Keep tweaking your website

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Its way to easy to ‘set it and forget it’ when it comes to your website. But constantly tweaking it can make for sizable gains in effectiveness. Here are two tools to help you:

1. Browser size visualization tool

Google just released a screen overlay tool that shows you what percentage of average users can see what parts of your website. What’s visible to you may be ‘below the fold’ for half your site’s visitors. Also, it can serve as a handy tool to drag your browser window to the view that 90 or 95% of your customers have.

Me, I’ve got a right-hand side menu to worry about, but luckily the site is flexible-width so 90% of visitors can see the whole thing.

2. Web-form validation technology

Validation choices

Validation choices

What’s more important to a B2B marketer than the web-form that all your leads come from? Well, after looking at this review of web-form validation technology from Smashing Magazine, I feel like my site is only doing the minimum standard. At the end of the article is a number of resources to add form validation tricks to your site. Your visitors are already getting use to these techniques at other sites, and will be expecting similar technology at your site.

Keep on tweaking

We all want to redo our website all the time. But going back and tweaking details can make significant improvements in user experience and response. Don’t believe me? Start following Anne Holland’s new blog Which Test Won? where her A/B test examples can show dramatic gains from tweaking websites.

What are you tweaking?

  • Dave J.
  • Dave J.
  • http://www.mfg.com/ AJ Sweatt

    Also important: continuing to add content to the site. For example, a contact manufacturer that continuously adds project info that includes related industry, processes & material(s) used, tolerances, process or design improvements, improved cycle times, logistics support and improvements, and other specifics to the project/program are what differentiate a company from another. AND it feeds the site with the keywords and phrases their prospects actually look for in the first place.

    Tweak, indeed. I wish this message was more pervasive – particularly among the small and medium sized manufacturers that need all the marcom help they can get.

  • http://www.mfg.com AJ Sweatt

    Also important: continuing to add content to the site. For example, a contact manufacturer that continuously adds project info that includes related industry, processes & material(s) used, tolerances, process or design improvements, improved cycle times, logistics support and improvements, and other specifics to the project/program are what differentiate a company from another. AND it feeds the site with the keywords and phrases their prospects actually look for in the first place.

    Tweak, indeed. I wish this message was more pervasive – particularly among the small and medium sized manufacturers that need all the marcom help they can get.

  • http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com Steven Woods

    Dave,
    Great points on validation – you’re right that it’s the key spot where all leads come in. The flip side though is that there is sometimes too much of a temptation to have too much validation which gets in the way of the visitor’s experience. A balance is key. I wrote a bit about it at:

    http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/2009/06/data-quality-balancing-customer.html

    Steve

  • Dave J.

    Steven–Oh yea, balance is always key! The devil is in the details, which is why I am recommending tweaking where you can focus on adjusting.

    AJ–Content is one of my major goals for my website for this year. I agree so many SMB websites still look like ‘punts’ by biz/marketing managers who aren’t sure what to actually say on the web.

    Thanks for the comments!

  • Dave J.

    Steven–Oh yea, balance is always key! The devil is in the details, which is why I am recommending tweaking where you can focus on adjusting.

    AJ–Content is one of my major goals for my website for this year. I agree so many SMB websites still look like ‘punts’ by biz/marketing managers who aren’t sure what to actually say on the web.

    Thanks for the comments!

  • http://www.talmadgeboyd.com/ Talmadge Boyd

    Content. I keep tweaking content. Either adding a line, a video, a pdf something new. Perhaps that’s more an Inbound strategy. It’s not quite what you’re talking about here and causes me to re-think where I’m putting my time on the metrics. Thanks!

  • http://www.talmadgeboyd.com Talmadge Boyd

    Content. I keep tweaking content. Either adding a line, a video, a pdf something new. Perhaps that’s more an Inbound strategy. It’s not quite what you’re talking about here and causes me to re-think where I’m putting my time on the metrics. Thanks!

  • http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/ Steven Woods

    Dave,
    Great points on validation – you're right that it's the key spot where all leads come in. The flip side though is that there is sometimes too much of a temptation to have too much validation which gets in the way of the visitor's experience. A balance is key. I wrote a bit about it at:

    http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/2009/06…

    Steve

  • http://www.yiwu-ccc.com/ Eric.W

    validation is a very complex issue.You idea is very help.

  • http://www.procureprofit.com/ B2B Portal

    Very Well Planned & Informative Blog..