How can I improve Usability of my website?

I run a website and I need to know how I can improve its Usability to allow people who are visiting it a much pleasant experience.

My site is www.AskJagAnything.com.

The site has now been running for almost a year and currently attracts in the region of 30 unique visitors per day and on average, I get approx 3 new questions being posted every day.

Also, is it quote evident that what the website is all about? i.e. General Q & A website as I would then like to find ways of attracting more visitors onto it but am not sure how.

Currently I generate a small amount of income using Google Adsence but would like the design to take this into account too if possible to see how I can improve Google Adsence clickthrough rate.

Many Thanks

 

I think you need make it more in light colors (maybe white background and dark content). It is uncomfortable to read.
30 visitors per a day: it's problem in your optimization in all search engines. Bad quotes to your website.

 

I would alternate the colours of the questions. For example this page:

http://www.askjaganything.com/mywork.asp?q=mywork.asp

all the questions are yellow and I thought it was one long bit of text that I couldnt be bothered to read. Maybe use yellow white yellow white?

 

Thanks for your suggestions VVM & NITRO23456.

I will use alternate colouring of the questions as you suggested.

I did not quite understand the point by VVM about optimisation and Bad quotes to your website. Would it be possible to explain these maybe by example too?

Many Thanks

 

yeah i would also complain about the sharp colors. The sharp colors stress out the eyes and a user cannot bare the website for long. You might want to make the layout more fresh and clean. As for bad quotes, when you add your websites to various search engines and directories, the title of the link is really crusial. Choosing the KEYWORDS for title take time and research. Research in terms of how many people search using that keyword daily.

 

to much intensity on background color.

 

OK. So I will for definatly change the colour scheme. Thanks for your suggestions.

 

Hi I would suggest that you go with light colors like some of the corporate sites. The red color is too bright for the eyes .... suggest that you tone down some of the bright colors ....

 

I think I have got the message about the colours. Can anyone suggest anything else like functionality etc?

 

Hey I think your website is an excellent idea, however I thought it was a search engine initially, something along the lines of ask.com. But I was wrong. I know what it is. Yes I agree that you could tone the colour scheme down slightly, however I didn’t really find this too much of a problem. Its just these old fogies whose eyes are going that are disturbed by it lol. Anyways, I think your meta system needs a little remodelling for example your pages are as follows:

You should put your meta description as follows, as this will bring your visibility up on search engines and provide more traffic. Remember change the mete descriptions on each individual page to suit the content.

<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Your name.">
<META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="Copyright 2007 your name.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Your key words.">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A brief description of your page. Do this for every page.">
<META NAME="page-topic" CONTENT="The topic of your site, e.g advice">
<META NAME="audience" CONTENT="Your audience">
<META NAME="expires" CONTENT="NEVER">
<META NAME="page-type" CONTENT="Your page type">
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />


Good luck.

 

Thanks for your useful response Steveogarey.

Afew questions. Whats the
<META NAME="page-type" CONTENT="Your page type"> used for?

Rather than populating the CONTENTS for each of the meta tags with any old willynilly text, is there some where I can get a list of commeon values from i.e. for the PAGE-TOPIC, PAGE-TYPE, AUDIENCE etc?

 

i don't like red. it's hurting my eyes.

 

Its displaying an under construction page!

 

under construction ? Are you sure you are looking at the right page on www.AskJagAnything.com?

.........and pleaseeeeee (Philvault), can people stop repeating the issue about the red colour as if you take the time to read the history of previous comments, you will know many people have said the same thing, otherwise, you are posting a response simply for the sake of increasing your Posts!!

 

Its working fine. I made a typo!!
Nothing more to mention than already mentioned about the design.

Regarding ads placement, I would suggest to put the horizontal adsense adlinks at the bottom of the categories section.

- Parag

 

Hi parag.

.

Could you advise exactly what page you are referring to and where about on the page?

 

So related links appear there and maybe interested users will click on them!

- Parag