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Usability, Conversions & Search Engines  

:: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 ::

Usability, Conversions & Search Engines...

As I have been saying all along, search engine results are only as good as the quality of the page the searcher clicks on. It appears as though someone from SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) is beating the same drum as I am.

Christine Churchill of KeyRelevance is the Co-chair of the SEMPO Technical Committee. In an article by Garrett French called What The Experts Learned At The Search Conferences she is quoted as saying:

     "Another impression I have is that search marketing is evolving. Search used to be limited to us technical types who liked to get our hands dirty with the code. Now it's less code and more marketing, more usability, and more conversion oriented. Search has entered a new phase in its life cycle.

"In the past I was always appalled when I'd see a top ranked page that was unfit for human eyes. I think the emphasis has migrated from building pages to please search engine spiders to building pages that enhance the user experience. I see this phenomenon in both the organic and paid sides of search.

"Personally, I think this is a healthy trend."

As evidenced by the steadily increasings sales of my ecommerce usability/user interface checklist, I guess some people, and companies, are beginning to understand the value of building user centric websites and Internet applications. Paying a usability company to review your website BEFORE it's submitted to search engines and directories is the cost effective approach, both in terms of increased sales, but by the logic behind holding the attention of the person who first clicks into your site, from any page. Even if they leave without buying, if you've made a positive impression on them, they'll be back. With friends and family too.

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 3/10/2004 10:23:17 AM

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