Original post starts here…

After a morning of deliberation over what the first real Link Lures post should be about, I was struck with a brainwave. Why not point out the very thing that converted me from the ‘link-building as labour’ ideology and start thinking instead about attracting links naturally. Ironically, it was a blog post about link building.

If you’ve ever googled ‘link building’, ‘link building tips’ or something similar you’ve probably come across Aaron Wall’s article, 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity. I say that because it’s been the number one result for quite a while.

A couple of years ago when I was first getting my head around SEO I stumbled across this article and started reading. The fact (and reason) that it was the number one result didn’t dawn on me until I got to the first tip:

1. Build a “101 list”. These get Dugg all the time, and often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these (hint, hint).

It occurred to me then that the reason that I’d found this post wasn’t because Aaron had gone and posted links to it in article directories and blog comments. It was because it was such a useful, well written and definitive resource that people couldn’t resist linking to it from their own blogs, websites and social media accounts (5 years later and it’s still getting links – i.e. this article).

At that point I already knew that the best links you could get (in terms of SEO) were ‘real’ links – links from the body of a blog post (not the comments), a real website (not a directory) etc. So when I realised that this post had been sitting there attracting good quality links for years after Aaron wrote it, it dawned on me that while some link building was good for small sites in less competitive niches; a far better strategy was to produce something that would continue to attract links on it’s own long after the labour and effort had been taken to complete it.

As time went on I continued researching SEO and the methods that people use to improve their search rankings, and I started to realise that most SEO tips and hints were small technical things, most of which would only make a small difference if you already had plenty of inbound links.

Over time I became less and less interested in these meaningless and usually ineffective hints, and more interested in using link bait as a primary SEO method.

The advantages of using link bait over manual link building are not only numerous, but they’re BIG advantages:

• You don’t need to hire a SEO company,
• It’s more fun,
• The links are worth a LOT more,
• It continues to work after you stop working on it,
• The links actually get seen by humans (and not just search engines),
• Link worthy content can help create trust.

For an expansion of these points, see “6 Reasons Why Creating Link Bait Content Beats Manual Link Building in SEO“. [Edit - this link points back to the link lures blog. Eventually I'll move this post over as well]

What do you think, is link bait worth looking into?

I’ve also recently joined the movement and made the switch to iphone, a decision I made based on past experiences I’d had with other apple products.

Now overall I think the iphone has a great user interface and the overall experience is in most cases un-noticeable (a good sign – usually you would only notice a bad user experience). The exception though, is something that might surprise you (although I gave it away a bit in the title) – it’s the On/Off switch (just to be clear, I mean the On/Off switch in the settings, not the switch to turn your phone on).

Before I get into why I think the On/Off switch needs some work, I’ll just clear up what I think the characteristics of a good On/Off switch are.

As I mentioned earlier, a good user experience is usually an un-noticeable one. The more I have to think when using software, the more likely I am going to be to notice that my user experience has not been as easy and pleasing as it could have been. For something as simple as an On/Off switch then, I really should not need to think about it at all. This is where the iOS On/Off switch falls down.

Take a look at an apple iOS On/Off switch:

Airplane mode - set to off

Can you see what I might be referring to about needing to think?

There are two possible ways of interpreting the current status of this On/Off switch, and unfortunately, they are opposite.

The first (and correct) way of interpreting the status of this switch, is that it says off, so it must be off. This might sound obvious and not open to mis-interpretation, but I beg to differ.

The other way that this could possibly be interpreted is that it’s a sliding switch, and ‘off’ is on the right hand side, therefore I need to slide it to the right to turn it off.

It may sound trivial and silly, but I actually struggled to figure out whether all my settings were on or off when I first got my iphone. Despite the fact that the ‘on’ setting lights up, I still couldn’t be sure. I probably don’t need to name an example of where a mis-interpreted On/Off switch could be troublesome, but here’s a worst-case.

Imagine a new user who mis-interprets whether airplane mode is on or off, leaving it off during a plane trip and causing the plane to crash! (I’m sure this is quite improbable and that flight mode is only an extra precaution, but you get my point).

So how could the On/Off switch be re-designed to provide more obvious feedback as to the current status? I spent a long time thinking about this and sketched quite a few alternatives. In the end though, the change I made was quite a small one.

This alternative avoids confusion by combining both ways of interpreting the old switch.

This alternative avoids confusion by combining both ways of interpreting the old switch. It has  well-labeled on and off sides, plus it shows the current status more obviously than the opposite option.

What do you think? Does this fix the problem, or could you design a better version?

P.S. I’d be interested to see any other alternatives, if you post a link to your design in the comments I’ll add it to the post with a link credit.

Immediately distracted from completing my intended task, I decided to look at some other banks’ websites to see if they would score as well as NAB had.

They didn’t.

The whole exercise gave me the idea of reviewing Australia’s big 4 banks’ websites in a blog post. I did it. You’re reading it right now.

So to start with, In case you didn’t know, Australia’s big 4 banks are NAB, Commonwealth, Westpac and ANZ. Before you read on, have a quick look at each of their websites and form your own opinion. I’ll be interested to hear if your thoughts are similar to mine.

In the spirit of keeping things brief, I’ll only review the home page of each website. Originally I had planned to review each website one by one, comparing good and bad points, but when I found it hard to list good points for Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac, the system kind of fell apart. Instead, what I’ve done is compared what NAB does well, to what the others do poorly.

