The success of a web site cannot be accurately measured simply in
the number of visits it receives or how well it ranks in search
engines. Visitor numbers only give a rough idea of how well a site
is truly performing. The percentage of web site visitors who make
a purchase reveals a rate of conversion which may be a better indicator
of a web site’s performance, but this still leaves many gaps in
our understanding of a web site’s functionality and effectiveness.
Search engine rankings can tell us how well a web site has been
marketed but they tell us nothing of how well a marketing message
is received or how a business is perceived by the general online
public.

I have developed a measurement system which addresses the
voids left as a result of relying solely on popular web metrics
such as visitor numbers, search rankings and conversion rates to
provide an accurate representation of a web site’s overall performance.
T.R.A.C.E VALUE  takes a holistic view of web site performance,
combines popular web metrics, emerging analytical trends, traditional
marketing measurements, web site functionality, programming, design,
composition and accessibility concerns and provides a detailed and
insightful view of a web site’s true effectiveness.

As a tool for pinpointing a web site’s weaknesses T.R.A.C.E VALUE
is invaluable, as a method of offering solutions it is absolutely
unequaled. T.R.A.C.E VALUE can be used to modify and enhance existing
online marketing efforts, increase online conversion rates, address
issues of web site functionality, improve search engine rankings,
improve web site information structure, monitor and improve online
perception and reputation, monitor the effectiveness of marketing
efforts, improve site content relevance and provide detailed benchmarks
for future sight improvements.

Listed below are the individual elements which combine to create
the T.R.A.C.E VALUE . This list is provided to offer a general
overview of the T.R.A.C.E VALUE ™ web site measurement system and
by no means is a complete representation of the many variables involved
in the whole measurement process.

Trust

How is a web site measured in terms of trust? A link from one web
site to another of similar content may be considered a vote of confidence.
A link from a web site which enjoys some authority on a particular
topic to another site may be considered an even more significant
vote of confidence. The sheer number of links pointing to a web
site can also be seen as passing trust online as long as those links
are deemed relevant. Web site content can also be used to instill
trust, guarantees of service, security, refund and privacy policies
can all be used to generate trust from online visitors. The age
of a web site can also be considered when determining the trust-worthiness
of a web site. Accessibility may also be thought of as a feature
which generates trust, a site which addresses issues of accessibility
may receive a slight bonus in terms of how it is perceived by the
public and vicariously by search engines.

Relevance
A web site with a theme of relevance, a unifying trend which connects
one page to the next, one web site element with another can be considered
relevant to it’s own content. A page title which matches or closely
matches a page name or heading or perhaps the name of an image creates
a theme or a recurring pattern which helps to raise the level of
a web site’s relevance to any particular topic. Relevance also exists
in off-site areas as well. How relevant are back links to a web
site? How relevant are references to a web site in social media
channels? How well matched are any online advertising content to
the main content of a web site?

Authority / Accessibility /

Authority refers to how well established the site is compared to
others, how relevant and important the site’s content is considered
by both web users and search algorithms combined.<br>

Accessibility is concerned with both technological issues connected
with web design and the availability of the web site to the widest
possible audience including those with disabilities and special
technological needs.

Usability is concerned with the basic functionality of a web site.
Does the site perform well with a variety of browsers and operating
systems? Do on page scripts function flawlessly or do they sometimes
cause errors? Are all web site links active or are there missing
pages? Does the site load quickly and easily? Are various screen
resolutions catered to? Does the basic navigation of the site make
sense or is it difficult to understand? Perhaps most importantly,
does the site function for the largest possible audience?

Composition
The composition of a web site involves the design and programming
of a web site but it also considers the main message or purpose
of the web site and how scripting, design and programming issues
may interfere with that the fulfillment of that purpose. Do various
design elements of the site support or detract from the overall
message of the site? Is the main message of the site supported or
hindered by the technology behind the web site? Are action points
clearly defined and mapped out for the web site? Does the overall
composition of the site support the desired outcome of the online
presence?

Exposure
Exposure is concerned with the number of references and links to
a web site, the site’s existing search engine rankings; the number
of pages within a web site and there relevance to the overall theme
or content of the site. These elements combine to for the exposure
level of a web site. Exposure can be considered as part of a web
site’s marketing effectiveness, the strength, value and results
of present online marketing efforts.

After an analysis of the five major areas of research involved in
the T.R.A.C.E VALUE  a rating can be applied to each element.

