From one of Google’s Blogs, “In the online shopping world, site search quality is a huge factor in converting browsers to buyers, and in keeping customers happy. In fact, 43% of visitors to online retail sites say the very first thing they do is type the product name or product category into the search box (Source: Marketing Sherpa).

While most of the top retailers have a search engine on their websites, the speed and accuracy of search results can make a real difference in visitor engagement and conversion rates. Visitors spend an average of only 8 seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website (so fast, accurate results can make a big difference in conversions)”. (Source Marketing Sherpa).

6 Steps to Successful Ecommerce Site Search Implementation

One: Place your search box in one of the places people expect it to be found such as above the navigation bar (see examples below).

Make the search box field large enough to handle most inquiries without the search term scrolling to the left as it’s typed.

Follow the convention of using a “Search” or “Go” button to the left or right, along with the term “enter search” or something instructive such as “enter item # or keyword” in the search field. Of course, make sure “enter search” disappears as soon as the first character is entered in the search box.

Examples of Site Search Placement

 Notice the similar placement in all the above?

Two: Insure that your site search tool records the search terms that people enter so you can review them at your convenience.

Three: Insure that the search tool is able to be modified to “map” results to existing and new terms. So that, for example, a hungry Cajun from New Orleans can enter “Poor Boy” or even the colloquial “Po Boy” and find it mapped to the sandwich results instead of getting a “nothing found” response.

Here’s an Example to Try:

Go to LL Bean’s site, www.llbean.com, and search on “tops”.

Notice that many of the results do not include the word “top” or “tops” in the descriptions. Apparently they have “mapped” these products to be retuned for this common search phrase.

Four: Review the results for products people search for that you don’t carry. Should you consider carrying them?

Five: Map misspelled variations people are searching for to the proper results.

Six: Monitor the search terms carefully and use the information to improve your site. People may be asking for a variety of information which should be apparent at first glance. They should never have to search for contact information, basic product categories or your location. Even though it will be obvious to you, if others are searching, consider modifying the site to improve its visibility.

Some Features to Consider Putting On Your Site Search Short List

Google released its Commerce Search (GCS) last November and while we’re not advocating for Google’s site search, you have to figure these guys know a little about search! Here are some important features in Google’s Commerce Search that you might want to make sure your site search handles.

Search Suggest and Auto completion. You’ve seen this on Google’s web search and it’s very helpful in site search too.  As the shopper types into the search field suggestions build up in a drop down below. The shopper only needs to point and click on a suggested search phrase to complete the search.

 Search Suggest and Auto completion

Spell check, stemming and synonyms – By leveraging the larger Google search engine, GCS can include these advanced search and synonym options, so the shopping experience is smoother for customers – even customers who mistype.

Parametric search and sorting – GCS allows users to refine or sort results by category, price, brand, or other attribute; this is fully-functional parametric search for e-stores.

You often get only one chance to make a sale and many folks won’t come back if they don’t find what they need. Use the right search tool and optimize its results and you will increase conversions and improve customer satisfaction (and loyalty).

 

Side Bar: I was recently shopping for something online for bicycling. There was a listing on a review site for two online sites that carry a product I was looking for. I went to the first and didn’t see a site search and didn’t quickly see the vendor’s name for the product I was looking for. So I hit the “Back” Button and went to the other retailer’s site.

A client just launched their redesigned web site and their ads unknowingly were resulting in many Page Not Found errors (404 errors). Most Adwords users may not realize that the Auto Tagging feature can result in “Page Not Found” errors that are not detected using the Ad Preview Tools within Adwords. 

If searchers receive a “Page Not Found” error when they click through from your ads most will just hit the Back button and return to the search results to click on a competitor’s ad (But only after you’ve been charged for the Clicks). Those few who take the time to continue on within your site may get frustrated trying to find what they were looking for since they will not be starting from an ideal landing page. This will significantly reduce your conversion rate -  wasting many dollars in Adwords Click charges and missed business opportunities. 

Here’s the Auto-tagging issue

Auto tagging is the default method for integrating Adwords data with Google Analytics. It’s turned on by default when you create a new Adwords Account 

With auto-tagging turned on, a unique ID parameter is added to the end of your Adwords destination URLs. For example: 

If your ad (or keyword) URL is http://domain.com/product/index.htm 

Then Adwords will append a parameter such as:

 …./index.htm/?gclid=COaGrdOLECreRY75QodSWZnJw  

On some dynamically driven web sites this can cause a hiccup resulting in a Page Not Found error. 

Unfortunately most adwords advertisers rely on the ad preview features within the adwords system. However the ad preview features do not append an auto tag parameter to the URL. So the landing page can appear to load ok in the preview when it fact it fails to load correctly from the actual ads. 

True, but unfortunate, Client Story – We started working with a new retail ecommerce client not long ago whose ads were resulting in Page Not Found errors possibly for many months before we tested for it (they had been running adwords for at least two years before we began working with them). After we had their IT fix the issue their conversion rate jumped almost significantly! That error probably cost them thousands of dollars in wasted Adwords click charges and much more in missed sales opportunities. 

 

Video Demonstration of the Auto-Tagging Issue (about 4 minutes)
 

Click here to view the embedded video.

How to test for issues with Auto-tagging  

• Append ?gclid=test or &gclid=test (if your destination URL already contains other parameters) to the end of your AdWords destination URL

Examples - 

http://www.domain.com/shop/index.asp?gclid=test 

http://www.domain.com/shop/category.asp?catid=1&gclid=test 

• Paste this modified URL into your browser’s address bar, and press Enter
   
• Check the results -

If the expected landing page loads and remains loaded with no problems then you should be ok. 

