I’m currently sitting (ok, leaning against the bar holding my blackberry in my hands and a pint of cider between my teeth) in a sports bar in London. London isn’t my city, despite numerous Americans, upon finding out that I’m English saying ‘oh, you’re from London’, it’s not somewhere I’ve spent much time. So tonight was fun.

I had decided to attend a Toastmaster club in London, and had prepped by going to mapquest.co.uk to find my 3.2 mile route. After about 1.2 miles I was lost. So I did what any guy would do… I continued walking in what I assumed was the general direction, turning down any street that is featured on a standard UK monopoly board. Hey, it was a plan, in hindsight not a good one, but it still qualified as one.

Eventually I found a taxi with his light on, and was deposited at the meeting place (a pub) 5 minutes late, but the meeting hadn’t started yet, so all was fine.

After the meeting, one of the toastmasters walked me back to the underground. I was confronted with a ticket machine that asked me whether I was going to stay in zone 1 or go to another zone. I had no idea, it was a completely different system to that I am used to in DC, where the fees are based on your starting and end point. Eventually I figured it out, and made it back to the hotel, and the warmth of this bar (although at 11pm I still haven’t had my evening meal yet, and I doubt I will).

So what does this all have to do with Search Marketing? 5 points if you guessed by now that today’s topic was usability. Every now and again you should step back fron your site and think about how a user that hasn’t been to your site before will react when they land there. Will they be able to navigate how you expect? Will they understand your terminology? Will they flow through the funnels that you anticipate they will?

Analytics and usability studies can work hand in hand to help you identify any concerns that you may not realise that you have…  So every now and again, take a step back.  Look at your site through the eyes of a new visitor to your ‘city’, remove your preconceptions, and you may surprise yourself…