Making the Internet Work for You!

I get into the same discussion with both small and large business owners and executives at a minimum of twice a week. The questions driving the discussions are “What would the average user do?” or “How do we market this to the average user?”.

Unfortunately, the most common answer is “Well if I were trying to do or find xyz on this website then I would want to see this or I would want to have this available.” This is not and will never be the case with the exception of lucky instances.

The bottom line – You are not the average user. Period. If you were the average user then you wouldn’t be reading this article. If average users all read marketing articles, E-commerce articles and website usability articles then they would most likely never buy half of the things offered on the internet.

Average users are (in a nutshell) short, sweet and to the point. Users don’t care how long a site took to develop, how much time and study was placed in the design or about the color that psychology says they will react to most. The average user wants to be able to find what they are looking for in as few steps as possible with as little thought as possible. Remember…the internet and technology are supposed to SAVE time.

With that being said, here are a few important tips to apply to your website that will appeal to average internet users.

1. Optimize the appropriate pages to appear in natural search results. Just because you cannot select the page through an AdWords admin does not mean that you cannot optimize your content to serve the most relevant page to a use search.

2. Keep your website as simple as possible. Gadgets, Widgets, and other engagement items are wonderful as long as they are intuitive and do not require the use taking any time to “Figure them out”.

3. Take everything that you read about top usability practices with a grain of salt. User behavior will change dependent upon trust, industry, and purpose so place a huge red checkout button on every shopping cart will not work the same. The best way to determine how users actually interact with your website is through testing and analytics.

So the next time you hear the director of marketing at your company say “I would click that link”…it’s a safe bet that your average user will not. Good luck and please feel free to share any alternative input or resources with the rest of the readers.

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