Jackie Baker critiques AlaskaStock.com, a stock photography site, for its overall usability and search-friendliness. "AlaskaStock.com has a great product to sell, and a decent process for doing it,"
she says. "However, the site design and usability could use a little work prior to taking the next step in online marketing."
One design factor that's affecting AlaskaStock.com's usability
is the Webmaster's use of dull blue and gray text on top of a gray background. The lack of visual contrast will make the text harder to see on certain monitors.
Meanwhile, there are
too many navigational choices--including a search bar in the header, a left sidebar with a browse by popular searches option, as well as a global horizontal navigation bar. "While it's great that
AlaskaStock.com has multiple ways for visitors to navigate to information, it is spread out and hard to find on the page."
Baker suggests taking cues from other sites in the same
niche to gain some cues on engaging design and simple navigation. She also recommends that the AlaskaStock.com team do some keyword research to find (and try to rank for) more terms that users are
searching for, such as "Alaska fishing," and "Alaska tourism."
Read the whole story at Search Engine Guide »