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1. Determine Organizational Goals
Ask yourself: What is my goal, and how is my content marketing plan going to help me accomplish it? These are things that need to be thought out before determining your content. By doing so, you can tailor your content marketing plan accordingly.
Each goal should be measurable and have a deadline by which you perform this measurement. For example, increase website traffic 25% by Jan. 1, 2012.

2. Identify Target Audiences
The next step is to figure out exactly whom you are targeting. This means researching everything about the audience to whom you will be delivering your content. Ask them questions, research website traffic data and determine their demographic information, including age, gender, education, location, etc.
From there, you need to figure out what your audience is interested in, both online and offline. What are they reading? What are they talking about? What are their likes and dislikes?
In this step, it is helpful to think like one of your clients or customers. Envision that you’re writing for one specific person, and then tune in to his thought process in order to succeed. Above all, listen to what that person wants, which is not necessarily the same as what you want. After all, you want him to be receptive to your content.

3. Develop Key Messages
What exactly does your audience want/need to hear? In general, determine what will differentiate you and your product, as well as what will help you to achieve the goals you have set. The end result should be one to three main messages, each with one to five sub-messages that offer a bit more detail.

4. Decide on Overall Content Marketing Strategies
There are three different types of content marketing strategies: long-form, short-form and conversations (e.g. sharing).
Long-form includes blog posts, articles and press releases — basically, anything longer than a couple of sentences. Short-form includes tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates and graphics. Conversations and sharing includes participating in and driving conversations through blog commenting, link sharing and comments on videos. This type helps to encourage discussions between other thought leaders within your industry.
You can stick to one of these forms of content marketing, or you can use all three. They are each effective on their own, but they are also powerful when used together.

5. Draft an Editorial Calendar
Developing a plan is one of the most important steps to content marketing. However, it should be flexible. After all, things can always change.
This is where an editorial calendar comes in. It should include strategies, specific tactics, suggested headlines, content deadlines and allocated responsibilities. This is a fairly major undertaking, but you’ll be thankful for your hard work once it’s complete — and you’ll save time in the long-run.
Not sure where to begin? Check out The Content Grid V2 by Eloqua and JESS3.

6. Develop Content
In order to even begin the marketing aspect of a content marketing plan, you need to develop the content you are going to use. It needs to be unique and different. Go back to your key messages and subtly incorporate them into the content without overtly selling your product. Content marketing is about creating trust through education and information, not using traditional sales tactics.
The infographic Is Your Content King? is a great visual of how important content is, especially for your marketing plan.

7. Establish Relationships
It’s time to start building a relationship with your target audience. This means tapping into existing communities by sharing and commenting on their content, as well as establishing your own communities across various social networking platforms.
Remember, content marketing isn’t just about you. Like all relationships, you should aim to give more than you receive. Be sure to use the 80/20 principle: 80% of the content you share should be curated (in other words, not your own) and 20% should be your original content.
Find brands that have successfully made a name for themselves, and mimic the steps they’ve taken — but make sure to add your own unique flare. For ideas, check out how these three companies took content marketing to the next level.

8. Spread the Word
Determine industry keywords that are not only relevant to your product, but also are going to generate enough buzz. Search engine optimization (SEO) can play a huge role if you research thoroughly. For example, make sure the tags you’re adding to your blog posts are going to generate traffic, since this can help you get found in the first place. I’m a huge fan of both Scribe SEO and InboundWriter to help you accomplish this.
Also, spread the word through Twitter, Facebook, e-newsletters, etc. But be careful not to force your content where it doesn’t belong. It may seem like you’re trying too hard, and in turn, people may not be interested in what you have to say.
Eloque came out with a free ebook, The Grande Guide to B2B Content Marketing, a helpful read when it comes to content marketing. Plus, it’s useful for deciding which platforms you should employ and how to effectively use them.

