallas Real Estate makes a good example of this, and in fact have used the home page template throughout the site. With exception to a little eye candy to help draw in the visitor on the home page, nearly every function can be accomplished throughout the site using their top menu or the right sidebar. This has worked especially great for them because they are serving several nearby communities as well, and the need to create a separate home page for them is not required. The power is already there. See an example: Coppell Real Estate

First Impression Often Equals Quality

Another important factor of the home page, and another way to give it power is to really work on that home page in regards to quality of appearance. My first impression of Dallas Real Estate? I thought it looked very professional, and if I was looking for property in Dallas, I would at least bookmark it. Many visitors base the quality of a site solely on their first impression, and if you lose them there, well their gone.

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