If the results are anything other than the expected landing page, such as a Page Not Found error, you have a problem.

You should consider turning off Auto-tagging at least temporality while you troubleshoot the issue.  For our clients once their web developers were made aware of the issue they were able to either fix the auto-tagging issue or switch to manual parameters (discussed in the Google help document in the For More Info section below. Google refers to this as tracking clicks manually by tagging links)

See the link in the For More Info section to Google’s help page for instructions on how to disable Auto-Tagging and for their troubleshooting guide. 

Request to Google – Please, if auto-tagging is turned on, then the ad preview features should add an auto-tag too!

More Info

Google’s Help page with a link to their troubleshooting guide
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55590

Learn more about Page Note Found errors (404 errors) in our Video/Text article

We’ve been in the Internet marketing business almost 12 years now. Looking back I can tell you that our clients who have been the most successful at search marketing are those who have been able quickly implement recommendations to improve search results and conversion rates, setup landing page tests, test various offers and messages etc, and who understand that it can take many months or years to become successful at search marketing and Internet marketing in general.

Unfortunately, we’ve had a few clients who could not get recommendations or tests implemented in a timely manner leading to failure or more often delaying their eventual success for years!

Our clients who continually implemented recommendations and tests eventually succeeded.

Your Web Site Is Almost Certainly Ineffective At Converting People Who Searched On Non-Brand Keyword Phrases!

It’s virtually guaranteed that a web site that has not been improved systematically will not do an effective job of converting site visitors with little or no prior knowledge about the company or its products and services.  This includes most of the non brand keyword phrases being searched on to reach the web site (from both organic and PPC search results) as well as visitors from many other referral sites.

In a previous article I took an educated guess and said that I thought about half our new clients who had not worked at improving the conversion rates on their web sites had significant issues with this. Wrong! I’ve gone back through a few years of client data. It’s 100%!

Yes, your web site likely does a decent job of converting those who searched on your own brand phrases, indicating that they already knew about you, but for most web sites there’s just not enough people searching on their brand phrases to be successful. More importantly, don’t you want to be successful generating business from the non brand keyword phrases too? Of course you do or why would you even be focusing on search marketing at all? Certainly you’re not focusing on search marketing just to do well for you own brand phrases?

I’ve said it so many times I’m sure I sound like a broken record, but it’s not just about getting the traffic to your site. What happens after people reach your site is as important, maybe more important. You’ll need to improve conversion rates on the site, very often implement recommendations to improve conversions, implementing landing pages to test, testing offers, messaging, possibly pricing etc

You Simply Can Not Succeed At Search Marketing Without Improving Conversions on Your Web Site

So if 100% of web sites that have not been worked on to improve conversions do an ineffective job of converting site visitors who searched on non brand phrases then you are doomed to failure unless you improve conversions on the site. You must improve conversions on your web site.

Focusing only on increasing traffic to your web site for non brand phrases, via organic search (SEO) and/or PPC, will likely increase the traffic to the site, but very few of these searchers will be persuaded to become customers.

In other words your search traffic will increase, but your business will not grow very much. You’ll spend time and money to increase traffic for very little return.

How to estimate conversion rates for brand vs. non-brand keyword phrases using Google Analytics

You can get a quick look at the conversion rates for your top keywords using Google Analytics if goal tracking is step up to measure important goals such as leads or purchases or at least to measure strong indicators of imminent conversions.

From the main Google Analytics window click Traffic Sources / Keywords. Then click on a Goal Set tab (see the screen shot)

Scroll through the keywords and compare the conversion rate(s) for your brand phrases vs. important non brand phrases (phrases that are relevant and on target).

To see more than the default number of keywords (usually the top 10 phrases by visits) scroll to the bottom of the chart and select more rows in the Show Rows: drop down selector.

A More Precise Method

To be a more precise scroll to the bottom of the listing of keywords to the Filter Keyword field, choose “Containing” or “excluding” in the drop down, then type in some unique part of your brand or non brand phrases and click Go. You can enter multiple keywords by separating them with a “ | “ (it’s the upper case of the \ character located just above the Enter key).

So for example if you want to enter some Google brand phrases you might enter:

google|adwords|android

You can export the selections or keywords and calculate totals for conversion rates etc for your brand vs. non brand phrases (you can break them out by various groups of brand and non brand phrases etc)

You should expect a higher conversion rate for your brand phrases. People who search on your brand phrases knew something about you before they came to the site (possibly from referrals, print or other traditional media, or perhaps they were past clients, resellers etc) however in our experience the ratio for the conversion rates of your brand phrases vs. the non brand phrases should be not much higher than about 5 or 6 (i.e. the brand phrases should convert no more than about 5 to 6 times better than the non-brand phrases.). Much higher than this is a signal that your site may not be doing a very good job of converting people who searched on non brand phrases.

 
Do the Math – Slow Implementation Can Be a Huge Opportunity Loss, Even Leading To Failure

Unfortunately, we’ve had a few clients who could not get recommendations or tests implemented in a timely manner. Sometimes this was due to limitations with template sites that are often used within Content Management Systems and/or ecommerce sites. However, more often it was due to backlogs in IT or with a client’s independent web developer.

Some of these clients were forced to put their search marketing efforts essentially on hold for years until till they could get to a point where they can get web development tasks done quicker.

