Designing, building and maintaining an eCommerce website needs careful consideration and an understanding of what YOUR customer wants. Website usability audits and user testing techniques are great tools to understand what customers want on your website but before you invest time and effort into these, there are some relatively quick wins that can be implemented and followed from existing research that you should consider first.

From some recent work which we have been carrying out within this area we have compiled a Top 5 list of what you need to consider on your website:

1) Simplicity

You should avoid a cluttered layout on your website. Your website design must spell out what you are offering and how easy it is to make a purchase. The website should be clear, simple and also display an element of trust to customers. Your website must clearly convey to a customer that they will be able to receive their product in the most hassle-free manner and why they should pick you over anyone else.

2) Let customers find products in the way they prefer

Customers on a website are all different and individual; and this has been backed-up by commentary in the new Jakob Nielson Eyetracking Web Usability book where he states "there is no universal way that people look at web pages". This therefore shows us that all customers have different ways of navigating a website. Some customers may prefer to browse while other want a robust search facility. You should make sure that your website has both these options to allow your customers to find what they are looking for with ease. Don't forget the structure and navigation of your website will play a big part in this.

3) Break up the purchase process

Once a customer has decided that they want to purchase from you then you have to allow them to do this in a clear and quick manner. The purchase process is the one area where you will lose your customers and conversion goals through poor design. To avoid losing customers the process must be simple and even 'bite-sized' and all forms etc. must be concise and not over complex.
 
4) Let customers know where they are on the purchase process

This may sound stupid but many eCommerce websites fail to tell their customers where they are in the purchase process and how many steps they have left until completion. Customers like to be kept informed and want to know when they will have achieved their goal. Do not underestimate the importance of letting them know where they are.

5) Trust and Credibility

The most important area is that a customer must feel an element of trust towards your website in order to make a purchase. The customer has to calculate the risk of giving your website their time, money and personal data when making a purchase. The ability for your website to convey trust will ultimately result in your success or failure as this will either enhance or damage your reputation. Make sure all your security and privacy policies are in place and that you strive to deliver trust and a service above expectations.

Finally, it is important to focus and remember that the customer is No.1. Think of what you look for when making a purchase online, what websites you trust and which you don't as this will go a long way in helping you improve the current design, flow and purchase process of your website.

If you're planning on launching or updating a website this year then you should be looking to design your website considering up-to-date web design trends and practices (not forgetting web standards). But what are the web design trends of 2010? The following article looks at this question and explores what some expected trends are likely to be and why you should pay attention when designing your website.

1) Simplicity

Simplicity is becoming evident across a number of websites and this year we feel more and more websites are going to be focused on clearing out the clutter on their web pages. There will be a focus on simpler designs which create clear navigation paths and ease of use for the user. Website grids will become much bigger and that will mean that a web page will become less complicated which will mean one clear message will be able to be got across.

2) Imagery and Inspiration

Images, logos and text font/size are going to play a major factor in 2010. There are already a number of websites that have oversized images and text and there are websites that have hand-drawn images but these will become more prominent this year.  Usability experts will be concerned over this trend and you will need to consider web standards of typography but with correct placement and the right style used, your website could really stand out. 

3) Rethink on Web Usability

Already touched upon under 'Simplicity' is the point of greater emphasis on the user. Successful offline companies traditionally rely on great customer service and nowadays the online user is key to tie down since they are offered so much choice online. It is up to your website to make them choose you over everybody else... and that's where the usability of your website comes in. Users are becoming so Internet savvy with the online environment maybe they start to become more accustomed to different design, ideas and layouts?

4) Personalisation and Mobile Technology

Personalisation is still a key factor and is driving forward in other web areas such as search engine (see Google blog entry below) - so what is the next stages on the web? Websites could start to tie-in their personalisation with mobile technology with the huge growth of iPhone applications etc.

5) Modal Boxes

A trend which were are encountering more and more is the modal box. This is a box that pop-up on the screen but is much more user-friendly. They really help out websites that have a lot of information to portray and pull the users attention to their click. We expect this trend in modal box implementation to continue this year.

What a month in the world of search engines! We've spent the past month analysing the changes to ensure that we understand the effects to our customers and now feel in a position to write about it... also, I think our heads have just stopped spinning from all the changes and fallout!

