While everyone has their own ideas about things like color and images, a few key elements should remain consistent on any site you build. Before you even think about how to build links to your site, you need to make sure people will find it useful once they get there. Here are my tips to help keep things going swimmingly. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Use Global Navigation

This isn’t as complicated as it may sound. Basically, it just means keeping the navigation in the same place on every page of your site. If the home page has top navigation, that element shouldn’t suddenly move to the sidebar on the category page. Your visitors shouldn’t have to go looking for the nav menu every time they land on a new page. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to use top nav or a sidebar menu, just keep it in the same place from page to page.

Make Clickable Elements Stand Out

Most sites have gotten away from underlining text links, but they should still be in a color that sets them apart from the rest of the text, preferably a bright one. They won’t do you any good if people just skip right over them. If you’re using any kind of buttons or other graphical elements on the page, they also need to stand out. That three-dimensional keyboard button look may seem a little outdated, but compare the clickthrough rate on one of those to a flat, dull-colored square, and I’m willing to bet the 3-D button gets better results.

Use Breadcrumbs

Who knew the Brothers Grimm would eventually influence Web usability? Much like those fabled breadcrumbs left in the woods, Web site breadcrumbs allow users to see the path they’ve followed to get to the current page, and to easily find their way back, should they wish to do so. Breadcrumbs can also aid in the addition and naming of site links. They look like this:

You can easily see what page you’re on, what page you were on, or you can even go all the way back to the beginning if you want to start over and look for something else. But come on, how could you possibly need anything else once you’ve found the Michael Bublé Christmas album?!

Edit Text Mercilessly

This one is my favorite. All sites need at least some text, but most people don’t really read all the text on Web pages. They scan it for the information they’re seeking, and when they don’t find it, they get frustrated and either start clicking around aimlessly, or they leave. Either way, you’re not doing your audience any favors by being too wordy. Unless your site is a blog or a news outlet, burying your site’s purpose in a bunch of text is only going to increase your bounce rate.

But on an e-commerce site, for example, the longest bits of text should be confined to product descriptions, and even then, they need to be concise, giving the shopper enough information to make a good buying decision, but not going overboard with adjectives and flowery prose. Amazon.com is a great example of this (I swear I’m not shilling for Amazon, they just have an example-rich site!). The site does have several elements on each page, and a lot of information, but it’s presented in clean, useful blocks, and they make good use of white space, which is not the evil wasteland some site owners seem to think it is, which leads them to do this:

Don’t do that. If you take nothing else away from this post, let it be that. Please. The Internet will thank you.

There’s a lot more that goes into making a site fully functional from a usability standpoint, but these tips should get you started. What usability tips do you have? Share them in the comments!

P.S. Only a few days left in our 12 days of SEO! Can’t remember what comes next on the list? To help, I give you the Muppets, because it’s just not Christmas without Muppets, am I right?

However, one of the side effects of this job is how easily simple activities turn into case studies for how things could have been done better. Spend a few minutes on the Web attempting to shop and you can’t help but notice that many common sense eCommerce marketing practices are not as common sense as you thought. And then, instead of watching re-turns of The OC on the Soap Network, you’re penning blog posts in your head about how eCommerce sites can tighten up their checkout processes to dramatically increase conversations. Because that’s how sad my life is.

But that’s beside the point!

Below are nine tips to help eCommerce sites increase conversions by plugging up holes in their checkout process. Because if people want to spend money with you, it’s really only fair that you let them. ;)

1. Include a “Check Out Now” Button

There is a certain state of euphoria that overtakes someone when they make the decision to add something to their shopping cart. They’re excited, their heart is racing, and they’re completely ignoring the fact that in three minutes they’re going to wonder if they really need that giant owl locket. This is the moment where you want to convert them and it’s why displaying a “check out now!” button as soon as an item has been added to their cart is a very good idea. Maybe they’re not done shopping and will keep browsing, but if they are then you want to get them to that checkout BEFORE the self-doubt creeps in and makes them second guess their purchase.