In one case, after years of frustration a client of ours has essentially fired their IT department, taking responsibility for the web site away from IT all together. They are having the web site rebuilt by an outside firm that will handle all site updates under the direction of the Marketing Department (which is where responsibility for a web site probably should lie if the site’s main goal is to increase business).

Assume that through quick implementation of conversion improvement recommendations and tests that a web site’s conversion rate doubled within a year (this is actually at the low end for most of our clients). Now assume that this improvement in the conversion rate leads to an additional $250,000 net income (income, not revenue) each of the following two years. That’s an additional $500,000 in net income over 3 years. 

Do the math using your own metrics and estimate the potential net income opportunity you’ll miss if it takes you 2-3 years just to start making progress at improving conversion rates (as has been the case with some of our clients).

Continually Work To Improve Conversion Rates for Non Brand Phrases and You’ll Eventually Succeed

I truly believe, from experience, that implementation and perseverance are the most important factors to internet marketing success and more specifically search marketing success or failure (or more often delayed success).

Clients who continually implemented recommendations and tests eventually succeeded. Those who couldn’t failed or more often delayed their success till they could implement recommendations quickly.

If you’re having issues implementing conversion improvement recommendations and tests determine why and correct it quickly or you could delay your eventual success for many years.

 
For More Info

Get Rich Quick with PPC! Sorry, PPC Success Takes Time Too. A case study of a client where our Adwords campaign initially was not converting well enough to pay off. It took a year, but we now have a successful campaign, one where the client has taken ad budget from other ad venues to fund the PPC campaign because it generates leads.

Improve the conversion rate for non-brand keyword phrases for search marking success. A Case study where a client’s PPC campaign was losing money for years because the site is not converting people who search on non brand phrases very well.

4 Initial Keys to Internet Marketing Success. This article covers 4 important keys to success, two of which are the topics of this article, implementing recommendations and tests and perseverance.

eVision’s Social Media Service

Today, Social Media (such as Facebook, twitter, blogs etc) should be an integral part of a businesses’ marketing plan.

However the implementation of Social Media can be very time consuming, so eVision has a service to help our client’s with this…

Learn about eVision’s Social Media Service

You’ve worked hard to improve your web site, but so have the top competitors in your field. Many carry essentially the same products, often with the same or very similar product information, and most offer similar features like free shipping, easy returns, satisfaction guarantees, fast shipping, great customer service, customer reviews etc.

Your site and your competitors’ sites all give a great first impression, are easy to navigate, employ effective site searches, and strive to make visitors comfortable about using the site and doing business with you. And so you and most of your competitors obtain average conversion rates.

You Can Double+ Conversion Rates

You can significantly increase the business from your ecommerce site, possibly reaching double digit conversion rates by ensuring your company’s personality shines through on your web site, showing your visitors what makes you different and why they should buy from you, while helping them decide what to buy.

At the PubCon internet marketing conference in November Rob Snell of Gun Dog Supply (www.gundogsupply.com) sells products for training hunting dogs) talked about how they’ve evolved their web site over the past four or five years so that it conveys that they are experts in their field. They educate their site visitors and show shoppers what to buy for different applications. They have more doubled their conversion rates according to Rob.

SEO Benefits Too

At the same time Gun Dog Supply increased their conversion rate they have seen improvements in their organic search marketing results because of the unique content they’ve added to their site which has made their product and category pages very unique compared to the competitors in the field.

Much of the content they‘ve added is being discovered by people searching for product information in the early stages of the buying cycle. This allows Gun Dog Supply to influence buying decisions unlike most ecommerce sites whose content typically appears in search results only when people are ready to buy specific products.

You can learn from what they’ve done.

They convey their expertise throughout the site -

The president, Steve Snell’s, picture is on every page along with a tag line.  Their “tag line” is everywhere and it’s written to help reinforce their expertise “We train OUR DOGS with the products we sell”.

There’s a story about Steve up high on the home page that helps convey his expertise. 

A story on the home page to
help convey Steve’s expertise

Buyers Guides. They’ve developed Buyer’s Guides for many of the product lines they carry to help their site visitors narrow down the product selection depending on the application. These informative buyers guides help visitors learn about the products and help them choose what to buy.

Buyer’s Guides help shoppers choose which product to purchase

Quick Picks. For visitors who might be overwhelmed by the many choices in a buyers guide, they often include Steve’s Quick Picks where he highlights one or more products that fit most users’ needs. Here’s an example:

Steve’s Quick Picks help users
quickly narrow selections down by application

Yes some of your vendors may not be happy that you’re telling customers what products to buy. If it increases your business – Too Bad! Tell them to read your buyer’s guides, reviews etc and see what they need to do to improve their product for that application.

Steve Says. For some specific products there’s a “Steve Says” section where Steve endorses the product and explains why he likes it, with, for example, favorite features, etc.  Here’s an example for “Tritronics No-Bark Collars

“Steve Says” why he likes a product, including favorite features, etc

Steve’s Reviews Steve develops his own reviews for some products. You might ask, “who’s going to trust a review by the guy who is selling the product?”, but Gun Dog Supply does such a good job of conveying Steve’s expertise and conveying trust that I’ll bet most potential customers trust these reviews. It helps that they offer a decent Satisfaction Guarantee.

Steve develops his own reviews for some products

Useful “How To” and other Knowledge Base Articles. They’ve developed many useful articles to help their customers learn about a topic such as “Introducing Your Dog to the Remote Beeper”or “How to stop Dogs from Barking”

Useful “How To” and Knowledge Base Articles
help shoppers learn about a product oriented topic

 Extensive Product Information and Images. For many products, Gun Dog Supply includes much more product information and images than their competitors who carry the same products.

