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Category : Website Design and Development

What is A/B Testing – Multivariate Testing for Websites

A/B testing—or multivariate testing—is an experiment that you can use to increase the productivity of your website. A/B testing shows visitors alternate versions of the same web page simultaneously and randomly, to help the website owner find out what elements of the page need to be fixed.

Although A/B testing can be applied to any website, it is most often used for testing e-commerce websites, because you can directly track conversions, and see just how certain elements of a page are limiting or increasing sales.

E-Commerce Website Testing

You can test just about everything on an e-commerce website, but it isn’t necessary or feasible to test everything at once. There are three key areas that get tested the most often, and are usually the most important parts of an e-commerce site. These are the call to action buttons, the product placement and the shopping cart.

A/B Testing E-Commerce Call to Action Buttons

The call to action button is probably the most A/B tested aspect of an e-commerce website. You can analyze the results of different colors, fonts, sizes and more through A/B testing. The different options will show up for different visitors, and you can test their reactions through conversions. The call to action button that does the best can be placed permanently on the site, and we can continue on to test a different aspect.

A/B Testing Product Placement

How do the products on your website invite a customer to click through and purchase? You can A/B test products by putting them in a different placement on the page, making images larger or smaller, or even renaming some of the products.

A/B Testing the Shopping Cart

They’ve followed your product placement, clicked your call-to-action, but then they abandon your shopping car. Why? There are a number of reasons that people abandon their shopping carts online, and we list a few below:

• Login

No one wants to remember another password! A/B test giving them the option of just checking in as a guest, against having to set up an account.

• Asking for too much information

You don’t need to know their birthday in order to sell them a product! Try A/B testing an option where they only have to fill in the essentials, against the option where they have to fill in everything.

• Using a trustmark

If the customer doesn’t trust you—they won’t buy from you. Try A/B testing with a McAfee trustmark, and see if your customers respond well.

A/B testing is a great tool to see what works and what doesn’t on your website, and it’s a feature that Smart Solutions offers to all of our customers. Get the most out of your website, and let us know if you want to try out some A/B testing on your site.

If you don’t currently have an e-commerce website, but are considering one, we’d love to help you convert your site to e-commerce! Give us a call or send us an email, and we’ll set up a meeting to discuss it.

Flow in Web Design

Theory of Flow – Losing the Feeling of Self Consciousness

According to psychology researcher Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, flow is a positive, highly enjoyable state of consciousness that occurs when our perceived skills match the perceived challenges we are undertaking. We lose our sense of self and time distorts. People who have experienced flow consistently report the same nine dimensions:

• Clear goals
• Unambiguous and immediate feedback
• Skills that just match challenges
• Merging of action and awareness
• Centering of attention on a limited stimulus field
• A sense of potential control
• A loss of self-consciousness
• An altered sense of time
• An autotelic experience

Flow Online

Marketers Hoffman and Novak extended Csíkszentmihályi’s Theory of Flow by relating it to users’ activities on the Internet. The prerequisites for flow online relates to Csíkszentmihályi’s Theory of Flow. Flow online is determined by:

• High levels of skill and control
• High levels of challenge and engagement
• Focused attention
• Is enhanced by interactivity and telepresence—users feel like part of the action

One such example of flow online is Facebook. Facebook is user-friendly and gives you the amount of control you need. It offers challenge and engagement through its game apps. You are focused and there is interactivity on there with your friends. You feel like you are living their world through their pictures and updates.

Flow in Web Design

It is important to take into account flow in web design to ensure that users are getting what they want out of the online experience—be it targeted experiential or goal-directed. Users wanting experiential flow are usually surfing for fun, while users wanting goal-directed flow are usually shopping, looking for information, etc.

