Amy Africa's QLOG

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30 Proven Tips for Reducing Abandoned Carts, Part 2

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This is part 2 of a 5-part series.  Part 1 can be found here.  Part 3 can be found here.  Part 4 can be found here.  Part 5 can be found here.

6. Develop the Perfect Multi-Step Checkout. I know.  I know.  One-page checkouts are all the rage.  Why on earth would I recommend a multi-step?  Lots of reasons.  One-page checkouts don’t work for everyone.   I mean, if someone wants your product badly enough, they’ll force themselves through any kind of checkout (hello Yahoo stores) but the reality is that you should cater your checkout to your users on an individual basis – sometimes that’s a one-page checkout and sometimes it’s a multi-step checkout.   Plus, one-page checkouts don’t always give you an accurate indication of what’s not working in your checkout.

What’s a good multi-step checkout?  The most successful multi-step checkouts are usually five pages: Welcome, Bill To, Ship To, Payment, Confirmation.   You can test other variations but if you don’t have a good place to start, start with the one above.

7. The Welcome Page is the most important, ESPECIALLY if you don’t have the user’s email address.  The purpose of a welcome page?  To collect the user’s e-mail address so if they abandon at any point from then on, you can send them abandoned cart trigger emails.   Need another reason to keep your Welcome Page simple and to the point?  Research has repeatedly proven that the faster the user thinks your checkout process is, the likelier he is to finish it.If you master your multi-step and one-page checkouts, then you can work on your one-click-type checkout.   Single-step checkouts are great for items that are ordered consistently (consumables like ink cartridges, for example.)   Why doesn’t everyone have a single-step checkout?  Most of the reasons center around security, especially payments.   Single-step checkouts are NOT recommended for people who don’t excel security-wise.

8. Ask No Irrelevant Questions. Folks abandon carts and checkouts for a lot of reasons.  One of the biggest roadblocks to getting through a checkout?  A lot of trivial/unimportant questions.   Remember, relevancy is in the mind of the user.  So even though you may think a drop-down with 25 choices of
“where did you hear about us?” or “how many employees does your company have” is effective, chances are it’s not when it comes to the user.   Recommendation: save anything that doesn’t specifically pertain to the order till after they’ve hit the “complete my order” button.  You can ask the user whatever you want afterwards – in pop-surveys, follow-up emails, on the confirmation page, etc.  (If you must ask irrelevant questions in the checkout, don’t make them mandatory so if the user chooses not to answer them, they can still complete their order.)

9. Use pop-ups on exit. Yeah, yeah, I know.  Everyone hates pop-ups.  I’ve heard it all before.  Do yourself a favor and try them anyway.  I mean really, the people are LEAVING your site anyway. What do you have to lose?  Pop-ups are very dependent on creative so test 3-4 versions to determine which one(s) work best for you.   (More on pop-ups can be found here.)

10. Use catfishes, midis, windowshades on repeat. VERY few people do this and it always blows me away.  Someone abandons your cart, comes back two days later and what do they get?  Dirt squat.  Try welcoming your users back with a pop or bar that reminds your user that they have something in their cart and gives them an easy way to get right back to it.

7 Things Marketers Need To Know About Google +1

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Recently Google announced +1 (yes, Plus One, a name even more unfortunate than iPad), their version of the Facebook “like” button.   Google says +1 is shorthand for “this is pretty cool or “you should check this out” and that it’s designed to help you “share recommendations with the world – right in Google’s search results.”   For expert SEO’s, this is Google’s new version of PageRank.  For spammers, this is a dream come true.  For users, it’s a shiny button to keep them busy/involved/occupied/distracted.  For marketers, it’s yet another To Do to add to your never-ending list.

Here are 7 important things you should know about Google #1:

As it stands today, you need to be logged into your Google account to be able to +1 something.  (If you don’t see +1’s yet, sign up for Google’s experimental search site.)  When a user clicks the +1 button, their recommendation shows up in their Google public profile.   One of the biggest challenges of +1 is that a lot of users don’t even know they have a profile.  (If you have any kind of Google account, you have a profile.  You can see yours here:  https://profiles.google.com.) 

+1 will be enabled on all PPC ads.  Again, the user needs to be logged in their Google account to see and/or click the #1 button.  If someone in your network has clicked the #1 button their recommendation will show up at the bottom of the ad.  If nobody in your network has clicked on the +1 but a lot of people in general have, Google will show you that the page is popular.  (As with all things Google, this is subject to change.)   +1’s will not change PPC rankings.  As an advertiser, you will be able to opt out of the +1 program if you’d prefer not to participate.  Clicks on the +1 button do not count as paid clicks.  Allegedly, there will be reporting on your ads that are getting the most +1 clicks.

