Content Questions

February 06, 2008

Search engine optimization and usability

How can we optimize our site content for search engines but make sure it’s usable for people, too?

If you care about search engine optimization, then you most likely want users to find your site or landing page (through paid search or natural search) and take some action that’s important to you (e.g., buy something, subscribe to a newsletter, request to be contacted). It’s not enough just to be listed high up in the search results—your content needs to be optimized for people to understand and use, or they’ll click away.

For both search engines and people, it’s usually smart to put the most important information first, in page titles, headings and paragraphs (using topic sentences). Also, do your best to provide the information using the users’ vocabulary, not necessarily your own.

You also should write your link text very carefully. A link that says “click here” is relatively slow and difficult for users to process, because they have to read more to predict what they’ll get if they click on it. A “click here” link also is a wasted opportunity to tell a search engine what the link is specifically about, so your page is seen as less relevant.

Trying to trick search engine sites by inserting irrelevant keywords into your copy or endlessly repeating keywords can lead to trouble. Search engine sites may ban you, and users will be annoyed by you and click away.

Regarding the action(s) you want users to take, make sure they’re clear and prominent on the page. If you’re not sure whether buttons, links and other elements are prominent enough, then run a usability study with end-users (which is a good idea, anyway). A quicker method is to squint at your screen so it becomes blurry—do elements that stand out most on the page lead to actions you want the user to take?

Filed under: Content, Usability | Permalink

July 05, 2007

"Click here" links

My company’s site has links that say “click here” or “click here for more info”. I think our links should be more specific, but other people here say it’s OK because they see it on other websites. What do you think?

Avoid vague links such as “click here”. Our research shows that Web users typically scan text until they find content of real interest, at which point they switch into reading mode. If users are in scanning mode and see several “click here” links instead of meaningful, specific links that describe what they lead to, then the users are much less likely to follow the links and more likely to abandon the site. Making sense of “click here” links requires greater cognitive effort and more reading at a time when many users might not be ready to make the investment.

To learn more about research and guidelines for content usability, take our Content Usability: Writing for the Web training course, which will be offered in Austin, Texas on July 23-24, 2007. We also customize the course and offer it to companies on-site. Or, if you prefer a vague link to that same information, click here.

Filed under: Content, Usability | Permalink

March 14, 2007

“Rabbit hole” hierarchies

When is a hierarchy too deep, and what are the alternatives to using a deep hierarchy to access and organize information?

Hierarchies are often abused, plagued by issues that can lead to a frustrating user experience. Hierarchies can become overloaded, creating an Alice in Wonderland-like experience down a never-ending rabbit hole. Besides being tedious to navigate, deep hierarchies can take up valuable horizontal screen real estate. They can cause extra clicks to resize windows or force the user to guess at the truncated information. Large hierarchies can also introduce performance issues, taking several seconds to expand a single node.

When a hierarchy becomes overloaded, it’s time to examine the design of the user experience at a higher level. Ask whether there’s a better way to organize the information architecture or overall navigation scheme to take some of the burden off of the hierarchy. For example, some of the higher-level nodes in the hierarchy should be broken into separate navigation.

Another remedy to the overload dilemma is adding a drop-down or other filters that limit the information displayed by one or more attributes. For example, add a drop-down above a hierarchy that filters the information contained in the hierarchy by date or status.

A more sophisticated solution to improving the hierarchy experience is adding search functionality. Searching a hierarchy allows the user to drop into it at a deep level without having to make the entire trip down the rabbit hole. Searching can be as simple as a keyword match, or something more in-depth, like providing entire paths as a result set.

An example of this is eBay’s revised navigation paradigm for classifying items on their site. Previously, eBay users had to click through five or more levels to ensure that an item for sale was listed in the proper category. For example, suppose you wanted to sell a coffee press on eBay. To ensure that it was displayed in the right category, the user would traverse a path similar to this:

collectibles > home > kitchen > small kitchen appliances > coffee making > coffee press

The above example illustrates a seven-level hierarchy—and that’s for those who know what they’re doing. There are many decision points in categorizing an item that may cause the novice eBay user even more clicks. eBay’s new navigation adds a search paradigm on top of the hierarchy structure. Users save time by searching on the name of an item. eBay then suggests a categorization(s) or path for the item. The paths that best match are auto-assembled for the user. The user can choose a suggested path in its entirety, or customize parts of it.

There’s no hard and fast rule when using hierarchies. Their use really depends on the situation and the user audience. However, if users need to go more than three or four levels deep in a hierarchy, it’s worth examining other options.

Filed under: Design, Content | Permalink

February 28, 2007

Right-hand navigation

Our site uses a right-hand navigation, rather than the traditional left-hand navigation. We've tested this extensively and the results have always been very positive. Experts tell us to move the navigation to the left. Should we listen to experts or our users?

If you’ve done extensive testing of your website with the correct types of users and the right sample size, and the users had no trouble with right-hand navigation, then trust the user data over expert opinion.

While it’s true that left-hand navigation is more common and more expected than right-hand navigation, remember that standards and guidelines merely provide a starting point for design. In absence of data to support going against a standard, the standard should be followed. However, we’ve seen several instances where, because the user audience was different from “the norm” or because of other causes, a standard wasn’t the best answer.

Filed under: Content, Design | Permalink

February 20, 2007

The 3-click rule

Is it important that users be able to get to any content in a website within 3 clicks?

We hear at least weekly of companies enforcing the “rule” that users must be able to get to any page in the site within 3 clicks. There are several problems with this rule.

One problem is scalability. In very large or complex websites and web applications, the rule just doesn’t scale. If your website has several hundred or more pages, to expect users to be able to get to any one of those pages in 3 clicks means you may be overloading the global navigation structure, the number of links on a page, or other mechanisms for getting from page to page. Trying to make sense of all of that information at once takes users a long time.

The 3-click rule also is what we call a false metric. Making pages accessible within 3 clicks has no inherent value as a metric to the users of a site or to your business goals. What might matter, though, is efficiency (how quickly users can complete their tasks) or how easily users can find what they need. Do users have to call tech support or use other resources that cost the company money to find the information they need?

In a wonderful paper called Designing for the Scent of Information, User Interface Engineering notes that what users do expect is that every click makes them more confident they’re on the right trail to get to the information they need. As long as users are confident they’re heading in the right direction, then they are not likely to abandon the site if it takes a click or two more to get where they’re going.