Depending on the purpose of your website, you create components, look and feel to allow users to achieve what they want from it. Here are some factors that we think affects to ability for your users to experience flow online:

• Follow basic rules: It is important to follow basic rules of websites. Users understand that websites work a certain way and use their past experience to aide them in navigating future sites. For example, a basic rule is that colored or underlined words are usually a link. Most people will know to click on it to open another web page. An example of not following basic rules is having a navigation bar at the bottom of the page. This will definitely confuse users and disrupt flow online.
• Level of skills: It is important to match the interface to the user skills. You need to understand your target audience and ensure that the website matches their skills set. If your target audience is users with basic internet skills, you want to create a website that is as simple as possible with easy navigation and clear instructions for them to experience flow online.
• Speed: Your pages need to load quickly to prevent users from getting impatient—thus leaving the site. Ensure that your images are optimized for web view and website is free from codes that will slow down the loading speed. A good SEO friendly CMS is able to optimize your website for speed.
• Good navigation: Good navigation gives the users control, allowing them to know where to look for the information that they need, thus experiencing flow online. Top and side navigations are standards that majority of websites use. Extras that would help include bread crumbs and site maps. These allow users to visualize the structure of your website.

The challenge is for web marketers to offer websites that allow users to experience flow online. Our web development team understands the flow in web design concepts and can create websites that allow your users to experience flow online.

Please contact our web development team to find out how they can help create a website that helps you achieve your goals.

Website Fonts Get a Push in the Right Direction

Thanks to the efforts of type designers, web developers and browser companies’ web sites now can use high-quality typography to enhance their company brands and make pages even more readable for users. This is great news for the industry—and for customers of Smart Solutions.  Here’s why:

For years, web developers have wanted to use a broader selection of fonts similar to what’s available for print, but many issues blocked their path. One was the fact that commercial font licenses were only for desktop computer use; others were rendering inconsistencies across multiple browsers and huge increases in page size and loading times.

Beyond these technical issues, the idea faced similar piracy controversy that hit the music recording industry, which is how to protect intellectual property over the web—be it music or a unique type font.

Now Larger Palette of Fonts to Choose From

By using CSS embedding techniques, Smart Solutions can bring this industry breakthrough to our clients by:

• Making Adobe Photoshop fonts available for use (see options)
• Ensuring that usage is done legally
• Testing and verifying new font displays well in 90% of all browsers (IE, FireFox, Safari, Crome and Opera)

We can also work with clients who acquire a non-Adobe Photoshop font and wish to use it by converting format using the TypeKit service.

Design Considerations: The emergence of more type expression can bring some challenges especially for web designers. Smart Solutions can work with your team to choose the right type face that:

• Complements your web design
• Conveys and embodies the message you want to communicate
• And offers contrast that’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye

On the Horizon: Smart Solutions expects more progress in the typography area. W3C is actively leading discussions on a new Open Web Font Format (WOFF), which encourages even greater backing and support from browser companies and font vendors.

Straightforward Ways to Improve Page Speed (Part 2)

This continues our discussion about “page speed” and what’s needed to stay competitive in organic search rankings. If you missed first blog, go here.

Though Google said that it expects fewer than 1% of search queries to change as a result of incorporating site speed ranking to their algorithms, many site owners want to improve page speed now. Here’s three simple, straightforward ways you can.

Optimize Your Images

If your images are not optimized, they can significantly increase page load times. The problem comes when images are scaled down to fit the application rather than physically being resized. What this does is require the browser to load the full high-resolution image, when it only needs a fraction. Several free file size calculators can help you do this.

Optimize Your Files

Having clean HTML, CSS and other files can speed up your site load time. A good idea is to remove extraneous and old code from your files.

Reduce HTTP Requests

Trimming the number of components on a page can reduce the number of HTTP requests required to render a page—and in turn, shorten your page load times. Combining files using CSS Sprites is an additional way to improve page speeds.

All of the ideas above are good, but the most important strategy to keep your users and Google happy is continuing to deliver relevant content.  Relevancy will always be a priority to Google; site speed a bonus.

Is Your Web Page Fast Enough? (Part 1)

That’s the question heating up blog airwaves since Google incorporated site speed as one of more than 200 signals used to determine search rankings.

To get answers, site owners are using the Google Page Speed Tool and Google Webmaster Tools > Site Performance to track the speed of their site. The tool is bringing relief to some and heartburn to others. For those of you who are experiencing the latter, let us help you interpret what the tool compares—and what comparisons would be more valuable.

The tool may report your site is slower than XX% of sites on the Internet because it’s comparing very simple pages with a few images and little or no dynamic content. More valuable comparisons are whether your pages are faster—or as fast—than your ranking competitors and comparing actual page types. For example, if you have a blog, what are the page speeds of other blogs? If you have an ecommerce store, what are the speeds of other ecommerce stores?