2. Guilt Trip Those Who Attempt To Leave

I don’t want to brag or anything but I am THE Queen of Abandoning Full Shopping Carts. I fill up my cart with everything I want to buy, I get excited…and then I roll that shopping cart (or “wagon”, as us Long Islanders call it) to the trash can and quickly run away. It’s your job to not let me do that. If someone is trying to leave your site with items left in their shopping cart, consider hitting them with a pop up or another notification asking them if they really, really want to make a thousand puppies cry by doing that. Sure, we all hate popups, but never underestimate your ability to use that hatred (combined with a mother-sized guilt trip) to your advantage.

3. Tell Them Where They Are

When I’m checking out, I want to know how long this is going to take. Tell me if I’m on Step 1 of 3 or if I’m on Step 3 of 7. This lets me feel like I’m moving along, that there’s an end in sight and that I won’t be stuck on your Web site forever. And if there’s a reason you’re NOT telling me this, like maybe you’re trying to hide your 20-step check out process, then that’s something you should fix. Because the Internet took a vote and it hates you.

4. Don’t Require an Account for Checkout

HEY YOU! Stop. Slowing down. The checkout process.

Just because you want people to create an account on your site so that you can better market to them does not mean you should throw this hurdle in their way while customers are trying to finish a purchase. Whether you realize it or a not, to a credit card-wheeling customers the “create an account” option screams THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER! And it makes them want to go away. I know this because I often leave sites that require me to register (I do the same for blogs that require the same to comment, BTW). Let people checkout as a guest. If they love you that much (and if you provide a compelling reason to do so), they’ll create an account later. This is the not where you want to annoy them.

5. Pre-Populate Fields with Known User Information

If I’m making a purchase while logged into your Web site (aHA! You got what you wanted!), then you already know certain information about me. You know my name, you know my email address, heck, you may even know my address. If this is the case, then why are you making me type that information in again when I go to checkout? The more stuff you make me do between “OMG, I WANT THAT” and “OMG, I GOT THAT!” the less likely it is I’m going to see that last step. Or that you’re going to get my money.

6. Only Collect Information Related To Purchase

Once I am in the checkout process, every question you ask or piece of information you collect should be 100 percent related to this purchase. Otherwise, you are distracting me from my goal and making it less likely that you will ever see my credit card information. Don’t be a dummy.

7. Be Aware Of My Internet-induced ADD

Similar to above – once I’m in the checkout process, buttons and links to do ANYTHING else on your site should be removed. Once I’m there, encourage me to stay there, to finish the process, and to be giddy about those over-priced shoes I just purchased. Because if I have the choice of giving you my credit card information OR checking out that cute dress you’re showing me a listing for, I’m probably going to go check out the dress. And then I might not come back.
Remember the goal of your page and then remove all elements that do not match that goal. Most people will do anything not to complete a purchase even if they want to complete it. Take away the distractions.

8. Keep. It. Simple.

Your checkout process needs to be kept as simple, as streamlined and as intuitive as possible. This isn’t a place where you want people to think. It’s where they are to act like robots and hand over their payment information without stopping to smell the roses. The simpler your process, the more likely this will be the case.

9. Perform Your Own Usability Testing

While following eCommerce best practices is a great way to get yourself 80 percent there, we’d always recommend performing your own usability testing to truly understand how customers are navigating through your site, where they’re getting caught up, and what roadblocks are stumping them that they may not even realize. At Outspoken Media, we’ve become fans of UserTesting.com to help us do this.

There. Do you see how easy that is?

If you’re analytics are showing that customers are getting to your online form but aren’t converting, it may be time to figure out why. Here are some common mistakes businesses make with their Web forms, all displayed through one awesome example.

Check out the online appointment form for an organic hair salon located in Troy, NY. The good parts are numbered.