At the top of a product page there’s the typical ecommerce layout of product image, headline, prices, customer ratings, and “Add to Cart” features, etc but there’s much more below this.

Here’s an example of a “No Bark Collar” product

Look at all the product information they include plus the many pictures of product features, images of how the product is used, as well as pictures of the product being used.

I looked at some competitors’ sites for this same product and those sites only included the typical product information and one or two images.

People who are interested in a product will likely scan this extended product information and read parts of it. This can help someone decide on buying a product, especially if you offer a great satisfaction guarantee.

It looks like Gun Dog Supply is taking the time to take many of their own images, a great idea which helps set them apart from the competition while providing additional product information that may help someone decide to buy.

Gun Dog Supply includes much more product information than most ecommerce sites which helps people learn about a product they are interested in.

Let’s look at the Crutchfield, the “electronics specialist”, web site

Here’s the web site, www.crutchfield.com

They use some of the same techniques as Gun Dog Supply.

They have a Leaning Center  with knowledge base articles, many employing video, for most of the product categories they handle.

 Crutchfield Leaning Centers help shoppers narrow down their product selection

Learning Center articles are suggested, along with a picture of each expert staff member/author, as visitors examine product pages or browse product categories, for example on the Wireless Home Video categories page.

On many category and product pages helpful articles are suggested along with a picture of an expert staff member/author

There’s a “Consult with an expert” feature on most pages that includes an image of an “expert”, a toll free number, an email link, and a “click to call” link.
 

On most pages a visitor can “Consult with an expert”

On some pages there are statements by the founder, Bill Crutchfield, along with his picture such as on this page about Hi-Fi or on the Crutchfield Signature Page

Statements by Founder, Bill Crutchfield,
build credibility and convey expertise

Just as with the Gun Dog Supply web site, Crutchfield’s site conveys their expertise and helps educate their shoppers so they can better decide what to buy.

Some tips for unique content such as Buyers Guides, “How To” and Knowledge Base Articles, Reviews etc

Promote Your Unique Content. Much of the “How to” and other knowledge base articles and possibly even some of the reviews and buyers guides can be promoted too, for example in a blog, via social media, press releases, even promoting to and allowing complementary industry web sites to use the content (with mentions/links etc to your site)

Include Phrases Searched On in the Early Stages of the Buying Cycle. This unique content will likely be indexed by search engines helping make your web pages more unique than the competition, which could lead to higher rankings. This content will also likely be returned in searches performed by people who are in the “discovery” phase, learning about product options. You might be able to grab their attention early in the buying cycle, much earlier than most ecommerce sites typically do.

Do some keyword reach to understand the buying cycle keywords and use them in your buyer’s guides, knowledge base articles etc. For example, the keywords that pay off the best and are therefore focused on within ecommerce sites are the keywords that signal someone is ready to buy NOW such as “Garmin Astro 220”. However the keywords used earlier in the buying cycle will tend to be much broader such as “Best gps for hunting”.

Retain These Early Shoppers. Employ methods to retain these visitors that come to your site early in the buying cycle so that they come back and buy from you not the competition, such as ways to obtain their contact info so you can keep in touch, coupons, etc.,

Summary: Convey your company’s personality on your web site and help shoppers decide what to by

When we start a new customer project we ask our clients to tell us what sets them apart from the competition and why they think their customers buy from them. Many have very compelling stories to tell. But their web sites often don’t even begin to convey that story.

Learn why your customers buy from you. Then evolve your web site to convey this and help shoppers decide what to buy with some of techniques above such as learning centers, how to articles, buyers guides, extensive product information, unique product images and video

You could improve conversion rates and improve your search marketing results by adding unique content to your site, allowing you to reach more searchers. You’ll also likely reach more searchers who are in the early stages of information gathering about a new purchase giving you the opportunity to influence what they buy and retain them until they are ready to make a purchase.

For More Info

Site Search: 6 steps to successful site search implementation (absolutely critical to ecoomerce sites.)

All About Ecommerce Shopping Carts, Merchant Credit Card Accounts, Sales Tax Collection

It’s based on the case study outlined in this article in our blog,  “Sales Killer: Cycling important messages on a home page in Flash! Proof from a client case study”

I’ve updated the case study and added some Best Practices for Animations

Highlights

• Our user testing shows few people watch an animation long enough to see multiple messages.
• Improved Conversions 300% in key adgroup for this client by “Freezing” an animation on an important message.
• Best Practices for Animations. What Our Testing Suggests

Download the slides (PDF)

If you’ll be at PubCon stop by:

Session: Increase Your Post Click Conversion Performance
Date: Wednesday November 11, 2009
Time: 11:30a 12:45p
Location: Salon B

Note – The schedule can change so check it online at www.pubcon.com/sessions.htm or check the schedule boards at Pubcon.

You’ll Learn:

What are custom “Page not found” (404) error pages and why are they so important in search marketing?

The most important elements to include on 404 error pages

Why you need to use Absolute Links on 404 error pages

Ensure a 404 error code is sent. Why it’s important to set these error pages up so they send a 404 error code to browsers (and search engines) rather than a redirect code (as some web site owners/managers have done)

To Enlarge the Videos:  Hover your mouse over the YouTube logo in bottom right corner of the video and you should see a “Watch on YouTube” link (the videos plays wider there) or click on the full screen button in the bottom right corner

 

Video Part 1 (4:32 minutes) Covers :

What are custom “Page not found” (404) error pages and why are they so important in search marketing?

