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Message 8 of 9
2 Votes
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7: Analyze your Web site :: hire a usability expert
Disclosure: I happen to be one. that said ...

Long ago, when the Internet was young, there were a few usability experts and they were quite expensive. It was the Internet Bubble time, when billions of dollars were burned.
This is no more so. Now we are many and don??t charge as much as others did during the good ol' Internet bubble times.
Some free advice: Usually SMBs (and not so "S" Bs) publish their mindset through their web site, aligned with their goals.
This is not that good, because in order to be a better marketing tool, the web site should be aligned with the costomer's goales, not the company's.
A simple and common example is a company that publishes a conglomerate of sub-sites, each one exposing their own products. This can be seen in IBM ans Microsoft sites.
The issue with this is that the customer needs first to learn the company's "map" and only after doing so will be able to sketch a path.
If the site was customer-oriented, it would start by making evident that customer's path. This would make the user feel as if the company understood their needs and would build confidence.
Posted by jlanus_z
21st Feb 2012