1. Don’t let them do what they need

No one likes feeling stupid. If I land on your site with a mission and you don’t allow me to accomplish it, I feel like I did something wrong. And then I’m going to run to Twitter and tweet about how worthless and emo this makes me feel. The radio options on the form above only allow me to select one type of service to make an appointment for. If I want a haircut, a massage or a styling, then this form works for me. But if I want to have a spa day and get all three, well, I’m out of luck unless I want to go through the process three separate times. And I don’t. Because as you’ll soon see, the process itself isn’t so easy.

Anticipate what it is your customers will need when filling out their form. I’d also recommend doing some user testing to watch how customer’s interact with your form. You’ll get their thoughts straight from their own mouths.

2. You’re using jargon I don’t recognize

This is a really big problem for sites. As an expert in your field, you’re naturally going to use different language when referring to things than an everyday user. As a common person, I’m not sure what the difference is between an apprentice, an associate stylist, a senior stylist and a creative director. I have some level of intelligence so I can grasp the hierarchy being laid out, but I don’t know what that means in terms of price differential, availability or time. I may not want a n00b cutting my hair, but I also don’t want to pay $500 an hour for the creative director of the shop to squeeze me in. Or what if I’ve been here before (which I have), how do I know what title “my girl” has? I don’t.

Whether it’s your online form or the rest of your Web site – remember that you are not the customer and it’s not your likes and wants that matter. It’s theirs. You only matter if you can give them what they want in the way they want and understand it. Use the words they know and are looking for.

3. Be consistent

Up above I’m asked to select if I want an apprentice, a stylist or a creative director. Suddenly, that language is gone. Now these people are referred to as therapists. Or maybe they’re not. Maybe a therapist is something different to this salon. I don’t know. Again, I’m left to feel dumb. And because you just assumed I needed a therapist now I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR JUDGING ME!

If you’re selling [rain boots] on your home page, don’t start selling [wellies] on your interior product pages. Because while they’re technically the same thing, they’re not the same to a customer who came looking for [rain boots]. Know what terms you’re customers are going to be looking for and use them. And once you know – stick to that term. Save your creativity for other areas.

4. You ask for more than you need, with too many options

For someone looking for a simple haircut, this form comes off as a little intimidating. There are too many options, too many ways to get to the same destination, and too many places to get utterly and completely lost. I haven’t seen that many options to fill in information since I look at my SAT Scantron. And I’m pretty sure I misnumbered that monster, too.

I know it’s tempting to squeeze as much information as you can from someone while you have their attention – but show a little restraint and only ask for what you absolutely need. Otherwise you run the risk of someone getting turned off, distracted or just too annoyed to make it to the end. If you don’t need someone’s full name, address, date of birth, SSN, astrological sign, pant size, favorite number, and name of their HS principal, don’t ask for it. Get what you need to take the relationship to the next level, and then ask for it once they trust you.

The online form on your site should not act as a hurdle. It should be welcomed, intuitive, and the building block for the rest of the relationship to form. When it comes to Web forms,

• Keep it simple.
• Make it intuitive.
• Don’t start a relationship and propose in the same step. This is not a Hollywood marriage – build slow.

Easy, peasy, without the TSA cavity search.  What are your online form pet peeves?  Sound off in the comments.

As wacky as it may sound, people are judging the homepage of your Web site in the very same manner that they’re judging their date. And they’re asking themselves the very same set of questions.

Questions like:

Are we on the same page?

During a romantic encounter, you want to make sure you both have the same goals, want the same things, and that you’re not looking for a first kiss while he’s trying to get you back to his place with as little effort as possible. And when you’re a searcher, it’s the exact same scenario, minus the creepy porn music, of course.

Someone conducted a search and was woo’d back to your place by a compelling Title tag and Meta Description. In a perfect world, you’d direct them to a properly optimized landing page, but if you’re not, then you need still need to make sure your homepage ‘matches’ their search. There needs to be some cue that, “yes, you searched for [delicious vanilla cupcakes] and here are all of our delicious vanilla cupcakes”. Because if you create disconnect between what they WANT and SEARCHED FOR with what you’re offering and the language you’re using, they’re gone. In an instant and they’re not leaving a phone number. Your homepage should be designed to address the exact concerns customers are arriving with.