+1 will have an impact on your organic search rankings and it could be significant.  (Read: at least until the spammers  have their way with it.)  Google is not being shy about saying that getting folks to #1 your site is going to influence your organics in a positive way.  How much will it impact your particular site?   It will likely depend on your category and how social your users are.  It’s important to remember that even though customers have Twitter and Facebook accounts, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are active with them.  Plus, not everyone is a sharer.  Nor do all your customers search on their home computers with a logged in Google account.  In fact, if you’re at work, chances are good that you’re not logged into your personal Google account.  

Google says that in the future, you will be able to add #1 buttons on your site.  (They say this will be months, not weeks.)  This will undoubtedly be one of the biggest (and best) uses of the +1 program.  Unfortunately, it also adds another element for you to work into your already crowded website.  

Very few people are talking about this but of all the possible places for folks to +1, your product pages will likely be the most important.  You should keep track of which products/services that people are +1’ing.  Why?  Well, you may be able to do something with that information. Depending on how your customer is using +1, it may indicate a propensity to buy/use your products/services.  So, if the person clicks the +1 button and you’re tracking it on your end and you have their email address, you could send them a triggered email.   (EBOSI’s – Emails Based on Selected Interest are some of the most successful – and most underused – emails available to you.) 

Most people are thinking about the benefits of +1 for their Google rankings but if you’re really on top of things, there are lots of ways you can use +1 to your advantage on your own site as well.  For example, you can use your +1 results for merchandising (enhance the content, including videos, for the items with the most +1s); to solicit reviews on particular items; determine which other products and/or services you should recommend to a site visitor; customize a personalized landing page (just think, all my +1’s in one place); promote in PPC; worker harder to improve the organics; and feature more on Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, be sure to look at all the other icons (your Tweet This and Facebook Like buttons, for example) you use on your site and figure out which order you want your icons to be listed in.  Remember, the first one will get the most attention so prioritize them accordingly.

The bigger the brand, the better the chance they will benefit from Google +1.   Why?  Simple.  The more traffic you have, the more +1’s you are going to get.   If you are a little guy and want to make +1 work for you, you are going to need to work at.  (Like with orders, if you don’t ask for the click, you’re not going to get it.)

With +1 Google is going head-to-head with Facebook over ad dollars.  In the end, the company with the most data will win.  Right now, Google is highly dependent on gathering their browsing data through cookies.  With +1, Google will be able to find out more information about you, your likes and dislikes, your habits and so on. Depending on how successful the program is, this may or may not be important to you.  Google has committed to reporting on the +1 program (at least in the beginning) so use that to your advantage.  Look at if/how it’s impacting your organics.  Determine if/how it’s changing the way users click on your PPC ads.  Figure out how you can use it to your advantage on your web pages so you’re ready when it comes around.

Optimizing Mobile Site Speed & The Back Seat Driver

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My two year old nephew (aka the tiny terrorist) has road rage.

Strapped into his baby seat (you know, the one that even Houdini couldn’t get out of), he usually falls fast asleep in the car.

On the days, he’s not tired?  It’s Hell on wheels.  Literally.

“Get him!”

“Crash him!”

“Beat him!”

“GO FASTER!”

“Push the pedal brake and smack into his butt!”  (Obviously the wee one doesn’t really understand the fine mechanics of driving quite yet.)

On and on (and on), he barks orders non-stop from the back of the car.  (Yes, I have considered strapping him to the roof on many occasions.  Unfortunately, I think he’d prefer it.)

So, what does the future ADX Florence Maximum Security prisoner have to do with internet marketing?

Sadly, he’s a lot like people trying to do something – buy, inquire – anything – on their handheld mobile devices.  He doesn’t mind driving, er, backseat driving, as long as he’s in the lead – and everything is happening lickety-split FAST!  If things aren’t speedy?  Well, it’s a problem.

Mobile users are extraordinarily patient when it comes to navigating sites.   (It’s actually very surprising how much tolerance they have for the inane.  More on that later.)

What they don’t have patience for?  S-l-o-w site speed. 

I know. I know.  Every time I’ve done a speech on mobile I’ve heard the same thing – nobody in 2011 wants to hear anything about speed.  It’s Internet 101.  Been there.  Done that.