9. Measure Effectiveness
Although this is one of the last steps, it’s one of the most important. By measuring the effectiveness of your content, you can determine whether or not your plan needs to be altered, or whether it’s working in the first place.
Keep an eye on pageviews, retweets, Likes, +1’s, shares and so on. Anything your audience can take action on is something, you need to pay attention to. Figure out how well everything is working — or why it’s not working at all.

10. Change the Plan As Needed
If something isn’t working, change it up. Be sure to pay attention to results, and then use them to your advantage.
The most important thing to remember about content marketing: It’s all about building connections and improving your audience’s product loyalty. One of your goals should be for people to recognize your product based off of the content you’ve been placing both online and off.

For a more in-depth look into how to create your content marketing plan, check out: Content Marketing For Dummies – Cheat Sheet.
Have you used content marketing in order to launch a product before? What were the steps that you took in order to do this successfully?

Setting the Tone

There are two key points to determine before defining the appropriate tone for your website.
Who is your target audience?

What is their age group?
Where are they located: urban or rural, domestic or international?
What sort of values do they hold: conservative, ethical, cautious, impulsive or economical?
More importantly, what do they want from you?

What does your website want to achieve?

Is it an e-commerce site designed to generate sales?
Is it a portfolio of your work?
Is it educational?
Does it offer an online community for users to engage with?
Is it meant to draw in new consumers, support existing ones, or both?

These are both points that should have guided the visual design of a website and, equally, they should be the force behind its content.

Forgetting the target audience or the ultimate purpose of the website sounds like an unimaginable faux pas, but it happens surprisingly frequently.

Developing Tonal Guidelines

Once you’ve determined your audience and your site’s purpose, you’re halfway to deciding on tone of voice. It may be helpful to consider the personality of an employee you’d want to represent your brand at this point.

For example, if you’re advertising housing for students, you want someone friendly, open and fun. If you’re selling organic fruit on the Web: you want your representative to sound healthy and ethical. If you’re describing services at a care home: you want someone kind, professional and understanding. You get the idea.

These adjectives are a good start, but they’re all subjective. The next step is to start defining what these adjectives mean and don’t mean.

Things to Watch Out For

Watch out for other basic inconsistencies that will blemish your hard work on tone. No matter how seamlessly professional your tone is, a typo or misplaced punctuation mark will make you look foolish.

Here are two tips:

A proofreader is not optional. Of course, the writer should proofread the first draft, but there is no substitute for a fresh perspective.
Edit without mercy. Cut, cut, cut. If you can identify unnecessary words, then remove them and get to the point.

Summary

To briefly outline the points we’ve covered:
- Tone of voice, used well, will strengthen brand loyalty and set businesses apart from competitors.
- Tone can be adapted according to the audience and platform, but ensure that the voice remains constant.
- The key considerations in choosing a tone of voice for your website are 1) the target audience and 2) the type of interaction you intend them to have with your site.
- Producing a tonal guideline sheet (example shown above) will help establish and maintain a distinctive tone of voice. Used as a reference by copywriters, it will yield consistent results, especially where multiple authors are involved.

1. Have a Mobile Version of Your Website

With mobile device usage skyrocketing, a mobile-friendly web site is practically essential. A mobile site means your customers can access information on the go, wherever they may be. It also means they’ll be more likely to share your site with friends, since they’ll be able to pull it up and show it to others, even when not at a computer.

As an added bonus, mobile sites can often be more accessible to those with visual impairments, or who may have difficulties using a mouse, but find touch displays easier to manipulate.

If you can’t afford to go all out and have a separate version of your site for mobile users, then at least speak with your developer and make sure they are aware that you want the web site as functional and legible as possible on mobile devices.

2. Provide Supplemental Information

Your users are looking for information. Period. Even if they’ve come to your site to make a purchase, they’ll first want to research their options and check out the details of what it is they’re buying. Consider making this task easier by providing supplemental information that complements your site’s primary content.