What are you about?

A first date is a reconnaissance mission. You arrive trying to corroborate everything Google told you find out as much as you can about this person, including their profession, what they do for fun, where they grew up, etc. You want to get a feel for what this person is all about to see if you’re a match. And it’s the same process when a customer lands on your site for the first time.

When someone hits your site for the first time, they’re taking everything in and trying to get a feel for who you are. Your homepage needs to lay the groundwork for the entire culture of your business. You want to use not only your words and language to convey a message, but images, social proofing, video, white space, etc. One glance of your page (which is probably all you’re getting) should tell people who you are and what audience your business is looking to attract.

Can I trust you?

While you can’t create trust in one date, that doesn’t mean people aren’t looking for the cues. They’re looking to see how you talk about your friends, whether you’re rude to the waiter and if you’re checking out someone else while they’re telling you a story. And, again, it’s not much different here on the Web.

On the Web, trust rules all and your homepage should be the first step in creating it. It’s really important that you focus on hitting all the important site trust indicators so that customers know it’s safe to enter their credit card information on your site, that you’ll still be around tomorrow, and that you have experience in whatever it is you claim that you do. Investing in a professional Web design and displaying links to security information, About pages, etc, are all great ways to let people know you’re going to treat them well and not rob them of their life savings.

Are you literate?

Part of that ‘trust’ thing means ensuring that if my life was in danger, you’d be able to use the phone book to call the appropriate authorities. On your Web site, I want to know you can spell newsletter before I agree to sign up for yours. It’s the little things.

Do other people like you?

When you’re chatting with someone on a first date, you’re trying to gather up some social proof. Essentially, you want to know that this person has OTHER people in their lives. Like, friends. This, as you may know, is a good sign that the person you are out with is not, in fact, a raging psychopath that their own mother had to move thousands of miles to get away from them.

On the Web, we look for social proof to help us determine whether or not this is a company we want to be associated with. For example, if your homepage shows you actively talking to people on Twitter, displays that you have 8,000 Facebook fans and that you have tons of testimonials from happy customers, I feel a lot safer doing business with you. People are sheep. We like doing business with the same companies the rest of the flock is doing business with. Show me your flock.

Are you gonna make me work for it?

When you’re out with someone, you want to know it’s not going to become a hassle to KEEP going out with them. For example, can the other person hold an intelligent conversation or do shiny objects distract them? Are their cute quirks like loud chewing, rambling, inability to hold their alcohol, etc, going to stop being “cute” and start becoming “annoying” three months down the line?

On the Web version, people are looking at your site and trying to determine how difficult it’s going to be to navigate and get through it. Are they going to have a hard time finding the right product? Is the check out process five more steps than it needs to be? Are things laid out sensibly? If your site looks like it’s going to be high maintenance, customers are going to go find a site that isn’t. We don’t have that much time to wait on BS these days. Yeah, boys, I’m talking to you.

Will you tell me what to do next?

The end of a first date is always a little awkward. Do you shake hands? Hug? Go in for the kiss? And what do you do once you figure that part out? Who’s going to call who? Should I just sit around and wait? Should I just say screw it and get the third cat now? For me, the sign of a successful first date ends with a plan for the next one. Some sort of follow up that lets me know, hey, this worked, next we should do X. Without it, I’m stuck on my couch wondering what just happened and waiting for the ice cream to thaw.

Once I’m on your homepage, you need to give me a road map for how I’m supposed to get off and get on with my life. Yes, I came to you looking for cupcakes and you seem to sell them, but now what? What’s next in the conversion path? A successful homepage will lay the groundwork for the rest of my site interaction. Without it, I’m fumbling in the dark. I don’t like to fumble.

