Your website should focus on your users’ top tasks. Unfortunately, lots of websites don’t do that. They put everything they have ever done and more on their website. Result: a website with loads of pages nobody’s interested in.

Is that really so bad though? I mean, a user can ignore those pages he’s not interested in, right?

Theoretically, yes. But in practice, those extra pages make for a more complex navigation stucture, more links and more choices.

Which makes it hard for people to find what they’re looking for.

If your website focuses on the stuff people really use it for, there will be fewer pages and people will find what they need a lot faster. Because there’s no clutter to distract them.

Less is more. More conversion. More satisfied visitors. More return on investment.

Use Google Analytics to track down rarely visited pages

I’m using Google Analytics as an example because it’s the most widely used tool. You can of course use other analytics tools as well.

1. Define a period that’s suitably long

For a first analysis, I usually take 6 months. That way, I minimise the risk that the results of my findings will be brushed aside by people who blame the holidays, the weather and other stuff for the lack of visitors on ‘their’ pages. Heck, if your website is heavily subjected to seasonal changes, make it 12 months.

2. Go to ‘Content’ and choose ‘Top Content’

On this page, have a look at the total number of unique pages that were visited in the period you defined and check this number against the total number of pages on your site. If the second number is far greater than the first, I’ve got some bad news for you: you’ve got lots of pages nobody ever visits.

3. Click on ‘Advanced Filter’ at the bottom

Don’t worry. There’s nothing advanced about what we’re going to do.

4. In the dropdown ‘Filter’, select ‘Unique Pageviews’

I choose ‘Unique Pageviews’ because ‘Pageviews’ is somewhat artificial. If a person visits the same web page 5 times during 1 visit, Google Analytics counts that as 5 pageviews but only as 1 unique pageview.

5. Enter a number

For a first analysis, I usually want an oveview of all pages with less than 50 pageviews over a period of 6 months. I think that’s being quite generous…

You can of course change this number to 100 or more.

6. Click on ‘Apply Filter’

Nearly there. On the screen you see now, you can already tell how many pages have been visited less than 50 times.

7. Sort by ‘Unique Pageviews’

This sorts the results by the number of unique pageviews. The standard setting is on the total number of pageviews. For our report, that’s not quite ideal.

8. Save report

For some strange reason, Google doesn’t allow you to save the settings of your filters. (In case you can and I’m missing something: do enlighten me.) As an alternative solution, I click on ‘Add to Dashboard’ at the top of the page. That way I can quickly access this report from my homepage (the dashboard).

What do you know now?

You know which pages have been visited less than x times in the period you defined.

Hopefully that number hasn’t left you shell-shocked. We had to tell a customer recently that over 80% of their web pages were visited less than 50 times during the past 6 months…

Not the greatest news to deliver, but they took it really well and decided to dedicate the next 12 months to managing existing content rather than creating new pages.

Is ‘barely visited’ reason enough to get rid of a page?

Not always, but it does give a good indication. Apart from the cold, hard figures there are other things to take into account:

• Conversion rate
  If the conversion rate is (much) higher than average, you need to wonder why that page isn’t visited more often. Is there a way to get more people to visit that page?
• Because you have to
  Sometimes, but only sometimes, that’s a valid reason. Not because your boss tells you to but because it’s a page you have to have for legal reasons for example.
• User research
  Interviews with customers, the analysis of your search feature and other methods of user research can help you to find out what your visitors top tasks are.

  We always advise to combine logfile analysis with one of these methods: logfiles can only tell you what people do on your website, not what they’d like to do or can’t find.

  If one of your visitors’ top tasks is the same as one of your site’s least visited pages, you know there’s a lot of work to be done.

What do you do with rarely visited pages?

• Delete
  For most pages at the bottom of this list: just hit the delete button. That news article you write 2 years ago will not be missed. Goodbye and good riddance.
• Cluster information
  A lot of sites use 10 pages where instead they should just have 1 page. Pull yourself together and have the courage to get rid of the stuff nobody’s interested in. Trim the fat. Stick to the essentials.
• Reactivate
  Reactivate the interest in pages that have a high conversion rate or are actually one of your visitors’ top tasks. Some possibilities: put a link on the homepage, give it a more prominent place in your navigation, rewrite the page, create more links to the page, etc.
• Leave them to rot in your website’s darkest holes
  This only applies to those pages you need to keep for legal reasons.
  Take care to bury them really deep where they’re not likely to bother people.

You might also like:

• Information architecture: the basics
• CMSs don’t manage websites, people do

Need some help?
Start with a content review or one of our information architecture or user research services. Or just give us a call on 0032 (0)3 293 39 96 or send me an email.

But how do you write a good description tag? These 12 tips should point you in the right direction.

1. Use no more than 155 characters

Google shows only the first 160 characters of the description tag. After that, it simply adds an ellipsis (…). If you want to play it safe, don’t use more than 155 characters. Don’t forget: spaces and punctuation marks count as characters too.