Take the time to provide your customers with information such as product manuals, warranty information, manufacturer contact details, sizing charts and troubleshooting guides. This not only says “We care about you,” but it also makes your site an invaluable resource that visitors will keep coming back to again and again for the life the product or service they purchase.

3. Use AJAX for Simple Tasks — But Don’t Overdo It

Implementing AJAX functionality (using JavaScript to load content into portions of your page without reloading the entire web page) can go a long way toward making your visitor’s experience on your site enjoyable. AJAX can make retrieving and browsing information faster and more intuitive, and it also creates a more seamless experience for the user. Be careful, though — too much JavaScript can slow things down and make interactions confusing, causing more harm than good. (It can also make bookmarking or sharing portions of your page more difficult for users.)

Finding the right balance varies based on the type of site you have and the products or services you offer, so it’s best to work out the details with your developer. Some examples of good AJAX usage include: loading and switching between product images and checking for and reporting errors in order forms or updating shopping carts.

4. Make It Easy To Get Help

Sometimes, no matter how much supplemental information or details about your product or service you provide, it’s just not going to be enough. Some of your customers are just going to need more help. Make it easy for them by providing answers to frequently asked questions (include links to additional resources) and by placing your company’s contact information (or help desk information) prominently on your website.

Your users should be able to find a way to contact you from every page, be it an email address in the footer, a phone number in the header or a button or link within the content prompting them to inquire for more information.

5. Keep it Simple and Keep it Organized

We’ve talked a lot about providing additional information, using AJAX to build a responsive website and prominently displaying contact and support information. With all of that in mind, it may seem like your website could quickly get out of hand, and without proper attention to detail, it certainly could. You don’t want your site to look cluttered or give your users a case of information overload, so it’s key to keep your site clean and well-organized. Work with your designer to develop ways to keep information accessible, yet unobtrusive.

If you’re building your own site, a good rule of thumb is to look at the design you’ve chosen and then ask yourself, “What can I remove to make this easier to use?” It could be an entire block of text or simply a background color or border. Once you start de-cluttering, you’ll be able to see if items should be shifted to other places in the layout, different pages or removed entirely. Keep revising until you have a site that’s clean, well organized and easy to navigate.

Finally! It’s Friday afternoon. You’ve put in a lot of hours this week—including some late nights—but it looks like your extra work has paid off—you’ll be able to enjoy a real meal tonight, maybe spend some time with friends and most of all just kick back and chill out. You spontaneously smile at your computer screen and start to feel the tension begin to drain from your back.

Then comes a ping—an e-mail from someone you’ve been following up with for months. They just posted a new message in the Elance Workroom that they want you to move ahead on a project and deliver it Monday.

Your smile deflates into a resigned sigh as you turn your attention to the details of the request, and your dreams of rest flicker and fade away like an iPhone run out of battery life. “Looks like it will be a late night,” you mutter to yourself.

Yet another Friday has gone from fantastic to frustrating. You wonder, “Is there any other way? Can I really manage a freelance career without constantly getting pushed around by others’ time demands?”

My answer is yes!

As the CEO and founder of Real Life E®, a company that provides time coaching and training services that empower people to accomplish more with peace and confidence, I’ve found that overcoming the cycle of stress often comes down to setting reasonable expectations with clients. Here’s some of my expert time coaching advice on simple techniques you can use to take back control of your time.

Why is setting time expectations so important?

The challenge for freelancers is that if you don’t set reasonable expectations up front, you’ll end up stressed and your client will end up frustrated. Elance provides excellent online collaboration tools for project planning, including the ability to make milestones, give weekly status reports and to share files in progress. But this virtual office technology doesn’t “think” for itself—it is a tool for documenting and tracking a well-thought out project plan. To plan and estimate effectively, you’ll need to have a clear understanding of the details of the project and consider the variables. (Here’s an Elance post with more specific tips on making better estimates–Right On Time: How to Estimate Project Time Effectively) Make sure both parties communicate any reservations about milestones and projects before terms are finalized with Workroom messages.