Those are some ways I think homepage and dating interactions tend to mirror one another. Any others you can think of?

He wrote:

“With the new design, we’re intentionally featuring more dynamic content on the front page, revealing a sample of who’s here, what folks are tweeting about, and the big topics that they’re discussing. The homepage now features a set of algorithmically-selected top tweets that automatically appear every few seconds”

I like it. In fact, I like it a lot. Here are five reasons why Twitter’s new home page is better than yours and what you can take from it to apply to your own site.

1: Prominent Search

Twitter does an awesome job prominently displaying its search bar so that its absolutely impossible for someone to skip over it. A user who lands on your site unsure of what to do will immediately head for that little bar. It’s a trained behavior and Twitter knows that. They also know that some people may have questions as to what Twitter is and why they should care. If you’re not prominently displaying the search bar on your site, you’re giving people license to hit the back button on their browser and go somewhere else. Probably to a competitor. Where they will spend a boatload of money.

Where is your own search bar located? Is it above the fold? Is it easily identifiable as a search bar or are you being confusingly creative? Does it stand out on the page or do people have to really squint to distinguish it? If it doesn’t stand out and you’re making people hunt – you need to fix it. Because people aren’t going to hunt for you. They’re going to leave you. People always leave.

2: A Single Call To Action

Users aren’t bombarded with a whole lot of options when they land on the Twitter home page. There aren’t links to everything they could possibly do or read about or see. They’re not trying to write the Book of Twitter on one page. Instead, there’s one main link that takes precedence over all the others. It’s the call to action designed to entice people to Get Started Now and create a Twitter account. That is the single most important thing that Twitter wants people to do and that is what they highlight and where they direct user’s attention. People aren’t left stranded. They’re given a life boat and a flashlight.

What does your own home page look like? Have you carved out a path to get people through your site and to a desired location? Or, instead, are you throwing everything you have to offer at them from the very beginning and hoping they’ll take the time to discern what’s what? Figure out what it is you want people to do and then push them toward that. Users don’t like to think. They like when you tell them what to do. I know it sounds like more options are all the rage but, really, they’re not. People don’t want to choose.

3: Identifies Trends

If you’ve never heard of Twitter, it probably sounds pretty odd. It’s just a bunch of strangers talking about themselves and the topics they’re interested in, right? I mean, who cares? What does that offer me and what could I possibly have to offer to that conversation? If you don’t know, Twitter gives you an easy way to find out by spelling out the hottest site trends directly on the home page. Someone can click on [Sandra Bullock] and read about the conversation going on about her. From that, they can learn a bit how the site works, see how people are interacting with one another, and it gives them fodder for that intimidating first tweet. Twitter immediately opens the door to get people interacting and helps get rid of that “is this thing on” feel. Users are immediately puts people into the conversation.

Go back to your own site: Are you encouraging people to enter or are leaving them out in the cold to figure things about on their own? Look for ways to quickly integrate your users into the mix so that they feel invested in the community you’re creating. The more seamless you can make the transition from lurker to participant, the more value they’re going to bring to your community and the louder they’ll be about their engagement there.

4: Easy Engagement

Keeping with the theme of quickly integrating users, Twitter has adopted a Top Tweets widget that uses an algorithm to display some of the most popular current tweets on the site. Doing so introduces new users to some of the people they’ll meet, shows them how others are engaging and what they’re talking about, and it leaves something for users to interact with. It hooks people from the home page and gives them a window to what’s happening inside.

What are you doing to make your own home page more social and to get people in the mood to interact? Are there links to your current blog posts? A widget to display your site’s most active users? A look at your own Twitter feed or your Facebook profile? The more dynamic content you can include on your site, the easier it’s going to be to grab people from the home page and get them deeper into your content. Twitter’s doing a good job with theirs. How about you?

