Web 2.0 Blog

This article is an investigation into whether search engine optimisation and usability are compatible, enabling a user to find a website in a search engine, and then find what they’re looking for once they’ve found it.

Usability and search engine optimisation are both of fundamental importance when developing websites on for the Internet. SEO should be given precedence in the design of a website to improve the chances of users actually finding the site in the first place. Likewise, usability should be of high priority so that users aren’t put off using the site within seconds of finding it.

When optimising a website by maximizing keywords, it is essential not to disrupt the quality of content on the page being optimised. There is no point in spending time and money on directing traffic to your site if the user will back straight out. If you’re at all interested in repeat traffic, usability has to come first. (Peter V, 352media.com: 2007)
The result of poor quality text in a keyword-optimised website is a page that reads like a search engine result page and not one that’s content is centred towards the users’ interests. It should be the case, should it not, that search engines reflect the content of the pages they index, not the other way round? Writing page content that engages the user and speaks their language should not be borne out of a need to fit within Google’s requirements but rather a need to fit the users’ requirements. (J Gibbard, smorgasbord-design.blogspot.com: 2005)

However it is possible to use search engine optimisation to enhance the usability of a website without comprehensive UCD testing. Using descriptive links indicates to the user they are heading in the right direction, emphasizing words with bold text and headers highlights important elements of a website’s content whilst encouraging scanning. Inevitably, user-centred sites with consistent navigation, simple layouts and correct arrangement of keywords are more likely to attract links from elsewhere.

In a recent keynote speech in Barcelona, usability expert Jakob Nielsen predicted that simplification and resolution of basic problems is the key to a positive user experience. Nielsen underlined this point by demonstrating the changes Google has made to its search engine results pages over time, reducing the level of content, removing a left hand column and continuing to improve basic user experience elements such as page load times - from 0.23 seconds in 1999 to 0.08 seconds in 2007. (Jakob Nielsen, bigmouthmedia.com: 2007) With Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, discussion boards and RSS now in the web design framework, all of which intend to encourage simplification of web processes and user-centred input, there’s scope for significant improvements for all involved.

To evaluate, it appears that SEO is still at a very early stage in website development and the likeliness of gaining a high search engine ranking is still largely determined by incoming links and brand awareness. User centred design however is a very established practice and only when SEO can be incorporated collaboratively into usability’s strict set of guidelines, can a worthwhile partnership be formed.

By Adam Moss

Microsoft has dominated the computer market comfortably for the last two decades with their unrivalled operating system and office software. Microsoft didn’t see Web 2.0 coming and could ultimately pay the price in the future as the desktop’s usage is reduced in favour of more accessible, cheaper and newer Web 2.0 alternatives. I was reading a short article in the latest edition of Wired magazine and it inspired me to bring up this debate, which chiefly hypothesises that ‘service software’ available online will eventually override the need for owning expensive software in a world where it is possible to connect to the Internet from any computer, in or out of the office.

Let’s take Internet giant Google for example. It has recently developed a collection of online applications including a suite of personal productivity tools that rival Microsoft Office. It also provides users with 10GB of data storage – surely no less than most businessmen require to store Office data on their laptops. There are always security concerns however; data on your laptop is there with you at all times, whereas live data in an online environment is at risk from a fraudster or highly skilled hacker. Using a program in a web browser, while perhaps not having the same depth as their desktop counterparts and despite the possibility of asking users to depart from programs with which they have become familiar over the years, provide the benefits to cost-cutting, space-saving and modernising the industry. As more users begin to place more demand on this type of technology, we’ll only see the quality of service improve over the years. It’s also all about what the user’s want - these services are here to benefit the Internet user and so with the current trend in Web 2.0 applications, it will be the users who help make the software.

It’s not just limited to office software either. Why spend hundreds of pounds on shrink-wrapped boxes of the (then) latest software, when it’s possible to watch videos, read encyclopaedias, store & edit photos, keep a diary, update a calendar and keep your accounts in a free web browser?