What’s one of the biggest problem areas?

Communication is by far one of the biggest issues. It’s essential that you’re responsive to your clients, but it’s OK to set limits on when you will be accessible. If you struggle with setting boundaries, consider establishing “office hours” to contact each other or meeting times when you can chat about your progress in the Workroom. Also try not to set the expectation that you will answer all communication immediately. If you consistently answer e-mail and voicemail in about 24 hours, as opposed to 20 minutes, customers won’t be upset if they don’t hear from you right away. (For more info on this topic, check out my blog post on How to Set E-mail Expectations.)

What about when you don’t hear back from clients?

When clients don’t communicate a decision until right before a deadline, it can wreak havoc on your workflow. To ensure that you protect yourself for such a scenario, try to establish milestones for your projects that include information in the notes section about what you will need from the client. This helps you clarify up front what clients need to provide for you to move forward.

What if the scope of the project changes?

Despite your best efforts to define the requirements for the project and reasonable milestones, changes can happen. Perhaps a website ends up needing many more updates than you anticipated, or a client comes back from a conference with 10 new ideas for the project. Providing excellent service without major stress once again comes down to communication and setting expectations. For instance, if you’re noticing that a task is taking you much longer than you expected, post a note in the Workroom as soon as possible asking your client how they would like you to proceed. That way, your customer can tell you what to focus on and what’s not a priority so that you stay within your hours. On the other hand, if the client is suggesting that you take on something not already within the scope of the project, you can ask them to create and assign a new Elance job to you.

Are there any other ways freelancers can eliminate deadline stress?

Before you make commitments to a deadline and agree to terms, make sure you have a clear sense of when you can complete the work. Just because a client wants something as soon as possible, doesn’t mean that you should plan to stay up until 2 a.m. trying to finish everything for them. Also other factors such as other pending projects, a vacation you have booked or simply a sick day could affect how quickly you can deliver results. Make sure you have open hours on your calendar and plan ahead before you agree to the Elance project terms.

Do you have any other final time tips?

If there’s any part of your business that’s consistently causing you time stress, ask yourself the question, “Should I be setting my expectations differently for myself or others?” Most of the time, the answer is yes!

If you would like to receive more insight on how to go from feeling guilty, overwhelmed and frustrated to feeling peaceful, confident and accomplished, visit www.ScheduleMakeover.com.

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If you’re a small business owner, your website is the central hub of your company, and it’s a pivotal part of your marketing and branding. Potential customers visit your site specifically for its content—its appearance and usability are critical to its success and how those users view your company. Getting your Web design wrong can have a very negative impact on your business. Here are five common design mistakes to avoid in order to create a great user experience and grow your bottom line.

1. Poor navigation

Many small business websites fail to make navigation a priority, but without careful attention to how people navigate your site, you could unintentionally be creating a frustrating experience for any potential visitor. People visit your site for specific information, and if they cannot find it they will quickly go elsewhere, leaving with the impression that your business is disorganized in more than just its website. A good navigation structure should be seamless and will keep visitors on your site longer, which means potentially more readers, subscribers, sales or leads. Website navigation affects usability and accessibility, so make it a primary concern. Most websites and blogs use fairly common navigational techniques that are expected by the average visitor. The pages and sections of the site should be easy and logical for visitors to maneuver. Don’t make your visitors think about how to navigate your site: It should be effortless and natural. There are several principles you can follow to create an effective navigation structure:
• Use icons to aid navigation, as these are both visually appealing and easy to use and understand.
• Create logical groups of related links, with the most important links on the top-level navigation bar and functional (dashboard, account, settings, etc.) and legal (copyright, privacy, terms) located elsewhere.
• Provide location information so users know where they are on any given page and how to proceed to another area of the website. This can be achieved by using Breadcrumb navigation.

