Over the past ten years the mindset of SEO has evolved significantly. In the early years, website optimization was considered more of an IT expense handled by computer geeks. But over the years, businesses (and SEOs) began to change their frame of mind, realizing that search engine optimization was much closer to traditional marketing than they had thought.

After all, SEO is about getting exposure. Whether that is through on-page optimization, link building, social media, etc., the idea is to get as many targeted eyeballs on a site as possible. But that itself isn’t enough, because once the eyeballs are on the site the website has to make some money too. So now SEOs focus on usability (enhancing the visitor/shopper’s experience on the site) and conversions (getting sales, leads, subscribers, etc.). Exposure only brings traffic, usability allows the visitors to find the information they need, but ultimately it’s the conversions that matter most.

Continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

When putting the framework for a solid optimization campaign, you have to spend some time evaluating various aspects of your site. This evaluation gives you an idea of any shortcomings the site has, what will be required to overcome the competition, and will then allow you to map out an effective strategy for success. But there is more to the evaluation than just looking at how the website currently performs in the on- and off-page analyses.

In the first two parts of this series, I addressed which on- and off-page elements that need to be analyzed in order for you to determine the actions necessary to create a successful campaign. But before this type of analysis is performed, there is another crucial aspect that should be analyzed first.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Whether you are putting together a proposal for a client or assessing your own needs, you need to be able to accurately predict how much time, energy and effort will be necessary to build a successful SEO campaign. Of course, in order to predict the time involvement, you need to first know the strengths and weaknesses of the website, which will then help you determine what will need to be done to accomplish your goals and make the site a viable competitor.

Last week, I went over several areas that need to be considered and analyzed in order to accurately put together a framework for a workable SEO campaign. I’ll finish that list today before moving on to part three, where we’ll discuss the goals of the campaign – another vital aspect.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Every SEO campaign has to start somewhere. Any good plan, whether you’re building a home, preparing for a family vacation, or looking to optimize your website for search rankings, starts with research. Before you are ready to optimize your first piece of code, you need to understand the landscape around you, which means you need to know the condition of your site as it currently is and the goals you wish to achieve over the course of your campaign.

Neither fully understanding the condition of your site nor your long-term goals is easy. Performing a site-wide analysis can be time consuming and can lead the untrained person around in circles, wondering what is important and what isn’t. And while the analysis is tangible, putting together realistic goals to be accomplished is full of wild speculation mixed with some good luck and a whole lot of good business sense.

Let’s first look at the site analysis. That will give you a pretty good picture of the site’s condition and its pitfalls as well as helping you to better understand what may being going right about it. This information isn’t meant to be an all inclusive site analysis, but just a pretty quick overview of various elements that should be considered to more fully understand where the site is at and what lies ahead in terms work that needs to be performed.

Continue reading at Search Engine Guide… or listen to the podcast above.

Performing a complete website review is rarely easy. I’ve found that you can start a site analysis intending to spend just a few minutes looking over it only to find that it quickly spirals into a multi-hour marathon of research. Complete website reviews can be time consuming and often produce many more hours of work beyond that.

One of the problems is that people tend want to skip right to search engine optimization forgetting that users matter. Many people want to rush into the marketing without realizing that the website itself is part of the marketing process. This is a shame.

Investing in SEO and PPC marketing, without having performed a thorough analysis of your website is largely an exercise in vain (and yes, even new websites often need a usability analysis!) You don’t have to have a perfectly usable site in order to rank well in search engines, but it is increasingly difficult to rank a site without a strong usability focus, unless you’re in a very niche industry. And even if you do rank well, without good usability you’re losing more customers than you need or want to be losing.

Where do you start in performing a usability review?

One of the hurdles many people have in performing a usability review of their own site is that they don’t know where to start. Over the past several months I’ve written a number of posts outlining various usability and website architectural elements that should be a part of any detailed review process. But going through each of those can take many hours.

Being able to do a quick-scan through a site can be a very handy skill. It will help you uncover some glaring issues without having to invest hours upon hours of time all at once. After you have performed your quick scan and have fixed the bigger issues, you then have an opportunity to go back and perform a more thorough analysis.

Here is what you need to know in order to do a quickie usability review. I’ve also provided links to my previous posts that provide you with a lot more detail and will help you perform a more thorough analysis as time permits.

