Do you have a website or about to get one?  Than you need to understand the 15 second rule, or at least ensure your web design company does.

The 15 Second Rule is essentially how long you have to convey to website visitors:

1. What you do or what you have to offer
2. How professional your site is
3. How easy it is to navigate your site

5 years ago this wasn’t so much an issue but many search engine users know that when searching not all the results are valid and therefore over time an “evaluation” behaviour has evolved where searchers evaluate a website within 10 to 15 seconds to determine if the site does or has what they are looking for and also looks at the overall design for appeal.

What does this mean in terms of your website’s design?

It means that visually with graphics, images and large font text you need to communicate the general products or services you offer visitors that can be looked at and processed in less than 10 to 15 seconds.  It means you need an uncluttered page, well labelled navigation and photos, graphics and text that very clearly reflect the topic of that page. Remember this doesn’t just apply to the home page but all pages, since every page of your site can be used in the search engines to drive relevant traffic to your site. 

Do’s

• A good banner/header that is visual and clearly shows your business name and a related slogan
• All images and graphics reflect the topic of that page
• A main title sentence bolded and in bigger font at the top of the page that describes that page
• Bullet point text instead of long drawn out paragraphs
• Break text up in sections and put a header title to each paragraph
• Have a visible, well labeled navigation and use a drop down navigation to easily group pages together instead of using top and side navigations
• Make sure everything on your site works the way it is supposed to work

Dont’s

• Have a cluttered home page with lots of little boxes of different information
• Have too many images as it makes it hard to scan the whole page an absorb the over all message
• Have too many different navigations - some sites have a navigation bar across the site, plus a side vertical navigation bar and then also put a navigation above their header or down at the bottom with the copyright text. 
• Have lots of text in a small font or one long page, instead break it into a few pages

Lastly what it means for your site is that you need a current and update design.  Your website makes such an incredibly strong first impression of your business that having an outdated design from even 3 or more years ago is the same as having a brick and morter location in a run down strip mall on the wrong side of town.  It’s functional and affordable, but doesn’t leave a great impression. 

This doesn’t mean you have to break the bank and redesign your site every 2 years.  What it does mean is that you need a professional design, time lasting design with professional looking graphics, buttons and navigations.  When designing or redesigning your site don’t go for the latest trend stick with a design that is true to your business, that acts as graphical representation of your business.  Don’t design in the latest trends. 3 years ago black/dark coloured sites were all the rage, now it’s beiges with blues or beiges and pinks with big thick borders.  But what has happened to the black/dark websites - they now look outdated.  Equate web design to car designs, that Grand Prix, Camery or Intrepid that looked so cool 5 years ago looks so outdated now doesn’t it? The same happens with website trends and this can reflect negatively on your business.

Lastly, make sure everything works!  So many sites have missing graphics, broken links, mis-aligned graphics or buttons or have different fonts on different pages.  All these things will deter a visitor and reflects very poorly and usually causes a visitor to leave instantly.

 Have site now and want to know how to tell if it meets the 15 second rule?

Usually your website visitor statistics can give you a good clue.  How long does the average visitor stay on your site, what are the average number of page views, what is your site’s bounce rate (number of people who leave after only visiting one page).  There is no definitive average that shows your site is doing well or not but if you don’t have more than 2 or 3 average page views and have a bound rate higher than 60% and the majority of visitors spend less than 30 seconds on your site you may need to re-evaluate your site and consider fixing it up.

Don’t have these stats?  Sign up for a Google Analytics account which is free and they will provide you all this great information and more.
 

With the current trend that the search engines have become the new Yellow Pages, Google, Yahoo and MSN have been altering their algorithms (a fancy word for how they determine who ranks for what and how high).   They are altering the algorithms to provide better local results. 

 Just 3 years ago trying to find a shoe store or gift store on a particular street in your town would usually yield maybe, 1 accurate result.  As more people began to search for local stores and businesses the search engines realized they had to improve their local search results and now they are competing to be the best as they know the site that provides the most relevant results could gain a serious edge in the searchers market share that Google dominates.  Google is trying to hold on to it and MSN and Yahoo are trying to capture it.

 Google has implemented the Google map results for local searches.  For instance, search for “carpet cleaning” in any city and you will get a list of results mapped on a mini map before the top 10 natural rankings.  So the question begs, where does your site show up for local searches. 

So how do you help your business to show up for local searches in addition to some good SEO. Make sure you are displaying a full address including zip code on your website along with phone numbers.  The search engines will use this information to map your business. 

Not only does this help but it also increases the “trust factor” for your website.  Search Engines are moving away from companies that hide behind contact forms and no direct address or phone number so having your full address and phone numbers will help to show the search engines that you are a legitimate, reputable business. 

 Home based business may want to consider a box office or an executive rental to ensure you have an address on your site, but don’t include your home address on your site for your own safety.

 In addition to this you need to make sure your site is appropriately optimized for your most related keywords and city name. 

This will help to ensure you are optimized for local searches.  Nothing complex, but you may want to consider having an SEO company optimize your pages if you aren’t comfortable doing this for yourself to ensure that it’s done properly and ethically.