The most important elements to include on 404 error pages

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video Part 2 (6:40 minutes) Covers:

Why you need to use Absolute Links on 404 error pages

Ensure a 404 error code is sent. Why it’s important to set these error pages up so they send a 404 error code to browsers (and search engines) rather than a redirect code (as some web site owners/managers have done)

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Text Version of the Article

Here’s the text version of the article (Without all the “Ahh’s and stutters. Hey, it’s my first video blog post. They’ll get better!)

What are custom “Page not found” (404) error pages and why are they so important in search marketing? 

Many of the inner pages of your web site get indexed by search engines and if you rename or delete them you may loose some prospective visitors if you do not have an effective custom “Page not found” error page procedure setup on your server.

It can take months after web pages are moved or deleted before the search engines update their indexes so a number of people may try to reach pages that no longer exist on your site. This is especially important after site redesigns when large numbers of pages may be replaced with new pages with different file names.

As an example of what typically happens when no custom “Page not found” error page is in place, copy the link below into a web browser and try it http://www.companyname.com/badpage.htm

You should have received a standard “The page cannot be found” error page from your browser or toolbar.

Notice that this error page does include a link to the home page for the web site that the visitor tried to reach. Unfortunately many people give up at this point. Most hit the “back” button and try other pages in the search results.

FYI- You probably saw an “HTTP 404 – File not found” message somewhere on the page. A 404 is the error code that is sent to the visitor’s browser (and read by search engines) when a file is not found. That is why these errors are often called 404 errors.

The most important elements to include on 404 error pages

Here’s an example of effective custom “Page not found” error page:

http://www.ibm.com/badpage

This error page is setup on the IBM  web server. The server automatically displays the error page for most “Page not found” errors. Here are the important elements on it.

The page “looks & feels” like a page from the IBM web site. This lets the searcher know that they have reached the IBM site.

Sorry Wrong Page. The error page gives a clear, highlighted message that the searcher tried to reach a page and there was a problem, “Our apologies…The page you requested cannot be displayed”.  It’s important that people clearly see a message similar to “Sorry, Wrong Page” on these error pages or many people will get confused about what just happened.

Links to move the visitor along.The error page gives links that the visitro can use to try to find what they were looking for such as a link to the home page and a site search.

Check with your IT people or web hosting company to see if they can setup a “custom page not found” error page that is returned instead of the standard browser or tioolbar error page. If so you can develop a web page with much of the same “look & feel” as other pages on the site with clear links to the home page, possibly a link to a site map or site search, etc.

The positive effect of a custom “page not found” error page is almost impossible to measure since you obviously can’t tell how many people didn’t reach your web site. It won’t help your search engine rankings either, but it should help increase the number of searchers who successfully arrive at your web site.

———————————  SEO Site Audit  ——————————————-

Get Better “Organic” Search Engine Results!

In a Site Audit we perform a very extensive analysis of your web site and develop recommendations you can implement to increase rankings and traffic from search engines.

www.evisionsem.com/marketing/search-engine-site

——————————————————————————————————-

Why you need to use Absolute Links on 404 error pages

The links to the images and any hyperlinks on the page should be absolute links (including the full URL path such as http://www.ibm.com/images/pic123.gif) rather then using the default relative links inserted by most web development tools. Even the link to a CSS sheet if used should be an absolute link.

Relative links may not work depending what folder on your site the bad link in a search engine listing points to. If the missing page was in the root level of the web site (where the error page usually is) relative links usually work fine, but if the bad link points to any other folder on the web site the links may not work. When this happens your visitor may see a page with missing images such as your logo etc. Worse, the links you provided to the pages on your site, such as the home page, may not work!

Few of the web developers I’ve ever worked with have been aware of this. And it’s very hard to explain. In the video I show some clear examples of what happens.

Reduce the clutter – The main task of a custom 404 error page is to let people know they tried to reach a page that doesn’t exist on your site and to give them an obvious and simple path(s) into the main site, without too much clutter that could keep them from seeing the important messages and links immediately. This also makes the task of keeping those absolute links up to date.

We’ve found that it’s best to strip these error pages down and have very few images and links on them (except in the case where you provide a site map).

Why it’s important to set error pages up so they send a 404 error code to browsers (and search engines) rather than a redirect code (as some web site owners/managers have done)

Finally, it’s very important that the correct 404 error code is returned when a custom “page not found” error page is served. If you just redirect to a site map or home page without returning the 404 error code the search engines will not know that the URL in its index is a broken link. They may start indexing multiple copies of the site map or home page or whatever page you redirect too, under all the different bad URL’s which can cause real problems (such as duplicate filtering, pages getting removed from the index, delayed crawls etc)

Here’s a couple of server head check tools to test that a 404 code is returned, (or search on “HTTP header check” for other tools)

http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers/

http://www.sim-php.info/http-status-viewer.php

Try testing IBM’s http://www.ibm.com/badpage. Notice the 404 code is returned.

Many web site owners have heard the term “analytics” and mistakenly believe that the site stats they have seen running on their website is analytics. They are unaware of how strong a tool site analytics is for online marketing and improving conversion rates.

In this article I’ll demonstrate some key differences between site analytics and site reports and point out how analytics can help not only measure marketing results but help site owners increase business from their web sites.

Site Reports

Most web sites have some level of site reports running. It’s these site reports that most web site owners are familiar with.

Site reports, the good ones like Awstats, do show you very useful information such as:

• the numbers of unique visitors to the site each period.
• traffic from referral sites.
• the numbers of people reaching the site after searching on specific keyword phrases.

