Five simple rules for improving the quality of traffic that everyone knows, but not everyone takes seriously

This is not a translation of the article how to make you happy. In fact, this is just a set of my trial and error. It is difficult to say consciously or not, I committed them, but the fact is that they really were, albeit solely out of good intentions. The paradox is that I knew all this long before “stepping on” them.

Do not do quest from authorization

Authorization is the most desired action that you expect from the user. Do not make her hell. And I'm not even about usability. It is clear that, not from malicious intent, you are asking the user to fill out a form that is difficult to even scroll through. You want to know everything about the user, to give him the most personalized service. But put your hand on your heart and answer the simple question - do you need this data? What for? Then to send the user a welcome letter? I understand that cases are different, but believe me, with a 90% probability, I guarantee that you just need an ID to identify the user. And this can give you a simple social networking buttons. But even if this information is not enough - social networks can transmit any additional information about the user. But still do not abuse it. If your service turns out to be a sought-after user, he will be happy to add information about himself in the settings.
')
Personally, I stopped at a very simple version. Three buttons: Google, Facebook and Persona . Last selected exclusively for fans of Email Authorization. From the data that I request - only Email and only exclusively to link profiles from social networks and not frequent notifications (which are extremely simply disabled).

The time has come when the main page simply does not exist

Look at your statistics. How many users access your root page? I have 40%. I am sure you have plus or minus about the same. In the era of social networks, search engines and instant messengers, a user visits a specific page and your task is to make any page of your website the main one. At least try to keep the user at home. And if the user is in a "dead end" and there is nothing on the page that is interesting, then you can click - he will leave and will not return again.

First of all, it is a simple and clear navigation. No matter where the user is, he should see the option of a further route and reach the intended place with a minimum of clicks. Personally, I have just 20 key tags that, for any page scrolling, are always visually accessible to the user. And I went to such simplicity very painfully - I wanted “everything” on the page, sincerely believed that it was right, but in fact it only led to informational chaos.

Secondly, give the user an alternative. Perhaps this is a debatable moment. It is believed that if a person bought a brick, then it makes no sense to offer a second one. But in my case this is not true, yes, and in many others too. All my news is tagged, that is, keywords are extracted from each text. Thanks to this, under each text I display a news block with relevant tags. As a rule, the user is interested in either an alternative opinion or he just wants to track the chain of events. In your case there can be anything, but do not forget that the user should have an alternative to the main content.

Do not forget that we live in the era of smartphones

I am sure everyone knows about it. I also knew, but philosophically reasoned: “The task is not of the first importance. The time will come I will. " As a result, from the first day I faced the fact that the lion's share of traffic was mobile. As a result - a race with time and sleepless nights.

Do not shelve them. Even if you have MVP, make a mobile version right away. If you do it initially, it does not take much time or resources from you, but it will be much more expensive to redo it. What does it mean not so much about mobility as about responsiveness. Your site should be equally beautiful and comfortable both on the desktop and on the refrigerator. Surf in our time can with anything.

Landing is not always good and not always right.

The first version of my service began with a gorgeous Landing. You can not even imagine how much time and effort was spent on it. How many texts and spoiled nerves were rewritten to the designers. I sincerely believed that there is no person in nature who is not interested in my service, but in fact everything turned out to be much simpler - the conversion is about zero.

As a result, Landing replaced the service itself in the hope that the user will at least appreciate the idea. It’s just that I started to form a news trend on the main page, or, more simply, what I’m writing about most at the moment. I understand that not all content projects, but in any case, if possible, let the user try your service without registering, even if it does, it will be great functionally limited.

To be honest, I still have a landing page, although it’s great and easier. He just moved to the "about service" section . And I'm not sure that I was right. On the one hand, both conversion and user engagement increased significantly, but on the other hand, there was confusion - the RSS aggregator turned into a news aggregator (although after registration everything falls into place). But in any case, this option is more efficient and adequate. At least in my particular case.

Any settings scare the user

Ideally, they should not exist at all, but in the real world without them or where. And whatever you do, there will always be people for whom it is difficult. Just try to make everything as simple as possible and scare the user with notifiers as little as possible (ideally, try to avoid them altogether).

In my case there was only one big problem - users adding their feeds. As it is not strange, but the word RSS for many is a wonder, and if not a wonder, then it’s not so easy to find a cherished link from web publishers. I tried a lot of options. And I stopped where the user just clogs the url of the site that he wants to read, and I independently find the necessary feeds. This is much more difficult from a technical point of view, but as simple as possible for the user. Plus added the ability to subscribe to interesting tags and sites directly from the application itself without switching to settings.

PS Perhaps this is a note by “Captain Obvious”, but I look at the resources surrounding myself and, often, I see what I was talking about above. Making an “unusual” RSS aggregator doesn’t mean automatic reception of the status of a marketing guru. And of course I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth. But still for skeptics. At the beginning of the process, the “failure rate” was close to 100% and at the moment does not exceed 30, which at least means that there is any meaning in everything described above.