It all started on 7th December when Google introduced 5 new updates which were:

1) The integration of real-time searches
2) Hot topics on Google Trends
3) Search by Voice in Japanese
4) "What's Nearby" on Google Maps
5) Google Goggles Launches into Labs for Andriods

These 5 Google updates however, appeared to mask a change that slipped in under the radar which was personalised searching regardless of whether you are logged into Google or not.

Personalised searching is all about Google learning your searching behaviour and tailoring the results you see based on your choices . These changes are really significant and personalisation caused a storm within the SEO and search engine market place.

These changes (and note - along with other Google changes on the horizon) were now being well publicised and Google's PR machine kicked in with an interesting interview with Marissa Mayer Google's vice president for search products and user experience the Telegraph.

But from recent blogging activity there seems to be a bit of a blacklash growing in the industry with a few blogs taking swipes at these changes, such as BlogStorm who write about how 'Google is out of control - 38 new search products in 70 days'.

There is also a powerful article on econsultancy called "SEO is dead, long live SEO" which looks at the search engine industry as a whole and how Google doesn't seem to be regulating blackhat SEO techniques. The article fundamentally felt that blackhat techniques are still effective and that they allow websites to obtain top SERPs. It also criticised Google for not acknowledging their shortcomings and felt that until they did, criticism leveled at SEO wasn't entriely misplaced.

There are a lot of valid points in these articles. But the econsultancy article forgets that Google does penalise blackhat SEO techniques and companies have had their hands burnt in the past by employing such bad practices. Just ask BMW. Blackhat SEO is something that we certaintly don't recommend.

From reading the above articles we felt that you mustn't forget your focus and your online business goal which is all about effectively converting existing traffic. Your website needs to ensure that it has the basic foundations in place to succeed. It is easy to be distracted by all the commentary and criticism of SEO but don't forget the importance of your current website traffic and serving their needs.

There has been a lot of discussion recently on blogs discussing whether or not a website has a 'fold'. On a website a fold relates to information you don't see when you visit a web page, therefore all the information that is not on your screen and requires you to scroll down your browser is considered to be 'below the fold'. Originally a newspaper term this has now moved into the online environment.

• Website design page fold is no barrier for online browsers
• The myth of page fold - evidence from user testing

However, balancing out the above articles is an interesting report from Econsultancy that looks at what should be above the fold on an e-commerce site. They felt that even though findings from the above articles were compelling, the fold is still important as it is what users will see when they first come to a website. They feel that information above the fold serves the purpose of drawing customers to scroll further down a web page. It is felt that this discussion is really interesting and useful in the realms of user testing and usability. However, what they don't talk about is that there is a key issue regarding convincing companies about these findings.

'Convincing' maybe a strong word but as a web designer or a web usability expert it can be hard to show companies the concepts behind a web design. Many companies believe that there is a distinct and finite fold and you can see this as their websites usually show a lot of content all vying for user's attention. For example, as the business owner of the website you could be getting different departments or people within the company asking for that elusive homepage spot and it is up to you to manage that expectation. A scenario could be that the newsletter editor wants their email newsletter shown on the homepage, the membership manager wants the member information highlighted, the commercial manager wants product information to show etc. It can be a tiring and frustrating task trying to manage all these requirements and often a homepage can become cluttered with all this information.

The Internet poses both opportunities and challenges for marketing. It has become established as a global channel through which both existing and potential customers can be targeted, and through which organisations can publicise and present commercial offerings. The Internet means becoming international by definition and can deliver many aspects of any organisations global marketing strategies ranging from branding, database building to providing customer service, forming relationships, building loyalty and instilling advocacy in existing customers.

Therefore, understanding customers is fundamental to successful marketing. Understanding online customers (or the way customers behave when they are online) is even more important as the geographic and cultural spread is often much wider. Online customers also have different attitudes to both acquiring information and buying online. On top of this, the same person may think and behave differently online than offline. So overall marketers have to watch their online customers even more closely, support their behaviour and find a way to build a relationship with them.

The Internet is full of websites trying to sell the online customer something. There is a vast selection of products and services that are available at the click of a mouse and this selection attracts customers and enhances the appeal of the Internet. Regardless of the way customers find an online company, they want to know that the company has what they are looking for. 