Unfortunately, it needs to be revisited.  Most US mobile consumers are on 3G networks.  Frankly, 3G is akin to a 56K modem.  It’s just not that fast.  In other words, that product video you have on your entry page?  Unless all your folks are on 4G, save it for now.  (Viral-type videos are an exception.  People will struggle through them.  99.9% of videos?  Not. Viral.)

Does this mean you can’t just miniaturize your current home page for your spiffy new redirected mobile site?  Unfortunately.   Your large 350K page just isn’t going to cut it.   To be really mobile-friendly, shoot for under 100K.  And yes, the best converting mobile sites often have simple 10K-ish pages.   (Yes, that was TEN.)

Need help determining how to fix your page speed?  Check out Google’s handy new Page Speed Online optimizer.  It’s free and it will make recommendations for your traditional site speed as well as your mobile speed.  (Enter your URl in the box.  After it gives you a report, you’ll see a mobile site speed option.)

30 Proven Tips for Reducing Your Abandoned Carts, Part I

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This is part 1 of a 5-part series.  Part 2 can be found here.  Part 3 can be found here.  Part 4 can be found here.  Part 5 can be found here.

1. Determine your REAL abandonment rate. I do a lot of speeches/webinars on abandoned carts and EVERY TIME I am finished, at least one person comes up to me and says something like “we have a 17% abandoned cart rate so I know we don’t have a problem with abandoned carts but —-.”  I usually cut them right off at the “but.”  Why?  Because if your abandoned cart rate is only 17%, you are probably not getting enough people to adopt to cart.  In other words, people on your site aren’t starting enough baskets.   Before you begin an abandoned cart program, you need to know where your abandons are happening.  On the view cart page?  In the checkout?  On the product page?   (Most folks make the mistake of not looking closely at the product pages.  The real challenges often start there.)

2. Next, figure out exactly which step(s) people are abandoning on. We tend to look at the pages that folks are stopping at but we don’t look at where they’re stopping.  So, if you know that a lot of people are exiting without filling out your entire payment page, look at exactly which step they are leaving on.  Perhaps the CID number is confusing them.   Maybe you have too many payment alternatives and they don’t know which one to use.  Whatever the reason is, you can’t fix it unless you know what it is so do a little digging and find out the info. (By the way, there are lots of ways to find this out – server calls, time trials, with a package like TeaLeaf (pricey but one of my favorites) or ClickTale (does the trick especially if you click here now to sign up for a FREE account) and so on.)

3. Develop a perpetual cart. These days, everyone and their duck wants a popcart.  (See Harry and David for an example.)  Granted,  popcarts are WAY sexier than perpetual carts but unfortunately, depending on your audience, they’re not always as effective when it comes to adoption or overall conversion.   What’s in a perfect perpetual cart?  A cart icon, a 100% secure shopping guaranteed tag (if you have it, of course), the number of items in the cart, the dollar value of what’s in the cart and links to view cart, print cart, email cart or save cart.   Most important, add a big CHECKOUT NOW button to your perpetual cart when the first item is added to the cart.

4. Put your perpetual cart in more than one place. The best place for your perpetual cart is the top upper righthand corner of your website.   However, there’s no rule that you can have only one perpetual cart per page.  In fact, companies with high checkout impressions often have 2, 3 or sometimes even 4 perpetual carts.  Where do you put them?  Put one in the righthand column (should be in the middle-ish of your righthand column) and one in the bottom column.  (The bottom perpetual carts tend to work best when placed in the center.)  If you decide to add a 4th, put it in the lefthand column after your store index.  (It can be above or below your About Us section.)

5. Try using CHECKOUT NOW buttons or arrows. You need to test these (they work well for about 85% of companies.)  These should be in the top and/or the bottom of the middle column.  Why would you put these on your site?  Well, research has shown that after the first page, the user tends to look down the middle column.  They look to the left when they need help and they look to the right when they are about to leave.  Thus, BIG, SMACKY, IN-YOUR-FACE buttons focus your user on the most important task at hand – paying you!  (You’ll find a good example below.)

The #1 Way To Increase Your Website Conversion

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I got another e-mail this morning from some guy named “Anonymous.”

It was hostile as his e-mails usually are (although being named Anonymous would likely take a toll on anyone) but at paragraph six, he posed an interesting question.

“Don’t you think it’s hypocritical for you to be speaking at the Conversion Conference? You don’t even believe in mother*&^%ing conversion.”

Mother*&^% conversion, I thought. Is there a church for that? Or is it a more Zen-like religion?

