Site Clinic: No Good Web Design Idea is Original, So Use It!

5Aug2008 Filed under: Online Marketing Author: JW

by Jackie Baker

One thing
you’ll hear me say over and over again in this column is that good usability
and design comes before optimization. It can be all too easy to market online
through optimization, link building, blogging, and social media ( to name a
few) and see that immediate upsurge in traffic, but not see any change in
conversions.

Today we’re
taking a look at AlaskaStock.com, a stock photography selling the rights to
gorgeous photos of this northern state.

AlaskaStock.com
has a great product to sell, and a decent process for doing it. However, the
site design and usability could use a little work prior to taking the next step
in online marketing. When you are offering a niche product in a common area, IE
stock photography, it’s helpful to take some cues from other successful
industry websites. After all, no good ideas are truly original. As long as you
don’t violate copyright, there’s no harm in rooting around and making use of
what works.

Elements of
Design
One of the main
usability pitfalls on the current AlaskaStock.com website is the lack of visual
contrast; blue and gray text is on top of a gray background, which will get
very washed out on varying monitors or for people who are color blind or have
vision problems. The blue, gray, and lighter gray color palette is very low
contrast, which causes all of the elements on each page to blend together.
Using colors with higher contrast will make the site easier to read, and make
it easier for visitors to distinguish the sections of each page (such as
navigation, content, search, etc).

Hierarchy
is another element of contrast that needs to be addressed on this website. The
eye should be given a specific path to follow based on size, color, placement,
and style of elements. A few key elements that need to stand out on every page
are the site name and navigation. There is not enough contrast in size and
color on AlaskaStock.com for visitors to be able to find these elements easily.

AlaskaStock.com
has done a good job of using consistent styles and color across the website. In
general, however, the fonts need to be bigger and the colors need more
contrast.

Comparison:
Take a look at JupiterImages.com, for example. This popular stock photography
site has a simple, yet very contrasting design. The white, dark gray, and cyan
blue are simple yet effective in making text, navigation, and primary elements
pop off the page. It is well designed, drawing attention to the three primary
sections: 1. the header with site name and navigation 2. left sidebar with
image search 3. content area with image results or instructions.

Navigation
Logical,
easy to find and follow navigation is critical to good usability. While it’s
great that AlaskaStock.com has multiple ways for visitors to navigate to
information, it is spread out and hard to find on the page. On the homepage
alone there are 5 different ways to navigate:

Global horizontal bar with
contact, help, my account, etc
Left sidebar with option to
browse by popular searches
Search bar in header
Four vertical feature boxes on
the left side of the content area
A horizontal navigation list
underneath the large homepage image.

The problem
here is that there are too many navigation options and that they are difficult
to locate. They are not indicated consistently visually and their placement is
pretty random within the overall design. I would strongly recommend that
AlaskaStock.com do some major housekeeping. Go through the website and figure
out all of the content that is available, and think through a logical way to re-organize
it much more simply.

Comparison:
Take a look at Comstock.com. This website has three navigation areas:

a horizontal bar with all
account, cart, and related visitor info. Notice that the “register” and “sign
in” links have been paired with this information. All of the visitor’s
necessary information to purchase on the site is easily accessible in one
area.
a vertical bar with the search
options. AlaskaStock.com could take some cues from Comstock and move the
search function above the popular searches in the left sidebar. This type
of organization moves similar information to the same location, simplifies
the design, and makes it easy for visitors to see that they can navigate
the site in both of the those ways.
a horizontal bar below the
content with all of the housekeeping links for home, contact, about, etc.

Comstock’s
navigation options are simple, logical, and organized by type of information.
AlaskaStock.com could greatly improve it’s usability by incorporating some of
these ideas.

Make Use of
Industry Conventions
Many of the
major stock photography sights whether they are rights-managed, royalty-free,
subscription-based or otherwise are displaying images similarly. The AlaskaStock.com
image results look messy because the image thumbnails are different sizes; some
are horizontal, some are vertical, and their descriptions are at all different
locations. It creates a less than professional look that is also difficult to
scan, a key element of usability.

Comparison:
Look at iStockPhoto.com’s method for displaying images. While here,
too, images differ in orientation, the thumbnails are all the same width and
align at the top. This is a much better way of dealing with differences in
images while providing some measure of uniformity and cleanliness. In addition,
all of these major stock photo sites provide a larger version of the thumbnail
when you roll-over it with the mouse. This has become common, and many visitors
may begin to expect this functionality as it becomes more and more
conventional.

Usability?
Thumbs Up. Onto Some Optimization and Marketing.
Some basic
optimization has already been done on the AlaskaStock.com images. I’m glad to
see unique, descriptive titles for each that have some basic keywords
incorporated. Now it’s time to take it a step further.

Fine-Tune
Keywords
While the
AlaskaStock.com images do have unique titles with some keywords, these images
aren’t ranking well in web or image search results. It’s time to do a little
keyword research and start incorporating specific phrases that searchers are
using such as:

Alaska cruises
Alaska vacation
Alaska travel
Alaska landscape
Alaska fishing
Alaska fishing lodge
Alaska wolf
Alaska malamute
Alaska tourism
Alaska ferry

And be sure
to include location specific keywords when appropriate. Some of the most
searched for locations include:

Fairbanks Alaska
Juneau Alaska
Anchorage Alaska
Kotzebue Alaska
Barrow Alaska
Ketchikan Alaska
Homer Alaska

Also, use
variations on phrases such as “sled dogs” and “dog sleds.”

Social
Media
If you’re
feeling really brave and are prepared to take a big step in marketing online,
start getting the AlaskaStock.com photos posted on Flickr.com. There are a few
major benefits to posting photos to Flickr:

more links to your site, which
equals more traffic
multiple ways for people to
find your images
your optimized images will show
up in Yahoo web and image search results.

You can
write unique titles, descriptions, and tags for each photo, create sets, include
links back to your website, and get involved in groups and discussions. You can
also adjust your account settings to copyright the photos and prevent them from
being downloaded. Include smaller sizes with watermarks so that people can’t
try to use them anyway.

It Comes
Down To Improving Visibility
While putting
images out on a photo sharing site can be scary, taking that step as well as
improving your image optimization will greatly increase your online visibility.
Designers and marketers who don’t know about your site and go to a search
engine looking for photos of Alaska will find you more easily, which is good
for them and for your bottom line!

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