2. Use keywords you want to score with for that page

Google only shows the description tag if there’s a sufficiently strong content relation between the description tag, the user’s query and the content of the page.

If you want Google to show your description tag, be sure to include the page’s keyword(s) in it.

3. Don’t create false expectations

Everybody likes to have loads of visitors. But it’s actually more important to get the right visitors.

Luring people to your website with vague promises or inaccurate description tags will work against you in the long run. Sure, you might get more people to click on your result in Google. But if you can’t deliver on your promise, they’ll be gone in a hurry. And they won’t come back.

4. Tell the user what to expect

The description tag needs to tell the user what the page is about. It should be a concise summary of your page.

5. Think about your target audience

Hopefully, every page on your website has a purpose. Some pages can be informative, others might be pages where you want to sell a particular product. Think about the goal of your page and the kind of people you want to attract. Make sure the description tag reflects that.

With our article ‘Information architecture: the basics’ we want to reach people who don’t know a lot about information architecture.

Our product page ‘Information architecture’ wants to attract people who are ready to make use of our services to improve their website’s information structure.

6. Write properly

Reading your description tag should be a pleasure, not a chore. So don’t just pile up the keywords but give people a proper indication of what the page is about.

You don’t necessarily have to write full sentences but do make sure it’s easy to read.

7. To the point

You’ve only got 155 characters. That means there’s no time for beating about the bush. Make your point in those 155 characters.

8. Don’t just repeat the page title

The description tag gives you 155 extra characters to explain what a page is about and to get people to click on your result in Google. Don’t just repeat the title tag, use those 155 characters to give extra information. (Read our 8 tips for the perfect title tag)

9. Being commercial won’t hurt you

There’s no shame in being commercial. If you know there’s one thing that makes your page stand out from the competition’s, say so.

You offer a best-price guarantee? Say so. Better yet: include the product’s price in the description tag.

Or include your phone number: “Order your tickets online or call 03 333 33 33”. Convenient for people who don’t have time or who are surfing on their mobile and need info fast.

If you offer a free online quote for a particular service, that’s a great way to end your description tag: “Get a free quote online”.

10. Unique for every page

Create a unique description tag for every page. Great for Google and for your visitors.

11. Use the right language

Make sure the description tag is in the same language as the page. Seems ridiculous to even mention but on multi-language sites you often see the description tags are all in one language.

12. What about the description tag of a language choice page?

That’s a hard one. Don’t write ‘Choose your language’ or ‘Language choice’. That says absolutely nothing.

Instead, say what your company does in your site’s main languages.

More tips?

Feel free to add more tips of your own in the comments.

Everybody who shops on the web compares. They don’t just compare products from different vendors, but also different products from the same vendor.

This comparison behaviour goes for visitors of both b2c and b2b websites.

Allow users to compare

Comparing is a top task so make sure it’s easy to do on your website.

If you make it hard to compare your products, there’s a good chance your website visitors will not become customers.

What do your visitors expect?

• Main characteristics of the product or service on the product page, pereferably as a bulleted list.
• An overview of the similarities and differences of comparable products on 1 page. It’s really annoying if you have to get out pen and paper to write down product characteristics and then look for the differences between the products.

What do you need in order to compare?

• Clearly differentiated products or services. If you’re not sure what the difference is between product A and B, how is your customer supposed to know?
• If you want to compare products in a meaningful way, you need to know what the deciding factors are for your customers. Seems easy, right? Wrong. In about half of the projects we do, the company doesn’t know what their customers deciding criteria are.

What if you don’t meet these criteria?

• Make sure you do!

The choice is simple: adapt or lose customers.

Less than 10 products or services to compare?

Basic principle: all on 1 page

A search feature or wizard is not needed here. Your users probably aren’t rocket scientists but they aren’t idiots either.

Option 1: table

• Users love this. If it’s in any way possible, try this.
• Recent tests show that putting the most expensive products first is the most effective.

Top row: good examples by Shopify en Combell, lowest to highest price. Basecamp (bottom row) does slightly better: from highest to lowest price and with extra information on mouse-over.

Option 2: separate blocks

• Clear heading.
• Main characteristics in bullets, preferably in such a way that it’s easy to compare the different products or services (a.o. by the same order and approach).
• Price.
• Each block should be clickable in its entirety.
• Line up blocks horizontally whenever possible. That creates a better overview.

The blocks on the Telenet website offer a pretty good overview.

More than 10 products or services?

Facets

All products on 1 page with faceted search on the left.

2 good examples of refining results by faceted search: Bol.com (left) en Booking.com (right)

7 things to keep in mind about faceted search

1. Put the faceted search on the left. You can put it on the right, but less people will notice it. You can put it at the top of the page as well, but that will push the actual results down and that’s not ideal.
2. Limit facets to the main product characteristics. Don’t cram every detail in there.
3. Take your customers’ view on what the product’s main characteristics are. Remember: what you think, doesn’t matter. It’s all about your customers.
4. Make selecting and deselecting the facets easy.
5. It should be impossible for users to make a selection that delivers zero results.
6. In many cases, it’s helpful if the user can order the results list (alphabetically, by price, by size, …).
7. If there are more than 20 products in your list, it’s best to go for numbered results pages (cfr. Google).

