Analytics, A/B testing, landing pages and testing, the power of free shipping and more workshop topics are the topics as Libby Waldo of Pure Networks sits down with Dave O at MidMarket eTail Exhibition in San Francisco in Nov. 1, 2006 - plus info on Network Magic’s network mojo.
[photo of Libby Waldo at Etail Midmarket,
San Francisco by DaveO]
In my relatively brief tenure thus far at Elastic Path (as Marketing Coordinator since April 24), I’ve already seen big steps forward - the core software application continues to mature, the market awareness of the company is increasing, customer site deployments are coming rapidly, … Ahh, I’ll just make a list (since everyone else is at this time of year).
Of course, each EP-er’s list would be *very* different than my perspective - perhaps someone may feel strongly enough to comment and lambaste me for my odd choices … but anyhow, here are … {drumroll}
TEN NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS for 2006
~ in no particular order ~
Saying hello to the market - Exhibited at two trade shows (Internet Retailer in Chicago and eTail Midmarket in San Fran) - no big deal to some companies who exhibit constantly but this was new outreach for us - also podcasted, vidcasted and blogged about the events, made friends and gathered free pens
Four and Five out the door - Version 4.1 went out shortly after my arrival, indeed many of my first tasks were preparing a data sheet and brochure for 4 which is now replaced by (!) V.5. FIVE features dozens of retail-savvy features (which I’ve recently documented in a feature walk-through presentation) andwill soon be augmented by the super AJAX’ed One Page checkout tool
Holidays done right - Throughout the year, the company springs for lunches and parties but the holiday shindig was the most deluxe - held at a hip Asian-fusion restaurant with prizes, contests - but even better than the after-hours egg nog was seeing the staff bring in loads of food, clothes and toys to sponsor a needy family during this wild weather holiday in Vancouver
Growing on up - Since I came aboard, the staff count has increased constantly with an international group of talented developers, project managers and system architects who also double as a kundalini yoga club, lunchtime kung-fu movie watchers, world cup football fanatics, die-hard hockey fans, bike riders, marathon runners, and Cypress skiers - with more spaces to fill (need a job?)
Customers abounding - As you likely know, I really enjoy seeing the EP-powered site launches from all over the world - exciting to see how they’ve tweaked and customized the application and utilized the features - best is seeing the customers experiencing success (heh, just the way we planned it!)
Professionally serving - The Professional Services department has evolved into an in-house innovation machine and model of teamwork - in a bustling “secret lair” workshop, numerous projects are simultaneously evolving into custom solutions with unique needs - I visit the wise geeks down there to soak in their energy and let them beat me at pool
Geeking out - This year saw forays into the greater developer community and outreaching to the open source minded folks - a crew went to a Java powwow in Redmond, I attended the (in)famous Gnomedex in Seattle, Jason presented at BarCamp Vancouver, and so on …
International man of entrepreneurship - EP’s energetic and wise CEO Harry has flown hither/thither all over the world meeting customers, prospects, system integrators and partners with big exciting plans on the way as a result - though I am convinced I should represent the company in Prague next time
In the news … - This year also saw increased media relations and resultant publicity - as marketing folks, along with our PR firm, we send out press releases to boost awareness but, unless the the release has something to say, no one will publish it, since magazines are picking the info up, we must be on the right track
Number 10? That’s up to you, comment away!
RIS News (subtitled, “the most influential retail technology publication”) ran an article about a critical topic to online retailers, the scourge of shopping cart abandonment. Why do shoppers go through the process of visting a site, choosing products, adding to cart, entering personal data to then just ditch the whole deal?
Certainly, smart e-tailers wanna know why carts are dumped so close to conversion and then do what they can to prevent abandonment. Reasons can be as simple as the customer wanting to see the grand total - including tax and shipping - while comparison shopping, or maybe the shopper felt uncomfortable entering personal info prior to seeing that total, or maybe they just got cold feet before committing to the purchase because there was some small reason for mistrust.
Debbie Hauss’ article Techsplanation: Beefing Up Online Sales rounds-up a variety of tools - including Elastic Path’s One Page check out system - which are all designed to track and prevent cart abandonment with the aim of increasing conversions.
More after the break …
Rand Fishkin (AKA RandFish), CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz, a Seattle-based Search Engine Optimization firm, posted an article several months back which I repeatedly peek back at. I was using their handy SEO Page Strength tool today when i re-read his list again so I think it is time to share a bit of his wisdom with you.
