case studies in web design, usability and seo
TRANSCRIPT
Case Studies in Web Design & Usability and SEO
Barry Adams Pierce Communica�ons
Shameless Self-‐Promo�on Digital Services Director at Pierce Communica�ons – Winner of two 2012 DANI Awards: Social Media & B2C Campaigns – Shortlisted for ‘Best Agency’ at 2012 European Search Awards
Built my first website in ’95, became a web professional in ‘97 Specialisa�on in SEO Dutch (yes, really) Editor & blogger for StateofSearch.com – Awarded ‘Best Blog’ at 2012 European Search Awards
Agenda JNWine.com case study – Web Design & Usability
Bedeckhome.com case study – Advanced on-‐site SEO
JNWine.com redesign
The Old Design
The old design Based on “search for wine” use case – Wine search func�on is most prominent feature of the site
– Addi�onal func�ons in top naviga�on – but not always clearly named
Many core features and promo�ons linked in images
Pierce Communica�ons redesign Part 1: Start with the user – Iden�fy the most common use cases of the JNWine.com website’s target audience 1. Users want professional advice and
recommenda�ons 2. Users want special offers 3. Wine search turned out to be ter�ary use case
Pierce Communica�ons redesign Part 2: Make the naviga�on and structure as self-‐evident as possible – Name things how the user expects them to be
named (Informa�on Architecture) – Tell the user what they can do on the site
Strong calls-‐to-‐ac�on
Informa�on Architecture for websites
Pierce Communica�ons redesign Part 3: Make it pre�y The “look and feel” of a website has the greatest impact on
users’ credibility assessments, with professional site designs heavily influencing credibility percep�ons.
Once users have seen a web page, it is difficult to overcome the
first impressions they form based on the professional appearance of a page’s design.
[Fogg, B.J., Soohoo, C., Danielson, D.R., Marable, L., Stanford, J., and Tauber, E.R. -‐How do users evaluate the credibility of Web sites?: A study with over 2,500 par�cipants. DUX 2003, 1-‐15.]
[McKnight, D. and Kacmar, C. -‐Factors and effects of informa�on credibility. ICEC 2007, 423-‐432.]
The New Design
Cleaner look More white space Stronger logo font-‐type Simpler layout
Emphasis on JN Wine’s exper�se Recommended wines Wine tas�ngs Blogs and videos about vineyards, wine produc�on, events, opinion, etc.
Simpler naviga�on Self-‐evident naviga�on items Less clicks to reach intended target
Strong product pages Vivid descrip�ons of the wine Strong calls-‐to-‐ac�on User-‐generated content: reviews
Mul�ple conversion points Mailing list Social Media Tas�ng events JN Club
The Results
JNWine.com redesign results* In first year since site re-‐launch: UK revenue grew by 60% RoI revenue grew by 72%
*Disclaimer: we also did some digital marke�ng for them…
Bedeckhome.com
Advanced on-‐site SEO
Bedeck Seller of luxury bed linens Own brand as well as third party brands Ecommerce website: www.bedeckhome.com Re-‐launched site in October 2011 – Strong visibility on branded search terms – Zero visibility on generic search terms
Bedeck SEO project Targeted keywords: bedding sets designer bed linen designer bedding duvet sets goose feather pillows hotel luxury bedding hotel luxury bedlinen luxury bed linen luxury bedding quality bed linen
Basic On-‐Site SEO Title tags:
Meta descrip�ons:
Content.
Special Challenges Special challenges with large ecommerce websites: Large amount of pages: – Homepage – Category pages – Subcategory pages – Product pages – Suppor�ng informa�on (delivery, T&Cs, stores, etc) – Blog/News pages
Ge�ng product pages in Google’s index Poten�al duplicate content issues
Indexing Has Google indexed all pages?
This used to be a very inaccurate ‘guess�mate’
Indexing Google Webmaster Tools – Index Status report (Since July 2012)
Indexing Google Webmaster Tools – Index Status report
What happened?
Index Status advanced report
Is this a good thing?
Huge gap
A lot of pages not included
Yes, that’s a good thing Bedeckhome.com uses ‘faceted naviga�on’ (a.k.a. ‘layered naviga�on’ or ‘addi�ve filters’) This almost always causes duplicate content issues: – Page a�er page a�er page of product lists
– Google not sure which to include
Ensuring Google indexes the right pages ‘Index sculp�ng’ – “noindex, follow” meta robots tag – Robots.txt blocking – JavaScript-‐generated faceted links – Rel=nofollow links
Google Webmaster Tools – URL Parameters configura�on
URL Parameters in GWT
XML Sitemaps
Addi�onal on-‐site op�misa�on Structured data – Schema.org microformats
Load speed op�misa�on – 4 seconds or less
Did it work?
Google.co.uk keyword rankings
Keyword Oct-‐11 Sep-‐12 Change bedding sets (outside top 100) 9 +91 designer bed linen 9 5 +4 designer bedding 4 3 +1 duvet sets (outside top 100) 16 +84 goose feather pillows 25 9 +16 hotel luxury bedding 91 2 +89 hotel luxury bedlinen 35 4 +31 luxury bed linen 68 5 +63 luxury bedding 17 5 +12 quality bed linen 5 6 -‐1
Generic search growth Oct 11 – Sept 12
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Visits from Generic Search
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Revenue from Generic Search
Year on year comparison
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Oct 2010 -‐ Sept 2011 Oct 2011 -‐ Sept 2012
Generic Search traffic Generic Search revenue
Growth: Branded Search traffic 31% Generic Search traffic 117% Generic Search revenue 151%
Ques�ons? badams@piercecommunica�ons.co.uk h�p://www.piercecommunica�ons.co.uk @badams