Putting aside all my snarky thoughts for a second, I realized that maybe, just maybe, Anonymous had a point.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s one of the few public engagements that I am doing this year and I am VERY psyched about it (the program is top-notch). With that said, I AM on record that I think conversion is over-rated.

Do I believe in it? Absolutely. My clients and my career depend on it.

Do I think it’s the closest thing to God you can get business-wise and that it deserves the obsession that’s allocated to it? Not. So.  Much.

You see, the thing about conversion is that if you want to double, triple, even quadruple your conversion, you can just block all the garbage traffic that’s bringing your conversion rate down.

Your conversion as a percentage will skyrocket.

But sadly, it’s more than likely that your sales and profits won’t. In fact, in most cases, they spiral. Downward.

There’s not a day that goes by that some CEO or President doesn’t tell me that their conversion sucks and that they’re thinking about firing their VP of Marketing because of the… well, suckage.

Granted, a lot of the mucky-mucks I speak with should fire their guys but it’s not for THAT particular reason. A lot of times they’ve read some random blog that says Schwan’s has 40% conversion. So they’re comparing their B2B site that sells high-end machinery that you only need to buy once every ten years – equipment that is so complicated that you need to talk to a salesperson before you buy it – with a site that sells home-delivery food? Um, last I knew, you had to eat daily and if you’re going to buy Schwan’s, you’re going to buy Schwan’s. A good comparison? Not in this lifetime.

You can’t pull conversion numbers out of thin air – or the nearest Quora answers – and think you’re going to match them. There are a lot of variables in play – your product, your site, your e-mail program, and so on — you can’t assume that your numbers are going to be like everyone else’s. (Well, you can but you know what assuming does for both of us.)

So, should you measure conversion? Yes. It’s critical BUT you should look at in relation to other things, especially bottom line dollars.

What’s a good conversion rate to have? You need to break your traffic down into different buckets. Dumping everything into one big, rusty pail and then looking at an overall number is an exercise in futility. Even your PPC traffic will convert differently than your SEO traffic, for goodness sake.

One of the biggest mistakes traditional direct marketers make is they don’t look at their offline traffic properly. For example, if you’re a cataloger, what kind of conversion are you getting on your “Ordering From a Catalog” Form? Are you getting over 85%? If not, why not? What level of tolerance would you have for your call center if 100 people called and 95% of them hung up and didn’t place their order? Would your VP of Inbound have a job? Not likely, right?

What’s the easiest way to increase your conversion? (Besides dumping your garbage traffic that is.) Look at your adoption to action numbers. Few conversion specialists/consultants talk about adoption to action, yet it’s one of the fastest, easiest ways to improve your bottom line. You want to know what action(s) folks are taking on your site to get to their end goals. So, for example, if you’re an ecommerce company, your overall goal is to get orders. The way you get orders is for people to put stuff into their carts. Your goal is ATC (adopt to cart) so you need to look at that as a number. Out of 100 people who come to your site, how many folks are adopting to cart?

Next, you’ll want to look at adoption to action within the checkout, starting with the view cart page (which, by the way, is not always necessary and should be on your list to test if you haven’t done so already.) In checkout, each step has an adoption to action rate. Why? Because that way you’ll know where you’re losing your users. The more you know about your users, the more you can control them. (Insert diabolical laugh here.) It’s all a numbers game so the more you know, the better.

Have more conversion related questions? Jot them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer

P.S. By the way, in case you missed what will likely be known as one of my many notorious shameless plugs, I am speaking at the Conversion Conference on March 14th. I may regret this but if you come see me, I’ll give you a free hour (maybe 1.5 if you’re nice) of consultation on anything web related. And wait, there’s more, if you use this code CCW901, you can save $250 when you register now — as in right this very minute.  (Officially it’s by March 11th but if I get a lot of takers on this PS, I am deleting it!) Sign up today to save!

Shawkneekwah vs. Amy: The Basics of Building a Profitable Online Business

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{Note from Amy: This is an important post If you don’t want to read the story, skip down to the end and ask yourself the questions. Hopefully, they’ll make you think about your e-commerce site or your blog in a different way.}

***

Last night, I was at my favorite gym in LA. Unlike the chi-chi-la-la meat market I wrote about a few days ago, I happen to like this place. Granted, it’s got just as many bimbelinas as the other one but it makes up for its weaknesses with fantastic group exercise classes. My favorite is Soul Boxing — not kickboxing but full contact boxing – where you actually need a release form on file to participate.