Values are measured on a scale from 1 to 10 for each element. Giving us
a maximum overall score of 50 and a minimum score of 0.

So how does your website measure up?

Search engine optimization can be broken down into two separate yet intertwined categories. Non-organic or paid search optimization and organic, or unpaid search optimization. Paid search advertising relies on purchased search phrases to drive visitors to a website, while organic search optimization focuses on developing web sites that are naturally search engine friendly and appear in the unpaid or “organic” search engine results pages. (SERPS)

Successful organic optimization combines technical know-how with persuasive marketing. Organically optimized web sites contain content that visitors find informative and relevant to their searches. Content is further optimized for search engines by incorporating relevant key phrases or words into the site’s literature. Organic optimization is holistic in approach. Every aspect of a web site is analyzed for it’s level of search friendliness. Aspects like the site’s title, meta-tags, editorial copy, structure and design, usability and function are all taken into consideration.

These aspects and many others are equally considered when optimizing a web site. There are, however four main points of interest:

1. Key Phrases: One of the first steps in organic optimization is determining which key phrases are to be targeted. This is determined by researching which words or phrases a target audience is most likely to search for. These target keywords are then incorporated into the title, description and content of a web site. It is important to note that the overuse of keywords in a web site can result in a search engine’s indexing software to considering a site as abusing or spamming the search engine and can result in that site being removed from the search index. Generally a key word should appear five to eight times within a site’s editorial content and content should consist of between 200 and 400 words.

2. Site Structure: Search engines are somewhat limited in the way they can index a web site. Search engine robots or spiders are chiefly concerned with determining two things, what is this web site all about and where should this site show up in the search engine results. Often the way in which a web site is constructed can have negative results in how effective these search spiders are. It is important to understand how search engine indexing works in order to create web sites which are fine tuned for optimal search results Search spiders look primarily for text content when judging how a site is to be indexed. Sites which are built entirely of graphic elements or flash are not search friendly. Sites which feature an overuse of javascript and other dynamic content are not search friendly. A multitude of factors are considered when optimizing for the search engines. Since different search engines follow different rules, and the rules often change, it is unlikely that every aspect of a web site will be perfectly matched to every search engine. The important thing to strive for is eliminating the elements of a site that are known to cause problems, and emphasizing as many search friendly aspects as possible.

3. Usability: A site which is difficult to navigate, slow to load, or leaves a user wondering exactly what the site is all about is a site that is not going to perform very well. The flow of information within a web site must be logical and intuitive. Optimizing a site for performance is critical to its overall level of success. After all, what is the point of having a web site that ranks well in search engines if nobody can use it?

4. Inbound Links: The amount of inbound links to a web site has a direct effect on the search engine page ranking of the site. Virtually all of the popular search engines have methods of calculating the link popularity of any given site. This makes inbound links an important area of organic optimization. The quality of the inbound links can matter more than the quantity. Search engines place more importance on relevant links from sites which they consider to be authorities on any given key phrase. Search engines strive to provide the most relevant results possible by filtering out meaningless or “junk” links to a website. In some cases, large numbers of irrelevant inbound links are seen by the search engines as abuse or spamming. Practices such as “link farming” and “free-for-all” link pages are frowned upon.

As the popularity of paid search advertising grows so does the need for organic optimization. While paid search campaigns can offer short term exposure, organic optimization involves steady, long term results. And as the costs of paid search advertising continues to climb, organic optimization offers the assurance of appearing in search pages for natural searches. By combining aspects of search engine technicalities, site structure and usablity, organic optimization not only focuses on search engine results but offers the end user of a site a quality experience.

Imagine that someone Mary is searching online for the best deal for a Sony PlayStation. Mary is confronted with an endless number of online shops selling these devices. After about 30 minutes of comparing prices on about ten or fifteen web sites she narrows her choices down to three web sites selling the same product. Let’s assume that the price is about the same on all three web sites.

So what differences in the three remaining web sites might affect Mary’s decision about choosing which one to purchase from? We know that the price is the same on all three sites, so we can take that out of the equation. What we are left with are issues of functionality, form and trust. The first issue deals directly with the functionality of the web sites involved. The second two issues relate to psychological or emotional responses to the content and design of the web sites.

Let’s have a look at functionality. Mary has narrowed her search to three web sites, one of which she will choose to make a purchase of A Sony Play Station. Web Site A is offering the Play Station at the same price as the other two sites. Site A contains much of the same information as the other sites, but when Mary tries to get information about shipping costs she discovers that the web page she is looking for is missing or not working. She decides to rule Site A out of the running based on this dysfunction of the site. Mary makes the assumption that if the owners of the site are this careless about their own web site they might be careless about processing and shipping any order that she might make.

