The Difference a Test Can Make

Mar 042010
 

Here is an easy example on why you should use more than one type of web browser for testing your site. A special thank you goes to Premium Concert Tickets for allowing me to use one of their pages as an example: Michael Buble Tickets.

The IE Version

Still building websites in IE? There is nothing wrong with that. Still building website in IE, and not testing it with another type like Firefox? Crazy! I test intranet sites that I make for only IE6 users with other types of browsers. I have to, if I want high quality. Besides, there is something wrong with IE. Continue reading »

Test Document Readability

Feb 122010
 

utility

My writing stinks you say. Eh…you may be right. I check my spelling, and try to make sure everything is correct. Still though, I know I need help.

Good news for me? It looks like I just found some help, and have even put this post to the test. It’s the Document Readability Test. The test reveals the number of characters, sentences, and reading comprehension level. The results also show ways to improve readability of text, and lists the most offending sentences. Continue reading »

Poll – How Often Do You Test Your Site

Apr 222009
 

Test your site very often? I’m sure most of us had found an important part of one of our sites not functioning. Contact forms, ordering forms, simple navigation, html, php, asp, javascript, java, cgi, just way, way too many ways to mess things up. All because of that dang semi-colon you forgot.

I know most users have experienced failed forms, even when trying to make an order. Yikes! So I wonder…how often do you test your sites?

Here is the poll: Website owners, how often do you test the functionality of your sites?

Archive of Web Usability and Design Polls

Test Your Site

Apr 202009
 

You just made some minor changes to you site, nothing big, but wait! You’re not done yet. This post is just a friendly reminder to start your week out right by testing your site. Yeah, Yeah you say, my site works fine. Here is a little poll that you may like: Order Forms. Feel free to vote on it.

Way, way too many times we simply hit and run, making changes to our site, and don’t even bother to make sure it’s working right. I’ve ton a ton of usability testing on sites where their online order form simply did not work. Talk about poor usability. No wonder so many site owners can’t afford getting an analysis, they are not making any sales.

Make Any Changes Equal Test

What inspired me to write this post was an analysis I was doing this morning on Rock Music Forum. I had to put on the brakes second one. The site administrator had accidentally changed the permissions to the forums, and it appeared that you had to be a member to simply read it. At first I thought this was the way they wanted to keep it, so I created an account to see how life was behind the brick wall. What I found was that the  administrator forgot to test their site after making some changes. I still couldn’t read any of the forums, and obviously could not even post. Big Whoops. If they had tested, a two second fix would have solved the problem.

Way Too Much To Lose

I can not stress how important it is to test. There is simply way too much to lose. In the case of the Rock Music Forum the owner was not only missing out on gaining new members, but was also killing off the existing members. That equals marketing dollars lost twice!

If you forget marketing money lost, don’t forget potential revenue lost. No sales on your site often equals sales on another site, a.k.a. your competitors. It’s bad publicity, and it’s bad for your pocketbook. Too many times I have found order forms that simply don’t work, and I am betting one of you reading this will find a broken form as well.

Broken Equals A Better Option Someplace Else

In regards to the Rock Music Forum the site was only “down” for a few hours, but imagine if those changes had been done right before the weekend? Think you want your rock music forum down on a Friday or Saturday night? Visitors are getting more and more used to finding broken sites, and they are also learning. They are learning to go to the sites that don’t break, or very rarely break leaving the junk second one.

Meta Power Test, Part II

Apr 102009
 

Testing to see how your meta description can improves the number of clicks you get when your site is displayed in search results. The original post, can be found here: Meta Power Test

So Far

So what has happened so far? Well the good news, the Digital Point Forum Down Post was recently cached with the new description, April 7th. It’s still ranked sixth for the keyword “digital point forum”, and it now reflects the new description. All has gone as planned so far. What do the stats say though? Have I received more than one hit from Google? Well I have gotten  three so far. Hardly a record, maybe for worse, but that is a one a day average. Far better than one hit a month, like it was getting.

