1) Define your audience
Who are your users? What are their tasks and online environment? For a site to be usable, page flow must match workflow.

2) What do you want them to do?
Is your site for research or for sales? A research site should contain great content but should not include words such as "sale" or "discount". NOt only are weary surfers going to get confused but so will search engines. Some search engines tend to be more research-centric while others are more sales-centric.

3) Once they are there, motivate them!
Use motivators to draw different users to where you want them to go.

4) Copy the success of other sites
Look around at successful websites and take ideas from them.

5) Plan, Plan, plan!
Since the site's architecture is so important, make various prototypes, especially of your homepages and run them be people to see which is the most appealing.

6) Content is key for optimization but don't overdo it on sales pages
Do not detract your customers from purchasing by making pages too busy or by having too much content on one page. There are pages that should be content intensive for search engine optimization while other pages should be to make the sale.

7) The importance of navigation
Build an effective navigational structure. There are studies that show that 12% of potential customers leave for every click they have to make to get to the page they are looking for. If they can't find what they are looking for, they will hit the back button and move on to the next site.

8) Use a pay per click account to test
A quick and efficient way to check your usability is sign up to Google adwords or Overture and then use their conversion tool. The tool is free and will actually give you a cost per conversion by calculating the number of clicks to each keyword in comparison to the people that actually bought. Once you test for a week or so, make some changes to the content and layout and test for another week. This will give you a good comparison.

9) Be consistent
Make should all of your pages flow. NOt only should they flow but do not make pages so different that they change the location of key things such as the shopping cart, the buy button ot naviagtion.

10) Hire a web usability firm

Need assistance in web usability? We are here to help. Few companies specialize in web design, optimization and usability but we belive that all three are directly connected. PLease call us at 512.301.8767 to discuss our usability testing.