2. No Clear Calls To Action

The fundamental error of many small business websites is the lack of a clear call to action. We’ve all seen bland small business brochure websites with nothing but endless descriptive paragraphs. If you aren’t leading the user to commit to an action—buy a product, contact you or subscribe—then you are losing them. Driving traffic to your website is important, but that traffic is useless if your primary call to action is a plain “click here” link buried in a sea of text. Call to action buttons are a great way to grab the users attention, and they can be the key to higher conversions. Investing time and consideration into creating successful calls to action can help guide the user and address their needs while achieving your own business goals. It’s important to keep the following best practices in mind when creating an optimal call to action:
• The design of a call to action can be broken down into 4 simple elements—size, shape, color, and position. Each plays a vital part in determining how effective the call to action is in directing the user.
• Don’t make your users work or think, or they’ll leave. It’s not that they aren’t smart, it’s that they want access to information quickly without spending unnecessary time searching for it.
• Don’t overdo it with multiple, competing calls to action on every page. Decide what your primary target is and then define a clear objective per page. Your content should have answered, “What’s in it for me?” and your call to action should now answer, “What do I do now?”

3. Color & Contrast

Color and contrast aren’t usually high up on the list of priorities for a small business owner when it comes to creating a website. But it should be, because if your website text does not have sufficient contrast compared to its background, people will have difficulties reading your content, especially people with poor vision or color-blindedness. Aside from plain readability, color and contrast are important because they can be used to create visual interest and direct the attention of the user. It can equally be effective in organizing and defining the flow and hierarchy of a page, and it’s therefore an essential principle to pay attention to during the design process. Here are some tips:
• Using a free a Color Contrast tool, which conforms to accepted standards, you can easily check to see how the contrast on your website measures up.
• Research how major sites use color and contrast to improve readability and highlight specific sections, and use this knowledge to experiment with color schemes.
• One of best ways to create contrast is via a size difference between two elements, making some things appear larger than others. This works especially well within a minimal color scheme, and it means you don’t have to necessarily rely on color.

4. Content, Content, Content

People visit your website for its content, and how that is structured is a huge factor in its success or failure. Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of small businesses get so caught up in overloading the user with information that they overlook how that information is presented. Most people do not read unless it’s absolutely necessary, and they prefer to scan through information quickly to get to the points of interest. This is why it’s so important to establish a strong visual content hierarchy so users can quickly scan your site and sifting through relevant information. A logical content hierarchy also acts as a guide through each page and creates a more enjoyable user experience. So when focusing on your content, it’s best to keep in mind these three tips:
• White space is possibly the most important factor to consider, as it will allow the user to focus on the meaningful content within each section.
• Break up lengthy pieces of information into digestible blocks of text, utilizing headings, sub-headings, bullets, blockquotes and paragraphs.
• Readable content is important, so use a good line height that is large enough to make content scannable. Margins and letter spacing also need to be taken into consideration.
Of course, when talking about content, it goes without saying that spelling and grammar cannot be underestimated.

5. Clutter

We all know at least one small business website that seems to include everything but the proverbial kitchen sink. Many small business owners tend to cram as much as they can onto a single page—the end result is a busy, cluttered and unreadable page. The more extraneous items there are on a web page, the more unprofessional it looks, and it becomes overwhelming, confusing and distracting for the user. A cluttered website will also affect traffic because visitors won’t return if they can’t understand or follow the content, which leads to low traffic, a high bounce rate and possibly a poor page rank.
Clutter also applies to images, as too many can be a huge distraction and just plain annoying. Images should be used to illustrate, capture attention and guide the user where required.
Follow these guidelines for a more streamlined visitor experience:
• Challenge every item on each page and ask, “Does it really need to be there? Does it serve a specific purpose? Can I live without it?”
• The key is to aid the visitor in finding the information they’re looking for, so make sure to differentiate between areas of content, advertisements and promotions.
• Prioritize your content and decide what is the most important to your visitor and potential customer—and sell it well.
Even the greatest content can become lost in a mess of words and graphics, so de-cluttering is essential.