Site Analytics – Analyze visitor behavior by traffic segment

Site analytics let you analyze visitor behavior by traffic segment (by referral sites such as online yellow pages, directories, resource listings, vendor sites, as well as email campaigns, and traffic by keyword etc).

Example 1 – Purchases by keyword

This is an example from a ClickTracks demonstration site. It’s an ecommerce site that sells fruits online, Bob’s Fruitsite.

The analytics system has been set up to break out the search traffic to the site by keyword from Paid-per-Click (PPC) search results (such as Google Adwords) and traffic from organic search results (The Regular Search row) as well as how many of these site visitors go on to complete a purchase – again by keyword.

Look at the last keyword phrase, “Fruit baskets”. 156 people reached the site from PPC search results in the period (In this case they all came from Google). 14 of these people when on to make a purchase. – That’s a healthy 9% conversion rate.

Notice there was no traffic from organic search results for the “Fruit baskets” phrase. The owners of this site, if it were a real business, would be smart to determine what they need to do to improve organic search results for the “fruit basket” phrase since it’s doing very well in their PPC campaign.

Side Bar: Durians – People eat these things?
Didn’t we see these in Body Snatchers!

 

Example 2 – Page Analysis:
Improve conversion rates and increase business
 

This slide is a little busy, but basically it shows the numbers of visitors clicking on the various links on a web page and where visitors go next.

With site analytics you can follow visitors who searched on a particular keyword, for example, determine what page(s) most of them landed on first to enter the site (the landing page) and follow them page by page through the paths they take. You can see where they exit the site and you can see how many and what percentages of these visitors take important actions such as filling out a form, purchasing something, viewing important pages or files etc.

Using this data you can test changes such as variations of headlines, other messages, various images, add links to help move people along, etc and see the results of the changes.

By testing modifications you can systematically improve the percentages of visitors who more from page to page to the various Conversions Points on a site (such as to form submissions, purchases, signups, etc.).

With site analytics you can improve the conversion rates on a web site leading to increased business.

For More Information -

Get Rich Quick with PPC! Sorry, PPC Success Takes Time Too.
A Case study using PPC and analytics to systematically improve conversion rates by 300-400% for client’s web site.

10 Cool Things We Can Do with Click Tracks – Web Analytics

7 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Site Analytics

Using Analytics to Discover What Referring Sites Are Converting

Ron Jones has posted a two part article on Search Engine Watch outlining 5 steps for optimizing Video for search.

In Part 1 Ron Covers:

Keyword research
Video production
Landing pages

Read Part 1

In Part 2 Ron Covers

Distribution and keyword placement
Tracking/analytics

Read Part 2

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Increase Business From Your Web Site!

Usability Expert Todd Follansbee

User Experience and Conversion Point Review The goal of a User Experience and Conversion Point Review is to help you insure that your web site delivers an effective conversion path, provides a successful branding experience, and communicates the information in a way which serves you best to deliver leads or sales. More Info >>

 

The nav bar plays an essential role in creating good first impressions and setting site expectations. New visitors will scan the primary nav bar when they first arrive on your site home page. When nav bar link labels are confusing, or important visual cues are missing, visitors are less likely to engage. If visitors have only come for a quick comparative look, confusion equals exits.

Most nav bars typically violate one or more basic usability guidelines. It is easier to build a good nav bar on a new site then to repair a poor one on an existing site. If you are considering a major redesign, assemble all your usability guidelines including these before starting the project. You wouldn’t fail to understand safety codes before building a house; it’s no different with a web site.

Commit to a great nav bar UX and you will gain an immediate competitive advantage over the majority of sites which currently fail to achieve even basic usability (you must cite your exact sources whenever you quote numbers like this.)

Nav Bar Guidelines

Before deciding whether you should locate your primary nav bar on the top, left or right of your pages and how the nav bar submenus will work, first consider the basic characteristics of a good primary nav bar.
Guidelines – A good nav bars must:

1. Use recognizable link labels which set a clear and accurate expectation for the page content.
2. Be in a consistent location on every page.
3. Provide visual cues that tell you what page you are on, where your cursor is and what pages you have visited.
4. Avoid active links which only refresh the page you are on.

On existing sites you are trying to improve it will be easiest to make changes to comply with the first two guidelines, so address them first. Guideline 3 and especially 4 will require some tedious page by page revisions for an existing site. In a new site design, compliance shouldn’t add time to the project.

Let’s review each guideline above in more detail.

1. Use recognizable link labels which set a clear and accurate expectation for the page content

Examples of simple, recognizable labels which set clear expectations include: About Us, Contact Us, Home, Products, Services, FAQs, and Testimonials. Our sample nav bar below immediately tells you a great many things about this site from only a 3 second glance. These nav bar labels successfully tell the visitor that the site content will be easy to explore. Alt tags and submenus may provide further details but it is risky to count on these hidden elements; you need simple, clear, unambiguous terms in your primary nav bar. Graphical nav bar links need alt tags for visually challenged viewers. Alt tags should include the nav bar link label, but it is best to expand on the content with a few additional key words.

Nav Bar link labels such as Great Stuff, Point, XYZ Fittings, Advertising, Free and Joe’s Picks, raise more questions than they answer. When we ask users to describe what these pages are likely to contain, we hear a wide variety of responses. This is not what a nav bar should do. Also avoid cute labels such, Mystery Deals or Special Bonus designed to “intrigue” people to click; they seem only to annoy the people in our user tests. People may click but they do so begrudgingly and may then feel less motivated to buy.

