Tag: site usability

Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week … Continue

Website usability tests are performed to determine if websites are functioning correctly. If they aren’t, users will have a hard time executing on their desired tasks, leading website publishers to fail in building rapport and generating revenue from these users. … Continue

Gutenberg is dead. And you will be, too, if you don’t make the transition now to meet the public’s growing demand for digital information.

Fortunately, there is one resource, one unique program that can change the way you, your staff and your entire organization think of the Internet and help you catch up to the future. … Continue

No matter what you call it, the top of your website is a strategic website design challenge

A funny thing happened on the way to today’s post. While doing keyword research to discover what you, our audience, call the top of your website, I found some disagreement. Various posts at other websites from Wikipedia to a … Continue

The demands of digital publishing websites today is much different than five years ago

Do you like the way your website looks? If so, don’t get too attached to it. Your website will continuously change to meet your customers needs, and functionality needs of your business.

In order to grow online, digital publishers need their website to … Continue

Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week … Continue

Website usability tests are performed to determine if websites are functioning correctly. If they aren’t, users will have a hard time executing on their desired tasks, leading website publishers to fail in building rapport and generating revenue from these users.

There are three basic approaches to usability testing. They include expert reviews, heuristic testing and … Continue

The Mequoda System Strategy Workshop details the complete picture for successful online publishing

We designed our Mequoda System Strategy Workshop so that different types of people can attend and gain value from the program.

Thus far, all my colleagues who have experienced the content have given rave reviews about the program.

The next opportunity publishers, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs … Continue

Learn How to Start and Run a Successful Online Business at the Mequoda Summit East 2011, September 13-16th

Discover first-hand the techniques used by online publishers and content marketers for supercharging your online business

(Boston, MA)—The Mequoda Summit East 2011, a hands-on program featuring keynote presentations, panel sessions, interactive workshops and networking opportunities, will take place September … Continue

Client consultation opportunities available

As I mentioned yesterday, the Mequoda Team has been re-structuring my consulting programs over the past 18 months. Our new Minimum Consulting Unit is a two-hour quarterly WebEx meeting, which anchors a Mequoda Gold Membership Program that costs just $300 per month.

While the discussions I have with my clients take many forms, … Continue

Discover how our complete online business system can generate revenue for you

In yesterday’s Mequoda Daily, I discussed the core values behind Mequoda Systems, and what sets our system apart from other basic content marketing systems.

During our upcoming Mequoda Summit East 2011, attendees have the chance to experience the Mequoda System Strategy Workshop, which discusses the … Continue

Our new step-by-step program goes from concept and theory to hands-on, practical guidance

A few weeks ago, Kim and I sat down to update the Content Marketing Strategy presentation for the June NYC workshop, as we do a couple of times per year.

We began to realize that the seven principles we’ve used to teach the program … Continue

Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week … Continue

Why it’s important to let go and allow your users define your website

If there’s anything we’ve learned from the great success of Anne Holland’s new venture, Which Test Won, it’s that we must test our websites to find out what works. Also, that whatever we think will convert better, is probably not the one that … Continue

This free report from Mequoda Group provides information on properly creating mobile sites that are user-friendly

(Nationwide)—To be successful in the world of mobile sites, it’s important to keep the notion that ‘less is more’ in mind. Attempting to incorporate too much into a mobile site will only confuse and frustrate users.

Instead of trying to display … Continue

Internet marketing encompasses a wide range of methods including search engine marketing, email marketing, viral marketing, affiliate marketing, display advertising, interactive ads and others. The nature of the Internet causes rapid and constant change in marketing, and new methods are always emerging. Internet marketers frequently combine several methods, such as email marketing and display advertising. … Continue

Multiple Business Models are Required to Maximize Online Revenue

In session three, entitled Generating Website Revenue, Don revealed that there are the 12 different types of business models, or “archetypes” that a publisher uses to make money online. … Continue

The web is quickly becoming an on-demand source at the fingertips of all of our users. While users without SmartPhones or PDAs might rarely see the benefit in surfing the web within an un-optimized environment, it’s plainly obvious to see that technology is escalating to this new on-demand standard, and we should be distributing optimized … Continue

How to keep smart shoppers happy and provide them with a thorough, yet user-friendly online shopping experience. Normally, we don’t recommend shopping carts to our users, because we see the highest conversion rate on sales letter landing pages. However, we realize that many publishers have too large of an inventory and feel that shopping … Continue

These internet marketing tips can help your website’s ads generate more revenue
Banner blindness is a real problem for publishers and advertisers. Banners that are not seen are not clicked, lowering the sponsor’s ROI and the publisher’s revenue. But how do we make online ads that capture more attention? … Continue

Valuable information without premium prices

“Knowledge is power.”

The more research you conduct, the stronger your online business will be.

You should learn about search engines, your customers, landing pages, website usability, online publishing—everything about business online. … Continue

Websurfers are not getting any more patient.

More people are installing broadband connections in their homes, and more than 80 percent of all active Internet users in the US now access the net with broadband, according to Website Optimization’s March 2007 Bandwidth Report. The pokey 56K connection is becoming too slow to satisfy. … Continue

TMZ’s constantly updated celebrity news draws more unique users by a wide margin.

Entertainment news hub TMZ dominated the Mequoda Blog 100 this month, generating more unique visitors during January than the two closest contenders combined. … Continue

Capitalize on these frequently overlooked opportunities to sell more products from your website and increase your average dollar amount per sale.

If you’ve ever bought a product in direct response to a TV commercial, you’ve experienced the “upsell.” The operator always has a special, “today only” opportunity to increase your order or add another product at … Continue

The Mequoda Research Team has made a list of the top 100 media blogs in the country based on unique page visitors per month.