Detailed comparison

A more detailed comparison, that sums up all characteristics of comparable products in a table can be very handy for certain products.

More on product comparison

• Trends in pricing tables
• 50 examples of pricing tables
• Best practices for faceted product search
• The basics of information architecture

Other options?

Have you seen other good examples? Maybe you came up with one yourself? Feel free to leave a link to it in the reactions or send us an email.

Want to know more about how to make good home pages, overview pages and detail pages?
Join us at one of our usability workshops.

While uploading a picture on Flickr last week, I got the following message.

Of course I want to upgrade. Immediately. After all, I’ve already used a full 1% of my monthly limit.

Where do I sign up?

What’s wrong with this message?

• Flickr shows me a message that isn’t relevant to me. I’ve only used 1% of my limit. Why would I want to upgrade?
• By the time I would consider upgrading (maybe when I’ve reached around 60% of my limit?) I will have seen that message so many times I’ve probably tuned it out completely.
• The message takes up valuable space that Flickr can make better use of. In this case, since I’ve only used 1% of my limit and am obviously a beginner, maybe a tip on how to use Flickr more efficiently. Like for example: what are sets and what can you use them for?

What did we learn today?

• Show messages only when they’re relevant for the user’s particular situation.
• Even the big boys make usability mistakes.

Biggest trap: the ad’s clickthrough rate

In our Dutch seminar ’How to score in Google’ participants often proudly announce click through rates of 15, 20 even 25% on some of their AdWords. Our follow-up question ”And how many of those people effectively did what you wanted them to on your website?” is usually met with an embarassed silence.

It’s strange how many people focus only on the ‘CTR’ (= clickthrough rate) column in Google AdWords. That seems to be most marketing people’s only goal: to get as many people on the website as possible.

Google Adwords cleverly exploits that focus on clickthrough rate by giving users the option to display the ads with a higher CTR more often: “Optimise: Display better performing ads more often.”

Focusing solely on CTR makes sense for Google. Each click earns Google money.

Focusing solely on CTR doesn’t make sense for you. Each click costs you money.

Example: CTR of 20%

What good is an ad with a CTR of 20% if only 2% of all those clickthroughs results in a sale? Imagine the cost per click is 1 euro and the profit per sold article is 50 euros.

Let’s do the math:

• 1.000 people see the ad.
• 200 people click on it and visit your website. Cost: 200 euros.
• Of those 200 people, 4 people buy something. Profit: 200 euros.
• End result: 4 purchases on 1.000 views. Net profit: 0 euro.

Example: CTR of 5%

Can an ad with a CTR of 5% be more successful than an with a CTR of 20%? Absolutely. Imagine the cost per click is still 1 euro but instead of 2% of people buying something on your site there’s 10% of people buying.

Let’s do the math:

• 1.000 people see the ad.
• 50 people click on it and visit your website. Cost: 50 euros.
• Of those 50 people, 5 people buy something. Profit: 250 euros.
• End result: 5 purchases on 1.000 views. Net profit: 200 euros.

The message: look at the whole picture

Of course an ad’s CTR is important. But you have to look at the whole picture.

• Number of times the ad is shown
• CTR of ad
• Number of people who accomplish the ad’s goal on your website

I took a commercial website as an example because the numbers are very clear there. But even if you’re not selling things on your site, you should do this conversion exercise. After all, those ads are there to achieve something, right? What is that exactly? Put your website’s goals on paper and figure out how to match them to your ads.

Realistic?

Oh yeah. The example I gave above is very realistic. As a matter of fact, it’s based on the sales of the Dutch ‘Writing for the web’ tips we sell on our website. The ads that included the words ’40 writing tips for the web’ had very high click through ratios (up to 25%). But we hardly sold anything to those people who clicked through (less than 2%).

The ad in which we mentioned the price of the tips were less popular (less than 3% CTR). But on closer inspection we saw that we sold the tips to nearly 1 out of 3 people (31%) of the people who clicked on that ad. As soon as we saw that, we deleted all the ads that didn’t mention the price.

Conclusion

Be specific in your ad. Don’t hide things. Don’t gloss things over. The clickthrough rate may be a bit lower but your net profit will be higher. And less people will feel disillusioned after clicking through to your website.

How to start?

• Activate the option ‘Conversion tracking’ in Google AdWords (under ‘Tools’).
• Connect AdWords to the software you use to analyse visitor behaviour on your site (Google Analytics, Webtrends, Nedstat, …).
• Analyze the data yourself or get a webmetrics expert to do it for you.

What do you have to do?

1. Get yourself a cup of coffee or hot chocolate
2. Watch the presentation
3. Change your website where needed

Tip: for a full screen view, click the second to last icon at the bottom right.

Problems?

• No Flash on your computer?
• SlideShare blocked by your firewall?

Don’t panic. We’ll talk about the tips in detail over the coming weeks.