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B2B Tagging

You’ve seen the tags that you can add to your Flickr pictures, YouTube videos, blog posts, submissions to Digg, etc. These are important because they change how we can find and use information:

Why is tagging important? Because you no longer to have to “file” information in one “folder.” Information can be tagged with multiple keywords or keyphrases and then “exists” within these multiple places. Usually you can search for information based on words included within it, meta information (usually invisible information used to describe the type of information), and the keywords. This allows multiple ways to find information and usually results in a more satisfying search experience (more – we still have a long way to go).

Tagging on a customer-centric website allows your visitors to determine how to organize your information (instead of you), which leads to a more satisfying experience (so they’re more likely to come back). Tagging can also be used to tie various pieces of content together which you can use to show your customers what other people tagged with the same tags, most popular content, etc. which also gives your customers a sense of community.

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B2B Website Usability – Does It Work?

You may be wondering if all these tips for redesigning your website to be customer-centric work.

A month ago we redesigned the flagship website (a B2B publication) at the publishing company where I work. The redesign focused on increasing the amount of content that is updated more frequently, offering more content (including blogs and video), and making it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for (by following good usability practices).

Since the redesign we’ve been monitoring their traffic using Google Analytics because it filters out all search engines and crawlers. The average weekly visits have increased 34%, average weekly page views have increased 23% and average weekly visitors have increased 36%. The change was so dramatic that the traffic on the first day was higher than it had been in six months (probably due to word-of-mouth or a forum post somewhere) – the publication didn’t advertise the redesign in print until the following Monday which had another increase in traffic.

Website optimization is a constant process so there still is work to do to see what works for our customers (readers) and what doesn’t. Using Google’s stats and site overlay we’re able to constantly tweak the site to help readers find what they’re looking for. Next step is to take a look at few more customer-problem sections as shown by a high percentage of exits on certain pages (through Google analytics) and to consider removing registration requirements from the rest of the content. We’ll also take a look at the keyword cloud on the site (what keywords are repeated throughout the content) and how they relate what readers are looking for through search engines (including our own).

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B2B Website Usability Basics – Part 3 – Testing

Once you have your new site design launched, the next step is to see how well you figured out your audience. Yep! That’s right – more research – and testing.

You’ll once again need to take a look at your website analytics/stats and see if people are staying on your site longer and going further into the site. You should also see less use of your search engine for the items that you linked to from the homepage. Take a look at your site overlay if you have one and you should also see where people are clicking on each page.

Now you need to continue to improve your site by looking at your analytics/stats and seeing what you can do to make the site even easier to use. If you can, call some of your website visitors and see what they like and dislike about the site. What do they have problems finding? What do they like?

Usability is a constant process of improving your site. Having a customer-centric site means making your site with your customer in mind. The goal is to help people (your customers) find the information they need so they’ll return to your site next time they’re looking. You should see more traffic as more and more people turn to your site as an information source.

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