No Guidance, No Interaction, No Sale: Improving Internet Shopping Usability
A good friend recently told me a story about how a company built a web site that needed user instructions to use it. The only page that was allowed to put a link to those instructions was the homepage. Therefore, should a visitor arrive via a search engine to a landing page within the web site, they were out of luck. No guidance, no interaction, no sale. I went Christmas shopping online for a computer armoire. I knew exactly what I wanted because I had done previous research on the...
Read MoreTen Ways to Improve Product Images
If your web site contains images of products, what is the best way to present those pictures? Is “click to enlarge” the only step to take for an alternative view? Here are some ideas to jazz up your product images: 1. Get close up shots. If you sell boots, offer a way to see the tread. If you sell handmade jewelry, show the types of clasps. 2. If you sell earrings, do you offer it in a variety of hooks? What does it look like with different ones? Are there safety features for...
Read MoreLet’s Talk About [Insert Your Brand Here]
In this week’s Search Engine Land “Just Behave” column, you’ll find an article I wrote called Of Conversations And Conversions. Using real life examples, I hope to illustrate the power of conversation as it relates to conversions. Funnily enough, at least several times a week, someone will ask me to “prove” usability counts. They only want to pay for search engine marketing and put up Facebook. They don’t want to hear about ease of use,...
Read MoreCre8pc Usability Tip: Avoid Losing This Customer
Here is a tip for e-commerce web sites with shopping carts that indicate “Out of Stock” for items that are sold out. You may avoid cart abandonment by answering this question: “Are you getting in any more?” When testing shopping carts, I’m always happy to see a back-end that communicates product availability. It’s too frustrating to get to the end of the purchase process, submit the order and then receive an email that the item is unavailable. Using the...
Read MoreInternet Shopping Usability Means Let Them Buy It Online
For my next installment for Just Behave, at Search Engine Land, I described an online shopping experience that ended in no sale, even after checking out 10 web sites for the same product. Internet Shopping Usability: No Guidance, No Interaction, No Sale is how my search for a product I already owned and wanted to buy again for my son, ended in no sale. If you are a re-seller, this is a must read if your web site isn’t ranking well or selling. If you are an ecommerce web site owner,...
Read MoreMarketing to Men (Or How to Help Your Husband Buy a Thong)
Let me begin by saying I was given permission to write about this. Considering it’s about men’s underwear, you may or may not be interested in the topic. However, how men and women shop for men’s clothing fascinates me and here’s my story. Ever since reading “The Soccer Mom Myth” by Holly Buchanan and Michele Miller and The Female Brain by Louann Md Brizendine, I’ve been silently observing how my family shops. My husband and sons will willingly...
Read MoreSEO and Usability: Be That Stallion and Round Up The Herd
As more and more people jump on the SEO and Usability bandwagon and write about it, a few different arguments are presented. In some, one set of skills is more important than the other, or “first”. For others, one can’t live without the other. Still others think they have a purpose together and create new terms for practicing it. I’ve written extensively over the years on the relationship between SEO and web site usability. Five years ago I felt that SEO efforts were...
Read MoreToday’s Finds – Search Engine Marketing Jan. 3
Today’s travels took me to: No Nonsense Debra – Will The Real Search Engine Blog Please Stand Up? Come on guys, you want us to follow your webmaster rules then make it official by posting them in one place, on your company blogs. Let’s get rid of the FUD, the crude, and the mud associated with near-miss comments by people trying to share. No Nonsense Aaron – Why SEMPO is Worse than the Defunct Search Marketing Associations SEMPO saved my life. If they hadn’t sent...
Read MoreWhy I Volunteer to “Live Blog” Search Marketing Conferences
As a volunteer reporter for Barry Schwartz’s Search Engine Roundtable blog, I’m often asked, “Why do you do it?” My consulting work is focused on usability and Internet application testing. Why am I out chasing sessions at search engine marketing conferences? To begin with, my work began in web design and consulting/online teaching search engine optimization in the 1990′s. Therefore, I know many “long-timers” in the SEO/M industry. It remains an area...
Read MoreSEO with Usability: What The People Want
If you are in the business of optimizing web pages and promoting web sites in search engines, in all likelihood you’ve never personally experienced the product or service you’re paid to market. And yet, your client expects you to make them rich. At the very least, they want their company to rank well in search engine results. They expect you to find the exact keywords their customers are using to find their product or service, but you don’t have access to those customers, do you? You rely...
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