Hundred Dollar SEO

One resource on the Internet that I appreciate, but don’t participate in anymore, is Cre8asiteForum.com. I recommend it to a lot of people, but I think it has been almost 2 years since I have left a comment there. Some very bright people with a variety of skills discuss the issues that you probably run into with your web ventures.

Cre8asite is run by Kim Krause Berg — who has been doing SEO and user experience work for years. She also blogs at Cre8pc.com. In a recent post Kim goes a bit too far in assessing the value of usability. She starts off with statements that I definitely agree with:

Web site usability goes far beyond the user interface. It’s wonderful to hire a search engine marketer who knows how to design web pages that appear high in search results and are smoothly indexed. Even better is the marketer who designs expert landing pages and researches your target customer. They’ve done their job when someone has no problem finding the web site they seek and wants to click into it.

I’m on that boat. That’s exactly the way that I would put it. In fact I’m going to borrow some of that for a meeting later.

Visiting a web site is one step in the overall user experience, but there are many other steps to consider and build for such as browsing the homepage and conducting a task or two. However, the moment the web site misses a beat somewhere, such as a functional defect, dead-end navigation, loopy information architecture, sleepy content or invasive form requests, the moment of bliss is over.

I like your image here, but if I ever achieve bliss from a website I am going to be surprised. It is rare that a project allows for 100% perfection — still I agree with this in theory.

SEO and usability is not an either/or decision. It’s a concentrated and blended effort to go above and beyond basic expectations to reach for goals like great customer service, findability, word of mouth advertising or brand building.

That’s right! You need to reach with both hands to efficiently take advantage of your site changes. But wait… word of mouth advertising? Brand building? I love design but I certainly don’t send out e-mails to my friends saying “Check out this site! It’s amazingly usable.”

I don’t evangelize products based on packaging, I spread the value of function. I tell people things like: value for your money, shipping policy, better than the alternative, or full of bright people. Certainly SEO and usability will create both volume and return on investment, but they are never going to be the basis of word-of-mouth advertising. You can dress a duck in a prom dress but that doesn’t mean that anyone is going to tell all their friends that they went to prom with a duck.

Unless they have a really sick sense of humor.

SEO and usability are both most valuable when they are broadcasting an existing value. If you are selling a mediocre product you will have certain unavoidable constraints. Still Kim is on one level very correct in her assessment of usablity; many people will overlook quality for convenience.

Tags:   Design · landing pages · SEONo Comments

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