You can see how the functionality of the web site is directly related to the sales process. Critical information was unavailable to the purchaser and resulted in a lost sale. Mary isn’t going to go back to this site in a few hours or a few days to see if the problem has been fixed. Why should she? She has other options available to her, hundreds, thousands of options. Selling online isn’t like selling in the outside world; you don’t get any second chances. You can see also how there’s a psychological component to the functionality of a website. A site which displays broken links or non-working pages is unprofessional. In fact any element of your web site which might cause a glitch for the user is a potential roadblock to making a sale.

This brings us to the issue of form. The form of a web site or its overall design and composition may be just as important as its function. A web site which is professionally designed, pleasing to the eye, and logical in its layout of information stands a far better chance of making a sale than one that is not.

Sometimes the smallest things can make all the difference. Just like in the offline world, perception counts for a lot in the eyes of the consumer. Your website acts as a representative for your business, a very important representative. The design of your web site can make a big impact on the perception of your potential customers.

Many small business owners make the mistake of short changing the design of their web sites. It’s not uncommon for many small business owners to design their own sites or pay their nieces and nephews or a friend to create a web site for them. For the reasons stated previously this can be a big mistake, a mistake most chances of their websites acting as sales generating tool. Saving a few bucks and cutting corners on the design of a website may seem like a good idea but it’s really shooting oneself in the foot.

The third issue which might affect Mary’s (or anyone’s) decision about choosing which web site to make a purchase from is an issue of trust. You might be asking yourself what trust has to do with anything. How can a website instill trust or perhaps seem untrustworthy? Again we get back to the notion of mimicking real life purchasing situations.

When we make a purchase in an offline store we get a receipt. We know that if something is wrong with the product we can take it back to the store and receive a replacement. Sure it might be a bit of a hassle, but we feel reasonably confident that we are able to get some satisfaction should something be defective with the product.

Well, this sense of confidence and assurance changes when we turn to the internet as a method of shopping. When we shop online we don’t really know who we are dealing with. The person on the other end of the supply line might be anywhere in the world, they might not speak the same language that we do. We might end up waiting weeks for a product to arrive once we purchase it. The assurances and confidence that we feel with making offline purchases doesn’t exist with online shopping, in most cases anyway.

Remember earlier when we talked about the reasons that some people refuse to purchase products online? The most common reasons that people are reluctant to make online purchase boil down to this issue of trust. People just don’t trust the internet, they don’t trust online shops, and they don’t trust that the products will even show up once they are purchased. Every step of the way it’s trust or the lack of it actually that holds people back from making a purchase online, at your web site or anyone else’s. Keep this in the forefront of your mind when you are planning your web site and your online sales pages.

There are several ways that a website can help to instill a sense of trust in a potential customer. To be honest, none of them are perfect and none of them will ever match the sense of assurance that a consumer feels or usually feels when making an offline purchase.

Testimonials

Using testimonials is an obvious method of lowering some of the reluctance which many online shoppers feel when making a purchase from a new or untried web site. Include testimonial information directly in your sales copy or product description if possible.

Guarantees

Can you guarantee that a product will be delivered or that a service will be fulfilled? A properly written guarantee offers an online buyer some recourse should a problem in fulfillment arise. Just make sure that you are able to back up any promises that you make.

Professional Web Design

A poorly designed or amateur web site does not instill the sense of assurance and security that you want your customers to feel when viewing your web site. Spend the time and relatively small amount of money required to make sure that your web site has not only a professional design but that it functions flawlessly, is viewable by many types of browsers and computer configurations.

Policies

Have policies in place which address issues of online security, privacy and refunds. Clearly state what your policies and terms are and make sure that this information is easy for a potential customer to find.

Search Engine Rankings

Most people feel that the web sites which appear in the first page of search engine results are the top players in a particular field. As we spoke about earlier, search is the first step in the online buying process. The majority of your online sales will originate as a result of online searches. This fact should not be overlooked when planning your online sales strategy. Make every attempt to ensure that your web site ranks well for searched related to your product or service.

