The Clickthinking Blog | Scent Optimisation

“Contrary to what you may read, peppering your form with nice buttons, color and typography and plenty of jQuery plugins will not make it usable. Indeed, in doing so, you would be addressing (in an unstructured way) only one third of what constitutes form usability”

This is the opening line in a very informative article about form usability – An Extensive Guide To Web Form Usability (Justin Mifsud, November 2011, www.smashingmagazine.com).

In the article the author draws together research and insights from various fields – usability testing, field testing, website tracking, eye tracking, web analytics and actual complaints made to customer support personnel by unhappy users  – and leverages this to provide some clear guidelines for developers and solution architects to consider when designing forms.

He highlights the importance of usability on forms and defines the reason for the existence of the form for both the user and the business. The table below outlines that every form exists for one of three main reasons: commerce, community or productivity. The table translates each of these reasons into the user and business objectives that lie behind them.

Uses of forms, based on Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks.

It is important to consider that forms can make a website usable or unusable, because they can stand in the way of the user achieving their goal or simplify the process for both the business and the user. Hence, forms need to be usable in order to help the user achieve that goal.

Justin tackles usability by addressing three aspects common in all forms. All these areas need to be planned and integrated to achieve a usable and successful form interface.

1. Relationship – Forms establish a relationship between the user and the organization.
2. Conversation - They establish a dialogue between the user and the organization.
3. Appearance – By the way they look, they establish a relationship and a conversation.

The guidelines provided in the article are a good starting point to embark on when designing forms for any website.

Justin’s research methods are similar to the process embarked on by the Conversion Services team at Clickthinking. We also use additional tools to perform detailed form analysis that is customised to specific forms on a website. These tools will indicate exactly where users drop off on forms, which fields are slowing the process down, or if users have difficulty understanding or submitting the form.  If you already have a form on your site and you are not sure if it is completely optimised to your user’s needs, then form analysis is recommended.Contact conversion@clickthinking.com for a more information about our services.

For the full article, see http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/08/extensive-guide-web-form-usability/.

The trick here is engaging your audience and getting them intrigued and interested in what can be achieved in the short, as well as the long term, by using proper Search Engine Optimisation techniques and explaining how this will benefit their online efforts.

I tend to explain SEO like this:

It’s about being visible online for both Search Engines and humans. A website built for humans with all the bells and whistles that ranks on page 17 means as much as a top ranking website that does not engage nor convert its visitors. Both are pointless. Imagine you need to hand out business cards to potential customers that contain the URL to your website because they can’t find it online?

A few important factors to note here are: Do you target the correct keywords for your given target market? Does your website contain pages built around these specific researched keywords? And lastly, is there sufficient search volume for these? It won’t count for much if you rank highly for a keyword that has virtually no search volume. What are your competitors doing online? Where are they ranking for in specific searches and very importantly, where do they rank in comparison to you?

I tend to think of SEO as something that basically consists out of 3 basic pillars:

(1) the technical aspect;
(2) quality content; and
(3) reputation with a pencilled-in Social Media module connected to it as some lateral support.

The Technical Aspect
This pillar of Search Engine Optimisation refers to how your website is constructed for optimal search engine crawl ability from a coding and tagging perspective. We build websites from the ground up, meaning the website is SEO compliant from the file structure blueprint right up to a content level. We don’t believe in quick fixes although a few smart amendments to your website could assist in your online visibility.Content is the easy part in my book but equally as important a part as the other two. Content should ideally engage users and ultimately convert them into buying, downloading,booking, paying or playing. Good content gives the impression of a great authoritative website which has been constructed professionally for smart people. Search Engines love this.

Quality Content
The consistent addition of quality content not only keeps your site fresh, enticing visitors to come back and engaging people, but it also means your website is growing from the inside out and unwittingly turning your website into an authoritative hub of information.

Reputation
The third pillar of strength in the SEO cycle is Reputation. How many websites are linking to your website and where are they linking from? The more diverse the inbound link spread from quality websites to your site the better the chances for search engines to see your site as an authority on a specific topic (or many topics if that is the case). Search Engine algorithms take into consideration how your website is perceived by others – hence reputation. One can clearly see how quality content also ties in with reputation.
Google’s main goal (apart from making 33 Billion US Dollars per quarter) is to serve quality content that is relevant to a specific search query to its users;  and all three of these main SEO pillars contribute to a quality site almost evenly.
Proper SEO of your website right from the start, along with the on-going addition of monthly content, ensure longevity in the search engine results pages for your chosen  targeted keywords.
SEO will also cost you much less in the long run than running a fresh paid search campaign every month; although we recommend that these two methods be run concurrently in order to get maximum real estate coverage in the result pages.

At Clickthinking we have a specialist team of SEO’s (Search Engine Optimisers) with combined experience of around 50 years! Our SEO lifecycle and offering to clients consists of a number of important elements, namely:

- SEO Audits and Visibility Assessments
- Market Research
- Competitor Analysis
- Identifying Keyword Opportunities
- On-site Coding and Implementation
- SEO Copywriting and Implementation
- Site and Speed Performance
- Online Marketing and Link Acquisition, and
- Comprehensive Reporting that includes search engine ranking, content gap analysis, competitor analysis and baseline analysis using web analytics

If you’re interested in learning more about how Clickthinking can assist you in implementing the right SEO for your business, contact us at seo@clickthinking.com

Till next time, let’s keep the SEO real!

Etienne Beneke
Head of SEO

It’s with great excitement that I write this, my first blog article for Scent Optimisation, to introduce Performance Email as part of our Conversion offering at Clickthinking. A dedicated focus on one of the most powerful digital marketing channels, Email Marketing, brings Clickthinking’s Global Service Offering to new heights and is sure to enable our Clients to continue the on-going digital journey with all of their valued customers.

Let’s be honest, Email Marketing isn’t new. But as we’ve seen from continued growth across all Global markets (with stable focus on Email Marketing as one of the top 3 areas of online budget investment), it certainly isn’t dead. And with the increasing shift to mobile in both first-world and emerging markets, the 81% growth in mobile email viewership published by ReturnPath earlier in 2011 shows that people are now consuming email anywhere and everywhere.

But what about those who predicted the death of email as social stole the front page digital headlines? As the dust clears and those who zealously foretold the end of [Email’s] days recant their predictions, we now see that Email and Social have emerged as two fantastic engagement channels that not only get along, but when paired together are the life of the party that keeps people talking long after the night has ended. So, it makes absolute sense that with our proven expertise in Search; Design and Optimisation; and Conversion and Analytics, that Email Marketing is included in our [and ultimately our Clients’] digital armoury.

Keeping Updated

In line with the focus on our Performance Email offering we’ll be publishing a monthly newsletter to all of our valued Clients, Partners and Followers, starting end of November. Within this publication we’ll not only provide you with Email-related insights, but we’ll also feature articles from our Search; Design and Conversion Teams. In the coming weeks and months we’ll also be adding regular posts to the latest Industry Insights, Case Studies, and relevant articles to our Scent Optimisation blog – so stay tuned and in touch.  If you’d like to subscribe to our RSS Feed to be the first to receive new articles and updates, you can also subscribe here.

If you’d like to learn more about our Performance Email offering, please don’t hesitate to contact us at emailmarketing@clickthinking.com. We’d love to hear from you!

Until next time, stay engaged!