Meghan Keane from eConsultancy reported recent findings from Webcredible’s “ecommerce persuasion poll.” Of 1300 online shoppers surveyed, the top reason shoppers purchase from one website over another is seller reputation (28%) followed by price (26%).

• Seller reputation - 28%
• Price - 26%
• Website look and feel - 16%
• Website ease of use - 15%
• Special offers - 4%
• Delivery factors - 3%
• Appearance in search listings - 2%

Retailers must realize persuasion and conversion is not all about pricing and landing page testing, but communicating trust.

How do you demonstrate your e-store is reputable?

If your retail brand is a household name, you’ve got a strategic advantage here. But if you’re not famous, you can still be seen as trust-worthy. We have discussed the importance of clear value propositions, still they alone are not enough to persuade today’s Google savvy Internet shopper. Whatever you claim about yourself is only marketing until it can be verified by customer testimonials or other independent raves and reviews.

Show off store ratings and media mentions

Not just for eBay sellers, retailers like GamePointsNow display customer feedback on their home pages to show off their reputation. Using a feedback service provided German company eKomi, GamePointsNow saw conversion lift by 5%.

Clicking on the Ekomi badge takes you to the retailer’s detail page, where you can read the positive, neutral and negative feedback details:

Below the Ekomi badge, GamePointsNow also links to a positive media mention from a gaming magazine.

EyeBuyDirect features customer testimonials, media mentions (linking to its pressroom) and its recognition as an Internet Retailer Top 100 site on its home page:

EyeBuyDirect uses scrolling testimonials in a box on the home page as they recognize that visitors often have a short attention span and it’s unnecessary to read more than a few testimonials. If visitors want to read them all, they can click through to over 4 pages of praise.

Even more impressive are the media mentions, which EyeBuyDirect dedicates primo real estate to on the home page (top right of content area). Understanding that, even at a sub-conscious level, when customers can connect your brand with logos he/she is familiar with and trusts (like ABC network, InStyle magazine and Forbes magazine), it’s powerful. Roy Hessel from EyeBuyDirect shared that after adding the media logos, customers were 45% more likely to stay longer on the site and complete a purchase.

What’s missing from the survey list is shipping costs, seller’s policies (including privacy policies), site security and payment options the seller accepts. (And don’t forget the conversion killer of required registration). These are all important factors in the retailer selection process — with reputation, website appearance, usability, security and policies making up the trust quotient; and the others (including price) the service quotient.

Show off your reputation in search engines

Shopping comparison engine TheFind launched a new feature last week that exposes this information about a retailer in search results, so customers can get a quick look at security seals, payment options, policies, shipping options and even links to social media like Twitter and blogs.

Would be nice if this kind of feature was also available in traditional search engines like Google. Maybe TheFind can license its tool to the big G or even the big 3 (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Bing).

Another way to build your trust as a retailer is to practice reputation management in search engines and across the Web, as customers might do some digging about your company. A great resource for reputation management is Andy Beal’s book Radically Transparent (you can read my review and tips for finding a reputation manager for your company here).

Who cares about Twitter?

The microblogging network has enjoyed impressive 343% Y-O-Y growth and is the fastest growing US social network according to Nielsen Online. Some claim Twitter attracts 2000 new users a day.

Wouldn’t you like to know if people are “Tweeting” about you, your company or your products? What are they saying?

A simple way to find out is to use Twitter’s own search engine.

After you perform a search, you can subscribe to the search keyword through RSS:

Or you can sign up with TweetBeep and get Google Alerts style updates every time your tracked keyword or URL is mentioned.

Reputation Monitoring and More

Monitoring Twitter mentions of your brand names is akin to listening in on a conversation - you may hear something you like (ego gratification!) or you don’t (your customer service or ads stink, your product is low quality). If you have affiliates, you may also see how frequently your deals and promotions are pushed and by who.

If someone is having a problem with your customer service, consider reaching out to them and making good. If you identify an evangelist, you may want to reach out and thank them for their kind words, and offer them a special gift or gift card.

Using Twitter to Develop Personas

You’d be surprised how much you can learn about one person through Twitter. For example, real Twitter user @Torrie became an LL Bean customer after she asked her Twitter friends where she could find a good swimsuit. She had considered Land’s End but wanted something less expensive.