Research has found that online shoppers expect a greater selection of products from online companies compared to brick and mortar establishments. This is because consumers perceive that online stores incur lower operating costs (e.g. no retail display space expenses, merchandising costs, etc.) and therefore should be able to offer a larger selection. It is also noted that customers are likely to perceive little added value to shopping online, if websites do not provide more variety in choice than traditional retail companies. Therefore, if a company has a rich product assortment the probability of consumer needs and wants being met and satisfied are increased.

The product variety which an online company offers is a key factor for customers. Although, it may seem a small and trivial point compared to security, trust and risk reduction; product variety is a vital tangible thought for customers. The variety of products offered by a website means that if customers can do all their shopping in one place it aids convenience for them and reduces the amount of Internet searching required on their behalf. Therefore, product variety is a valuable point.
 

It is important to remember when developing your website and its service that online customer service is vital.  Your customers are not dealing with a face to face contact or a physical store and therefore the service policies and procedures must instill a sense of trust to them. Don't forget when designing your website that when a customer is online and they become confused or have a question, it acts like a stop sign.

It is argued that the ability to contact an online company's representative increases a customer's confidence in the company. In addition to be accessible, it is also important that your website is responsive to customer enquiries, requests, etc in a timely manner. The quicker your website responds to customer concerns, the greater the level of satisfaction customers have with your website and are more likely they are to visit your website again. Following and understanding these principles are vital to achieve impressive online customer service. You need to ensure that your websites is well organised and that products and services are described clearly (offering as many levels of detail, pictures and photographs as necessary) giving customers fewer reasons to get confused.

The bottom line is that customer service expectations need to be met and exceeded, as once a customer receives poor service (e.g. they experience difficulties in returning an item or getting a refund) they will be less likely to enter into a transaction again with your website.

Convenience is a key driver in a customer's mind and is the key to online shopping adoption. It is important to remember that customers will get frustrated by a website which has a poorly designed navigational structure; as this will impact on the amount of time they will have to search and the time required for information processing. Make sure that your website is uncluttered and easy to navigate to reduce the cognitive effort the customer has to expend figuring out how to shop effectively online.

A lot of thought must therefore be given to how your users can search for products/services on your website. Good website navigation entails telling visitors where they are, how they got there, how they can get back and where they can go to next. Related to your website navigation is the quality of information provided. Specifically, the ability to easily navigate a website becomes inconsequential, if the information found is not useful. Quality of information is determined by the degree to which consumers can use the information, prior to a purchase to predict their satisfaction from subsequent consumption.

A websites awareness and image is an essential element for being registered and recognised in the customers mind. There are many websites providing similar products and services and it is important that you make your websites the one that customers think of first.

The user interface that you offer aids the effectiveness of your website. You should look at an integrated approach to examining and evaluating your websites which bridges both technical and content factors with human factors. This is vital as all businesses should strive for competitive advantage in their websites by designing them around the needs, wants and preferences of targeted customers.

Remember the website loading time and graphical interface is the first thing that the customer will see (your homepage is your shop window). It must therefore grab their attention, be easy to navigate around and not lead to frustration in any way. Frustration can be brought about by slow downloading time, lack of information on products available, an unhelpful search facility and unclear ordering advice. If customers get frustrated then they will exit your website and be unlikely to revisit.

Online customers are a sceptical bunch, they have been trained by the media to expect all kinds of online scams that are waiting to pick their pockets. Research by Forrester, found that many customers consider the lack of security as the main inhibiting factor to adopting online purchase behaviour, and therefore perceiving purchasing online to be risky.  Specific concerns centred around credit card security and about disclosing financial information.

Also, privacy concerns have often been cited as another key reason why consumers do not make online purchases over the Internet. A 'Business Week' poll of Internet users who had not yet purchased anything over the Internet found that 94 per cent of respondents were either very or somewhat concerned that companies they might buy from might use their information to send them unwanted information.

Customers are also not only concerned about security and privacy but the risk of not being able to return a product if unsatisfied and the risk of having to evaluate the product without handling or seeing it. Promises of quality can be made but will they be kept? Other factors which invoke the risk reduction process is the suppliers size and salespersons expertise, power, confidence and likeability; and these factors can't easily be seen by the Internet buyer.