As a business owner, you have probably asked yourself this question. A website design seems like an excellent marketing tool, but many people wonder if the effort and expense are worth the reward. Here are a few things to think about when deciding whether you need a website to help promote your business.

DO I NEED AN ONLINE PRESENCE?
Consider the prominence of the internet in modern lives. 500 million people all over the world are on the net, which means that you can reach more customers there than in any storefront. Even if you are a local business with no interest in expanding, your customers are likely dealing with a variety of online retailers. Why not yours?

DO I NEED TO NETWORK?
If you are a business owner, you can likely learn a lot from other people in your industry. Further, you may want to make connections with suppliers, customers, and a variety of people within your community. Think of a website as a large brochure that you never have to re-print. You can direct people to this website, from whence they can find out more about your company, contact you, and generally interact with your brand without any effort on your fault.

DO MY CUSTOMERS NEED MORE INFORMATION?
As stated before, customers may need information about your company and your products. Your website is the likely place to look for information such as store hours, types of products, return policies, and phone numbers. This is also the place to post your product specifics and to give your customers instructions on how to make your products part of their lives.

DO MY CUSTOMERS NEED 24/7 CUSTOMER SUPPORT?
You can post information and FAQ’s on using your products on the internet, but this is not all. You can also offer 24/7 support, often by email support from you or an employee. If you have a larger business, paying someone to chat live with customers may pay off, as customers more and more expect this kind of service from companies of all sizes. Another feature that is related is the ability to get feedback. Wouldn’t you prefer that customers who have a negative feeling about your company turn to you? With a company website, they can.

CAN I SELL MORE PRODUCTS ON THE INTERNET?
In many cases, you will be surprised by how many people, even local ones, are interested in buying from companies like yours on the internet. Offering a variety of services and goods on the internet as well as a few perks like local delivery can make you an institution in your community without crowding your storefront.

DO I BENEFIT FROM TECHNOLOGICALLY SAVVY IMAGE?
If you are running a business in an industry in which having a technologically savvy image is simply unimportant, then a website may be overkill. However, many people are trying to look as competent as possible in these areas to impress customers and colleagues. Having a website is no longer impressive, but it is almost a necessity for reaching audiences such as young adults.