Another tip about learning if your page is speedy enough for search rankings, is to assume sites that have achieved first page rank in certain categories already have a page speed that is acceptable to Google. So learning how you compare to these sites is also a valuable guideline.

Read Part 2 blog that shares simple, straightforward ways to improve page speed.

Internet Explorer 6 is Dated

As you might have heard, Microsoft is ceasing support for Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) as of July 13, 2010, when it stops support for Windows XP SP2.  This isn’t bad news. This nine year-old browser is showing its wear and doesn’t cut it with today’s web standards.

The higher-performing and more design-savvy websites of today require the latest versions of modern browsers for the best user experience. Considering both realities—support and performance issues—we want to encourage our customers to ask their viewers to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, Firefox or Safari for a better web experience.  Supported browsers for admin include the latest two versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox

Our team doesn’t mind supporting older browser versions and understand some government agencies and companies use it.  However, since working with IE6 is becoming ever more difficult, an extra fee for its support will be necessary moving forward.

We appreciate your understanding.  If any additional browser-related questions come up, don’t hesitate to contact our team.  Or, if you’re interested in the latest browser trends and statistics, check out:

http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

http://gs.statcounter.com/

How Mind Mapping Helps Smart Solutions’ Clients

For awhile now, our team has utilized Mind Mapping, from the tools from a great client, Mindjet.  Mind Mapping has assisted in organizing client’s site architecture while easily and quickly highlighting areas of weaknesses for content structure.    Recently, KM World Magazine interviewed Smart Solutions and posted an article, titled Enriching Web Sites and Engage Customers Better.

Excerpt:
>>
Firms that rely on advanced Internet services for their marketing, customer relations and other business processes are turning to knowledge management solutions that measure customer response to Web sites, in order to improve traffic and to identify customer preferences so they can retain them and boost sales.

Smart Solutions, a software and Web development company, was working with a local nonprofit firm that wanted to redevelop its Web site to gain new members and achieve higher attendance at events, many of them fundraisers.

“The non-profit wanted to drive traffic to the site, then have visitors engaged in a meaningful way,” says Smart Solutions President Mark Knowles. Smart Solutions was using MindManager 8 from Mindjet for meetings and to collect relevant information from the Internet and other resources. A feature of the software enabled Knowles to map the existing structure of the nonprofit organization’s Web site.

“By exporting the navigation structure of the site into MindManager, we were able to see the relationships between different [pages and elements],” Knowles says. MindManager displayed the navigation structure as different branches from the same tree, and it was easy to see that some branches weren’t grouped together properly, according to Knowles. That meant that it was difficult for users to navigate.

“The site was static. That tends to happen because Web sites are built organically, a page at a time. After a while, they become disorganized,” he says. “People would come there, but they would leave quickly.”

That’s if they found the site at all. According to Knowles, part of the organization’s problem was branding. People could find the site if they knew what to look for, but they would likely miss it if their search was less specific.

Google, Yahoo and similar services use site navigation as part of their search parameters, according to Knowles. “That’s part of the SEO [search engine optimization] puzzle,” he says.

Once the site was revamped, it was much more intuitive and easier to use, with the nonprofit organization benefiting as a result. Some wording was changed as well, helping to catch the attention of the search engines.

As a result, the site has seen a 25 percent increase in traffic and a 40 percent increase in conversions (memberships and attendance at events), Knowles says.

Full Article
>>

Mind Mapping, as well as the other products we use and love, help our team deliver client solutions for increased web traffic and conversions on their web sites.

Bend Blogging Panel – SmartGroup Recap Notes

Thanks to those who attended this past week’s September SmartGroup on Blogging.  It was an energetic discussion and our panelist did an excellent job on speaking to the do’s and don’ts of both business and personal blogging.  Below are the presentations from Andre Jensen and Meg Thompson as well as the notes from Jake Ortman and Jon Abernathy.

If we didn’t get to your specific blog question during the Q/A, please leave a comment here and we’ll create the ‘virtual panel!’