If finding information about the company behind a site is difficult, many won’t even bother to search through the products or services it offers. With a well designed nav bar, your visitors will be comfortable searching for a product of interest, reassured that they can easily go back and answer important questions before buying such as: “who are these guys?”

2. Be in a consistent location on every page

This is simple. The nav bar should be in the same place on every page and should always include a link to the home page. Most but not all sites meet this guideline.

The most common example of missing or incomplete nav bars is in shopping cart sequences or links out to sites which provide some special functionality. Shopping cart templates often try to eliminate any possible distractions by excluding primary nav bars. While there is some evidence that this may result in higher conversions, it also limits the chance to add additional products to the cart. We prefer access to consistent navigation throughout the entire site. It isn’t like being in the grocery store checkout line where suddenly remembering a needed item will hold everyone up while you dash to dairy. Good navigation throughout the cart process makes it easy to add products and ensure you are ordering the right items. It also allows people to answer other last minute questions before check out such as: “how secure is this cart process?”

Do not assume that a practice which works for a very well established and already highly trusted brand like Amazon will also work for you. Keeping the nav bar in a consistent location and clearly visible reduces anxiety and confusion and makes the site more flexible in meeting the visitor’s needs.

If you offer a web service which may engage users for extended periods of time on one page (webinars or online courseware comes to mind) it is permissible to hide the nav bar and header with a show/hide option to deliver a full screen experience.

3. Provide visual cues that tell you what page you are on, where your cursor is and what pages you have visited.

In the example below, the Nav Bar gives a clear visual cue to show you which page you are on, where your mouse is currently pointing and which pages you have visited earlier.

This visitor is now on the Overview page within in the Services Section. With this clear cue, the page needs no bread crumbs You will never feel lost with good visual cues.

In the above example, if you were to move the cursor over Testimonials, it should take on a “you are here cue” (which could be, for example, a different color or reverse video). Also the Testimonials submenu is will soon display, replacing the Services submenu for as long as your cursor remains on Testimonials. As soon as the cursor leaves the Testimonials tab, the Services submenu reappears since it was only hidden momentarily by the cursor movement to Testimonials. The Services tab remains highlighted while in this section, until you click on another tab.

This example displays visual cues to show that you have visited the Contact Us page (the text color changes from blue to purple). After leaving the Overview page that link will change to follow the same convention. Typically visited links will display in a slightly different color, to differentiate them from the unvisited page links. Note: some browsers allow visitors to set their own options for showing visited links in a settings form.

It is common for visitors to make several site visits and for some time period to pass before making a purchase. When you show visited links, returning visitors feel “welcomed back” and know where they’ve already been on the site. Visited link cues ensure that they can easily find their way back to relevant information.

4. Avoid active links which only refresh the page you are on.

The links for the page you are currently on should be inactive and provide a cue that they are inactive. This indicates which page you are currently on. For example, any home page links should be inactive when the visitor is already on the home page.

When we first adopted this guideline years ago, we did so because pages loaded slowly and it was especially annoying to click on a self-refreshing link only to wait 10 seconds just to redisplay the page. Self-referential links still waste time but nowadays there is evidence that self-referential links also confuse your traffic analytics by increasing page view counts, distorting page duration times and more. Rather than struggle to adjust your analytics, the better choice is to comply with this guideline and avoid the problem. Self-referential links are time consuming to correct on an existing site so you may you choose to live with them for now but ensure that any new design complies with this guideline.

Nav Bar Graphics – Look and Feel.

As long as your nav bar meets the four guidelines above, it will be usable. Feel free to experiment with creative graphic effects but always test with representative users.

A UX consultant is responsible for insuring a good user experience but graphic designers need the flexibility to insure compliance with branding elements and corporate style guides when building the look and feel of a nav bar. We do not want all nav bars to be identical.

Ensure that the text is clear and readable. Dark text on light background is more readable. Link “hot spots” must be large enough to easily keep the cursor over links. It is annoying when the submenu links disappear when the cursor strays the slightest bit so be sure to test the worst case scenario – a laptop without a mouse.

What Kind of Nav Bar and Where?
Our personal preference is to locate primary nav bars at the top of the page when possible but we are more concerned about how it works and what it says than where it is.

The choice of vertical or horizontal submenus is driven by the number of second level choices. With less then approximately 6 second level choices, you can choose either vertical or horizontal submenus. More than 6 second level choices require a vertical submenu. We would not mix vertical and horizontal submenus from the same primary nav bar for aesthetic reasons and because any kind of inconsistency tends to confuse users.

If you choose to locate your primary nav bar at the top of the page, horizontal submenus are good because they don’t hide site content and can stay in place to provide the visual cues to which page you are currently on as well as make other links at the same level readily available.

Vertical Submenu Behaviors – Left or right side primary nav bars (we prefer left) work best with vertical submenus which can expand or contract as you hover over the primary nav bar link.
Bread crumbs are an acceptable visual cue for complex sites with vertical submenus which must disappear after selection from them. Bread crumb guidelines will be discussed in a later article on “navigation elements outside of the nav bar”; they do have a valuable role in certain circumstances.

How to Test Your Nav Bar.

Whatever choices are made, they should always be subject to user testing. Test early before extensive coding is done.

For a quick user test of your nav bar, sit a new visitor your home page for 10 seconds and then read them each term in the primary nav bar asking them to describe what they would expect to find on each second level page.

Are they clear on what each term means?
Are their expectations for page content on target?
Can they suggest better terms?