I was late and the class was full so I headed on over to the Cycle class. I really love Bob (the 8:30 pm teacher) – he’s hilarious which is a good thing because he beats the hell out of the participants. You may as well die laughing right?

Unfortunately Bob was “sick.” In his place, Shawkneekwah. (Yes, that’s how she spells it, I saw it embroidered on her gym bag.) Shawkneekwah is one of those militant fitness instructors who believes if she SCREAMS AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS some scout will ask her to replace Jillian Michaels on next season’s Biggest Loser.

To make a long story short, Shawkneekwah and I did not hit it off.

She had great music but she was doing all sorts of crazy things, none of which I wanted to be a part of – I like my spine, thank you very much.

About 15 minutes into the class, she got off her bike, stomped over to mine, and shouted in my ear: “Are you deaf?”

It was all I could do not to bitch-slap her.

I just kept cruising. If you hang around a 2-year old for enough time, you know how effective the silent treatment can be.

“DID YOU HEAR ME? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? CAN YOU NOT HEAR MY INSTRUCTIONS? YOU CANNOT PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IN MY CLASS!” She screamed.

“And I thought it was called Bike Buffet.” I calmly replied.

Not-so-surprisingly, Shawkneekwah did not get my joke. (Granted, it wasn’t very funny but….)

“THIS IS AN ADVANCED CLASS IF YOU CANNOT DO WHAT I SAY, GET OFF THE BIKE AND COME BACK TO THE BEGINNER’S CLASS AT 10.” She belted.

Dead silence.

About three quarters of the class knows me personally and those who didn’t took the cues from the ones who do and immediately dropped their heads straight down. (More bad alignment as the result of Shawkneekwah.)

“I AM TALKING TO YOU MISSY.” Every inch of her 5’1” petite frame trembled. It didn’t take a rocket scientist or even a glance at her tomato-red face to know that my pal, Shawkneekwah, was quite livid.

“I understand.” I whispered as I increased the tension on my bike. (Note: if someone is screaming at you, whispering back at them infuriates them even more. It’s all rather lovely.)

“THEN DO WHAT I SAY OR LEAVE NOW.” Her words, flying like missiles.

I slowly counted to ten in my head, not because I was angry (I wasn’t) but more because I really thought she might explode like a volcano which, if nothing else, would have been an entertaining distraction.

But alas, Shawkneekwah did not burst so I said something like “You’d be a solid instructor if you didn’t make up all these BS exercises to do on the bike. I know you need to be certified to teach here so I am positive you know that no-hand steadies backwards on the bike is not good form, REALLY dangerous and it’s TERRIBLE for these bikes.”

Shakneekwah took one look at me (you know, the I-want-to-spit-in-your-face-but-I-don’t-dare-do-it look) and walked defiantly back to her bike.

I’m not debating that she wished me death at that moment, she most certainly did. But I’m willing to bet that she also knew deep-down, in her 8-pack core, that I was right. Her ever-so-brilliant (cough) idea to hover with your hands in a prayer pose behind your back is unnecessary and downright stupid. If you didn’t know what you were doing – and even if you did – you could easily get hurt.

In consulting you come across Shawkneekwah’s frequently. Reasonably competent people who would be fairly good/useful if they’d just stick to the basics… Sadly, adhering to the basics is something they are COMPLETELY INCAPBLE of doing. Whether it’s boredom or just plain insanity – they make garbage up to sound like they know something new and revolutionary… something you don’t.

I am not talking about breaking rules or trying to outperform better-than-most practices (both of which I am a big fan of), I’m referring to people who want you to do Camel poses on a stationary bike.

As you get better/stronger in a cycle class, you increase the tension – making it more difficult to pedal. In the web world, it’s very much the same way. As part of building your good site foundation, you may implement user ratings and reviews. As you improve, you’ll learn to prioritize those reviews so they’re not organized by date but by significance. (BIG impact on a shoestring budget.) You may have instigated/proactive chat in your checkout and search results pages at the beginning. As you learn the ins and outs of chat, you may move to chat ordering. (Companies who’ve mastered this praise its many benefits including significant average order increases.)

Are those things as sexy as segmenting e-mail addresses by Klout score? No. Do they sound as enchanting as time-stamped short codes? Nope. But will they mean a lot more to your bottom line? Absolutely.

Think you’ve already mastered the basics? Then answer this….

If you’re an e-commerce marketer…

What’s your adoption-to-cart rate? Out of 100 people, how many folks are actually putting stuff in their baskets? Most folks know their abandoned cart rate but they don’t know their adoption rate is equally, if not more, important. (If you’re a service business, use lead/quote forms in place of carts.)

