Clients have started asking whether their websites are optimised for AI. I looked at Google’s latest guidance to find out what it really means for small businesses.
Some visitors know exactly what they’re looking for. Others are still comparing options or simply exploring ideas. Understanding the difference can help you build a website that works better for everyone.
Research by Gitte Lindgaard and her colleagues at Carleton University found that people could form an impression of a website’s visual appeal after seeing it for just 50 milliseconds — one twentieth of a second. That is far too quickly to read the content or assess how easy the website is to use, but it is enough for its overall appearance to register. How quickly do people judge a website? In the study, people were shown web pages for just 50 milliseconds and asked to rate how visually appealing they were. They were then shown them for longer — 500
A WordPress website is not finished simply because it has gone live. WordPress itself continues to change, as do its theme and plugins. All those different parts need to remain compatible with one another—and updates can occasionally cause problems. Website maintenance is not simply a matter of pressing an update button every so often. It means keeping the website secure, backed up and working properly, while checking that changes have not broken anything along the way. Security Any website can be targeted, regardless of the size of the site or the business behind it. Many attacks are automated: they simply
Changing people’s behaviour is hard. Or is it? We often assume that if people aren’t doing something, it’s because they don’t care enough. Give them more information, explain the benefits, remind them again… surely that’ll do the trick. Sometimes it does. Quite often, though, the problem isn’t the message at all. It’s the experience. That’s what I like about Volkswagen’s Fun Theory campaign. Volkswagen – yes, the people who make cars – came up with a series of experiments to see whether making everyday tasks more enjoyable could encourage people to change their behaviour. Have you heard of it? The
One of my closest friends is a compulsive buyer. She always makes me laugh because she never says, “I want this.” She always says, “I need this.” I sometimes go to her house and notice a new kettle, some pretty tins or a new flower pot. She sees my gaze and clearly thinks, “Damn! I forgot to hide that thing.” Before I’ve even said a word, she’s already justifying it. “It was only £2…”“I needed one because…” I just smile. “No, Isabelle. You didn’t need it. You wanted it.” We All Do It Isabelle isn’t unusual. We all do it.