As a Denver internet marketing business we try to stay up on current web trends.  This week Google launched the beta of their latest “tool.” So we are taking a break from our Inbound Marketing series to blog about this new tool and what it means for the web, individuals, and businesses.

Google has begun the beta of their latest in an arsenal of programs, entitled Google+. Clicking the link will allow you to take an interactive tour of how this new program is going to work.

Google has created a program that is meant to rival all social media platforms that have come before it.  Loaded with features meant to simplify the social media experience, Google has created what seems to be a platform ready to revolutionize the web.

The surge of people looking to be the “first” to experience Google+ has a been phenomenal.  The unique thing to watch is how people have already hastily put together not only blog posts but even webinars to dissect Google+.  It’s only been 3 days since it’s recognized release.  Currently Google is no longer fielding testers as they have “exceeded capacity” however they have a landing page for people to sign-up to be the first to know about openings to access Google+.

For the web this means potentially another competing social media platform.  Where users will make decisions on which social media platform they spend the bulk of their time on due to usability, functionality, and looks. This means potentially another section of the internet where Google has come in and taken over.

For individuals this leads to the potential of having a social media platform that is sleeker, cleaner, and less cluttered than other social media platforms.  A place to truly connect with friends on the level that humans were meant to (according to Google).  A platform that is much more personal than any other site, a place meant just for the individual and not also the business professional.  Though at some point this will either find its place there or Google will make way for it.

Currently for businesses (at least when signed into a business account) the Google+ website isn’t even available.  It informs the user that the site is not meant for the type of groups that email holder would be in.  So potentially Google will be keeping businesses off of their social media platform and keep it simply for the individual to connect.  This could be a plus, meaning that businesses would not have to worry about keeping up with yet another social media platform.

All in all there is still much to be discovered about Google+. Ultimately social media platforms live and die by the user.  So as beta continues and Google moves forward with development it will be determined if this will be the next big social media phenomenon.  Everyone knows the fate of Google Buzz, so we will anxiously watch to see the fate of this new tool from Google.

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We’re in our last article of a 3-part series on building websites according to user-centered design.  The three principles this series of articles is focusing on are:

1. Provide consistent navigation and layout
2. Focus on the users’ needs
3. Keep it short and sweet

Last month, we wrote about focusing on the users’ needs.  This month, we’ll be talking about our final principle: keeping it short and sweet.

It’s a well-known fact: people oftentimes don’t truly read web pages; they skim them.  In fact, it has been documented that most web pages are viewed for less than 10 seconds.  If people want to do in-depth reading, they’ll pick up a book, not go to a website.

What does this mean for you?  It means you need to design your web pages less like an essay, and more like a billboard. Here are some suggestions:

• Replace lengthy paragraphs with bullet points, block quotes, and sub-headlines.
• Break up your text content with images and icons.
• Highlight important words or sentences with bold text.

I would say that for website homepages, a good rule of thumb would be to avoid having more than two continuous paragraphs in a row.  Body pages, or the “inside pages,” can have more text than the homepage, because they oftentimes need to present more in-depth information — but you still shouldn’t be turning your website body pages into the next edition of War and Peace!

Additionally, intersperse your text with various calls to action: links or buttons with labels like “Learn More,” “Contact Us,” or “Sign Up Now.”  This helps guide your website users in their browsing process — ie. “What do I do with the information that I just read?”  (This is also a good sales practice as well.)

A lot of this ties in with the usability principle we wrote about last month: focusing on the user’s needs.  Like I said last month, people aren’t visiting your website to read a lengthy tome on the ins and outs of your company history.  They’re visiting because they want to know how you can help them. You need to succinctly show them what you do and why it should matter to them.

Here are some examples of websites that do a great job of “keeping it short and sweet.”

• www.FreshBooks.com
• www.BaseCampHQ.com
• www.Mozy.com
• and of course… www.Apple.com

We’ll be back next month with a new article on planning, building and maintaining your website.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about website design and development, feel free to contact us.

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We’re in the middle of a 3-part series on building websites according to user-centered design.  The three principles this series of articles is focusing on are:

1. Provide consistent navigation and layout
2. Focus on the users’ needs
3. Keep it short and sweet

Last month, we wrote about providing consistent navigation and layout.  This month, we’ll be talking about the next principle: focusing on the users’ needs.