What percentage of your folks are abandoning from your internal text search? Are you segregating the people who abandon on “successful” searches versus “unsuccessful” searches? There’s no doubt that folks who use your internal text search function are more likely to buy than almost anyone else who visits your site but you’ve got to separate your search results. Just because you think a search was a success because you showed your customer products doesn’t mean that it worked at all. You need to know how many folks abandon from your search AND how many folks abandon on any of the three subsequent pages after the search. (You can track more than 3 but knowing the first three will have the most impact.)

What’s your direct/no referrer completion rate? Is it quadruple (or more) your next best performing traffic segment? If not, why not?

Is your trigger e-mail program performing at 4 to 6 times (or more) your best performing thrust e-mail? How is it impacting deliverability?

Are you serving different checkouts to different people or do you just have one checkout for registered users and one for new folks? Checkouts, like entry pages, should be dynamic and based on the visitor’s user paths/streams.

***

If you’re a blogger…

Are 35% or more of the folks who come to your site taking an action? Signing up for your free newsletter, for example. (Taking an action does not mean leaving a comment.)

How much of your traffic is brand-new? Are over 60% of your first-time visitors coming back? Blogging “experts” say it’s all about the first-time visitors but that’s a lie. Yes, new traffic is VERY important but the key to a successful blog (in terms of conversion to an action or an order) is your repeat traffic.

What’s the average number of posts that new visitors are reading on your site? Little known fact about blogging: that’s where you need to pay close attention to your bounce rate.

What’s your referral rate for your blog? Out of 10 people, how many share it with their friends or colleagues? Knowing this percentage helps you determine what your future traffic will be which is beneficial because, in the end, it’s all a number’s game.

***

The above? All questions about the BASICS of your site that you should know. No fancy stuff. No bells and whistles. No pigeon poses or fancy twists without floor support.

Still got work to do? Thought you might. In the end, we should all be working on increasing our intensity on the basics. It’s just that simple.

Have a question or comment about your business? Send me an e-mail at info@amyafrica.com or jot it in the comments below.

5 Sure-Fire Tips for Improving Your Internal Text Search

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Shannon Colyer writes “I saw you speak two years ago with my then VP.  (We have a new one now.)  You advised us not to purchase a $150,000+ guided navigation program  because you said that it wouldn’t fix our data problems.  The VP (my then boss) thought you were nuts so we bought it anyway.  Our whole ecommerce team agreed with your points but he vetoed us.  Anyway, what you said would happen is exactly what happened  and now we have a worse internal search function than we did before.  Don’t even get me started about our navigation.  I think it’s what you call a Polynesian Train Wreck!  Our new VP is one of those hatchet types and won’t let us spend any more money to fix it until we ‘prove we know what we’re doing.’  What can we do?  Do you have any suggestions?  I understand if you think we’re too much of a lost cause at this point to help but any suggestions you have will be greatly appreciated.”

Dear Shannon:

So, let me get this straight.  Rain Man was replaced by Chainsaw Al and your text search sucks?  Is that right?

Not to worry, most sites have craptastic text search functions.  You are not alone. 

Here are some tips for you or anyone else whose text search function leaves a lot to be desired…

Focus on your top products, starting with the top 10%.  Those are the things that people MUST be able to find so do whatever it is that you need to do to make that happen.  (If you’re a company that doesn’t have products per se, do the same thing with your services or benefits.) 

Make sure the most important stuff is found first.   You have three items (or features) to prove that you know what you’re talking about.  The first thing you show is, by far, the very most important.  What does that mean?  It means that you need to look at your top xx searches (my recommendation: start with the top 100) and look at the first item you see.  If it’s not your bestseller (or the item you most want to sell), figure out how to change it.   (Again, do this on your top products first.)

Spend more time perfecting your navigation.  Solid C-navigation (top, bottom and left) takes a lot of pressure off your text search.

Make sure you’ve addressed The Word Connect.  It seems simplistic but it will help you a lot and it will give you a totally new perspective on your users.

Bury your text search box.  Yes, I know, this is NOT at all a popular recommendation, but if your text search stinks it’s worth, well, hiding it.  Companies who sell search programs are the ones who’ve put out the majority of information about where your text search box should be.   They almost always say to put it in the top righthand corner or middle column of your site.  Why? Because this is where it gets used most.  Sadly, what they don’t tell you is that whatever you put in the top righthand corner or middle column is going to get a lot of attention because those are two of the BIGGEST hot spots on your site.  If your text search is weak, put it in the top lefthand column underneath your e-mail sign-up box.  It will still be easy to access for your users but they won’t confuse you as a library not a bookstore & you’ll reduce the number of unsuccessful searches.  (If you have the perfect search, put it in the top middle column.)

