Closing the gap

Usability

Usability comes first. There is no point is promoting a website that will put visitors off. A usable website is one that assists a visitor to achieve a task. So usability problems are things that hinder the visitor. They can be simple, as with a broken link that produces an error message when the visitor tries to follow it. They can be complex, for instance the purchasing process may not lead the visitor well or provide the right options and information. Or they can be subtle, say inconsistent navigation that forces the visitor to think.

There are three parts to usability:

1. Plan. What tasks do you want the visitor to perform? Which are the most important ones? What process will they follow to complete the task? None of these are technical questions. The golden rule is 'Don't make them think'.

2. Test. Chorial has several software tools available to check your website for technical errors like pages that download slowly, broken links or missing pictures. You might want to think about human testing by experts who will apply a set of rules (usually borrowed from software testing) and give objective feedback. And customers can test, the best way being to set them a task to achieve and observe while they talk you through it. None of this is expensive or time consuming. In fact, it will save you money and time - the later you leave it, the more expensive changes become.

3. Monitor. If your website changes (and it should), then new errors can creep in. Plus you should be checking that the website is available - as visitor numbers grow, the hardware you are using may be unable to cope. All of these things can be detected by Chorial.

Now Visibility

So you now have a beautifully usable website. Now comes visibility:

• Use search engines, which account for up to 80% of first time visits to a website.
• Links from other websites to yours bring visitors directly and help the search engines conclude that your website is worth highlighting.
• Newsgroups (where people contribute to continuing discussions and can follow what has been said previously on a topic) give you a highly targeted audience but need very careful handling.
• Email and text message marketing is the closest online equivalent of direct marketing.
• Advertising within web pages uses various types of banners that you can pay for or swap and can be highly targeted.
• Finally, make sure your website address is on every email and every bit of paper - everywhere your telephone number is.