By Chris Lee

UK companies have increased spend on search engine optimisation (SEO) by 60 per cent this year with the aim to make their company websites appear more visible to potential customers, but once the SEO has drawn in visitors what kind of experience can they expect?

Conversion rates then depend on the quality and relevance of the site’s content, according to Matt Gibson, director of production at Web designers Cyber Duck, who recently designed the European Union’s new website. NMK caught up with Gibson to learn what traits a well-designed website needs to have in the social, mobile Internet era.

Many organisations are focussing hard on SEO – getting their site found in the first place. Is this at the expense of bounce rate (stickability) or are most organisations tying their SEO and bounce rate efforts together to keep visitors engaged?

Effective SEO campaigns focus on getting relevant and targeted traffic to a given website, rather than just numbers.  Therefore by focusing on keywords that are highly relevant rather than generic phrases, the traffic coming to the website is likely to convert better and have a lower bounce rate.  Naturally, as traffic increases, so will bounce rates, but the focus should be on targeting relevant users via good keyword research and making the website content engaging and contain relevant tools and features to reduce bounce rates.

What are the key tenets of a well-designed website?

Well-designed websites are websites that focus on what the user wants, needs and expects and delivers it to them in a pleasurable user experience.  User-centred design methods engage and involve users in the design process and ensure this.  It is important to remember that not only should a website look great (design/art direction-wise), but it should ultimately function as your users require it to.

What things do organisations need to consider when having a website designed?

Again, getting real users involved extensively throughout the process is extremely beneficial as it helps to remove egos and assumptions from design and UX (user experience) decisions.  Clients often underestimate the importance of testing and validating design decisions with real users, so this is something the designer needs to guide them on.

Give some insight into the psychology of visitors – how do we consume sites?

The psychology of visitors and how we consume sites varies depending on what we want to achieve from the website or app.  If I am just looking for more information, I am using a website in a different mindset than if I want to contact somebody or purchase something.  With previous user testing, the biggest differences between user groups have not necessarily stemmed from gender or age, but rather the experience of the user and, particularly if testing a shopping cart flow, how secure the user feels as a result of this.

How well are organisations preparing for the prevalence of surfing via mobile? What do they need to consider for this?

A trend we expect to see in 2011 is for more and more companies to realise the value in making their websites more mobile friendly as currently there are many websites which aren’t even accessible on mobile.  With the growing prevalence of [Web programming codes] HTML5 and CSS3 support, we are seeing more designers actually design for mobile first and then using media queries to enable the content and interface to dynamically extend and grow depending on the capabilities of the device viewing it.  This way websites will be more accessible, for more users, regardless of the device they are using to view it.

What’s the consumer in 2011 going to expect from a corporate website?

In 2011, we can expect more corporate websites to engage and involve their customers more by integrating user generated content and social networking.  Video content and reviews / testimonials will also increase in prevalence as Internet bandwidth capabilities increase.