There are lots of other tips for improving your internal text search but those are the ones I’d start with.  The key is to really look at what people are searching for on (and off) your site and then fix those results first.  Your visitors will set the course if you let them.   Even the worst of the internal text search packages usually takes care of the plurals and misspellings but a lot of times the other stuff takes a lot of manual tweaking.  (Yes, that’s contrary to what they tell you.)

Have other tips for fixing a broken internal search?  Add them in the comments below or e-mail them to me at info@amyafrica.com and I will add them to a future post!

P.S.  And Shannon, Polynesian Train Wreck sites are those that look like the Easter Bunny threw up all over them.  Next time, get the lingo straight ok?

A Pound of Muscle Weighs More Than a Pound of Fat & Other Lies

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The other day, my schedule got jacked and I ended up working out at my chi-chi-la-la gym in the evening.

This is the kind of athletics club where the women spend an hour BEFORE they break a sweat (cough) applying fresh make-up and readjusting their barely-there string tops and Spandex low-rise shorts.   (It would irk me except that none of the bimbelinas use the free weights side of the room so it’s basically estrogen free and sans drama. Just the way I like it.)

On this particular evening, there was only one 40-ish year old female along with her trainer on the side I frequent.  The woman had more plastic than a Mattel fashion doll and was wearing a faux cashmere get-up that made her stand out like a sore thumb in this crowd.  (Read: when you work out here it’s assumed that you’re available, you needn’t plaster JUICY all over your flipping a**.)

Barbie (not her real name) was being politely reprimanded by Ken (her trainer’s real name) that she was being unreasonable about the speed in which she was seeing results.

“A pound of muscle weighs more than a pound of fat” he exclaimed rather righteously.

Ahh, the lies personal trainers tell their clients so they don’t get fired, I thought. 

Yes, a pound of muscle take up less space than fat but last I knew, a pound weighed a pound, no matter what it was comprised of – water, muscle, fat…

As Barbie pouted and contemplated the complex math equations she had been presented, I reflected on a conversation I’d had earlier in the week.  The guy was very, very, very smart and based on the questions he was asking, I knew he was being bamboozled by his internet marketing consultant who was helping him with his platform upgrade.   It’s no secret that most of the consultants in this industry take a percentage of the action, so they often have a vested interest in the packages and add-ons their clients use.  (For the record, we don’t take a penny.) 

He had been told an internet consultant’s lie – on part with Ken’s personal trainer lie – that it’s best and most efficient to do everything at once.  “Saves time!  Saves money!  It’s more efficient! ”  Many consultants cry.

On what planet? I ask.  The one where a pound of muscle weighs more than a pound of fat?

Whether you are a blogger or a multi-billion ecommerce company, the rules are the same.  You need a good foundation to have a great house.  

The key to the most successful internet companies is that they focus on the things that are important to the user.  They know what they need and what they don’t.  And, most of all, they constantly read and react to their results.   

I understand what Ken was trying to tell Barbie – that as she was building more muscle, she may not have the weight loss that she was expecting short-term. But, in the long-term, she’d catch up because muscle burns more calories than fat.

That’s the same thing that happens with your website.  If you have a solid foundation, you will make more money than one with a weak foundation and a lot of bells and whistles.   Yes, the new forms of dynamic personalization are very sexy but if your checkout or lead forms suck, it’s not going to make a damn bit of difference.

What things make up a good foundation?  Easy.  Solid entry pages; the perfect checkout/lead forms; good navigation (including text search function); and aggressive e-mail programs (thrusts and especially triggers).   Those are your muscle.  Do you have those elements perfected?  Or do you need to work on strengthening them?

5 Things Nobody Ever Tells You About Increasing Mobile Conversions

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increasing your mobile and website conversionThink increasing conversion on your regular website is tough?  Well, fasten your seatbelts because the problems you’re facing there are only a tenth of what you’ll experience when you enter into the land of selling on a 2 x 4.  It’s a challenge to say the least.  Here are five things you simply must know…

1/ Users expect a connect between your mobile site/app and your regular site and marketing materials.  Granted, you don’t have to be EXACTL Y the same but you do need similarity as more than three quarters of your folks are going to use BOTH FOR THE SAME TRANSACTION.   Where is the connect the most important?  On all your entry pages, especially your “official” home page.