Twitter Background Design Concepts

So, you’re a business and have taken the leap to setup Twitter account, congratulations! One element that often gets overlooked when using Twitter for business is creating a custom background image that speaks to your business objectives.  (See our Smart Solutions Twitter Background…heck, follow us as well!)  If you have questions on the information below or would like us to create a Twitter background for you, just give us a call, we’d be happy to assist!

Consistent with your main marketing brand and messages, your Twitter background should include:

1) Your logo/brand mark (typically set vertically)
2) Your tagline/brand message
3) Main contact information
4) Call to Action
5) Visual Image(s) that connect to your brand and are appealing

Image Considerations:
1) The national standard screen resolution is still 1024 x 768 – develop your image to meet that requirement and beyond (we recommend 1600 x 1200 pixels)
2) For a 1024 x 768 resolution, you have approximately 120 pixels on the left to work with your message (otherwise Twitter window will overlay on top).
3) For your avatar, use a 73 x 73 pixel image
4) Twitter limits background image size to 800k (although for speed, you want to stay away from the upper end of that)

How to implement a Twitter Background

A Reputable Twitter Example….

Tips For Launching a New Website While Keeping SEO In Mind

We have potential clients call frequently with the intent of retooling their web site. The redesign is brought on typically by a multitude of reasons: “The design is old.”; “We have a new brand.” ; “We want to get found by more prospects.” Businesses and organizations that come with a goal of creating a successful balance of creative, search and content are the ones we know are serious.

Before moving or launching your new site, read the tips below and take note:

1) Define your goals
A redesign should focus on ways to impact your business, not just look pretty. What that means is every decision, from design layout, site architecture and SEO should be focused on your goals. Determine your goals in two ways:

The first is to determine what kind of traffic you would like to drive to your site. Keyword research applies here.

Second, determine what you would like your visitor to do when they land on your site. Conversion planning applies here. Conversion planning is a guide to the hierarchy of your site so that you guide your visitor to the conversion point (be it a page to read, a product to purchase, a form filled out, a phone call, etc.) and take them through a preplanned path to meet your goal – more leads coming through the door.

2) SEO Assest Inventory
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in launching a new site is to not protect your previous and current marketing efforts that have brought you awareness and conversions to date. In other words: great content, keywords you’re ranking with, inbound links to designated landing pages (and all important pages), successful conversion paths. This is SOOO important.

Many web design experts miss this when the design focus is more important than internet marketing. Discuss with your web designer and developer a plan to setup 301 redirects from your previous indexed URLs (the pages Google and other engines know about) to your new site structure.

3) Setup your Site Architecture To Match The Needs of Your Audience (both Human and Spider)
I’ve heard the saying that “spiders are like 4 year olds with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).” With the growing statistic, even of your human audience, of having a total of 7 seconds to make your first impression online, you can see that both site visitors need the ability to consume information quickly. A spider needs to see keyword directed content in the HTML of your page (like meta data for each page and content of the page as close to the top as possible, lean-mean code basically) – a human needs to quickly navigate and consume content specific to their interest. Setting up the site to create strategic landing pages, then drill down to topic specific pages through links (i.e. siloing) is a helpful advantage to delivering clean, clear content to both audiences.

4) Plan for an Ongoing Content Strategy
One of the best ways to grow awareness and traffic to your site and convert visitors is to develop a strategy for ongoing development for content. Quality, UNIQUE content (i.e. do not copy/paste from other sites) is king to attracting your audience (both human and engine spider) and keep them coming back for more. Build content, build your business faster.

Blogs have the history for frequently updated content, and spiders know it….a blog on your website is good. Not a blog as your website…I said a blog on your website. (future post)

5) Have Web Analytics In Place; Monitor Results
The only way to know whether you are satisfying your goal (and delivering results to your business to make up for the investment!) is to track and monitor your increase in visitors and conversions. As a general rule, if your end result is too design focused, you’ll see fewer leads; If it’s too search focused, you’ll see fewer conversions. With balance in mind, results you will have…your boss will thank you for it! Read more on Analytics

6) Test, Test and Test
“Oh testing, how we love thee.” What a way to determine what’s working and what’s not? Become friends with Google Website Optimizer. Testing is like a focus group, a controlled science experiment (9th grade science comes to mind). Testing demonstrates whether the influence your agency, design firm, neighbor or web developer offered is good advice. Let your visitors tell you what works best for them…then adapt

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