The first thing to do is put yourself in your site visitors’ shoes.  Outside of your mother, no one is going to proactively come visit your company’s website just because they think you’re a great person.  They will come, either through search engines, advertising or referrals, because they feel that you might be able to help them with something.

For instance, if you’re running a residential plumbing company, your website visitors will most likely be people who have a broken sink, busted pipe, or some other plumbing problem, and are looking for help to fix it — and probably  get it fixed as soon as possible!  So your website homepage should immediately show how you can help your target audience with their problem(s).  It should say something like:

“Hi, we’re ABC Plumbing Co.  We specialize in:

• Replacing sinks
• Fixing broken pipes
• and many other services.

Call us at 1-800-ABC-PLUMBING to schedule your plumbing repair today.”

The homepage should also include prominent link buttons to the website’s contact page or an email address (beware of spam, however), to make it easy for your site users to contact you.  There should also be links to more info on each of your company’s capabilities for those customers who would like more info — and of course some nice eye-catching images are always a great idea as well.

In any case, you DON’T want to put something like this on your homepage:

“Welcome to the official website of ABC Plumbing Company.  It all started when we were incorporated in 1986 in Centennial, Colorado by our founder John Doe.  John had a vision of providing quality plumbing services in the tri-county area, and through his tireless work, we grew to where we are today…(etc, etc, etc.)” This text would be appropriate for another internal website page, like an About Us page. That way your site visitors can read it if they choose.  But it should never be on the site’s homepage.  If you’re a homeowner whose basement is currently flooding from a cracked pipe and need help immediately, the last thing you care about is the rambling back-story of a particular company’s history.

I hope these pointers are helpful to you in planning, building and maintaining your company’s website.  Next month, we’ll write on our third website user-centered design principle: Keeping your site content short and sweet. In the meantime, if you have any questions about website design and development, please contact us and we will be glad to help.

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Last month, we wrote about the first steps to starting your own website: setting up hosting, leasing a domain name, and producing content.  Now let’s talk further about this last part: producing the content.

When planning your website content, it’s important to plan it using the principles of user-centered design.  This means thinking through the mindset of your target audience and planning your site according to what is important and useful to them — not what is interesting to you.  You’re creating it for other people to see, after all, not yourself.  Over our next few articles, we will discuss the following website usability principles:

1. Provide consistent navigation and layout
2. Focus on the users’ needs
3. Keep it short and sweet

Provide consistent navigation and layout:

This may sound like common sense, but travelling between web pages isn’t like travelling between places on physical land, where you can see your destination approaching in front of you and your starting point slowly receding behind you.  Rather, it’s more like teleporting — you leave your starting point and instantly arrive at your destination, with no sense of distance, location, or relationship to surrounding areas.  Clicking a link between two pages on the same site is exactly the same as clicking a link between two websites on opposite sides of the planet.  Because of this, consistent navigation and visual design is extremely important.  In fact, outside of the page address in the navigation bar, the site’s visual layout is often the only clue to the visitor that they’re still on the same website.

Here are a few things to remember:

• Keep the primary navigation consistent across every page of your site. If your main navigation is at the top of the page, keep it on the top of every page of your site.  Likewise, if it’s on the left side of your page, keep it on the left side of every page of your site.  Take Amazon.com, for example.  They have a lot of page-specific navigation options on their various pages: customer comment links, related products, product tags, advertisements, etc.  But their primary navigation — search bar, store-wide product directory, shopping cart link, etc. — always stay in the same position at the top of every page.  Consistent primary navigation ensures site users don’t have to re-learn how to use your website on every single page.
• Keep the visual design consistent across your site pages. If a site user is on a page that is minimalist and predominantly blue and white, then clicks on a link and is taken to a page that is busy and loud, filled with red and orange, they will rightly assume that they have been taken to a new website.  If both pages are, in fact, on the same site, it will cause confusion for the user and will break the flow of their browsing, as they try to figure out “where the heck am I now?”  Consistent visual design across all your site pages will reduce the jarring “teleporting” effect on your website users as they browse between your various site pages.

These are some of the concepts behind providing easy-to-use navigation to your site visitors.  In our next two articles, we will talk about the other two website usability principles mentioned above: focusing on the users’ needs, and keeping it short and sweet.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about website design and development, please contact us and we will be glad to help.

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