To overcome this issue you will need to follow some simple rules as customers want an online company to openly disclose their business status and transactional security policies and procedures. They also want to know that a company guarantees information protection and be assured that no fraudulent activities will occur when they share personal details. Therefore, recognisable e-commerce security mechanisms and technology will help to solidify trust for these aspects. Online companies also need to be open about what technologies they employ to ensure the safety of customer's personal details etc. thereby reducing their uncertainty.

In conclusion, it can be seen that if an online company wants trust to be developed between them and a customer, then they should address any security concerns on the website, update the company's privacy policy and look at areas on the website where risk perception can be decreased.

The main drivers to trust on the Internet are:

• Building trust in the specific website, ensuring customers of the security of the transaction, customer privacy of data collected.
• Providing unbiased and complete information concerning availability of stock, competitive prices,  delivery time and reliability; and
• Ensuring fulfilment and satisfaction guarantees of stock, service support, error free billing and credits on returned items.

Therefore trust, security, privacy and risk reduction is required by the customer to ensure and develop a positive attitude to a company.

Research has shown that much of an individuals attitude towards making purchases can be thought of in terms of trust. Can a company be trusted? That's the first thought most people will have when considering whether they should be dealing with a company or not.

Trust is thought to be the cornerstone for a successful and lasting relationship with the customer and trust will largely determine the customer's future behaviour and loyalty towards a company. Trust exists when one party has extreme confidence in the exchange partners dependability and this trust will tend to influence relationship commitment. As relationships lean towards trust as a key component, parties will desire to commit themselves to stable relationships. Trust is the glue that determines relationship commitment.

To overcome any problems related to trust there are two main antecedents of trust which customers potentially look for are as follows:

1) Shared values

This looks at the extent to which partners have beliefs in common about what behaviours, goals and policies are important or unimportant, appropriate or inappropriate and right or wrong to them.

2) Communication

Communication looks at the formal as well as informal sharing of meaningful and timely information. Communication especially timely communication fosters trust by assisting in resolving disputes and ambiguities, and aligning perceptions and expectations.

Relating all these areas to the Internet, it is seen that the element of trust is heightened in this environment. Customers are concerned over trusting the Internet when sharing personal information and trusting the transactions on the Internet to be secure. Security is often cited as a major roadblock to realising the Internets commercial potential.

Getting customers to trust the safety, credibility and security procedures etc. of the online environment and your website can be difficult. Addressing these concerns for your customers, moves away from the intangible and hard to quantify elements related to customers and focuses more on the tangible features. Features which aren't integral to the customer's characteristics, but ones which can easily be seen and monitored externally.

There is no doubt that social media is becoming one of the marketing platforms for businesses to propel themselves personably to clients and build a brand reputation - but what are the factors you need to consider before you take on developing your company brand and identity in this area? 

Firstly, you need to decide whether social media is right for you and your company. Just because everyone else is doing it, that isn't a good enough reason for you to start. You need to consider the resources and time needed. Secondly, you need to think whether your target audience use social media and whether you will reach them effectively if you spend time and energy developing in this area.  Undoubtedly with social media growing at a phenomenal pace it seems likely that some strands will reach your clients.

If you do decide that social media is an area to develop, then you need to consider which social media methods to use. Social media methods include blogs, podcasts, forums, business networks or trying to create your own online community.

To work out which social media method is best for you, you will need to research your clients and their buying habits to work out which forms of social media they are most influenced by.

To make sure that you succeed in this area there are a few rules that you must stick to and follow. Make sure you have the resources available to work in this area of your business. To be successful on social media networks you need commitment. Finally, make sure you respond positively to negative comments. Don't let your client see you in a bad light.

We all know that it is important that when a visitor comes to your website for the first time that it needs to grab their attention, but what are the main areas you need to focus on to make sure that they come back, time and time again?

The four main areas which we feel are key are:

1) Focus on engaging your visitors attention

2) Make sure you are relevant to your target audience

3) Be responsive to what your website statistics are telling you

4) Make sure you understand your visitors needs and wants

If we look at these in more detail we can see why they are so important when looking at your websites usability.

1) Focus on engaging your visitors attention

You will need to ensure that when a visitor comes to your website that it doesn't immediately make them 'bounce off' and go to another website. To ensure that the visitor looks further into your website, make sure the design is user-friendly and that the content is engaging.

When we say 'engaging' we mean that the content is meaningful and that it is relevant to "here and now". The content needs to be interactive and dynamic to ensure that it captures attention.