Fine Tuning

So if it continues to get one hit a day, I think it’s safe to say that a good idea is to turn your description into a selling point. I want more than one click a day though, and I think I can get it. Digital Point is pretty dang popular, and doing a little SEO research the keyword phrase is getting used 140 times a day by Google. Sixth place ranking should get more than 1% of the traffic. Shouldn’t it? So I am coming up with a new description for the post, and see if it improves the odds a little more. Stay tuned for part three!

Meta Power Test

Apr 042009
 

Testing the power of Meta. Today I decided to do a little test, and as time goes on I will share the results. I’m sure many of you have heard of the forum, Digital Point. It has an Alexa rank of 240, so you can be certain millions of people have heard of it. Anyhow, a post I wrote a while back about the forum being down, ranked 10th or better for the keyword “Digital Point Forum” on Google. You could imagine I get a ton a traffic from that. Well, I don’t.

Ranking Well Doesn’t Do All the Work

Just because the post is ranking well, currently 6th, it doesn’t mean I’m going to get clicks. The title of the post is the first turn off. “Digital Point Forum Down”, I don’t think many will be clicking on that when looking for their forum. The meta description, this is what this post is about, was simply the first sentence of the post. When I made the post, I was not thinking keyword value or anything. It was simply a notice to my visitors, and I put little effort into optimizing it. The end result, poor title and description generating poor click thrus. Want to know how poor? In all of March Google analytics reported just 1 visitor to the post from the search keyword “Digital Point Forum”, even though it was a fairly popular post to my regular readers.

Getting More Clicks

So knowing I only got one click for all of March from Google for that search term is a little disappointing, but it can now make a great example. Here is how a  great description described in your meta tag can change these horrible numbers. Instead of using the first boring sentence from the post like I was, I have changed the description to say this, “Before you join the Digital Point Forum, read this”. I have turned the description into an ad. Think it will beet last months report of just one click?

Another thing to consider here is if I didn’t change that meta, and continued to not get clicks, think Google will keep ranking that post well? I think not. The race is on for me to take the opportunity, and start getting those visitors to click the free ad, I mean meta description. I’ll make a post next week on how it’s going. First I need the page to get cached again. Look for Putting Your Meta to Work Part II.

Five Second Test

Jan 042009
 

Here is a very cool little website for you to get some quick feedback, Five Second Test. Five Second Test lets you create simple usability tests that take about five seconds for the test subject to take. Other visitors of the site, like yourself, are the test subjects.

They have three different types of tests. All of them require that you upload an image or two of your site (or whatever it is you are testing), and they do the rest. Takes about one minute to create a test, and in one minute you can easily help a few others out by taking the tests of your own. Here is the one I made for BWI: http://fivesecondtest.com/test/8521ab9

This is a great idea, and was something I wanted to do myself. I have the weekly site feedback post, but that is for just one website at a time. You can use this service to test your logo, a landing page, icons, whatever.

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!

Testing Your Layout

Sep 222008
 

backgroundcolorI was aksed to checkout this MySpace Layouts site, and right away I guessed the author used Internet Explorer to make sure it looked right. Why? Because IE nicely corrects some of the formatting errors we webmasters make. Looking at the screen shot I made here, you can see Firefox and Google’s new Chrome are not so nice.

Format Error

Blipsy is a MySpace Layout site. You MySpacers will probably like it most for its scroller sign that looks like a LED scrolling sign. The formatting mistake they made, was that they left the Blipsy Bits section in the dark. They had black text over a dark blue background. It seems tedious, but every time I make a change to a site I do two things. I check I didn’t mess up the format somehow, and I check that the markup validates. The XHTML link you see in the footer in my site, is actually for me, and not so much for the visitor. I constantly check for errors, and it’s the easiest way.

How To Test Your Layout

To check my layout, I use Browsershots. With Browsershots you can check what your site looks like with different browsers, and different versions of the browsers. It’s easy to use, and it’s free, so no excuses!

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