Yes, your customers do judge you by your website. If it looks like it was designed by a 12-year-old in 1998, you’re going to miss out on a lot of business. There are no great hidden secrets when it comes to getting customers to return to your website and spend more time on it. It’s all about clean design, good content and engagement. Follow these five tips to take your website from iffy to exceptional.
1. Look professional.
This sounds simple, but anyone who spends time on the Internet has come across business websites that feature ancient designs, typos, woefully outdated information or obnoxious music that automatically starts playing. “You need to look like a legitimate business. You need to look professional, modern, industry-appropriate and consistent from page to page,” says Steve Grushcow, CEO of website visitor conversion services provider Edit.com. Grushcow employs a five-second rule. That’s about how much time it takes for a visitor to decide that your site is worth checking out. “Design really matters for the first five seconds and after that first five seconds, it’s all about the substance of the business,” says Grushcow. Make that first impression count, and it will translate into good vibes when customers come back for repeat visits.
2. Tie your website in with your sales engine.
Congratulations, you’ve passed the five-second test. Your website visitor is on his way to becoming a customer, or a one-time customer is thinking about coming back. It’s time to think about your website as a sales tool. “Once customers do contact you, your website is still really important. They are looking at your website while they are on the phone with you. It’s something you can use to point out examples of the work you’ve done,” says Grushcow. Let’s say you’re a brick and mortar business. Do you have sales brochures or fliers? Is that information also reflected on your site? If not, get it up there.
3. Stay in touch.
Once you have a customer, it takes work to keep that person coming back. “People don’t naturally go back to a website unless they are thinking about the business,” says Grushcow. This is where regular marketing comes in. Build up that opt-in e-mail list — then make sure you actually use it. Commit to a monthly newsletter with information about interesting new projects or products, industry news and sales or coupons. Invite readers back to your site for more information or to redeem a coupon.
4. Commit to updating.
You’ve heard the phrase “content is king” so many times that you’re probably sick of it. Content is extremely important, but you don’t have to go overboard loading your site with tons of new information every day. “It’s not about always updating it — it’s about being sure your website is accurately reflecting your business. If your business changes, your website should change,” says Grushcow. Post new case studies, newly completed projects, milestones, partnerships and new products or services. Also cull out old information that is no longer valid. A blog can be a handy way to update your content. Grushcow suggests adding a site review to your monthly business calendar. This will give your website repeat visitors something new to check out on a regular basis and a reason to come back down the line.
5. Keep customers on your site for a reason.
Customers who spend a good amount of time on your site indicate that they are interested in what you have to offer. You want that time to be quality time. “You don’t want them to stick around for no reason. It’s like in a store. You don’t want them to just be sitting in your store. You want them to be there because they are considering a purchase,” says Grushcow.
One way to keep customers on board is to let them know you have quality products or services. Don’t just say it. Show off your products, project portfolio, press mentions, awards and professional affiliations. “The moment of truth is, do they actually reach out and contact you?” says Grushcow. “A passive ‘contact us’ page is not an active strategy. What we recommend is an active strategy such as ‘get pricing’ or ‘schedule your free 30-minute evaluation.’”
There has been a swing in recent years toward flashy website designs, games and anything that screams “interactive!” That may be overkill for your business. Grushcow is seeing a trend back to practicality. “It’s all about the business objectives. In most situations, you’re not there to entertain the visitor. We are finding that fewer clients are asking for the wow effect, because they realize that’s not what their customers care about,” he says.
Also, ask for feedback. Getting to know your clients and understanding what they want from your site can help you make it a friendly and engaging stop on the cluttered information highway.

Of all the elements that can be tested on a website, few are more important than testing the efficiency of your navigation elements.

Navigation is an essential element of the Web, capable of providing a vastly improved experience for users and influencing several key performance indicators. While it may not be as exciting an element to test as pricing, it does carry major influence on creating a meaningful interaction for Web users and a profitable one for your Web enterprise.

Information portals and e-commerce sites are those that may benefit most from testing navigation. Groups or individuals focused exclusively on landing page optimization should certainly be concerned with and consider testing navigation, but when the notion of “conversion” rules the focus of every page, calls-to-action and other elements (e.g. imagery) that aid in the conversion process often take precedence. However, navigation should never be an afterthought, as it is an element that can undoubtedly move users closer to the end of the sales funnel, even from a very specific landing page.

Informed, Educated Testing
Depending on your website’s audience, understand that the navigation menu experience will change dramatically from site to site. You may find with a younger, hipper audience that users will prefer rollover menus but detest autoexpanding menus. You may find with far older audiences that text-style menus outperform Flash and hyper-sensitive flyout menus. While you can certainly make some broad guesses as to what will perform best, only testing will ensure the best experience for your audience and, therefore, the best opportunities for conversion.

Commit to Testing
Users must be able to easily find their way through a website from every page, ultimately reaching the information they want or need quickly. It’s hard to take a different point of view. When testing, both designers and site owners must understand users’ expectations of their website navigation. Finding a way to provide easy access to what users want (and with fewer clicks) when designing website navigation and structure will improve the information-seeking experience and make a positive impact on key performance indicators like time-on-site and bounce rate — important factors in everything from advertising metrics to SEO. The point is, even if you’re not committed to running elaborate tests on navigation, do recognize the importance of helping users get what they want.

How to Test Website Navigation
If you are committed to testing navigation but have not yet, selected a vendor (and don’t want to run manual tests) know that there are a variety of site testing tools available.

