Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of enhancing your rankings within the organic search results. Once you have achieved the number one spot (potentially) and your getting the traffic you want, you need to keep that extra traffic on your website.

Website Usability

If a potential customer arrives at one of your web pages from a search engine, your website must be usable to keep them there. There are a few different usability issues to focus on that are basics within web design (or at least should be):

Navigation

Navigation on your website is the key to visitors being allowed to view your site in its entirety. You need a visible navigation menu/bar in a common place over the whole of your website. This means the user can easily locate and navigate to different pages with ease. Thus, enabling them to view your entire website. An example of bad, really uninformative links - http://www.bow-wowbooks.com/ This website is a book website, which you have to navigate around by guessing what the pictures mean. Hardly user-friendly in the slightest!

Colour Scheme

This may not be the most important of factors, but it doesn’t half help. A plain and simple colour scheme that is pleasant on the eye means a user can view your website without the risk of causing eye-strain. Electric Blue or Yellow text on a black background is one of the best ways to hurt a users eyes! This also doesn’t help when people want to copy and paste from your website. I have provided an example below:

The Good - http://www.apple.com/

The Bad - http://www.restaurantguideatlanta.com/

The Ugly - http://www.fredfrap.com/

Quality Banner and Images

Your company needs a high quality banner, which makes your homepage and all other pages fit together and look like they belong on the same site. High quality images with ALT tags are a must, bad quality just will not do – No zoomed in, pixelated images please!

Sitemaps

You should always have an .HTML Sitemap of your website; this basically ensures people can view your entire site on one page. Great for visitors who want specific pages or information located on your website.

Summary

The above three points are basic usability issues that need to be addressed by your web developer. If you would like to learn more I suggest reading anything about Jakob Nielson and going from there. SEO and Usability go hand in hand to some extent.