One of her followers wanted to direct message her, but since @Torrie wasn’t mutually following her, she had to Tweet it publicly:

Apparently @Torrie got many helpful responses, but LL Bean won her business, and she informed her network (and the whole Internet):

Now, if you want to build a persona for an LL Bean customer, why not gather as much information about @Torrie as you can? She’s shared a lot about herself in her Tweets and on her blog which is linked from her Twitter profile. I learned that @Torrie is:

• 32 years old, but “in denial about it” (since when was 32 old, come on!)
• Married 11 years to a doctor who works long hours, she loves him dearly and misses him a lot during the day while she cares for an almost-two-year-old
• Ex-pastry chef turned portrait photographer
• Grew up in Manhattan, now lives in the suburbs
• “Vegetarian, recycling, yoga-practicing, organic hippie”
• Voted Obama
• Self described complainer, not afraid to complain on her blog or through Twitter (her blog is called “I Pretty Much Hate Everything”)
• Among her hates are commercials and “not being able to get a real live person on the phone”
• She’s bummed there is not a Babies R Us in her area
• She really likes eco-friendly stuff, in fact, she blogs about stuff she doesn’t hate on her product reviews blog “Stuff I Don’t Hate” (she’s an Amazon affiliate)

Blogger since 2003, contributes to Alpha Mom Guide to Everything and is a member of the BlogHer Network

LL Bean, @Torrie is now your customer. There are certain assumptions you can make:

• @Torrie trusts her social network and her social network trusts her
• With her busy mom lifestyle and her technical savvy, she’s likely to be comfortable researching and shopping online. Convenience is important
• She knows her budget and sticks to it
• Customer service is important to her
• She’d rather buy green products from ethical, socially and environmentally responsible companies
• She’s on Twitter, and may prefer to receive deals and offers through Twitter than email or RSS
• She’s a potential affiliate

Questions I have for LL Bean:

• Are you listening to customer conversations about your brand? Are you tracking Twitter?
• Do you have a plan for outreach to both evangelists and unsatisfied customers?
• Do you provide price filters that help customers with a price range in mind narrow product selection?
• If a customer were looking for sustainable or “green” products, could he/she find them through navigation or search? What shows up when a user searches for “eco friendly” or “green”?
• What shows up for a site search on “yoga”?
• Are you offering alternative communication methods like Twitter or mobile for tech-savvy shoppers?
• Does your affiliate manager have a strategy for reaching out to people like @Torrie? How easy is your affiliate program information to find on your website?

And don’t forget the Twitter user that recommended LL Bean to @Torrie, what’s her story?

Now I don’t suggest you rely solely on Twitter for your persona development, or stalk every single person that mentions you. Just keep Twitter in mind for your persuasion, reputation management and social media marketing programs.

Did you know you can follow me and Jason Billingsley on Twitter?

Continuing yesterday’s topic of addressing consumer safety concerns on your website, we’re going to look at off-site tactics for the rest of the week. Today’s tactic: online PR.

Press releases around consumer safety is great for branding your online store as a socially responsible business. It can also positively benefit you with high quality back links, as you should ask any publisher to link back to you in the release footer, or an author byline if the “release” is more like an article.

Using toy retailers and product recalls as our example, let’s apply the tips PR and SEO expert Dana Todd shared with us in our video interview with Dana from Search Engine Strategies San Jose.

Can’t see embedded video? Click to view Interview on Blip.tv

With some creativity and savvy, you can create trending stories around particular hot items. How about “Protecting Your Kids This Christmas: How to Keep Unsafe Toys Out of Their Stockings” ? Any parenting magazine, portal, blog or newsletter would be interested in this type of release.

You want to create content that can be deployed out there that tells an “emotionalized” story - preferably a series of releases/stories. Think about the conversation you want to start, what attitudes are you trying to change? How do you convince a mother on a budget to spend a bit more on safe toys? How do you educate your reader about country-of-origin issues?

Don’t forget keywords in your release headline and body copy, just like you would optimize on your site. And having a landing page specific to the press release content is a great idea. And keep a similar but modified copy on your site, (different title and slightly different body copy than the ones you send through the newswire to avoid the duplicate content filter.)