Forrester’s recently published report on online testing platforms reviewed the top nine players in the space which included Adobe Test & Target, Amadesa Customer Experience Suite, Autonomy Optimost, Google Website Optmizer, Maxymiser Content MVT, SiteSpect, Vertster Conversion Optimization Suite and Webtrends Optimize. Forrester indicated that Adobe Test & Target (formerly Omniture) and Autonomy Optimost were placed as the leaders — Adobe Test & Target excels in overall application usability, customer satisfaction and content support, while Autonomy stands out in administration, deployment options and breadth of testing techniques.

While free site testing tools such as Google Website Optimizer are attractive to many, other Web professionals demand more and these commercial vendors all provide competitive and effective solutions. Know in advance, however, that investing in any testing platform can be costly and time consuming. The cost of experimenting often depends on the amount of traffic pages receive, the complexity of experiments and, in some instances, the difference in conversion rates for your combinations. As such, know how these site testing vendors charge for their services and, based on your own needs, determine if using their services is necessary or warranted.

With a little virtual elbow grease and some organization you can test navigation elements without these vendors, over time, to the same effect.

What to Test
Once it has been determined how you will test your website’s navigation (manually or by using a testing service), it is time to decide what you will be testing. A few of the more meaningful options you can select from the start include location, descriptions and functionality.

Location —Web users are an impatient lot, and they will not spend time on your site if they can’t find what they want. As such, navigation should be a prominent element of your design. But what is the optimal location for navigation? Only testing will reveal the answer.

The most common location for primary navigation is horizontally, across the top of the page. The advantage of using navigation elements in this location is that it provides additional room for content and other relevant information about products and services. By not forcing visitors to scroll down to navigate further into your site, the result might ultimately be increased page views and time-on-site. Keep in mind that should you opt to use graphics in the header of the page, consider testing navigation above and below the primary graphic. Navigation design trends today often include primary navigation bundled with images and calls to action, but providing a simple navigation path should still be tested.

While horizontal navigation is quite common today, that has not always been the case — it used to be that left-of-page navigation was the most common location. As design has matured and evolved, navigation location has increasingly taken on new forms and should be audience-appropriate.

TEST THIS: When it comes to the location of navigation elements, consider testing new areas entirely (right-hand or left-hand navigation) or testing the presence of secondary navigation elements in various locations around the page (the footer, for example) to determine if the presence increases page views or sales.

Descriptions — A website’s section names, particularly as labeled in the navigation, should clearly state what the user can expect after the click. General words like “resources” or “tools” are far too ambiguous and should be avoided. Using generic terminology tends to lead users to wander, and away from the conversion path we have set forth.

TEST THIS: Test reducing or increasing the amount of text in primary navigation. Depending on the makeup of the audience, they may need more or less descriptive text — you won’t know unless you test. Best practice guidance teaches us to settle on four to six primary sections of your website (and thus silo-ing existing content under these channels) and to focus on the naming conventions (keywordrich, of course) of those navigation links. This will offer users faster, more accurate access to the information they want.

Functionality — As important as where you place your navigation elements and the clarity of the text individual navigational links provide is the functionality of the navigation menu itself. Web designers have a variety of options available to them when it comes to navigation functionality — from mouseover effects to dropdowns, to nested menus and more. For some ideas, look into Javascript libraries such as jQuery, Mootools, prototype or script.aculo.us.

TEST THIS: Testing the functionality of your navigation will yield results. What should be tested is how certain effects impact key performance indicators, such as page views. Consider tracking how users interact with different navigation functionality by recording their visits — two services to consider include Click- Tale.com and Mouseflow.com.

Start Testing Today
Designing for users is important. Web designers need to provide visiting audiences with what they expect in a clear and compelling manner. The battle line is navigation. While the attraction toward using elaborate or intricate navigation is understandable, the goal is always to provide users with access to the information the website provides. Users do not have the patience or time to learn more intricate navigation, so focus on creating an experience that is both instinctive and natural. Complicated and difficult-to-use navigation makes users feel uneasy and apprehensive about a website and will negatively influence conversion. So start testing navigation today and find out what works for your audience.