Human Behavior & Performance Data: Lessons from Trees
In a park anywhere where there are trees is a tree I’ll call Tree. One day Tree thought how nice it might be to check its data to study its performance as a tree. So it counted up its branches and leaves to see how many it had. Every season, year after year, Tree tracked its leaves and branches. It learned that during winter when it slept, its branches were bare. In spring, every branch lit up in a burst of color as it flowered and swayed in gentle breezes until each flower became a new leaf. Tree counted its flowers and how many became a leaf. And year after year, Tree grew taller and expanded its roots deeper into…
Discover Your Website Performance Pain Points
If you rely on tools to test your website or application, you may never find what confused your users. Automated tools can show where problems are found within the code. Tools can look for specific pages and provide insights into how long users remain on a page and where they go next. However, they don’t have any idea why humans make the choices they do. SEO tools, page speed tools, mobile emulation software, and accessibility testing tools are not programmed to know what to do on a bad day when the car breaks down on the way to work and the driver must search for a local automotive service business. If you’re the owner of an automotive service station website, you need…
The Value of Web Site Reviews
If you’re shopping for a website audit, it may surprise you to learn there are several types, methodologies and goals to consider. From a quick five-second user test to an in-depth full site audit, each one provides valuable information. The kind of information a company is looking for helps to determine the scope of a site audit. A quick “what do you think of my website?” approach helps the ego but isn’t helpful if the goal is to understand if the user interface is rendering properly on an iPhone on a park mountain while hiking a trail at dusk. That would be a great task scenario for an app, or web page readability test for someone wearing prescription glasses that…
Adding Relevancy to Your AEO for SEO Strategy
AEO is one of the latest buzzwords used by digital marketers focused on search engine rank. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) brings SEO one step closer to usability and accessibility territories. I was invited to substitute for Marie Hayes, a long time friend in the SEO industry, for a series of webinars out of SEMRush, makers of SEO tools, training and well written educational blog. The topic is AEO for SEO, which would normally not be in my wheelhouse. However, the master mind of the website series, Jason Barnard, in his investigation into AEO, realized that optimization for answers is powerless without adding human elements to the search engine algorithms. In other words, this is a continuation, if not a robust…