5: Social Proof

The new Twitter home page immediately introduces new users to twenty people already using the site to offer some social proof. Those people are already using and finding value in the site, so maybe you’d find value in it is as well.  If you saw that 10,000 people had already joined a community, you’d probably feel more comfortable joining than if that number was more like five.  We want to be where the party is and where the cool kids are already hanging out. If those twenty people are finding value in the Twitter community, than that makes me wonder what’s going on over there. And hey, maybe if I join, Twitter will put MY face on their home page and tell the world how cool I am for being part of the club.

By displaying and highlighting those in your community, you give others a greater incentive to join. What kind of social proof are you offering on your site? Maybe it’s a Facebook Connect widget or a chicklet that displays your RSS.email subscribers or Twitter followers.  Perhaps it’s a sign of all the press mentions you’ve earned or where you’ve been featured.  Show people that you don’t live in a bubble and that other people have found a great deal of value in your site.

I really like the new Twitter redesign because I think it highlights a lot of areas that are important, and yet often overlooked, by site owners.  If you want to improve the homepage on your site, than consider taking a lesson from Twitter here.  Focus on creating dynamic content to draw people. Get to know your users and create content that specifically address where they are on their mission and how they can benefit from spending time with you. At the end of the day, it’s all a value and trust game.  You have to prove you’re worth their time and that you have something you can offer them.

Do you? How are you showing them?

Bad Web site design can happen to anyone, but it doesn’t have to happen to you. The trick is to design a Web site that will attract the people you’re trying to sell to. To create a design that will attract your “clique” and the type of person you want to use your site.

Lisa, you say, what does my Web site design really matter if my product is good? Who cares if I’ve designed a Web site that is pink, uses stripes and wreaks of glitter? People will look past it to get to my awesome product.

No. They won’t.

Meet Bangarang Cupcakes.

visit the site. it gets worse. promise.

I know. It looks like a faerie threw up all over your monitor.

What you may not know is that I used to be a huge evangelist for Bangarang Cupcakes (formerly Fat Daddy Cupcakes). I pimped their $6.50 cupcakes all over the Internet. At the time, they were simply an Etsy store. I fell in love with them and their cupcakes hand carved by angels. But then they rebranded to Bangarang Cupcakes and came out with that Web site. And as much as I hate to say it, I’ve stopped visiting.

I don’t visit the site because it distracts me from what I was intending to do – Buy cupcakes. Now when I go there, all I can see is a neon hot mess.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s okay to be ugly! Sometimes being ugly makes your point and works for what you’re trying to do. For example, the two sites below are some of the ugliest sites on the Internet. But they both work exceptionally well.

The Most Amazing Web Site On The Internet (thanks to Tim Obarski for this one)

Craigslist

These sites are the good kind of ugly. Their ugliness enhances what they’re purpose. Yes, TMAWSOTI may induce a seizure, but that’s the market they’re going for. Craigslist may be boring, but when I land on it, I trust it. I trust that it’s credible, that it’s a real site and that I’m not going to get swindled.

However, it’s not okay to be ugly when your ugly distracts people from what they were trying to do and drives them away from your site.

Businesses need to realize that their sites aren’t about them. Your Web site should make your customer feel comfortable using your site. It should enhance the goal and whatever it is visitors are there to do. The Bangarang site doesn’t make me want to buy cupcakes. I don’t even see their cupcakes til the tail end of the page. Instead, I’m blinded by the pink, the $11.99 site design, and who they could possibly have on staff that thought that was a smart idea. I immediately don’t trust them. So I just leave.

Using a credible site design is the single best way to establish trust on your Web site. And with all the free WordPress themes and resources available to you today, there’s no excuse for bad design and sites like Bangarang. The tools you need to build a competent looking site are out there. Or, if you can’t do it yourself, hire someone who can help you. Someone who will listen, who will make your content the focal point and not douse your site with cascading unicorns.

Your Web site is how people will first judge you. It’s not an area where you want to cut corners.  Use your Web design to build your clique, naturally attracting the people who should be attracted to you. I love frosting. I should be attracted to the Bangarang site, but with that design, all they’re doing is pushing me away. Which is shame, because I make a pretty powerful brand evangelist.

