Using your a-z for good

An a-z conversation with @PhilRumens, @_BforBen, @jplatten, @IreneMelo and @IckleGeen on twitter (we quickly ran out of space). The basic gist is why do local government websites still have A-Zs? No other websites do.

Well the best answer we can come up with is because we haven’t gotten rid of them yet, but before you do there is one last thing you can use your A-Z for: finding out where you’ve missed something.

If you’ve done the site right the A-Zs should be very really used (around 1%). The site should be signposting people to the things they need; however when you miss a something the A-Z can sit there like a warning light.

A-Z Top letters

If you look at the numbers for A-Z in Google analytics you will be able to spot any spikes on particular letters. You can then follow these through using page navigation to work out what pages people are actually going to from that page.

just what letters are being used ?

If the numbers are significant enough you should consider your site navigation to work out how you can improve the path to that particular area of your site.

Once you’ve done that, get rid of the A-Z it’s a waste of time.