Landing Page Testing

Landing Page Testing and Homepage Optimisation

Is your landing page, also known as your homepage - the first page your users view, looking a little tired? Whether you know it or not, if your website has been around for a while it is probably due for a little freshen up. Get an outsider's opinion on your landing page usability.

• Web Design
• Market Research

If you work in the online world, you'll definitely have a feel for good and bad landing page design. Some websites do it well: everything is easily accessible and leads you where it should. Some sites, however, are a nightmare: icons that don't work, messy navigation menus, dead links. Sometimes it makes you wonder if some website owners ever look over their own site!

On the flip side, the problem could very well be that you look over your website so often that you've become immune to its positive and negative design features - it just looks like home to you. Have you considered getting a professional site assessment on your landing page optimisation?

Consider finding a search engine optimisation professional and obtaining some objective usability testing from them. Computer consultants that specialise in website usability have seen thousands of poor designs, and understand how to extract underlying commonalities. Often, they'll quickly uncover potential issues without even undertaking a fully-fledged usability test, meaning often just a short assessment is all your website will need to let you know how to give it a fresher, more user-friendly look.

Usability testing can be done reasonably informally too, simply by asking friends and family to sit down on your site in a quiet room for 15 minutes. Ask them to perform a list of basic operations on your site: find your key objectives; find examples or references; find your contact information, and so on. You, as the website owner may think you have mapped your site easily, but others unfamiliar with your layout may think otherwise.

To go one step further, consider a focus group with several members from your target market. With a moderated group discussion, insights can be obtained about user needs and expectations. The process can also offer analysis on your website's position against similar websites in which that group might frequent. You should only need an hour or so of your group's time, and many market research agencies have the resources to bring in appropriate members for the group and acquiring feedback on your website's design and functionality. Alternatively, contact a local Web user group with a proposal for their time and analysis.

Website Design images from Flickr: Forum, Technographica and Mac + Starbucks.