The article “10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic” is useful because it outlines useful “white hat” (meaning ethical and professional) methods of improving visitor rates. The tips really center around producing quality content by suggesting that creative thinking and compelling writing are the cornerstones of an SEO strategy as opposed to ethically dubious schemes such as content scraping, URL hi-jacking and non-relevant keyword loading.
For retailers, the trick is getting shoppers to find your site amidst all the clutter without spending the farm bidding on ultra-competitive Pay Per Click ads. Over the past few months when reading this article (and others like it e.g. Forrester study), I conduct a mental straw poll to see which techniques I have employed in my Marketing Coordinator capacity at Elastic Path while also making note of which techniques to try next.
Anyhow, here’s Rand’s tips but remember … Randfish’s original post includes all sorts of info about the reasons and expected results.
#10 - Targeting Unmonetized Searches
#9 - Creating Controversy
#8 - Maps & Mashups
#7 - Event Coverage
#6 - Top Ten Lists
#5 - Online Tools
#4- Graphic & Web Design (using CSS)
#3 - Leveraging Social Networks
#2 - Blogging & Blog Comments
#1 - Reporting Remarkable News
Again Randfish’s article 10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic is loaded with screenshots and lengthy, useful discourse on each of these points. You can Digg the article too.
Keep in mind, SEOmoz’s Page Strength Tool is ultra-handy as it gauges your URL’s search readiness based on a battery of tests checking ranking at Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, Technorati, Archive.org’s Way Back Machine and your site itself to produce a useful metric as well as resultant tips for improving your site’s findability.
It’s no secret that the holiday period is the biggest shopping frenzy of the year - indeed, I experienced sensory overload just stopping by a downtown mall on the way home the other night!
The day after Thanksgiving is the big one in the US, while the day after Christmas (AKA Boxing Day) tops the list in Canada (if I recall correctly) as retailers slash their remaining inventory to move and shoppers finish up the shopping season buying stuff on sale for themselves (some new hockey gear is on the Boxing day sale list for me).
Regardless of what your holiday is called, and when you do your shopping, studies show that more and more of you are shopping online - wisely avoiding the crowds and spending extra time relaxing with family during the festive period. In all, about a quarter of holiday gift purchases are made online and that number is bound to grow and people discover the ease of online shopping for buying unique items along with the usual books and CDs.
Busy times around the office these days with all the recent release and resultant excitement about Elastic Path 5. As such, I haven’t caught you up with customer site launches recently and there are several on my list - each one is unique and I enjoy (as I suspect the developers must as well) seeing what spin each deployment puts on the core application.
I am constantly curious about which features are they using? What did they customize? How did they arrange the content? How’d they design the interface?
Kicking it off, … Here is a sleek, fast, clean and optimized site for a high-end door vendor selling to architects and contractors but allowing the public to browse - choosing from the catalog in French or English with one click.
As they introduce themselves:
Camille European Distribution Group (CEDG) Inc. was founded with the purpose of offering European quality doors and windows with patented designs to the North American market.
Another unique market most people think little about until building a house …
The navigation is intuitive and the category landing pages make (rare) understated use of Flash to present an inviting interface - perhaps putting the hectic shopper in the mood for browsing through detailed items.
Once at the product page, the shopper is presented with an array of finishes and colors which load quick and orderly. The specs and measurements are all there too along with suggestive merchandising. In this case “Customers who purchased also purchased…” and Accessories - in this case, a bevy of knobs and locks.
The only thing that appears missing in this case is the “add to cart” button. Why? Because CEDG sell only to professionals who login to order after creating an account on the site. However, the site’s products are accessible to the public for ease of showing, choosing, comparing etc. with the homeowner/builder client. As they put forth, …
We distribute exclusively to architects and builders working on construction projects on all scales; our clients can choose from a long line of doors and windows with standard or exotic designs, for both commercial and residential settings.
I noticed that the URLs are created with product names and brands which is great for organic search however they did not optimize page title tags. There may be a reason behind this omission, perhaps as a BtoB site, organic search results may not be as important as to some retailers and they generate business through professional industry relationships. There is a spider-ready site map and they deliver some additional materials as .pdfs as well.
Four words: Clean, fast, inviting and focused.
