User Testing Times, They are a Changing.

Website user testing is now cheap on a per user test basis.  Every website should undergo interface testing.  If you need user experience testing, and at a great price, read this review.

I have been recommending User Testing for years.  It used to take a lot of time, a lot of work, and be a royal pain in the butt .

That Was Then! When User Testing involved;

1. Convincing the Client of the value of User Testing.
2. Convincing the Client of the cost.
3. Convincing the Client’s boss of the value and cost.
4. Booking a User Testing Facility (Computer Lab or Training Room).
5. Recruiting other eMarketing Folks to Monitor.
6. Recruiting Target Audience
7. Developing handout materials
8. Conducting and Overseeing User Tests.
9. Keeping users focused on goals.
10. Compensating users.
11. Going home and kissing the kids goodnight.
12. Reviewing notes as interpreted by monitors.

There is a lot of pain in there. 1st, finding the right audience and getting them to actually show up is always a challenge.  The part I hated the most was the time of day user tests were held, since most users groups are held after work to allow for people’s schedules.  Well, that was then.

This is now! When all you need to do is;

1. Developer a User Testing Brief (Demographics, Goals)
2. Submit new user testing session to UserTesting.com
3. Review Videos.  See User Testing Example Here .

That’s it!

UserTesting.com

UserTesting.com is simple and effective. No, I am not being compensated in any way here, they don’t even have an affiliate program (although I would love to set up an affiliate strategy and program for them!).  They are the real thing.  A service that makes a difference.  Refreshing really.

How it works – Tell them what you want users to try and do, making sure your target demographic is clear.  Typically it takes about 3 days to get the 10 user testers I want, as opposed to about 7 business days for setting up a User Test.  It also costs $30/user test (see coupon below) as opposed to about $150/user test the old way (My client’s costs have been cut in half as a result).

Here is a screenshot of my account , the test you see are for a client of mine (sorry I had to blur out their name etc for confidentially reasons) that really needed to improve their website. In fact, it was completely insane to throw paid traffic at their site, which they were to the tune of $6K/month, with the site in its current condition. In order for me to illustrate how much their eCommerce site needed a major revision (I don’t believe in redesigns, but that is another post), I conducted a simple 10 user test session with UserTesting.com.

After watching bit of 3 tests, the company stakeholder through up his hands and said “WE SUCK”.

Here is what I suggest , get user testing for your site right away.  Start with 3 Tests just to get a feel for it and identify the big issues.  I even have a coupon making it $19/user instead of $30/user (if you use it before the end of May).

Get excited, your about to make discover you site’s biggest issues.

By the way , the service I use is www.UserTesting.com , and to my knowledge they are the only such service.

Coupon

Here is the coupon , good till the end of May, 2009.  Enjoy!

Local SEO for Local Niche and Small Business.

I know this Local SEO guides have been written many times by others, so I’ll try to cover it well enough so readers don’t feel the need to read more Local SEO tips and waste more time.

Local Search Keywords

The first thing you need to do is nail down the local keywords you want to target. Lets go back to the Red Trolley Ice Cream Shop in Denver as an example.  The Red Trolley would probably come up with a list of Local keywords phrases including;

1. Ice Cream Denver
2. ice cream denver co
3. ice cream in denver
4. Ice Cream Highland (the neighbourhood it is in) Denver
5. Ice Cream 80211 (zip code)
6. Ice Cream 32nd (the street it is on) Denver
7. Organic Ice Cream Denver
8. Local Ice Cream Denver
9. Address
10. Phone number.

That is the basic list we’ll work with.  You will see all the places we get to put this in, in a moment.

Meta Tags

There are 3 places "behind the scenes" of the page , where only search engines read, where keywords need to be placed.  They are

1. Title Tag. This is the big one.  Right now it has "Red Trolley".  This is fantastic if they sold Red Trolleys, but I think we’re about a 110 years too late for that in Denver.  A Title tag is what shows up at the top left of your browser.  Here, an improvement would be "Ice Cream in 80211, Denver Highlands | Red Trolley".
2. Keywords .  Although not as "key" as in past years, keywords are still important and I have "observed" that Google is again using them in their super secret algorithm a bit more now (Just a hunch).  The keywords here are the 10 listed above.  Yahoo! & MSN still look at them a bit more.
3. Description . This is the text that shows up as the result listing description in search results.  This needs to be written to entice people to click on the local, organic result to the site.  Red Trolley’s description might look something like this; "Local Denver Homemade Organic Ice Cream and Fair Trade Coffee  in Highlands".  The description needs to be kept to 160 characters for Google

Local SEO Copy Writings

Now that we know our keywords, and have added them to the behind the scenes content, its time to add them to the content of the site where people can actually read them.

To start, here are some places you should have your local keywords.

1. In the website footer. This allows your local information to appear on every page.  This might look like "The Red Trolley Ice Cream Shop, 282 32nd Street, Highlands Denver Co.  80211.
2. On every Page .  I don’t mean to get all Amy Africa about this, but YOU HAVE TO HAVE YOUR ADDRESS ON EVERY PAGE, and it should somewhere it can be easily seen.  At the top right is a good place to consider.
3. In your Site’s Copy . Your keywords need to be in your text, in a clear and relevant way.  Lets go back to The Red Trolley and grab some text to optimize, just to sh0w how simple it can be.  Here is some homepage copy;

"Our flavors constantly change because as the seasons change, we change. Everthing your tastebuds experience  in our shop is made with passion and integrity, on the premesis."

This could be

"Our ice cream and food flavors constantly change because as Denver’s seasons change, we change. Everthing your tastebuds experience  in our ice cream shop is made with passion and integrity, on the premesis in Denver Highlands ."

That wasn’t very hard was it?  Now, what they should really do is create a Flavours (or without the "u" since it is in Denver and I’m the only Canadian in the Neighbourhood, opps, there I go again) page, and link the "ice cream" references above to a page filled with ice cream content.

By the way, I just want to mention, although Hours of Operation are not normally high of on SEO radar, they at least have to be right.  The Red Trolley’s are not, by about 20 hours a week, ouch!

Incoming Links

A big part of Local SEO is number and importance of the sites that link to you .  Think of it like high school.  You are only as popular as your friends.  You could have known the entire band, AV & Glee Clubs but you likley would not have been as popular as if you knew just one jock and one cheerleader.

One way to get incoming links, although not "cheerleader" links, is Local Search Directories .  Check out the list of local Search engines, directories and provider s I have assembled on this site.  That should get you started.  I can see I’ll eventually need to write a post on how to get people linking to you site.

Bonus Local SEO

When your site does ger linked to, here are some things to help your Local SEO when that happens.

1. Keywords in Links – Get any links to your site to have as many keywords as it can.   This – Red Trolley – is not as important to search engines as -  Red Trolley Ice Cream Shop in Denver Highlands .  Especially when the site linking to yours is relevant (which eMarketing and Ice Cream in this case are not.  Sorry Red Trolley).
   
2. Press Release – If you every do a press release, you have control over #1.
   
3. Landmarks – Optimize for landmarks and surrounding neighbourhoods as well if applicable.

Summary

If you cover the basics of Local Search Engine Marketing mentioned above, you should  find your site will get local search traffic. This traffic will be low cost (free minus the resources to make the Local SEO changes). Once completed, you will need to make sure you handle that traffic properly!

To learn more about Local SEO and Local Search Marketing.  Head over to the best blog on the subject at www.GrowMap.com.