In the sprawling and volatile blogosphere, mining for a gem of a site is hard work. That’s why the Mequoda Research Team created the free Mequoda Blog 100. Mequoda has identified the … Continue

If there’s a new blog born every half second, how will yours get noticed?

The average blog reader views 77% more pages than an average user, and believe it or not, those blog readers are 11% more likely to have an average income of $75,000 or more, according to Clickz. Well that sounds like a great … Continue

Looking back on an expert’s claim that website usability testing proved promotional language imposes a cognitive burden

It’s nearly a decade now since website usability expert Dr. Jakob Nielsen proclaimed that “that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.”

“Users detested ‘marketese’—the promotional writing style … Continue

The Internet is a constantly evolving medium. Websites get redesigned, either owing to new graphics, new content, or because the essential architecture is inadequate to serve the site visitors.

If the human factors haven’t been properly addressed — if visitors can’t easily find what they’re looking for or can’t order your product easily — you’ve got … Continue

U.S. Government Creates Guidelines

If the target market for your email newsletter or membership website is older Americans, you might want to heed this advice on senior-friendly websites from the National Institute on Aging. If fact, you might find these suggestions are worthwhile for any group squinting at the computer screen.

“Plain text, plain type, and plain … Continue

Experts on Website Design and Website Usability Testing Can Disagree

“Never redesign your website,” says one of my esteemed mentors and colleagues.

Disturbing words, especially because, as a website design expert and information architect, I spend 50+ hours a week explaining to clients why and how they must redesign their websites. … Continue

Earlier this week, I got my annual physical (the doc says I’m in good shape for an old guy). My new MD looks to be about 35 making me about 15 years his senior—me having just turned 50 last December.

While waiting in various states of dress and undress, I found myself trying to read Time … Continue

Having just conducted a mini-usability test this week with a very confused customer, I have website usability on the brain. We have some tests scheduled for the end of September that I just cannot wait another second for!

As many of you know, website usability is a hot issue in Web development, most likely because, over … Continue

Perhaps you’re confident of the words you must use on your website but not how they should be organized. Our usability expert, Roxanne O’Connell, likes to make that a job for a Card Sort Test. This test is especially helpful if you have a lot of categories or sections and you want to know how … Continue

As our usability guru, Roxanne O’Connell is fond of saying, the cardinal rule when deciding on which words to use to describe the various departments, sections and categories on your website is to ask, “What would a user call this?”

Not “What do the business people call this?” or “What does the boss call this?” …or … Continue

Usability and design are two key factors in publishing great websites. You can have a clear strategy and great content, but if your site is unusable and unattractive, it will be difficult for users to find what they’re looking for, difficult for you to get users to do what you want them to do, and … Continue

Getting the design of your website right often proves to be a daunting task. The development costs alone for creating a website with a unique value proposition can be staggering. Our inside joke on that is, “How do you create a $10 million Web business? Start with $38 million and work your way down.”

Wouldn’t it … Continue

There is no mistaking the current success of Craigslist with their extremely basic website design.

Craigslist (CL) was a simple community classified site started in 1995 by Craig Newmark. The originally-non-profit site was incorporated in 1999. There are 190 versions of the website—localized by city—throughout the world, featuring free classified advertisements (jobs, housing, for sale, services, … Continue

The Incredible Website Usability of Craigslist.org is a Key Component in the Success of this Community Phenomenon.

Craigslist.org (CL) was a simple online community classified site started in 1995 by Craig Newmark (yes, Virginia, there is a Craig). The originally-non-profit site was incorporated in 1999. There are 190 versions of the website—localized by city—throughout the world, … Continue

The Mequoda Internet Hub is the heart of a high-performance Internet Marketing System that is fueling extreme growth for the handful of savvy information marketers that have one. Here are some lessons learned from analyzing more than 20 existing Internet Hubs and then designing and building six Mequoda Internet Hubs for a variety of publishers. … Continue

While humans are humans, age is a major consideration in designing usable websites that will allow the targeted users to have an efficient and fulfilling user experience. … Continue

In the past few months, I’ve seen results from three different magazine publishers that have each literally turned their source mix on its head. For each of them, a simple online order form that costs them almost nothing has rocketed their website to the top of their print publication’s source list. The website design trick … Continue

Webpage path analysis for a large advertising-driven consumer website revealed that there was a problem with website usability. Users were bypassing the “browse by category” website navigation in 85 percent of user sessions. Website usability testing revealed that the users were using search to look for reports and articles, instead of using the left column … Continue

We are still in the dawn of the Internet age and Morningstar.com is one of the early lights in the crowded online investment information sky. A well-designed site with a Milky Way of investment tools, Morningstar.com earns a glowing A on the Mequoda Website Scorecard. … Continue

Successful website publishing in 2005 means creating happy users and healthy profits. Without both, no website will exist for long. All of the successful website publishers we’ve studied have one thing in common: a consistent management system for achieving success that includes a number of key behaviors that are repeated over and over to become … Continue

What should you consider when starting a subscription-driven or membership website?

The answers are not always obvious, even to a seasoned print or electronic publisher. Starting a new website is very different from running an existing property. Over the past 10 years, my partners and I have worked on over 100 successful website startups, as well … Continue

Bristol, RI – September 23, 2004 – With larger magazine publishing companies falling to the wayside, the Imagineers at Disney Publishing’s Discover.com have been awarded the IMR Usability Excellence Award 2004 for Best Consumer Magazine Website. … Continue

Consumer magazine websites are as diverse in content and execution as the magazines they represent. Some offer robust content and interactive functionality that begin to take advantage of the promise of online publishing, while some… do not. … Continue