Ask yourself, does your Web site design encourage users to take the actions they need to on your site or does it distract them and push them away? Don’t let ugly Web design happen to you.

If you want happier users, take the new Yahoo approach* and focus your Web site on three things.

1. Intent
2. Objects
3. Openness

Intent

At yesterday’s “The End of the 10 Blue Links” event (happily liveblogged by TechCrunch), Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo! Labs and Yahoo! Search Strategy, declared that it’s time to kill “10 blue links”. And it was actually really cute because he said it like former Ask CEO Jim Lanzone didn’t say the same thing nearly two years ago (please come back, Jim.). But that’s beside the point. Yahoo is moving beyond the “10 blue links” phase and using tools like Search Assist to focus in on user intent. They know that users have goals (in search and maybe life) and that they’re trying to do something as they move from Web page to Web page (other than finding Google). Yahoo wants to help them to do that.

And guess what? You should be doing the same thing! Searchers are on your site for a reason. They had a need and Google Yahoo told them you were relevant. You need to now prove that you are and give them what they’re looking for.

You do that by matching their intent. Shouldn’t be too hard since you already know their intent, right? You know because they told you when they searched for it, when they used your site search or when they called or emailed you to ask you those ten customer service questions. Your job is to cluster these needs into silos or topic areas and create optimized landing pages so they land on a page specific to that intent. When you make a user enter your site through your home page, you’ve very often confused them because that wasn’t what they were asking for. And if you didn’t confuse them, you’ve at least increased their burden as now they have to find the answer to their question on their own. No one likes a burden. Except emotionally unstable girls attracted to baggage. Don’t be baggage.

Objects

Prabhakar also noted the need to build a “Web of objects from a Web of pages”. Users’ needs are changing as they become more sophisticated searchers and as the Web makes different types of mediums more readily available to them. This is something Yahoo has recognized and is working into its core strategy with things like BOSS and Search Monkey.

Be like Yahoo! Realize that sometimes “giving them what they want” means giving them an object. Just as “10 blue links” is dying, so are the days where a page of text can meet all their needs. Users are looking for shortcuts, engagement objects and things they can “touch” on the Web and take with them. Give them videos. Images. Widgets. Who doesn’t love sexy objects? :) Give them the objects that will keep them coming back.

Openness

You can’t sit on your little island anymore and wait for people to come to you. Yahoo’s been doing a great job of that with Search Monkey, opening up their listings to business owners to provide additional information. They also offer cool stuff to the 15k developers who have signed on.

Openness is the new black.

Get fashionable and open up your Web site to users, too. Bring the community in and encourage them to talk to you, and more importantly, to talk to one another. That means allowing open conversation on blogs, but maybe it also means using applications like Google Friend Connect to turn your site into a mini social network where your visitors can “see” one another and interact. It also means getting off your site and opening your brand up to the other social communities they’re already engaging in. Create a Facebook Fan page, get on Twitter, find them on your industry social sites. Just get out of your bubble and be social elsewhere. Your users are begging you for it. Bring it to them.

Yahoo used its search event yesterday to tell the world about their new goal: Building services that turn Web pages into real-world objects and concepts. You do the same.

[*Yes, I know this isn’t really a "new" idea and Yahoo certainly didn't invent it...but they had their event yesterday and the others didn’t. Even the runner-up deserves some love every once and awhile, right?]

As marketers we have this desire to be loud and to be heard. We want to tell everyone that we’re the best. Our Web designers want to qualify their paychecks by creating flashy sites to amaze and conquer. But your customer’s aren’t interested in any of that. They just want you to solve their problem. And the best way for you to do that and attract more visitors is to become invisible and give them what they want.

How do you become invisible?

Pay for invisible content. Yes, pay.