Font Size

The text on some of these websites is simply too small. Anyone with poor sight would find it extremely hard to read; and remember, these websites need to cater for a huge range of audiences. I can just imagine my grandmother leaning in and adjusting her glasses, slowly reading each word aloud as she went through the menu.

Old people like my grandmother are not likely to know how to adjust the text size in their browser either. The Commonwealth site has font-size controls, but they themselves are small and light-grey on white, making them some of the hardest words to read on the whole page. What’s the point of that?

The Commonwealth Bank's font size controls: hard to read and not even in an obvious place!

NAB has purposely used extra large fonts all over their website to cater for those with poor vision. Especially in menus and for important options. They’ve also managed to do it in a way that actually looks good!

Some of the main options on the NAB website. Actual size.

Too Many Options

The home pages of these sites are too crowded with options. Sure, banks have lots of products, announcements, offers, etc. But as users, when we’re presented with so many options we can’t help but feel slightly overwhelmed. And the more options we have, the longer it takes us to find what we’re actually after.

The ANZ website is overwhelming with too many options

This is where I think NAB is a class above the rest. Check out just how well they’ve managed to keep their home page simple and basic.

NAB's website doesn't overwhelm me with options and promotions

NAB’s use of whitespace helps to separate the different groups of options, making it easier and less painful to find what you’re looking for.

Navigation

The navigation and options systems of some of these websites are complicated and convoluted. For example, take a look at the header of the Commonwealth Bank’s website.

The Commonwealth Bank's header, with 4 different menus and a search bar.

The Commonwealth Bank website’s header has:

• a main menu (Home, Personal, Business, Corporate, About Us),
• a secondary menu (Locate Us, Contact Us, Security Centre, Help),
• a “Log on to or register for” menu,
• a toolbox menu with font size controls and a print option, and
• a search bar.

That’s just too much to take in, especially when it’s all so close together. NAB’s menu system comes across as being a lot simpler.

NAB's menu system is much simpler

If you count, you’ll notice that NAB’s header only has one less element than Commonwealth’s, but by condensing the number of main menu options down to two and keeping plenty of space between each different option set, they’ve managed to make it come across as a much simpler system. It’s quicker and easier to take in which makes it faster to choose an option.

Internet Banking Login

Without knowing for sure, I’d estimate that at least 60% of visits to these websites (or more) would be for internet banking purposes. It’s going to be important then, to make the login process as quick and easy as possible. This will consist of two components:

1. The internet banking login section on the home page should be blatantly obvious.
2. Once you’ve found the internet banking section on the home page, it should be as fast as possible to actually log in.

The poor example in this case will be Westpac. Rather than put up a screenshot, in this case I’ll get you to go to the Westpac home page and look for internet banking.

How long did it take you?

If you eventually found it, you’ll notice that it didn’t say “Internet Banking” at all, it simply says “Sign in to…” on a dropdown item. Sure, if you’re reading this post you’re probably pretty tech-savvy, so it probably didn’t take you all that long. But for those that are less experienced with dropdown menus etc and that are specifically looking for the words “Internet Banking”, it’s going to be a far more difficult process than it should be.

The other problem with Westpac’s system is that it requires you to click once, then wait for a drop down menu to drop down, re-orientate yourself with and read that menu (tiny things I know, but they certainly add up), and then click again to go to online banking. All the other banks require only one click.

Conclusion

While a lot of the points I brought up were negative, overall each bank has done fairly well, which I guess you’d expect from organisations with such huge budgets.

It’s the NAB website though that impresses me the most with it’s simplicity and ease of use.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts?

The process of writing a review on Google Maps is a fairly long one, so it’s likely that people will only write a review if they’re NOT happy with how you’ve treated them. What you need to do then, is make it easier for your happy customers to write reviews. The best way (that I’ve thought of) to do this is to give them the option to go straight to the “Write a Review” section of your places listing when they are feeling satisfied with your service. The most obvious such situation that comes to mind is in email correspondence with your clients/customers, but there are certainly many other ways such a link could be utilised.

So how do you create this link? Well, it’s not fully documented anywhere (that I’ve found) but it is possible; and here’s how.

1. Go to your Google Places listing by searching Google maps for your business and clicking on “more info” next to your listing.
2. Click on “Link” in the top right corner (it has a chain link icon next to it). This link alone will take you directly to your places page.
3. Copy the link and paste it into a text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).
4. Next, copy and paste the following line onto the end of the link:
&view=feature&mcsrc=google_reviews&num=10&start=0&action=open
5. The link should now look something like this:
http://maps.google.com.au/maps/place?cid=17014096076660835175&q=ar+web+design&hl=en&dtab=0&sll=-27.509499,153.043452&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&ll=-27.505588,153.03674&spn=0,0&z=17&view=feature&mcsrc=google_reviews&num=10&start=0&action=open

So this is the link that we want, it will take a user straight to the “Write a Review” section, but it’s extremely long and ugly (notice it even ruins my blog layout?), and may not travel well in emails (which is where we want to use it). We can fix that by using a URL shortening service like bit.ly. URL shortening services such as bit.ly are quite easy to use, and if you sign up for an account you can even track how many people clicked your link (I’m sure I don’t need to tell all you marketers how valuable that can be!).

So that’s it! Here’s my link, write me a review if you found this helpful

What other uses (other than in emails) can you think of for this link?

I’ll be publishing new blog posts every week or two (hopefully) on web strategy, internet marketing, social media strategy, SEO and anything else that comes up.

Anyway this isn’t an interesting post so I’ll keep it short. I hope you enjoy reading the posts to come, and if there’s something in particular you want me to write about let me know.