Depending on the nature of your product or service you might also consider having pages with technical support information or a page or frequently asked questions (FAQ’s). Information offered on your web site which predicts and answers questions and addresses common needs or concerns help to build trust. It shows your web site user you that you have taken the time and effort to think about them, that you have done everything possible to make the web site experience positive and worthwhile. By addressing the issues noted in this segment of the guide, you have also taken steps to mirror the offline buying experience, which ultimately leads to higher levels of customer trust and can translate directly to an increase in your online sales.

I stated earlier that your web site should take people by the hand and walk them through the process of making a purchase. If designed properly your web site can accomplish this task.

Most web sites are designed without ever giving much thought to what the desired outcome of the site should be. Web sites usually end up trying to be all things to everyone, a confusing mish-mash of information which really doesn’t accomplish much at all.

Let’s use a simple example to illustrate how calls to action can help to define the purpose of a web site as well as walk customers through the buying process.

Imagine that you have a product that you would like to sell online, say….its an mp3 player. You’ve hooked up with a cheapo wholesaler and you plan to sell these mp3 players for $50 plus shipping. Now, imagine that you have a web site built, it’s a simple web site, you are only selling one type of mp3 player

Your web site features a sales sheet, prices, a description of the product, a few photos of the product and shipping quotes. Stop here for a second, before we go any further we should define what the purpose of the site is. The purpose of the site is to sell this mp3 player, right? Right, so far we have a pretty good idea about what type of content the site requires, we put it all together and come up with a pretty good web site based around this one product. We place a link on the sales page to navigate to a purchase form.

This link is in the form of a button which says ” Buy This MP3 Player “. Now this ” Buy This MP3 Player ” button is our call to action, it’s the action that we want our website’s visitors to take. The whole web site is built to steer visitors to that desired result. The purpose of the site is clear, every bit of information on the site supports the desired outcome.

Now, if all of this sounds rather obvious to you take a minute to think about how many web sites are not designed this way, th8ink about your own web site and which elements of it support or detract from the achieving the desired result. Think about how many web sites skip the all important step of defining the purpose of the site, defining the main call to action.

Have a look around the internet, do a search from some random products and have a look at the web sites that pop up in search results. Try to determine if these sites have given any thought at all as to what calls to action are.

This whole issue of defining calls to action on a web site may seem simple, and obvious, but it isn’t. Some sites have several purposes beyond simply selling a product, some sites have multiple calls to action, some address action points based on level of importance.

A simple call to action such as “Buy this MP3 player” can be the subject of a whole lot of scrutiny and analysis. For instance, should the link be placed at the top or bottom of the sales sheet? Should this be a text link or a graphic? What color should this link be? Does the color of the link really matter? How large should this call to action be? Would another version of this call to action be more effective? Would a link that states, ” Buy Now” work better?

I could go on and on but I won’t, the point is that calls to action are the method used to direct a sale and as such are an important consideration of your web site design and online sales process.

Think about how action points can and should help to define the design and layout of your web site.

What actions do you want your web site visitors to take?

If your site has more than one call to action, which ones are the most important?

How many steps are required of your visitors to reach the desired goal?

Are your web sites actions points clearly defined and planned?

Does the design, content and layout of your web site support your main call to action?

Have you tested a variety of calls to action and determined the most effective version for your product or service?

There is so much misinformation floating through the internet regarding
search engine marketing and optimization that it’s important to
shed some light on a few common errors and misconceptions. The following
list highlights some of the most critical issues involved in determining
the success or failure of a web site’s search engine optimization
and marketing strategies.

1. Lack of “Search Friendly” Content. Every week I review web sites
with no real search engine indexable content. Web pages composed
mostly of graphics, flash and other bells and whistle are commonly
over-looked by the search engines. Search engines determine what
content is of value per web page based on the text used on that
page. A truly optimized site should contain at least 200 words of
keyword-dense text. There is some debate among experts on exactly
how many words should be used, but generally 200 words will suffice.
As a point of reference this paragraph contains about 200 words.
It is equally important for text content to contain keywords that
match the page titles. For example, a site selling peanut butter
owned by a company called “ACME Foods” might have a title of “Acme
Foods, Inc. Wholesale Food Products”. We have to consider how many
people are likely to search for the term “Acme Foods, Inc. Wholesale
Food Products” it is much more likely that people will search for
the term “peanut butter”. Knowing this, we can say with confidence
that it would be a wiser choice to title a page, “Peanut Butter,
ACME Foods” and the page content should reflect this same keyword
strategy.

