In some ways, it’s a shame that a website has to be built before its users can sample it. Very few companies have the time and money to beta-test their sites for any significant periods before it goes fully live. Users are a great resource for information on how your site should work, what your content should be and even basic things like tags for your content. Most businesses miss out on this information because the site is up and truly running by the time user feedback comes in. There needs to be room for change if the feedback is going to be helpful at all.

Too often, companies treat their design schemes much as they would the walls of their office space. Many innovations are passed over because a company is too scared to change the structure. However, it’s important to remember that even with offices, cubicles can be reformed and a new lick of paint put on to change things entirely.

As many SEO experts will tell you, search engine optimisation is not an exact science. Great ideas in the planning stages may not turn out the way they were meant to be. This means a certain amount of flexibility is needed in the three or so months after SEO is first implemented. These three months are a great time to get feedback from the site’s user. In this time, open up comments sections and post content that invites users to provide feedback. Allowing users to provide their own tags for your content is also a way to see what they are getting from your site, what they want, and how you should describe it.

Periodic surveys of your users will also keep your site on track. User needs and wants change very swiftly over time, particularly on the net. You don’t need to go through a formal survey process every six months, although this is certainly an option that some businesses take when trying to evaluate the needs of their market.

Some areas need to fit your user needs more than others. Landing pages in particular must be targeted properly to be effective for that group of target users. It is for these pages in particular that user feedback will come in handy. Information on which links would be most helpful, the placement of navigation buttons and landing page content in general can help you refine your landing pages to meet user needs as fully as possible.

Although users will get frustrated with a continually changing site, a site that sticks to an ineffective plan is doomed to failure. Site users are an incredible resource that is too often underestimated. Small or even big changes can and should be performed on a website that isn’t working properly. With the wonderfully changeable medium that the internet provides, it’s an outright shame not to respond swiftly to your users’ needs if you find your site isn’t answering them. Contact our experts at SEO Consult about maximising your responsiveness to the feedback of your users.

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