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Enhance Your Web Site for a More User Friendly Experience
When designing and maintaining a Web site, user experience is a simple, foundational
concept that is often overlooked.
The significance of the user experience is great, and can severely affect the success
or failure of a publisher's affiliate marketing efforts. User experience is the
concept that an interactive product, in this case a Web site, is tailored to the real
needs of its users. Keep in mind that users come to your Web site to fulfill a specific
need. By ensuring that your Web site provides a user friendly experience, you ensure
that your users achieve their needs easily and feel satisfied with their experience.
As a result, they will be inclined to return to your Web site, and ultimately become
a loyal, repeat user.
In this article we look at ten elements that contribute to a user friendly
experience including the navigational ease of a Web site as well as the content.
As you review the following ten elements, consider how they relate to your Web site
and what updates you could incorporate in order to provide a more user friendly
experience. While some elements suggested below may require more effort on your part,
and others may only require a small tweak, the steps you take to create a more user
friendly experience will ultimately be reflected in increased revenue and return
users.
- Navigation Bar – When a Web site contains multiple pages, a
navigation bar helps users quickly locate the content that they desire. Typically,
a left side navigation bar is more user friendly than a bar across the top of a
page. Be sure that each item in your navigation bar is named appropriately and in
a way that helps users easily find what they need.
- Search Box – Even if the elements in your navigation bar are
properly named, and seemingly self explanatory, users often desire a search box
to help them find exactly what they are looking for. If your users have a hard
time finding what they are looking for on your Web site, there is a good chance
they'll leave your Web site and try their search somewhere else.
- Organization and Detail – Keeping the content on your Web site
well organized allows users to quickly find what they are looking for. For example,
if your Web site offers a selection of electronic products, keep your category
listings properly organized. Sometimes simply listing 'Electronics' is not enough.
Be as detailed as possible by breaking out categories into sub categories, for
example 'Electronics' could offer such sub categories as 'Computers, Photography,
and Telecommunications.' In addition, a sub category such as Computers could be
broken down even further to 'Desktop Systems, Notebooks, Monitors, and Printers.'
- Population – Keeping your content well organized is the first
step, but ensuring your content is well populated is equally important. For
example, are your advertisers listed in all of the appropriate categories? Users
may look for Apple in computers, or they may look for Apple in music. Be sure to
populate your category listings to ensure your advertisers are listed in all
relevant categories.
- Links – Dead links are a top complaint for a poor user experience.
Weed out your dead links, update links of advertisers who have changed landing pages,
and remove links for advertisers who no longer have affiliate programs. To find out
if you have any invalid links generating traffic, any deactivated advertisers in
your program, or if there are any promotions ending within the next 30 days, log
into your CJ Account Manager™, click on the Run Reports tab, select
Performance Reports, and at the bottom of the page view the Frequently
Run Reports.
- Forums – With user generated content being all the rage, forums
are increasingly important to the user friendly experience. In addition to receiving
information, users enjoy the interactivity that forums allow. Offering this outlet
on your Web site provides users a place to share their own opinions and promotions
of products, services, coupons or deals, increases the user's loyalty to your Web
site, and ultimately drives sales. Forums create a community and enable the users
to interact with each other. Blogs are also a good option, however they are more
individualistic as the content is derived from one sources. Blogs only become
community oriented when comments are enabled.
- Coupons – If you offer coupons, it is important to remove offers
when they expire and to keep up with current deals. Consider implementing Commission
Junction's RSS feed from the Commission Junction Offer Portal. The Offer Portal is a
convenient gateway to access current advertiser offers. Visit
http://www.cjbeta.com/offerportal/ for
additional information on the Offer Portal and to access the RSS feed.
- Seasonality – There is always one house in your neighborhood whose
owner leaves the Christmas lights up until July, or keeps their Halloween decorations
up through the New Year. Just as you may view these neighbors as lazy or behind the
times, if your Web site reflects seasonal offers past their prime, your users will
view your site less favorably and be less inclined to come back. Keep up to date on
seasonal trends and display advertisers and offers that are relevant to the current
season on your home page. To help users navigate your site based on seasonality,
consider including the option to sort or search for products and/or services based
on season.
- Product Search – One of the most valuable resources in the CJ
Marketplace is the product catalog. The network contains millions of product links
spread across a wide variety of categories, and for a one time fee you can get access
to the product catalogs for all advertisers who provide one. To access product
catalogs, log into your CJ Account Manager, click on Contact Us in the upper
right hand corner, and then Ask a Question. Then simply request access to
product catalogs.
- Featured Products – Knowing what items are top sellers helps you
determine which items or links to feature on the 'prime real estate' of your Web
site. Advertisers often include 'top seller' lists in their newsletters to help
you determine which items to feature. Additionally, you can utilize Product
Performance reporting in the CJ Account Manager to determine top selling items.
Under the Run Reports tab, Performance Reports, you can view the
associated item details (Item ID link). Click the Items link to view performance
statistics including the SKU or item ID, item name and product category.
Dealcatcher is a great example of a Web site that is user friendly. They
incorporate many of the elements mentioned above:
- The navigation bars on the left side point out both categories as well as top
stores
- There is a search box for shoppers to find the exact product they are looking to
purchase
- The site offers a forum where shoppers can share hot deals they've discovered
- Dealcatcher provides special pages for coupons and even breaks them out by "New"
and "Expiring" to keep deals fresh
- They've featured a product as their 'Catch of the Day' which points out a particularly
popular item
Next time you are trolling around online, be sure to pay close attention to the
elements you appreciate on your favorite sites, as well as elements that frustrate
you, and apply your findings to your Web site. Providing a user friendly experience
is important in creating a loyal user base and vital for driving sales. Offering
users convenient and easy navigation of your site, as well as organized, relevant
and up to date content will help users easily fulfill their needs and feel
satisfied with their experience on your Web site.
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