Next, bring the home page back up and give them the task of finding a specific product/service. Ask them to share their thoughts and reactions out loud while you carefully watch their behavior for signs of confusion including back button clicks, resorting to ‘search” or the site map, or frustration. At no time should you offer any verbal prompts to help them complete the task. Consider testing seniors or teens if they are part of your market as well. Can they find what they need? Is it the fault of the nav bar, your information architecture or something else? This is only the most basic of user tests but testing just 5 users will show you the effectiveness of your nav bar (and much more).
For more testing instructions, read Zero Budget User Testing.

Begin now to plan out your nav bar improvements but before making wholesale site changes, be sure to read the upcoming navigation articles on Information Architecture and Non Nav Bar Elements,. Improving the UX by building a good nav bar will not earn rave reviews from your visitors; in fact most won’t even notice it but you will see it in the bottom line. Ensure that your new visitors become repeat customers with a great UX starting at the nav bar.

 This article was previously published on Web Marketing Today

Increase Business From Your Web Site!

Usability Expert Todd Follansbee

User Experience and Conversion Point Review The goal of a User Experience and Conversion Point Review is to help you insure that your web site delivers an effective conversion path, provides a successful branding experience, and communicates the information in a way which serves you best to deliver leads or sales More Info >>

]]> http://www.evisionsem.com/blog/2009/04/29/design-good-nav-bar/feed/ 0 http://www.evisionsem.com/blog/2009/03/18/cycling-messages-in-flash/ http://www.evisionsem.com/blog/2009/03/18/cycling-messages-in-flash/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:38:30 +0000 George Aspland http://www.evisionsem.com/blog/?p=493 We started a Google Adwords PPC campaign for a new client in January. It’s a monthly membership life style program.

Note -  I’ll be updating and presenting this case study at Pubcon in Las Vegas in November. If you’ll be there stop by:

Session: Increase Your Post Click Conversion Performance
Date: Wednesday November 11, 2009
Time: 11:30a 12:45p
Location: Salon B

Note – The schedule can change so check it online at www.pubcon.com/sessions.htm or check the schedule boards at Pubcon.

You can download the slides.
Includes Best Practices for Animations.

Flash Animation on Home Page Was Cycling Multiple Messages

On the home page, taking up fully half the browser window, was a Flash animation. It cycled through four messages automatically, as many of these Flash animations do.

Our user testing shows that not many people will watch a flash animation long enough to see multiple messages.

In fact many people don’t remember even a single message in a Flash animation.

As Todd Follansbee pointed out in his article regarding results from usability testing, people “rarely remember the content of Flash messages. Far more often they are able to remember simple static headlines.” (See below for a link to Todd’s Article).

I thought that many people where probably missing the most important message in this home page Flash animation – A message highlighting a compelling celebrity endorsement along with the monthly membership cost.

In fact I had visited the home page over a hundred times the previous two weeks and I never noticed the monthly membership cost in the Flash animation.

Stopping the animation leads to increase in sales!

I asked the client’s web developer to “freeze” the Flash animation so that the most important message is always displayed unless the user takes action to see the other frames (there are icons along the bottom of the animation a visitor can mouse over to see the other messages).

In other words, the Flash animation was turned into a static image with one frame always displayed unless the visitor takes action to see the other frames.

The Conversion Rate Increased About 164%
Displaying this single Flash frame to all visitors led to a significant improvement in the conversion rate and a reduction in the cost per conversion (membership signups).

Here are the numbers for the two most important AdGroups for a week before and a week after the change was made to the Flash animation -

Results of “Freezing” Flash animation on one message

Freezing the Flash animation increased the conversion rate and reduced the cost per conversion -

In Adgroup 1 the conversion rate increased from 1.9% to 4.6%. That’s an increase of over 240%

In Adgroup 2 the conversion rate increased from 2.4% to 3.3%., an increase of 150%

In total the conversion rate for both AdGroups increased from 2.2% to 3.6%. That’s an increase of about 164%

Even more important to the customer, the cost per conversion decreased from $36.18 to $21.26

The customer makes approximately $50 on a new membership the first year. Let’s look at what these results could mean over the cost of year assuming no seasonality etc:

ROI Estimate BEFORE Change to Flash Animation

 Before the change there were 19 memberships sold in a week.

 19 sales x 52 weeks = 988 sales per year

 988 Sales at $50 Gross profit per sale = $49,400 gross profit

 988 sales x Cost/conversion of 36.18 ea = $35,745.84 Ad Spend

 $49,400 gross profit – 35,745.84 Ad Spend = $13,654.16 Profit

ROI Estimate AFTER Change to Flash Animation

 After the change there were 33 memberships sold in a week.

 33 sales x 52 weeks = 1,716 sales per year

 1,716 Sales at $50 Gross profit per sale = $85,800 gross profit

 1,716 Sales x Cost/conversion of 21.26 ea = $36,482.16 Ad Spend

 $85,800 gross profit – 36,482.16 Ad Spend = $49,317.84 Profit

The improvements could results in $49,317.84 Profit instead of $13,654.16 Profit. That’s a pretty huge difference in ROI!

More User Testing Results about Flash Animations -

Read Todd Follansbee’s article “Distracting Cycling Images and Messages Can Hurt Profits: Learn how to improve conversion rates with a simple and effective solution“.

Increase Business From Your Web Site!

User Experience and Conversion Point Review

The goal of a User Experience and Conversion Point Review is to help you insure that your web site delivers an effective conversion path, provides a successful branding experience, and communicates the information in a way which serves you best to deliver leads or sales

More Info >>