Creating a Winning Web Site & Online Strategy: Q&A With Aaron Kahlow

While social media tools such as blogs and Twitter are getting all the buzz these days, we can tend to forget that for many companies, the web site is still the main inroad for customers. As a result, web site performance and usability is critical.

Aaron Kahlow is a partner in Business Online and a leader in the field of web site usability. At the MarketingProfs B2B Forum, Aaron will show B2B marketers how they can improve their site, email campaigns, landing pages and the general online customer experience by applying "The Top 10 Foundational Principals of Website Usability."

All this will be done in a very unique "lab" setting at the B2B Forum. Aaron explains more about the format, and gives some tips on how to improve your web site's usability, in this exclusive interview.

At the Marketing Profs B2B Forum, you are conducting a Lab on "Improving the Customer Experience of Your Web Site." Is the 'lab' format different from the standard session or panel we see at most conferences?

Completely different. The Usability Lab gives one on one advice from the subject matter expert on specifically where your web site is straying from the known best practices of web site usability. Moreover, it gives you insight into how that is affecting your customer experience and overall conversion rates.

One of the areas you'll be covering in your lab is seeing your web site as your customers do. What do you think is the biggest misconception that companies have about how visitors use and interact with their websites?

I'd say the biggest misconception is that their customers think like they do. Much like any good relationship, you need to put yourself in the other persons shoes (i.e. the customer). Most marketing professionals are way too "close" to their offering, corporate vernacular and all things related to their industry. So things like nomenclature and content grouping often fall in line with their corporate focused thinking not the users.

In general, do companies seem to be paying more attention to website design now than they did say 3 years ago? Or are they focusing more in other areas online, such as blogging and social media?

Definitely prioritizing the design and usability of their site a lot more. Many realize how bad their site really is and are now budgeting appropriately. The biggest realization is how central the web site is for all marketing efforts, online or offline in how there is usually at least one touch point on the site in any buying cycle.

Social media is being talked about a lot, but like the [just released] Forrrester research tells us, less than 30% are actually doing anything. So a lot of conjecture, not much concrete steps.

There's been a lot of research in recent years into tracking pattern-usage trends and "eyeball-tracking" with web sites. Where do you see the science behind website design going in the future?

I see their being much more widely adopted standards so web sites start having similar structures. This will make it easier for the user so they do not need to re-learn the navigation of a new site every time they go to one, it will be very similar to their more familiar sites:

I know you can't give all your secrets away, but what are a couple of the main areas of site design that are important to customers, that most companies overlook?

Here are the top 3:

1) It's not about design, it's about information architecture. Place more of your budget on the proper website "blueprint" and then layer a nice design.

2) Researching things we all ready know to be true. I hear companies tell me they did a recent study and found that their users like the search box in the top right corner... well we know that was the case 5 years ago. Research the elements that are very specific to your target audience.

3) Remember the search engine optimization and web site usability go hand and hand and 90% of the time work in line with each other.