Official Google Tips – How To Improve Visitor Retention
As promised here is the second Google video from their webmaster educational series – “Speeding up in a Slowdown”.
In this video you will hear tips from Ricardo Prada, a user experience researcher at Google, about designing websites for the user.
One of the things Ricardo and his colleagues are responsible for, is making sure that Google websites are efficient and fun to use so that visitors keep coming back to them. Ricardo offers three valuable tips that he and his team think about daily, as they do their jobs. Ultimately, these tips reflect Google’s guiding principle: “if you focus on the user, everything else will follow”.
Tip #1: Design for the tasks that visitors complete on your site.
Think about tasks on your website first and layouts second. It’s tempting to want a flashy design that exercises your CSS skills, but remember that vistors come to your site with specific goals in mind, like reading your essays, or checking out your collection of sports photos. Write down the top three tasks your users might want to accomplish on your site, and design to make those tasks quick and efficient.
Tip #2: Use ads as potential exit paths, not interruptions.
Ads should complement your site, not distract from it. The most natural place for a user to evaluate an advertisement is after they’ve completed their goals on your site. Instead of interrupting your user’s main tasks, try to offer ads as potential exit path for users who were probably ready to leave anyway by placing them at the end of completed tasks.
Tip #3: SEO – only if it makes sense.
Only do search engine optimisation that benefit your users. For example, page titles that are relevant to the page content make it easier for your visitors to understand what your articles are about. On the other hand, there are lots of sneaky strategies out there for improving search engine rank. Most of those don’t work anymore, and they might actually harm your site’s reputation.
For further information check out the Google Webmaster Tools - Design and Content Tips or visit the Custom Web Site Design page on our main website.
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