Effective Website Usability Testing Tips

Every serious digital marketer needs a website which serves as a products display window in cyberspace. It is not just enough to have a website. Such website must be accessible and usable. The reason it must be routinely tested for usability without which it may be ineffective to serve the digital marketing purpose for which it was set up. Here are a few tips to get it done.

Owner Testing

As the website owner, you must on your own test and satisfy yourself that your website can serve the purpose for which you set it up. There is no better alternative to conducting real-life testing for your website. It allows you to experience first-hand what your customers will experience when they come over. Owner testing gives you meaningful insights about your product, how it is displayed and how it is perceived by your website visitors. 


 
User Feedback
 
No other test stands better credibility than user feedback. It gives the website owner credible information about how the website helps customers to perceive and understand the product/service on display. The information is very useful because it is they who go through the website and experience what it offers. Listening to and evaluating their reviews helps provide the information needed to identify the blind spots which require urgent fixing or to be eliminated altogether as needed.

Simulate Real-Time Conditions

If you have experience in website usage, it is possible to simulate conditions which the site may encounter real time. With that, you can identify a number of real-world issues which your website will face on full deployment. Your duty is to incorporate as many of these issues as possible to determine how they impact user experience.

Discard Biases

For a site that is expected to serve many and varied people, it helps to set aside biases and settle for what will be universally acceptable. The reason you must embark on usability testing by proceeding without any kind of preconceived notions in your mind. Let users freely do their own thing on your site without you teleguiding them on how to interact with your website. It is the gap between their real experience and expected experience which provides the information needed in usability testing.

Insider Sessions

This is a way of allowing closely related others to weigh in on the testing. These insiders could be friends, relatives, staff and close acquaintances that were not part of the website development and have never even visited the website. The information from such persons particularly other staff helps to identify most of the issues regarding the workflow and any kind of conflicts and confusions which can hamper free use of the website.

7 Big Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

 Yeah, you too can easily get involved if you want to make money from Affiliate Marketing. Many people get involved just to make money. The real reason they easily fall prey to online scammers. Everyone involved gets to make some mistakes along the line but if you manage to avoid these here mistakes, you stand a very good chance of long term success in the business.


 
01. Taking on Too Many Programs
 
Many Affiliate programs online habitually offer several variants. It is always a big mistake to get involved in all of them because of that reason. Experts advise, “Never join any and every affiliate program you came across.”  It pays to choose your affiliate programs wisely to avoid overloading yourself and overburdening your efforts.

 02. Not Enough Testing
 
 It is a mistake not to fully check out and test every affiliate program you want to get involved in. Always put yourself in the shoes of your customers. What you won’t like, it is pointless promoting it to others. Leading customers to promotions that can jam up their email boxes with thousands of mails is a real put off. Testing well enough before promoting is one great way around such a problem.

03. Not Enough Tracking

The ability to track your customers and sales is a very smart marketing technique. In Affiliate Marketing, making any commission is cool, but knowing where and how you made that commission is what makes you a better marketer. Doing so allows you to grow and scale your campaigns — as opposed to working blindly. It helps your ads budget too. Not tracking your sales enough is a no no.

04. Selling Instead of Helping

My mentor once told me never to present myself to prospects as trying to sell them something. It pays to offer help to solving a problem instead of attempting to sell. Yes, the word “marketing” is part of the phrase Affiliate Marketing, but for the most part, the real job of an affiliate is not to sell. His job is to lead people on to places where their problems can be solved. The selling job is better left to the sales page our affiliate links lead the reader to. Attempting to sell always instead of offering help first is one huge Affiliate Marketing mistake.


 
05. Making False Claims

Never make false claims about any Affiliate Marketing program. Excessive hyping too is not good. With the internet, people get to find the truth fairly easily and you can lose credibility real quick. Perhaps you’ve seen this before, ad lines such as “How I Made $1000 Dollars in one day” followed by a link to an affiliate site. Not everybody gets to make a grand so easily if ever. People always get out fast when they see through any falsehood and that easily taints your credibility as a marketer.

06. Not Comparing Enough

Experience shows that one of the best converting tactics to sell affiliate products online is to find a credible way to compare the “main” product with two or more similar products then leave the buying decision to the customer. When people are in buying mode for a physical product, they tend to have their options narrowed down to 2 or 3 and need help making the choice that is best for them. Giving options for comparison helps that decision. Not giving that option is a bad marketing decision. Here is why. Comparison web pages are not only very popular and helpful for readers; they are also very profitable for the marketer.

07. Allowing Distractions

Just like it sounds, distraction leads to wasted efforts and dissipation of energy in the wrong direction. It should be avoided. Sometimes, a marketer may already be working on something, all of a sudden, something looking great just pops up to attract attention. Deciding to just check it out could lead you off to go chasing some new idea to make money taking you off track completely. Such distractions should be avoided if you are already working on a project with good prospects. Truth be told, one completed and profitable campaign is worth so much more than 20 almost half-finished campaigns or projects. The real reason distractions should always be identified and pointedly ignored to allow full attention to the business already at hand.