Cameron Olthuis

There’s been some noise lately suggesting that bad design is good or it’s the anti-marketing design (ugly site) that’s what makes a website successful.

I disagree, but for arguments sake let’s take a look at some of the more successful websites.

Let’s take Craigslist, Google, eBay, and Amazon to name a few. What do all these sites have in common? They’re not beautiful that’s for sure. I wouldn’t say that Craigslist and Google are ugly, but their sure not pretty either. Amazon and eBay on the other hand are pretty damn ugly.

So what makes these sites so successful? Is it because they’re ugly? I think not. Google and Craigslist and are successful because the user interface is straight forward and simple. That and their customers are great evangelists. So what then makes Amazon and eBay so popular? Both of these sites have horrible user interfaces so we know it’s not that. I’d say it’s because they were both first to market in their niches and have since dominated.

Yes, having a website that is simple to use and fast is one key to being successful, but I wouldn’t design your website to look like ass on purpose. For every popular website that’s ugly there’s 5 great looking popular sites.

What’s your take on this?

In order for your brand/website to be successful you need to build trust and credibility with your target audience. Without it, people will take their business elsewhere. Building trust and credibility takes open communication that goes both ways. It takes to time to develop but will only take seconds to lose. What takes years to build can be lost over night. Here’s a few tips to help you build trust and credibility online.

Website
What impression does your website give? There’s a good chance your website will be the first time a potential customer comes in contact with you or your company. Needless to say it’s pretty important that it makes a good first impression. You wouldn’t setup a retail store in an old dirty building, so why would you even think of doing that with your website? Would you meet business associates for the first time wearing grubby clothes? I sure as hell hope not.

Your website is not a place to skimp on your budget, yet some many people still do it. They think saving a few bucks asking their nephew to design their site is a smart decision, when in fact it probably ends up costing a lot of money in lost business down the road. A professional looking website is a must.

Marketing
What kind of marketing messages are you sending? Are you annoying people with spam such as; unsolicited email blasts, pop-ups and pop-unders, spyware, or other in-your-face sales techniques? If you are and you want a credible brand you should stop, immediately. These do nothing but piss people off.

How visible is your site? When people search for your company or keywords relevant to your website are you easily found? The more someone sees your brand around the web the more they will trust it. It’s important to invest money and time into your search engine marketing. Not only will this bring an increase in business, but it will build the credibility and trust. How can your customers trust you if they can’t even find you on Google?

Build alliances with other credible third parties.

Assurance
This is one that also deals with your website. There are little things you can do on your website that tells customers your are a trustworthy company that can easily be contacted if something goes wrong. So with that said, make the contact info prominent on your site, don’t try to hide it and don’t even think about leaving it off altogether. Make sure you have a well written ‘about page’. Let your customers know that you’ve been around awhile and you know what you’re doing.

There’s plenty of other little things you can and should do as well. For example, display your security certificates in prominent locations. Make it easy for your customers to see that you take security seriously. Are you a member of the BBB? If so then you should display the logo on your site and link it to your profile. Ask for testimonials and proudly display them on your site, often times customers are happy to do this, especially if you’ve pleased them.

You’d be suprised at how far these little things go, they really do give peace of mind and comfort to your customers.

Communication
Communicate early and often. You must be willing to admit(and take responsibility for) mistakes, deliver bad news, and openly share information. Don’t be afraid to apologize if necessary . Acknowledge and listen to what your customers have to say, let them know that you care and value their feedback. Speak in a language that is easy to understand. If problems arise then take care of them.

Bottom line: Don’t let you website fall victim to a crisis in consumer trust. Build and maintain trust and credibility and keep the lines of communication wide open. Building trust after you lose it is a hard thing to do and takes time, make sure this doesn’t happen to you.

Do you have anything you would like to add that you’ve found helps build trust and credibility.

branding, user interface, marketing, branding

How do you increase the conversion rate on your website?

Neil Patel says

The key is to create your pages with a spectrum of detail and features so you have something for each type of visitor. The Mac Mini page on the Apple.com website serves as a perfect example of this concept.

I would like to add a little to that. Not only is the key making your website appeal to everyone, you also need to make it as easy as possible for these people to take the necessary actions on your website. It’s one thing to serve them up the information they’re looking for but you also need to close the deal and make it as painless as possible for the customer. Think simplicity. Don’t make your customers give you two phone numbers when one will do.

If you have a shopping cart on your site that takes 5 pages to checkout you risk losing a lot of customers. Every time a user has to take an extra step to complete the appropriate goals on your site is a chance for them to abandon your site. In fact, I bet if you have the analytic data to see what pages people are abonding your cart you will notice at each step your are losing customers. Each time a user want to take an action and they can’t easily do so is a chance of losing them.

Apple’s website does a great job because it’s very simple to use. All the information is displayed right there for you at your fingertips. They also do a great job of creating a feeling that they’re something special. It’s simple and beautiful, and like Neil says, no matter where you are on there site you can easily get to the next place you want to go, whether that’s making the purchase or learning more about the products.

You need to be careful though. There’s definitely a fine line you don’t want to cross. When you’re trying to offer something for everyone remember to only try and do so to your target market. If you selling home furnishings don’t try and offer something for people looking for a mortgage. I think you get my point.

Instead of trying to reach out to a broader market focus on serving all of your current audience first. For example, add the information that the tire kickers are looking for, but don’t make me read if it I just want to make a purchase and get out.

Make it as easy as possible for every person that comes to your site to complete the goals they had in mind when they came.

Conversion rates, User Interface, Design

Scott Heiferman has a great post called 50 Reasons Why More People Aren’t Using Your Website

3. Because it won’t help them with their problem
7. Because they just don’t care about what they see
11. Because it doesn’t make or save them a ton of money
12. Because it doesn’t save them a ton of time
24. Because you don’t tell them what you want them to do
38. Because they tried to use it, but something got messed up
39. Because they’ve never heard of it
48. Because it doesn’t tell them why to use it

The game is still the same. It’s still about good search engine placement. It’s just the way you win the game that’s changing.

I came across a great quote today from Stuntdubl…

We are not optimizing *for* search engines. We are optimizing for PEOPLE to find us THROUGH search engines!

This is pretty much exactly when I meant when I said 2006 is The Year of the User.

The SEO game is getting tougher every year. Now it means optimizing for both the users and search engines. Building the best user experience for any given niche is what’s going to accomplish this. The best user experiences will be because of the best content, which inturn will provide the best link love. Capitalizing on the aforementioned is key. Over optimizing for the search engines isn’t.

I guess you could say that user experience alone isn’t enough, you have to make the search engines realize it too.

Agree? Disagree?

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, User Experience