I know Loren thinks you can hire rock star writers by making them give you their first article for free or by outsourcing to India, but I completely disagree with him (I heart you, Loren.). I don’t think that you can. In an industry that hails content as being King, it’s always been somewhat crazy to me the lengths we’ll go NOT to pay for it or to get it for as cheap as we can. (I blame Google for that bad SEO habit.) Invest the money in hiring a good copywriter. I know I’m incredibly biased, but I think it’s one of the best investments you’ll make for your company.

Your copy is how people find out who you are, what you’re about, how you can help them, what your point of difference is and why they should care about any of that. A good copywriter, one that probably won’t write for free, can get all of that across without making it sound like you’re selling to someone and they can do it in a way that engages the customers, builds trusts and puts them on the conversion path. When it comes to content, you get what you pay for. If you want cheap filler content, then you can pay for cheap filler content. But it’s going to be awkward and cold and very, very visible.

Design for Invisibility

We won’t pay for content, but we’ll absolutely pay for in your face, not even pretending to be subtle site designs. Do you know what designers and criminals have in common? They have calling cards. You can tell everything they have ever done because it “looks” like them. They have a “thing” that they stick to. That’s probably great branding for your Web designer and the common criminal living next door, but your customers are not impressed. They’re really not impressed. They find your flashy site design so distracting that they’re not even willing to look past it. They’re confused. And they’re gone.

The best Web designers know that the design of your site should not distract from the content of your site. The goal of your site is to answer customers’ questions, to serve their needs and to get them on the right path. Or, as Geeks on Steroids says in the linked article, the purpose of Web site design is to help shine some light in a way that no one even notices the light. You know writing is good when you don’t even notice it. The same is true for design. It should be invisible.

Be Intuitive

The next two go along with making your site invisible, but I think they’re big enough issues on their own that they get their own sections. Deal with it.

This means a couple of things. First, most people have been searching the Web for awhile. That means they’ve been trained to look for things in certain places. They know that links should be blue, that the navigation should be on the left or up top, that the checkout cart is usually in the upper right hand corner, etc. Each time you stray from the norm in your attempt to be different and special and unicorn-like, you confuse them. I know that people should be able to adapt to new surroundings and evolve, but we can’t. We’re like trained monkeys. A user will not be impressed that you made them spend five minutes looking for how to get to their shopping cart. They’re going to be annoyed. And want to knock that shopping cart over. With your face.

They’re also not going to be amused when they can’t find the shopping cart because you’ve called it something else, like a goodie bag or a treasure chest or a product receptacle. It’s a shopping cart. Call it that. Call things what they are. It’s not an advanced SEO strategy. It’s common sense.

And if you tell a user that this link right here will take them to your home page, make sure that it does. No broken links. No 404s scaring them off the site. Google makes it very easy to spot your broken links with their crawl errors feature in Webmaster Tools. I suggest you pay attention. Even if you do think Google is evil. They’re also good at helping you make your site more invisible and more attractive to users.

Get the Social Buttons Off Every Page

Social media has pretty much ruined the Web, in my opinion. It’s lowered the standards for what is or is not content and it’s turned marketers into even worse people than they were before. It’s also cluttered up Web sites to all hell.

I know that you have a blog. I know that you’re social media savvy. You’re an Expert, even! That’s spectacular, truly. That does not mean your social media buttons should be located on every page of your site. That actually tells me that you don’t know how to use social media if you think EVERY piece of content you write or display on your site is worthy of being pushed, promoted and whored. I guarantee you it’s not. Save the big buttons for that big piece of content that is worth pushing. Otherwise your site just looks like no one wants to play with it when none of your users have touched your ginormous Digg/Reddit/Sphinn button in 12 posts.  And now instead of focusing on your content, I’m wondering what those buttons are, why they’re there and why no one seems to like you. I must be on a bad site.

Your customers don’t care about you. They’d rather you not exist. So don’t. Become invisible and highlight what they’re really looking for – the information and value located on your Web site. It may sound counter-intuitive that becoming invisible will help you attract more, but it works.