2) Make sure you are relevant to your target audience

Try to ensure that content on your website is relevant. This can be a hard job as content relevant to one person may not be to another. A good way to be relevant is to offer straightforward information which is timely and useful. 

3) Be responsive to what your website statistics are telling you

Make sure that you have a website analytics package implemented so that you can capture how visitors are using your website. This type of information is invaluable when trying to work out and understand why and how visitors are using your website.

4) Make sure you understand your visitors needs and wants 

By this we mean be 'personable'. Try and engage and communicate with your visitors. There are many interactive web techniques available to talk to potential visitors to ensure you are meeting their expectations.

A question that is always asked and an area which varies in response and opinion seems to be the importance of a websites footer. Is the website footer useful? Should it be optimised for search engines? Or is it something of less and less importance?

Opinion is divided on the importance of footers in search engine optimisation (SEO).  There is a school of thought that places great emphasis on the role of the website footer in aiding the ranking of your website but on the other hand, there is the thought that website footer plays an insignificant role these days.

We believe the website footer plays a lesser role in SEO but you still need to be smart in the way that you decide to use it.

As Ann Smarty states in the Search Engine Journal make your website footer useful and try not to break any search engine rules. She highlights the dos and don'ts as:

·         Make sure you add keyword anchor text navigational links to useful pages

·         Add a copyright notice as it makes your website look trustworthy

·         Make your website relevant, specific and useful

·         Don't include any external links

·         Don't make the footer too cluttered

This is sound advice which should be adhered to.

We won't link to them on this website but there are many websites whose footers border on spam in our opinion. These website footers contain too many links and sometimes including huge amounts of text with keywords littered throughout the content. It will only be a matter of time until search engines start penalising for this. But, we understand and know from experience it seems these websites get away with it and increase search engine rankings through this practice. If you feel this is the case and that by playing above board it feels like you are losing out don't forget,  this is not the be-all-and-end-all of search engine optimisation.

Finally, remember that your website footer is important to compliment the rest of your website  and to show your intelligent web design.

A rival for Google? Can we changing our search patterns?

Interesting news this week as a new search engine from Wolfram Alpha is launched and starts to pose the question of whether this can rival Google and even change the way that we search for information on the Internet?

Google has had dominance over the Internet for years but recently they have experienced a few problems, such as downtime and issues related to security with Google Docs .

So, with a new search engine being launched is it more likely that users may be willing to give a new search engine a go? Indeed there are people that think that Google's dominance will not last .

The new Wolfram Alpha Search is based on semantic search and is called a computation knowledge engine. This means that it will bring back direct answers rather than giving a set of search results and websites to go and search for your answer.

Stephen Wolfram, the founder and chief executive of Wolfram Research who invented the system states: "Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they'd be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer. I'm happy to say that we've successfully built a system that delivers knowledge from a simple input field, giving access to a huge system, with trillions of pieces of curated data and millions of lines of algorithms."

But people are saying  that it isn't Google - but does this matter when    you want to find out a quick answer to something?

Why not test it out for yourself and let us know what you think?

http://www.wolframalpha.com

In our opinion this could change the way we search for answers. If you want a quick answer and this search engine will let you find this out in one click, then this is the search for you.

Quick, efficient and accurate.. what more could you ask for?

UK Geographical regions and counties: how do websites capture and display information?

We stumbled across this article today about how websites deal with geographical regions and it hit a note with us.

We believe that this is a question that always arises when developing websites where search or registration involves inputting your county and/or region. We have seen it many times that freelance web designers use a list or previous database of counties and don't consider updates or changes. We have found websites with many problems such as:

Old counties being displayed - such as Avon which should be South Gloucestershire

• Sussex lumped into one and not divided into East or West
• Towns being displayed as counties
•  Websites not being able to correctly state the counties in Wales and Scotland

You may ask whether this is a big deal or not - but you need to consider your marketing strategy. Accurate capturing of data is vital to provide your customers with targeted and appropriate marketing campaigns.

This is not just us on our soapbox, because we have had clients who launched websites with this area under tested and inaccurate… and it is noticed. They experienced instances when customers refused to join based on these errors.

So when developing, redeveloping or updating your website make sure this is an area that you spend time on. Get this right the first time and you'll reap the benefits as your customers should have no cause for complaint.