Getting it wrong: Change & Measurement on the Internet
Charles Arthur from The Guardian
The first couple of slides Charles showed sums up beautifully what we keep telling everyone “the web site is there to generate £ for you”… he said these little nuggets of gold:
:: Sales is vanity
:: Profit is sanity
:: Cash is king
And he converted that online to:
:: Page views is vanity
:: Clicks are sanity
:: Transactions are king
Other points to take away from his sessions are:
- The Guardian actually gets more traffic from Facebook than via Google News.
- Compare.com is a good site for comparing the traffic levels to different sites (yours vs the competition?)
- Are you aware that you can have an “I like this” Facebook button on your site, and if a Facebook user clicks it your site will be listed on their profile?
- 75% of Twitter traffic doesn’t come through the Twitter website but through their different applications like TweetDeck. So if you look at your referring Twitter traffic you should typically multiply with 4 on the to know the full picture.
Could you think of different ways to sell/advertise your goods/services outside your normal site?
- The most valuable part of social media for you could be just listening to the conversations going on about your brand name and industry.
Have you tried doing a search on Twitter for example for one of your relevant key phrases, see what come up?
- 3 x increase in websites being access via mobile smartphones in the last year and by 2015 smartphones will outsell the normal phone.
Do you know how many of your visitors are viewing your site on a mobile phone?
- There is an iphone simulator where you can see how your web site displays on an iPhone www.testiphone.com
- Html5 vs. Flash. Keep in mind that Flash cannot currently be viewed on any mobile phones. Html5 is forecasted to become very big, so don’t get left behind.
- SMEs are developing Apps and using Apps as new advertisement opportunities for mobile. USB keys for advertisement is so out of date, today you need an App!
Keep in mind what the aim of your App is!
What is new with Google
Susan Hallam
As always Susan had some great little updates on what is new with Google, here are some of the ones we picked up:
- Big change in layout which everyone has no doubt noticed. Lots of different options on the left hand side now, but did you realise that Google gives different option depending on the type of search it thinks you did i.e. were you trying to buy something or just looking for info.
- New shopping options, new page preview option.
- The “
- Rich snippets – this could offer great potential for people! For certain searches you may notice a new bit of info displaying, for example star ratings and reviews for hotels and restaurants and sales information for shopping sites.
- Google local business centre is now called Google Places.
Watch out if you work from home, they will now show a picture of your house! Make sure to disable this setting!
You can also also set which geographical areas your business cover.
You can also get a new report that shows how often your map listing has been displayed and for what key phrases and how many clicked on it.
- AdWords will now show you exactly which phrases brought people to your site instead of just showing the phrase you paid for.
- AdWords is no also showing you the time of conversions, so you can make you campaign active only when people are likely to be buying/converting.
- AdWords are now also showing “assisted click”, i.e people who clicked on your add, then didn’t convert instantly but came back again at a later date to buy.
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The web inspector
Susan Hallam
In this session Susan gave feedback on a range of web sites volunteered by the audience – a bit like what we do at our “Getting started sessions” actually.
Susan presented “Susan’s 5 Ss” and I think they are brilliant! She says, you must assume your web site visitors are:
Stupid: Don’t speak too “industry jargon”, make it easy and obvious where to go and what to do!
Selfish: It is all about them and what they need, so don’t go on about you. If they are purchasing for their job they want to know they are making a safe choice so they don’t get in trouble for the decision later.
Sceptical: Trust is something you earn, so display any certifications, industry awards, customer feedback etc that can help build trust in your business.
Stubborn: Typically, especially in B2B, people will arrive on your site with a mentality of “I am not buying anything today, just looking!”. So how can you tie them in a little bit for when they are ready to buy? Get them to download a product specification so they keep your details, get them to sign up for newsletters, get them to log an interest or place an enquiry?
Stuck: Don’t display “dead-end” pages where it is hard to know where to go or what to do next. Make strong clear calls to actions, no matter where they land on your site.