19 steps for a quickie usability review

Website navigation
Site wide navigation, including top, bottom and side navigation, should be as user-friendly as possible, ensuring that your visitors find what they expect when they click a navigation link. Check to make sure your navigation shows a logical flow of topics, subtopics and subject matter within the site and it enhances the users ability to find key information.

See: 20 Ways to NAVIGATE to Higher Conversions

Content
The content of your website is your #1 sales tool. Content weighs heavily both in terms of how users interact with your website as well as how visitors are able to determine what you offer and what each page of your website is about. Always write for your visitors. Give them the information they need in a way that spurs them to action.

See: 9 (+1) Tips For Writing User-Friendly Content

Website Design
How the site is developed, along with the underlying coding structure, plays a significant role on whether your site meets the usability requirements of your audience. Check to make sure the overall design looks clean and doesn’t feel cluttered. Colors and fonts should be easy on the eyes and should enhance rather than distract from the visitors experience.

See: 25 Ways to DESIGN Your Way to Higher Conversions

Home Page
Your home page is the single most crucial page of your site. It is essentially your store front. Your home page should identify your site and direct your visitors to the most important information, the information they are most likely coming to your site for. Keep it clean and focused and drive your visitors quickly to the sections that are more apt for selling.

See: 7 Ways to Make Your Home Page a Home Run for Usability

About Us Page
Visitors that find their way to your About Us page tend to have a higher conversion rate than those that don’t. This is where the visitor gets to know you and your company. Make sure the page contains information on company history, biographies of managers and your mission statement.

See: 5 Easy Ways to Make Your About Us Page More About Your Customers

Contact Us Page
The Contact Us page could be considered the absolutely most important page on your site. Even if the rest of your site succeeds in the goals, if visitors fail to find the information they need to contact you then you will bring their shopping experience to a screeching halt. Always have multiple contact options and be sure web forms are working properly. Having a phone number listed is also extremely important.

See: 6 Ways to Get Your Visitors To Contact You From Your Contact Us Page

Product Pages
Product pages maintain considerable strategic importance for ecommerce websites. Your visitors enter your product pages not only with an intention to buy something (the most desired end action) but to also learn, research and compare what you have against a competitor. Your product pages must provide enough information to help you visitors make the best decision possible. Be sure that calls to action, such as “add to cart” are readily available along with relevant pricing and shipping info.

See: 12 Product Page Conversion Strategies That Shant Be Ignored

Shopping Cart
While shopping car abandonment cannot be completely eliminated, it can be dramatically reduced. It is a failure of the shopping cart page itself that leads visitors to abandon their items which they do, in fact, wish to have. Make sure your shopping cart navigation buttons (update cart, checkout, etc.) are easily found. If you have multiple steps in the check out process, outline those steps and be sure to answer any questions regarding security and shipping.

See: 8 Items Every Shopper Needs In Their Shopping Cart

Forms and Errors
If your web forms don’t function properly or it’s difficult to correct information input errors then you can lose a lot of visitors from frustration alone. Be sure to make inputting data easy by labeling fields properly, keep required information to a minimum and make sure errors are easy to understand and correct.

See: Converting Visitors Through Errors and Form Fields

On -Site Search
Implementing a search function improperly is often a greater source of frustration than not having one altogether. My rule of thumb is if you can’t deliver perfect results 80% of the time then you’re probably better off not having an on-site search. Pay attention to the location of the search bar, place it where it is typically expected, and test, test and test some more to ensure that the results are as expected. Misspell products and search for products you know you don’t carry just to make sure you can deliver relevant results for products you do carry.

See: Searching for Better On-Site Search Usability

Help and FAQ Pages
Building up your Help and FAQ pages can greatly enhance your visitor’s experience with your website, giving them much needed information and possibly saving them a phone call. Keep these pages focused on providing information that isn’t available anywhere else and make sure they are easy to find and easy to read.

See: Four Quick Ways to Improve Your HELP and FAQ Pages

Login and My Account Pages
Sites that require users to log in to access certain information and/or purchase products add an additional layer of potential complication to the usability process. Think carefully before requiring visitors to login. Do you really need that? If not, don’t force it. Be sure to provide the benefits of creating an account and link to pages that outline your security assurances.

See: 14 Usability Tips for Login and My Account Pages

Privacy and Security Issues
Your website’s privacy information and security settings can be significant hurdles when it comes to gaining trust with your visitors. Be sure you provide links to these pages where best suited and applicable. Be sure to provide as much information you can that gives assurances that their information is safe.

