Living in Southern California I am exposed to more surf and skate clothing than you could imagine. As I took a short walk today to the beach I found my inspiration for my next analysis. Some fellow walked by as I was “checking in” to La Jolla shores beach and he was wearing Hurley board shorts, a Hurley t-shirt and and a Hurley hat. Overkill? Quite possibly but it prompted me to take out my phone and Google “Hurley” to check out their mobile (unfriendly) website.
Not Surfable!
Before I start let me say that I am a bit biased because I believe websites should balance the functional and the fancy, not just be billboards for your brand. I hate splash pages that serve no purpose but to have you click to enter the site. Hurley’s site makes you do that very thing. You have to click or touch the image to enter the website. Absent is any intuitiveness. You are greeted with Hurley’s big “H Jeans” logo and a surfer…..uh, jeans and surfing? That doesn’t make much sense. Anyway, what am I supposed to do now? Where do I go? What do I click? Does something happen here? The mobile version (at least on my iPhone) doesn’t offer any indication of what to do. The full site is just as confusing. My suggestion would be to make it clear and easy for people to perform an action, something I preach over and over again. If you must separate your site into “store” and “site”, then make it distinguisable – keep the text visible that reads “store” and ‘site”. Don’t make people think too much…we are lazy and want our surfing (pun intended) to be simple.
After making to the ”site” section, the first thing I see are a bunch of videos that don’t play. This is a major problem regardless if its just an iPhone issue. The focal point of your site is to demonstrate, through video and flash, how your clothing fits into this action sport lifestyle and mobile visitors can’t even view them. A simple fix would be to convert all videos to a format that is compatible on iPhones, Droids and all other popular smartphones. You might not think many people are accessing your mobile site to learn about your brand but read this – according to a Pew Research Study, 40% of adults use the mobile phones to access web. This number is up from 32% last year and is probably much higher for the younger, more “Hurley” ish crowd. You might not think it is a big deal now but you watch – in 3 years time the mobile web usage will be bigger than desktop usage.
Despite the awkward entrance, the site isn’t a horrible user experience on a smartphone. It isn’t all in flash so I am able to navigate relatively easily but it could be much easier. A company like Hurley (owned by Nike), should invest in developing a mobile experience. Many brands do it well – Zappos and Amazon to name a couple. A simple sniffer script placed on the home page can dictate what type of browser or device the visitor is using and can serve the appropriate version of the site – “mobile” for mobile users and “full” for desktop users. Perhaps just start with making the videos compatible on the “site” version and then move on to a simple shopping experience on the “store” version. Whatever route you choose, step back and ask yourself, what is the most important information we want to share with our users and what do they want to get out of this experience? It might not be as complicated as you think.
Instead of selecting a site to analyze by complete randomness today I decided to change things up and take a request. Yes that’s right, this guy takes requests. One of my avid followers asked me what I thought of this “special” website so I decided t humor him a bit and give it ago. Boy, was I amazed at what I found.
WEBSITE: APCO Employees Credit Union (www.apcocu.org)
Show me those rates on the abacus please
Am I in a time warp? Did I really just see what I think I saw? I know credit unions don’t have the reputation of being financial institutions with tons of glitz and glamor but come on, this just looks ridiculous. Where do I even begin? Okay, I know where.
First off, where do I log in? They claim “PC Banking is now available” (who calls it “PC banking” anyway? What about “online banking”) but there is no indication of any entrance to their web banking portal. Oh wait, there it is, directly under the image that says “Map” in yellow letters. How intuitive! Totally confused here – not a good sign. If you want people to actually use your online banking, make it easy for them to access. I can’t stress enough how websites need to be simple to navigate. If I am confused, there is a good chance there are many more just like me.
Second, I do like the fact that the navigation is very easy to see but the accompanying images couldn’t possibly be any cheesier and low budget. Is that an abacus they are using for the rates navigation image? Oh that is definitely how I want to portray my bank – the modern look of an abacus. Seriously, this is not the type of impression you want to make on new or existing customers. First impressions of websites say a lot and what you’ve got does not help your cause. Please update those graphics and you’ll immediately update the look of your 1994 website.
Finally, what are all of these banners in the middle of your page? You already want people to leave your site? I just got here and I’m having such a good time I don’t want to go! Having all of these links to various sites tells me as a visitor that nothing on this page is worth sticking around for. There is absolutely zero valuable content on the home page and any valuable content you do have is buried in the links. What about brining some of the helpful information right to the home page, like perhaps some “About Us” information or even a listing of the products and services, maybe even some financial calculators. Whatever it is, it has to be something that you feel your visitors would find the most helpful. So rather than making a user choose between some navigation links or banners that link to another destination, keep them on the site and show them what APCO CU is all about.
After being inspired by seeing PGA Tour player Stuart Appleby’s 59 this past Sunday, I found myself wondering what golf ball I should use to give me the best chance of shooting a sub 60 round. Did I say sub 60? Okay, how about sub 80? I couldn’t possibly fathom shooting a round in the 50′s but I still was curious what type of golf ball he used. This thought led me to my next random site pick
He beat out who?
Keyword: “best golf balls” -Page 1 in GOOGLE SERPs
www.golfballsreview.com/best-golf-balls.php
Ugh, trying to make money from Google Adsense right off the bat huh? The huge ad 5 lines under the main paragraph on the home page is a sure fire way to upset any readers. Okay, I understand you want to monetize your site, but at what cost? Loss of readership? Frustrated visitors? I am fine with having paid ads on your site but keep them away from your key content – its distracting and annoying. If you make it a better experience for the user, people will return to your site or even better, link to it, which as we know will improve its authority and likely generate more traffic. Keep those ads to a minimum.
Now if you look beyond the fact that there are more advertisements than content, the site is actually laid out in a very simple and efficient manner. Overly simplistic and boring, yes but nonetheless navigable. The navigation elements are straightforward and easy to identify though I’m not a fan of the dark text on a dark background – lighten it up a bit and people will find it much easier to locate and click.
Now I can’t knock this site too much because it showed up #1 in Google when I searched “best golf balls”. That is right, #1. Ahead of Titleist the “Number one Ball in Golf“, Callaway, TaylorMade, Nike and dozens of others. In fact, the first ball manufacturer that shows up on Google for this keyword is Top Flite. Excuse me? Top Flite? That rock of a golf ball is showing up before Titleist, TaylorMade, Nike and Callaway? Time to step up your game a bit big players. I don’t care how big of a brand you are, there are 12,100 monthly searches (according to Google) for “best golf balls” and all of you are losing out to Mike Pederson, golf fitness instructor. Ahh, the power of SEO! Good work Mike!