2. Insufficient Link Popularity. Search engines make every attempt
to qualify the results which are displayed in search results. One
of the ways that they do this is by tracking the number and quality
of the incoming links to a web site. A site with a large number
of incoming links from quality sites is given a higher ranking in
search results. This is an important consideration that is sometimes
over-looked by those attempting to market web sites. Services that
promise to link your site to thousands of other sites are far from
productive; in fact they can sometimes do more harm than good. Most
search engines these days consider services like this to be spam,
so called “link farming” and often give sites with these types of
links a low ranking or drop them all-together from the search results.
Incoming links to a site that compliment it and are relevant to
the site contents are golden and can greatly boost a site’s ranking.
Google’s page ranking system is a good example. A site with a page
rank of 1 if given a link from a site with a page rank of 8 can
see its page rank boost to 4! Link popularity is one of the most
time consuming and difficult aspects of search engine optimization.
It’s no wonder that many of the search engines give so much importance
to this web site measurement.

3. Lack of Keyword Research And Updates So, you have a web site.
Do you know what pages in your web site are generating the most
interest? Do you know what terms people are searching for that result
in them finding your site? Probably not. Let’s use the peanut butter
analogy again. You own a web site that sells peanut butter. You
spend some money on paid search advertising, logically; you assume
that the key phrase “peanut butter” is a prime candidate to target.
What happens? usually one of two things, one, the term peanut butter
is such a popular search term that thirty million other web sites
are competing for the same key phrase. Two, the term peanut butter
is so unpopular that it’s unlikely that it’s searched for more than
once in this lifetime. Proper keyword research can solve these problems.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that keyword research is performed
and that it is determined that a significant number of people are
searching for “organic peanut butter”. It just so happens that our
peanut butter company manufactures a whole line of organic, all
natural peanut butter. We have discovered a niche. The right amount
of people searching for the specific product that we want to sell.
It’s the perfect match. So, what must be done to capitalize on our
findings? First we optimize our web pages for our target keyword,
we change the title, and the content so that they include the term
“organic peanut butter”, then we scrap all of the paid search advertising
that wasn’t working and focus on targeting our “organic peanut butter”
market. The point is, successful search engine marketing relies
on constant research and updates the internet is fluid and evolving.
What works today might not work tomorrow, we have to be able to
identify strengths and weaknesses in our internet marketing campaigns
and must be prepared to research, update and adapt.

4. Designing First, Optimizing Later I have seen this mistake repeated
hundreds of times. Even experienced web designers fail to consider
the results of design decisions on search optimization until it’s
too late. What is the point of spending thousands of dollars for
a well “designed” web site if nobody ever sees it? Consult a search
engine specialist early in the design process. Even if your web
site marketing strategy relies heavily on paid search advertising
a consultation with a professional optimization expert may expose
flaws in your site’s layout. Points in the flow of information that
tend to cause users to lose interest or become confused may become
apparent, better to address these issues early on.

5. Relying Too Heavily On Paid Search Advertising This is a mistake
made by Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike. The fact
is that most businesses, small and large aren’t getting it right.
The rationale is that since search advertising can be purchased
it isn’t necessary to focus on search optimization techniques. On
the surface this might make some sense, you can buy certain keyword
phrases that people are searching for, so why bother optimizing
your site for the search engines? For a company with a huge internet
advertising budget this means spending huge amounts of money to
drive traffic to their sites, when, if their site had been properly
optimized from the beginning, these costs might be half as much
for the same amount of viewers. For many smaller businesses trying
to compete in the internet marketplace simply becomes overwhelming.
While paid search advertising is a highly effective means of targeting
an audience, organic search optimization greatly increases the chances
of success for any web site. Make sure that the site you are advertising
is one that people can find easily without the assistance of a paid
search campaign.