But press releases are not the only way to get your story published. Tune in tomorrow for article marketing tips (getting published on popular content sites, portals and blogs).

Last week I posted How to Find a Reputation Manager which was inspired by reading Andy Beal’s handbook to online reputation management, Radically Transparent.

Keeping with the theme of creating a positive online reputation, I want to illustrate how retailers can address common consumer FUDDs (fears, uncertainties, doubts and deal-breakers) both on-site (today’s post) and through online PR (tomorrow’s post).

Example: Addressing Consumer Safety

An example of a FUDD heading into the holiday season is concern about product safety and recalls in the toy category. Last year, toys such as Polly Pocket play sets, Batman action figures, and Barbie dolls were pulled off shelves and from online catalogs due to dangers posed by lead paint and tiny magnets that children may swallow. Consumers became more cautious of country-of-origin, and turned to the Internet to research product safety and look for safer alternatives, even if they were more expensive. (More recently, food and household products from China arouse the same fear).

It’s important that customers who are conscious of product safety trust shopping on your site. To build that trust, you must have content that addresses the issue/s customers care about, make that information easy to find on your site and even use it to attract new customers to your site through search engines.

Tip 1: Have Content Online That Addresses the FUDD

I checked out several toy retailers, from dedicated-to-toys (Toys R Us, KB Toys) to department stores (Walmart, Target) and smaller toy stores (All-Aboard Toys, ToyWiz). The majority did have product recall information available, either prominently in the home page or toy category page design, or tucked away in footer menus (you really have to dig for it).

Kudos to Toys R Us for putting a link to consumer safety information front-and-center on its home page. This call-to-action links to a friendly safety section that explains Toys R Us’ policy on recalls and returns, its safety standards and a feed of latest recalls from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

This is well done, yet I am still left with a couple questions:

1. Why does Toys R Us wait 120 days after the recall? How do I know if products I am browsing today have been recalled?

2. If I have purchased a product subject to recall, will I be notified by Toys R Us? If so, how and how soon? Will Toys R Us pay for return shipping?

Tip 2: Provide Option for Ongoing Communication

Toys R Us also lets customers subscribe to email alerts on product recalls. It would also be nice to have an RSS option, but this is still a great service:

An alternative would be to offer this content in blog format and allow customers to subscribe via email or RSS. It may be possible to pull feeds directly from Consumer Product Safety Commission press releases and provide a feed from your site, or use these releases to craft your own unique content.

Amazon suggests you sign up for recall notices from the government, but misses the opportunity to make it an Amazon-branded customer service tool.

Tip 3: SEO Your Content

Consumers are undoubtedly looking online for answers regarding product recalls. A little bit of keyword research on “toy recall” with the Google Keyword Tool shows decent average monthly searches for related terms, which you can create content for and optimize for search engines:

Some keywords may be specific enough to warrant their own pages - like “Mattel toy recalls.” You may even want to bid on Adwords for these terms, as they are informative searches that introduce the information seeker to your brand (don’t forget to use the right landing page!) If you offer a service such as email or RSS updates as a call-to-engagement on your landing page, it’s a great opportunity to establish trust and customer loyalty through long-term communication.

Tip 4: Optimize for Site Search

Make sure your SEO’d information pages are also accessible through internal site search for usability (as you should for all non-product information). Your navigation may not be intuitive enough for everyone - especially customers who just always use the search box.

What about product pages?

Customers may search for a product without being aware it has been recalled. What an opportunity to provide good customer service by displaying a landing page that either explains the recall and offers alternative products and a link to subscribe to all recall notifications! Or, show the original product page, with clear messaging the product is not available for sale (and a link to more information) and suitable alternative, safe products you do carry?

Instead, a search for “razor dirt quad” recently recalled by Target or Toys R Us yields “no results found” on both sites:

Recommended alternatives would be ideal here, but Toys R Us doesn’t even link to Customer Service contact information.

Tip 5: Optimize the Product Page

My recommendation would be to keep the product page, even after recall (could bring search engine traffic to you) but clearly show that the product is not available for sale, and why. Don’t allow a customer to add the product to cart, and dp ask for a sign-up to your RSS or email notifications on product recalls, or when a safe model comes back in-stock. If possible, suggest alternative products that the customer can buy from you.