My personal opinion is that there will always be room for desktop application software, but it needs to keep up with the times. Companies should make their products cheaper for a start. Paying £300 for Photoshop is outrageous enough without having decent free alternatives available to use online or download. Make the desktop versions even better – more intuitive, greater depth but not at the expense of simplicity, online-enabled for extensions and easier transferability. Web 2.0 applications software will become even better and I think it’s inevitable that the desktop software will suffer at the unstoppable hands of the web’s growth. When word gets round to more and more people worldwide, it will soon catch on and its usefulness will be beyond containment. I wrote this whole essay using Google’s ‘Docs & Spreadsheets’ program and had to put it into Word to check grammar, spelling and font formatting. Perhaps it’s not quite ready…

By Adam Moss

Reference:

(2007) ‘The Wired 40’ Wired April: 121

Web 2.0 has had many success stories as the integration between web content and user interaction becomes evermore seamless. However, the most popular of this new series of web technologies is blogging – a means whereby users can post articles and opinions on any topic of their choosing on their own web space. The result of this is an online community where posters and readers can post comments, and more importantly, hyperlinks. As a SEO strategy, this can be a very effective method of communicating not only the existence, but the significance of your website in the industry, especially if corresponding blog posts speak favourably of your site. The major benefit is that blogs can reach very wide audiences if implemented and promoted correctly.

Imagine a situation where everytime you had an idea to share, 5,000 people who trust your opinions see it in your blog. The majority of those 5,000 people also write blogs in your field or related fields. Some of those bloggers may frequently mention your site on their blogs, and they themselves could have thousands of subscribers. Within a short space of time your blog could have the attention of hundreds or even thousands of users. Where people go search engines follow, so if many users link to your blog, it will also boost the search engine ranking for other parts of your site.

It is important however that your blog postings avoid ‘commodity status’, which includes short comments on somebody else’s work, and simply posting for the sake of generating optimised keywords. Posts must maintain quality, originality, depth and have its content driven by the user’s expertise in order to acquire popularity amongst web communities. I have studied in-depth, the work of usability expert Jakob Nielsen, and I have found an interesting article of his; Write Articles, Not Blog Postings, which encapsulates this matter perfectly. He asserts that leadership (or prevalence of the poster’s expertise) in blog postings, blog-post variability and regularity are of high priority in gaining trust and recognition. I believe he wants to encourage you to personalise your posts, by giving your own opinions and judgements on your subjects to provoke interest and even raise debate.

He also points out however, that if the content isn’t the main concern for your site, and you simply want to communicate simple answers to your user’s questions then “you should comply with the bulk of content usability guidelines: be as brief as you can; use bulleted lists and highlighted keywords; chunk the material; and use descriptive headings, subheads, and hyperlinks.” These guidelines all fall nicely into the standard Search Engine Optimisation requirements. I believe it is therefore essential that blog postings for SEO manage to achieve a balance where expertise and content usability can work together simultaneously to bring the right users to your site.

One of the chief objectives of Web 2.0 and web logging is to make the Internet a more community-based entity, and by using the blogging practice in the most effective way for your website, you can take advantage of this. This doesn’t just mean writing articles on your chosen topic and leaving it there, but it means interacting with the wider community. Quoting and linking to other popular bloggers, leaving useful comments on other related blogs, writing articles for other blogs and actively soliciting & replying to comments can really push users towards your blog.

With RSS feeds also enhancing the likeliness of your articles being noticed and linked to, it will only improve your website’s probability of being picked up by Search Engines, making blog posting a valuable resource for optimisation.

Reference:

Wall, A M (2007). Search Engine Optimisation Book. California: Aaron Matthew Wall. 87-91.
Jakob Nielsen (2007) Write Articles, Not Blog Postings [online] available from <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/articles-not-blogs.html> [15 January. 2007]

Read this article also at Ezine

By Adam Moss

Finally, my Web 2.0 & Usability blog from http://adammoss.blogspot.com has been transferred to a brand new domain for a second launch. With the added customization features available through the Wordpress themes and plugins directories, I’ll be able to transform this blog into the information resource I wanted the old one to be.

Keep it at adammoss.co.uk for the latest professional insight in Web 2.0 technologies and usability analysis.

Enjoy,
Adam Moss