6. Not Supporting the Conversion Process A few weeks ago my wife
decided that she wanted to buy some Australian made baby clothes
that we can’t find here in the states. So being the internet savvy
father to be, I decided to have a look on the internet for the particular
brand she was interested in. I surf to a search engine and type
in the brand name. A few seconds later I’m greeted with a list of
web sites that supposedly have what I’m looking for. I click on
the first site in the list. I find myself at the site of a clothing
importer based out of California. There are links to several categories
of clothing, none of which seem to have anything to do with babies,
eventually after a lot of searching I find a link on the children’s
clothing page for infant garments. The infant garments page has
a few images of clothing but not the brand I’m looking for. I look
to see if there is way to search for clothing by brand name. There
isn’t. I look to see if there is a list somewhere on the site of
brand names carried by this distributor. There isn’t. I look to
see if there is a toll free number to call. There isn’t. The internet
optimization part of my brain is boiling by this point, so to add
insult to injury I go back to the children’s garments section of
the site. I click on a link to purchase a bright green jacket. I’m
confronted with a page that is requiring me to fill in a bunch of
personal details. Ok, so I fill in the details and click submit.
Now I find myself back at the bright green jacket page. Apparently
now I’m qualified to purchase something. I click the “check out”
button. The web page goes blank. I know that this is the result
of bad programming. I know what’s going to happen next. “Error 404
page not found”. Has this type of thing happened to you? If you
have ever tried to purchase something on the internet, I’m sure
it has. This is an illustration of a web site that is well ranked
in the search engines but has not taken the time to create a site
that is designed for its users. I was forced to hunt through the
web site to try and find what I was looking for. The flow of information
was counter-intuitive. There was no online support. All-in-all the
whole site was a joke. I would be surprised to learn that the site
in question made any sales at all, ever. There were several points
in this online experience that I felt like giving up. In the industry
this is known as ”abandonment”, This is a critical point in what
is known as the “conversion process”, the act of turning web site
viewers into online purchasers. This is an issue that should never
be underestimated. In fact it is the number one factor that determines
a web site’s success or failure. A web site with a million dollar
marketing budget and millions of visitors will not succeed unless
it serves to understand its user’s needs and anticipate its viewer’s
questions.

7. Graphics Used For Text Links. Web designers often use graphics
to represent a link in a web site. There are many reasons for this
choice. Unfortunately for web designers, the major internet browsers
display web pages in different ways. Since fonts display differently
on individual computers and in different browsers, it is a much
simpler proposition for designers to create graphic links than it
is to attempt to create cross-browser text links. The downside to
this work-around is that search engines have no idea if a graphic
link relates to a specific web page or a link to download the latest
Britney Spears MP3. For search engines to understand what a link
is truly representing, they need to find words in plain, good old
fashioned text. If a web site must use graphics for navigation it
is important to include a set of plain text links somewhere on the
web page, usually at the bottom of the page.

8. Use of Frames. Search engines have a hard time indexing sites
that are created in frames. Framed sites use several html files
to display one page. Search engines are often confused by the frames
method of creating web sites, usually only indexing the first html
file within the framed Pages that aren’t indexed will never show up
in search engine results. Also, many people that use the internet
regularly for research and purchases, so called “power users”, tend
to avoid sites built with frames, especially those sites which require
the user to scroll content in separate frames. Simply put, frames
are bad.

9. Splash Pages. Entry pages that instruct the user to “Enter”,
usually decorated with a large graphic or a flash animation. The
index page of a web site is the one that search engines read first.
More often than not the only readable content on this type of page
is a link that says, “skip intro” Splash pages lack indexable content,
usually contain no links and often contain a “redirect” to the real
home page. Search engines do not like redirects, they want the real
thing. Avoid splash pages unless you aren’t serious about being
found by search engines.

10. Submitting To 10,000 Search Engines I sometimes have a difficult
time believing that these services are still making money, more
importantly that people still think that they work. The fact is
that a handful of search engines account for about 90% of all the
web traffic generated and the rest comes from people typing in a
web site’s URL indirectly into their browser’s address bar. The
amount of viewers generated from these Mega-Search Submittal services
is so negligible that it’s hardly worth consideration. Don’t waste
your time or your money.

11. Not Clearly Defining Action Points Another mistake that is repeated
quite is often is the failure to clearly define what the objectives
of a web site are. What are the main goals of a site? Who will the
primary audience be? What actions are desired of the site’s visitors?
If these questions aren’t answered prior to designing a site they
will reflect a poor user experience in the final result. Action
points or calls to action are a terminology handed down from the
traditional marketing world. They serve to define a desired action
and are often supported by persuasive sales copy. Though the basic
concepts are the same as traditional marketing, calls to action
can take many different forms on the internet. Often they appear
as links or as part of a shopping cart. The nature of a web site
determines its type of action point. The most important thing to
consider is that without them, viewers have little or no idea what
the purpose of your site is. Imagine an infomercial running a half
hour long advertisement on television, yet the commentator says
nothing during the whole ad, just stands there holding a cardboard
box, you are left trying to guess what’s inside, the advertisement
offers no explanations or means of contacting the company involved.
Pointless isn’t it? This is exactly what a web site without clearly
defined points of action accomplishes; nothing. It’s an exercise
in futility.