We were also pleased to hear that Susan’s advise for increasing conversions are pretty much the same guide lines as we talk about with business. Your web site needs:
:: Clear proposition
:: Strong call to action
:: Signals that build trust
:: Great copy (an area where most fall short!)
:: Customer journey through your site (this is what we call the linear path!)
:: Quick loading time (higher speed is directly linked with higher conversion)
There were some good tips in this sessions as well about layout and design – which can sometimes feel very intangible and down to personal preference.
Susan showed www.visitnortheastengland.com on the big screen and a “wow” went through the room and there was talks about a “John Lewis” effect where everything looks beautiful!
If we showed your website on a big screen would it get a “wow” from the audience?
Tips for appealing designs were:
- De-clutter your home page. Allows white space and use a very limited colour palette!
- Stick to the “rule of 7” - The conscious mind can only focus on 7 things.
- Do audience segmentation for your home page for stronger linear path. If you sell to different customer groups for example students and adults then make it obvious where each group should go.
Improving the eCommerce user experience
Dr. Mike Baxter
Anyone running an eCommerce web site should be worried about the user experience on their sites and the effect it has on conversion rate. There were some good things to take away and think about in this session and I even learnt some phrases/word I had never heard off before (maybe that is just because I am foreign)!
- Broken promises and poor user experience is what breaks most conversions!
- Too much choice reduce conversion rate. In a study the started out selling 6 different types then increased the offer to 24 different types and the conversion dropped by 90%!
- “Anticipated regret”, anyone heard about that before? This is the concept that people struggle to make a purchasing choice because they worry about getting home and feeling they picked the wrong one!
Keep in mind that people will also feel this away about shopping on your site!
- “The elephant and the rider” – the rider is common sense, the elephant is “emotional choice”, the rider is completely in control until the elephant chooses to go somewhere else. I.e. if you can get people to make an emotional choice, you have a better chance of making a sale.
- “Constructed preference”, make sure to tell the user “what you really need is…”. Our negative thoughts are much stronger than our positive; a user will need 5-10 times more positive thoughts to convince themselves to buy.
- Don’t show only the cheap low cost offers on your home page as it will anchor the pricing expectations too low.
- John Lewis increased sales 40% based on their recent “Spend it before you die” TV add.
- You need to quality your up-sell and cross-sell. “This is more expensive and better quality because …”
- Cross selling is good for both conversion and SEO.
- Show the scope of what you sell on your Home page, don’t only display sofas if you also sell bedroom and kitchen furniture.
- Make sure people can find things. If a product could potentially belong to different categories make sure people find it no matter which route they take. Offer a search option on your site – search converts 3 times more than normal navigation.
- Ensure your back button works – people use this buttons a lot and often eCommerce sites often just return an error page, make sure yours doesn’t.
- Single biggest reason for abandoning a cart is needing to register – make the registration happen automatically the first time they visit and just ask for a password at the of the process.
- Make it very clear where in the checkout process they are, how many steps still to go. Keep showing them reassuring data like their name, the total cost of the order, delivery cost etc.
- Saving shopping baskets can increase conversion – the boss might have turned up forcing the user to close the screen but they will be back later. (But make sure to reconcile this with your stock system.)
- Radio buttons are often better than dropdown lists as all options are visible.
- Don’t upset people with too much and too tight validation on your form fields.
- If you are using third party payment system warn and reassure people that they are being sent off to a secure payment portal.
- Be careful on your button labelling, name them with the usual and expected terminologies.
- During the checkout process the only item to stand out on each page should be the “continue/next” button. Put a screenshot of your site into PhotoShop and blur it, can you still easily tell where the call to action is?
Slides from the presentations
The slides from the presentations are available on Susan Hallam’s web site http://www.shcl.co.uk/blog/2010/05/the-internet-conference-powerpoint-presentations.html
Find out more about Susan Hallam her Internet marketing services.