This concludes the “on-site” portion of this article, tune in tomorrow for off-site PR tips.

When was the last time you did a “vanity search” on your branded terms? Did you like what you found?

You’d be surprised what kind of things appear in Google’s top 10 results for Internet Retailer 500 companies. Not to add to any e-tailers’ reputation management issues, but here’s an example. There’s an online petition out there to boycott a toy retailer for carrying a George W. Bush action figure.

Love Bush or not-love him (non partisan Canadian, here) words like “petition” and “boycott” in search listing title tags are never something you want to see, and something you’d like to push down in results if possible.

What would you do if the public revolted against a product you carry, and singled you out in an online petition? Or a YouTube video? Blog post? Facebook Group?

A dedicated online reputation manager’s job is to monitor the web for new occurrences of your brand name in real-time, and ideally come up with a “damage control” plan. In this case, because there may be as many Bush supporters as passionate opponents (and judging by over 100 5-star reviews on the sold-out item it’s likely), the retailer didn’t pull the product (perhaps the retailer is even unaware of the petition). But in your case, a quick response and pulling of a product that customers react to may be a good move - or a public statement regarding the matter on your blog - or a clarification of misinformation…

Of course, this is only one example of a reputation management issue.

Depending on the size of your business and consumer propensity to search for your name, you may require a PR/social media marketing firm or in-house professional to handle your reputation management needs, serving as a community evangelist and corporate spokesperson full-time. Many companies have this and a search on any job board for “Public Relations Manager” or “Community Manager” may include reputation management in the list of responsibilities.

But it may be sufficient for you to hire someone to own your reputation management department on a part-time, contract basis. Like a good web analyst, if you hire the right person, that person can learn the tools and processes quickly and apply creativity, finesse and personality to the job.

I just finished reading Andy Beal’s Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. For about $20, this book would be the perfect training manual for your reputation manager - it does a fantastic job of framing the “rules of engagment” (with your audience, that is) - explaining how to write for the web, the importance of SEO, common social sites and a range of reputation monitoring tools (among other things).

So whether you hire a savvy or a newbie, the book will guide you step by step to create:

• An online pressroom
• Conduct effective (non-spammy) blogger outreach
• Leverage multimedia content
• Choose the style of corporate blog that’s right for you and establish wise policies
• Measure your blog’s success
• Repair your online reputation
• Measure your reputation management program effectiveness

Alright, maybe you don’t want a complete newbie — here are some basic skills / traits a person should possess to tackle this role:

• An understanding of the social web, including blogs, forums, social networks, microblogs, photo/video sharing, ratings and reviews, RSS etc.
• An ability to manage several social media profiles (an organized person!)
• Exceptional communication skills, fluent in English with proper grammar and spelling
• Someone who comes across as pleasant, positive and polite in online communications
• Attention to detail - not someone who might send a sloppy email reply to all or cut-and-paste without triple checking the recipient email and name
• A ninja at using search engines for research (an understanding of SEO a plus!)
• Experience with web analytics is nice, but someone who can learn new software quickly is essential
• An insanely curious person who keeps up with all the Internet marketing and social media blogs on a weekly basis, and always thinks outside the box

Now, if you’re not sure how many hours your reputation management project will take, you may consider hiring a virtual assistant or Internet savvy work-at-home-mom. Many work at home moms are avid networkers and bloggers and you can find them on WAHM (Work At Home Mom) forums like WAHM.com. You can read their archived posts and their blogs linked in signatures to get a feel for their tone, positivity, manners and English skills also. You can find virtual assistants in the VA Networking Forum.

Another idea is to post a listing on the SEOmoz Job Board and post under the Public Relations / Reputation Management category. SEOmoz readers are typically up-to-speed with Internet marketing and reputation management already, so you can just get them to apply the do-it-yourself steps in Radically Transparent.

I also want to extend the invitation to any Get Elastic readers who provide these services to leave a comment with a link to your site so those looking for online reputation consultants can check you out.

Don’t forget to read Radically Transparent yourself so you know what your business should be doing so you can gage the effectiveness of your Reputation Manager.

Not only that, but this book should be read by everybody, as it goes into depth about your personal reputation, and how you can manage that. All will find Radically Transparent a helpful guide to creating and maintaining a positive and authentic personal brand presence online.