What is Reader Optimization?
By in News on 20th February 2008Reader Optimization is another term i use for User Friendly but reader optimization deals with more features that deal with features that benefit the readers rather then the search engines.
Nowadays everyone is trying to please search engines, there’s only a certain limit till you can seo your site but after that its all content and user friendliness that will keep the real visitors coming back again and again for more content and more of your blog.
Design
A good design/user interface is the the first step towards Reader Optimization, real visitors want more then content they want flashy content and eyecandy images that make reading the articles so much more pleasing and interesting, many sites with a great design and less content do 4 times better then a blog with tons of great content but a poor design.
From what I’ve seen only 12% of the blogs get away with an ugly design but since their content is so addictive people keep coming back, Smashing magazine published a post on the 45 most attractive blog designs on the net, take a look and check out the competition.
Navigation
Usually people say that navigation and link placement is a part of UI as well but i think it deserves its own discussion here, navigation and accessibility of content (inner pages) is important for both SEO and RO, read up on 30 usability issues once again by smashing magazine they explain most issues that i was going to discuss here.
SEOMoz has included navigation and in-content mentions to inner pages alot in their premium content and various seo articles, and it is a crucial aspect of web design and development.
Friendly Scripting
Using a good platform on which you can make your site has its own long line of rewards, one thing was painfully obvious to me, never use flash to make websites if you really want users to come and stay never go with flash its laggy and slow for most people and there are several incompability issues in my opinion i know alot of people may argue with me on this but i feel that flash is not the right way to make a profitable and user friendly website, CSS is where i like to stay there are so many awesome sites in css and you can see them showcased here.
Be the man
From a blogger’s view, I’d say the best thing in a blog that keeps users there is the personal touch unique bloggers have in their posts, so be yourself doesn’t matter if you curse alot or you have bad grammar, as long as you make a valid and stern point you’ll be just fine.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:47 am
Interesting. I’m going to take some of these ideas into consideration.
I think I’m relying more on content than looks. Although I want to integrate both eventually.
February 24th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Yes, a nice looking site that is pleasant on the eyes is preferable. However, bloggers should keep in mind that flashy shouldn’t make the load time long, otherwise people won’t stay. That animated graphic may look cool, but if it is 500K, it will definitely slow down the load and run up the server bandwidth if you are using your own server to host graphics.