This post is following a discussion with a new client on her recent visit to a museum in London, she explained at the entrance the signs were large and brief, and she was able to ventured further, deeper into the individual categories of the museum where she found the level of information more detailed, you know the dusty cabinet of fossils, and antiquities.

Let visitors navigate where they want to go, without confusing them
Very detailed level of information from the start of an experience, is too much for most users, in this example, she may have not have successfully navigated deeper into the museum archives. And the museum would have failed to entice visitors to the various areas of the museum,

It’s all about seeing how far you can get, without being too bombarded by information.

This is the same as website navigation, when you visit your next site, think about the messages you see on the page, is it clear? do you understand what it means? where will you go if you click on the button or text link?

The methods that are used signpost a web-site will affect the number of areas visitors view per visit, and the length of time they spend on each page. If they are frustrated by not knowing what page there are on, or if they cannot find the correct information they will exit the site and may not even come back.

The maps below shows how a museum is organised, the rooms, the levels, can visitors understand this map to have a relaxing, enjoyable experience?

Meeting the mental model of your users

Every visitor who comes to a web site, will have built up a mental model of how the site is organised. If the site structure or ‘information architecture’ does not meet their mental model then this leads to negative, confused feelings which ‘turns off’ the user. By testing web sites early, you can easily measure how successful you have met the needs and requirements of your users.

There has to be something very interesting on a site for someone to read an entire article or story about a subject. Normally you will have lost people by the second or third paragraph, but that’s another subject – copywriting.

We were pleased to be interviewed by Dave Chaffey – who is one of the UK’s best known professional in search and marketing.

Where we discussed a variety of subjects, including ‘user centered design’, and meeting client business goals. As well as showing some examples of effective and clear design process that make it easy for a site user to understand how a web site can help them in their task to achieve their tasks on the web.

Perhaps the most important question for a client is ‘essential pitch questions’ that you should ask any web design company, to help distinguish between an agency that will be good, and one that is going to be great and deliver results.

Read the full interview

Ideally you should be monitoring the vibe of your relationship with your client throughout the project process. However, at the end of a phase, like a launch, or new site release is best.

Why review? At the most basic level it’s time for you the service provider/supplier and your client to get together and be upfront and honest about what worked and more importantly what didn’t so you can avoid the same mistakes again in the future with them and with you other client relationships.

It’s OK to make mistakes, we’re all human, if you do admit it and be authentic. At the same time embrace negativity, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Our surveys usually follow a set pattern of questions (5 being the highest grade):

1. Overall how happy our you with the service given (1 to 5)
2. Quality of information given (1 to 5)
3. Personal service given (1 to 5)
4. People you have dealt with – how much do you think you could rely
on them to do a good job (1 to 5)
5. In terms of how you feel overall about the service provided by
(Company Name) (1 to 5)
6. Would you feel comfortable referring you to a friend or colleague
(1 to 5)

This type of survey can be done face to face during a meeting, or if a number of people are involved build this survey on wufoo or surveymonkey.

Why not even involve your colleagues and co-workers to see how you done. It’s a really valuable chance to find out how you done. And the only way to develop and build your business from a good to a great business that your clients will refer personally to people they deal with on a daily basis.

Feedback from your clients brings value to the products your business is selling. It gives more confidence and trust to the client, making future work always more likely.

Remember, it costs less money to keep existing clients than find new ones. Look after them, and you may just find that they will do marketing for you as well as be open as you should be in your dealings with your customers.

How do you do it? We’d love to know.

PageRank is a numerical calculation based on the numbers of links that exist to a site with absolutely no consideration as to their relevance and context for your site.

A part of our web site promotion services, a lot of our customers get worried when their sites drop PageRank, due to a new algorithm Google is ranking sites by usually.

Hopefully, this post should clear up the aspects of what you need else you need to be aware of in the current search marketplace.

PageRank is scored out of 10, and is measured by the relevancy of incoming links, site content and external links.

PageRank is, at best, a blunt geometric measure of the likely authority of a site, but frankly, it is the furthest thing from a real assessment of whether you have good link reputation. It is a red herring, let’s try to stop worrying about it.

To make real progress in SEO you must attend to:

• Visibility – the technical accessibility and structure of your content to
  Google
• Content – such that it is consistent with how your prospects actually search
• Reputation – do things that makes your site irresistible as a link target
  for relevant sites

People spend lots of money that they are wasting every month on that poor linking building and other SEO old school services like submitting to search engines.

The way to get your site ranked high involved little effort, just plain old relevancy. 3 amazing links are better than 10,000 paid for / irrelevant ones. PageRank is great if used properly, along with word of mouth, when journalists write about the URL, make sure they drop the link in the online article or it’s completely useless to anyone.

Videos of the experts explaining current SEO ideas at PubCon:

Interview with Matt Cutt’s which covers these ideas and changes at Google.

Interview with Bruce Clay’s ideas on the future of SEO

After meeting one of the founders at this years SXSW I was intrigued to see how companies and customers participated together.

As part of our rebranding and new business aims we think this is a fantastic way for people to ask questions and comment on our services and products.

Get Satisfaction is a place where customers can get the most from the products they use, and where companies are encouraged to get real with their customers.

Check out our profile, why don’t you ask us a question whilst you’re there

This post is regarding online brands, and accompany notes from Internet world which was a while back now, however it’s always a good free event to visit and see the big brands and startups represent themselves in a competitive marketplace on and off-line.

There were lots of seminars on search to content management, from hosting to email, some terrible powerpoint slides.

One particular highlight was Andy Hobsbawm’s (Agency.com) Keynote on “How people value brands and brands value people in an interactive world”.

Below are some quote and points from his Keynote:

• Be a verb not a noun
• Go with the flow
• Be a guide not a gateekeeper

“Today ‘the virtualisation of everything’ is possible”

“A brand is not what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is”

“No place for brands to hide, as information flow to the consumer is so great on the internet”

“The internet is one big social network, email being the biggest tool for networking”

“Don’t assume customers don’t know anything nowadays, they now have the information by searching for the answer = information driven”

“Exploding connections on the web means that brands can’t be linear anymore”

With Web trends and technologies moving at a phenomenal rate recently, I feel the customer has a vast and often bewildering array of services offered to them. However, how do they know which one is best for them?

That is where our company can help, as well as complete rebranding with a web site redesign we have improved the message we are giving our new and existing clients. Making it easy for you to do business on the web, with our experience in web design and development often utilising new and emerging web technologies.
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