I’ve recently produced a “feature tour” presentation designed to be a self-paced overview of all Elastic Path 5 features and benefits without technical jargon and acronyms and low on marketing double-speak. Really a scrapbook tour of what it looks like to shop an EP5 built store and how the back-end is managed and finally, how the catalog and merchandising is set-up.
The one acronym which does appear (OK, maybe there are two) is AJAX - meaning Asyncronous Javascript And XHTML - this is a technique rather than a technology or a product. I played with the AJAX-ified pieces of EP5 while screen-shooting *everything* for the presentation and the neat thing is, you don’t really notice the AJAX’ed bits, just that the site is clipping along as fast as you can click.
Just a note that yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article popped up in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The whole Dec. 7th article by James Covert, “Retailers try on online clothes reviews for size” is available without a secret handshake so you can enjoy the entire text without hindrance.
Besides the Pennsylvanian publisher, the article ran in Wall Street Journal’s Europe edition and as a lead article in the WSJ Marketplace section.
While re-arranging the blog posts during this blog-o-rama move (to Word Press Multi-user), I remembered Andre from nitobi’s short and sweet notes from Jason Bilingsley’s presentation at last summer’s Vancouver Bar Camp. Indeed, regular readers likely know that Andre is AKA Cap’n Ajax and was featured with colleague Alexi in Get Elastic #6 podcast “Cleaning up Interfaces with AJAX.”
SEO is a critical topic for online retailers to understand thoroughly. The alternative to mastering search optimizing is ponying up big money for PPC “Pay Per Click” adwords. For the uninitiated, AdWords are the links in the right hand column in Google - of course other Search Engines have similar schemes. Anyhow, companies (primarily retailers) bid to gain “ownership” of various keywords which they feel are important to their prospective shoppers. As you might expect, the more common a word or phrase is, the greater the desirability and the higher the bid. Then, the “winner” is on the hook for the bid amount each time their link is clicked upon by web surfers. The rate ranges from roughly five cents to ten bucks - depending on the value of the link as determined by the marketplace.
Smart retailers watch their PPC spend closely and see which terms convert most regularly and economically. Even smarter retailers concurrently work diligently at optimizing their sites for “organic” search - meaning your site naturally appears towards the top of the results (generally listed in the center of the page) without any payment to the Search Engine company.
To get you started thinking about this topic, here are Andre’s notes from Jason’s talk. Take a mental note about which steps you are already doing, which you think you can implement easily and which ones you don’t yet understand.
Note: I made a few minor edits for clarity (I don’t think Andre will mind), …
- many want to be number for one”digital camera” but it’s very hard to become number for digital camera, but … there’s a lot of money to be made for “sony 5mp digital slr”
- customer who put together a 4 keyphrases are further along the buying process
- dig through your logs to come up with the long tail list and/or use keyword generation tool Jason will post this on his blog
- they (Elastic Path) compete against IBM, MS, Oracle, but they are very slow to move on keywords so they “got lucky”
- EP has baked alot of this baked into their platform
- CSS vs Tables…CSS is better because: (1, spiders get to content quicker, 2) your keywords are higher in the page, 3) this creates better content to code ratio
- 30 keywords is the max (they use 15)
- title tag is the most important
- urls / mod rewrite to ensure clean URLS with real words, stay away from parameters
- for title tag, keep you company name at the back, put your products upfront
- marketing sherpa - landing page guidelines,
- organic results get 2.5 times the clicks, organic links get 30% more conversions
- linking is very important, links are like votes
- use link title tags inside the href tag
- create good content that people want to know about and will link to
- google only indexes the first 100k of code - look at sitepoint.com article
The venerable dean of business journalism, the Wall Street Journal, published an article today (Dec. 7, 2006) about the rise in customer reviews for products other than electronics, computer gear, books and other media. Specifically, writer James Covert discusses the issues around a retailer’s decision to expose their product catalog to the public for comments - whether good or bad.
The article “Online Clothes Reviews Give ‘Love That Dress’ New Clout” is available online with WSJ (subscription required), but in general, … the article discusses scenarios in which clothing retailers have (or have not) implemented consumer-driven reviews and the reasons why they do (or don’t) buy into the idea using examples including Macy’s, Sears, the Gap, J.C. Penney, Amazon.com, Home Depot, Petco Animal Supplies, Target Corp., Saks Fifth Avenue, plus Elastic Path and Power Reviews.