2. You must know what your users are doing online to achieve any kind of significant conversion to, well, anything.   Whether you want inquiries or orders, you need to know what your users are doing with their phones before you start asking for it.  Why?  Because people who come from Facebook behave differently than people who come from Twitter and people who come from Twitter aren’t at all like people who come from your e-mails and text messages.  Granted, this sounds like a ridiculous tip but the truth is that it’s one of the most critical.  Why?  Because a lot of social media activity is done on smart/feature phones and if that’s the case with your business, that could be the first place you look to get more sales/inquiries.  Companies who are interested in mobile tend to overbuild areas in hopes that if “you build it they will come.”  That’s ok but it’s usually better to build where the users are first.

3. Onsite search trips everyone up.  Sadly, whatever search problems you have on your site will be about 30 times worse on your mobile site.  That’s the bad news about mobile.  The good news is that if you can streamline some of your issues, your increased conversions will more than make up for it.  (So few companies are doing anything on mobile that even if your site isn’t perfect, a little effort will go a very long way.)  Your onsite text search will be heavily adopted if your navigation is weak.  Therefore, if you want to make your site better without breaking the bank, work on your navigation, especially your jump links.

4. Mobile checkouts need to be more than miniaturized versions of your regular checkout, no matter how perfect your traditional checkout is.   Building the perfect mobile checkout is a difficult process and it takes time and a lot of testing to see what works and what doesn’t.    While you’re working on it, make sure that you offer lots of alternatives to ordering on the handheld – put your phone number all over the site till you think you have it in far too many places.  Then double the occurrences.   Same with your e-mail address and any click-to-call or mobile enabled live chat and text messaging options. 

5. Abandoned cart programs work like gangbusters. As a rule of thumb, take whatever your performance is on your existing program and then triple it. That’s what you should get from a mobile abandoned cart program.  (You’ll get even better results if you include text messaging in your efforts.)   Remember, a program includes more than one e-mail (preferably 5-6), pop-ups (midis, catfishes, sidewinders work best), outbound telemarketing efforts on large orders, and so on.

Bonus tip: Speaking of text messaging…  It will be one of the best tools in your arsenal.  Test it now, before it gets really popular.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.

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One of my clients e-mailed me this quote the other day.  He found it on Adam Kmiec’s blog and thought of me because he knows how much I LOVE RAIN (especially HUGE thunderstorms and puddlejumping with the terrorists) and he felt it summed up a visit I’d had with his team the previous week.

The nanosecond our meeting started, his folks started passing me their individual Wish Lists.  Pages and pages of paper with things that they wanted to do on their next resdesign.

Over eighteen hundred items (and at least one dead tree) full of things they’ve been wanting to but haven’t done yet.

Shockingly, some of the items had been on the list for over two years.

Two years?

In internet years, that’s at least three lifetimes!

Here’s the thing…. 

The internet is not paper.  (Thankfully.)  What you put on your website today is not permanent.  You can change it any time you like.  Right this very minute in fact.

Yes, I realize that everyone and their brother already knows that but do companies act like it?  Not.  So.  Much.

The majority of folks are still treating the online world like the offline world – they put together a big list of stuff for the next major website revision and then they work to that specific date six months out.  Just like they would a catalog or a television commercial.

Or, in other cases, a couple changes snowballs to become a website overhaul, not a website refresh.   The screaming girls get ignored in favor of typo changes on pages that are never viewed.  People move at the speed of a bicycle, not at the speed of light.  It’s a problem and it impacts your bottom line.

You need to learn to dance in the rain.

The company I was visiting had almost 2,000 items for their next relaunch?  Nobody, and I do mean nobody, is ever going to get 2,000 items done and done correctly in a website relaunch.  It doesn’t happen and frankly, it shouldn’t.  If you have 2,000 items to do, it means you don’t know how to prioritize and prioritization is THE key to your web success.   (It’s sort of like dressing for the weather. You don’t want to wear a bikini in a blizzard, right?)

The storm never really passes on the internet because the internet is THE storm.  It’s never going to be over.  (And if you’re clueless enough to think it is, tell me what you’re doing with mobile, ok?)

My suggestion to you….

Throw away this whole “complete redesign” process.  Start looking at daily and weekly changes, not changes six months out.  

Focus on what’s important.  Not to you but to your users.  Figure out what they want, what they need and how you can better give it to them.  All too often these things on your wish list are just that, YOUR wishes, not your users’ wants and needs. 

And above all, measure what matters.