See: 12 Privacy and Security Issues Your Customers Care About

Site Maps
Site maps provide a dual purpose: They provide search engine spiders easy access to all of your site pages and they provide site visitors easy access to all of your site pages. The best advice is to make sure all your site map files stay current and are easy to find.

See: 9 Tips for Creating a Site Map for Visitors and Spiders

Audience Engagement
Customer engagement goes beyond just getting the customer’s attention, you must keep their attention. This can be done by providing your visitors near immediate gratification. Your content needs to get their attention, tell them what they need to purchase and link out to other important pages that can help them make the purchase decision.

See: 5 Engaging Ways to Engage Your Audience

Customer Satisfaction
Above all things you need to make sure your website provides strong customer satisfaction. You can do this by making sure information is easy to find, eliminate broken links and keep pages and images relatively small so they don’t take long to load.

See: 4 Easy Ways to Dissatisfy Your Visitors

Point of Purchase
Since the “purchase” is the ultimate conversion, it is imperative that you remove as many obstacles from the customer’s research-to-buy cycle as possible. Make sure your products are available or otherwise noted. Adding product reviews and up-sell opportunities can lend to increased sales.

See: 11 Ways Fill Your Shopper’s Cart

Visitor Trust
Your ability to convince your visitors that yours is a trustworthy business is one of the key components to getting visitors to convert into customers. Always providing prompt and complete responses to visitor inquiries. It’s also valuable to provide, multiple delivery options, discounts and allow your customers to provide feedback.

See: 10 Ways to Help Your Visitors Trust You

General Issues
The selling process–from initial interest to the very last checkout page–must be able to grab shopper’s attention and proceed to drive them through to the finalization of the sale. In other words, once you have them, you don’t want to lose them. Keep your content organized and clutter-free, make sure the site looks good across the most popular browsers and make sure that you follow up after the sale.

See: 14 Website Usability Guidelines That Keep them Coming Back for More

Overall Accessibility
As more and more users gain access to the web, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your website is accessible to all, not just a few. Be sure your website is constructed in a way that it is accessible to mobile phones, text based browsers and screen readers.

See: 6 Quick and Easy Accessibility Issues That Make Your Visitors Happy

The one thing to understand about usability is that nothing is set in stone. You can go point by point of any usability guide and still get it wrong. You can overcome that by testing. Whenever a change is made test the results. Make sure it has the intended effect and you get the results you want. If it doesn’t help, change it back and try something else. Over time you’ll incrementally improve overall site usability and find conversion rates climbing as each successful change is implemented.

Every day, we get businesses coming to us looking to improve their search engine rankings. They want to talk about an SEO campaign, but one quick look at their site and we see that SEO may not be the right approach for them. Usually in these cases, the site needs a complete usability makeover.

These businesses, however, don’t want to discuss website architecture, visitor usability, or even making their site search engine friendly. They want rankings and want them now.

I understand their standpoint. These are small businesses looking to purchase a service that will get them near instant visibility and exposure. “We’ll take care of the rest,” is what they often imply. But therein lies the problem. SEO and SEM without good usability is like inviting people out to eat at a rat and roach infested restaurant. You may bring people in, but you won’t make them happy.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

As more and more users gain access to the web, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that your website is accessible to all, not just a few. Just as businesses must comply with the American Disabilities Act to ensure proper access to customers with disabilities, businesses should do all they can to make their websites accessible to all users regardless of the means in which they access the site.

And of course not all accessibility issues involve meeting the needs of the disabled. What must be considered is the growing number of users that now access websites through non-traditional means, whether it be mobile phones or with images turned off. These users can still be your target audience, and ensuring your site can be used through alternate avenues is essential to capturing that audience.

Doctype declaration
The doctype allows you to declare what version of HTML your site uses. This is helpful to the browser rendering the site so it knows how best to interpret the information presented. Each page of your site should specify doctype and language encoding. If you are unfamiliar with the doctype declaration, you can read about it at W3.org.

Page defaults
Use your Cascading style sheets (CSS) to set all the default colors, font sizes, and text alignment of the site. Different browsers use their own defaults for any of these, and failure to set them to your preference may cause your site to look quite different than intended in different browsers.

Resizable fonts
Site should use relative, rather than absolute, font sizing. Relative sizing allows visitors to resize the font to their preference. You lose some control over how the page appears, but it is better to lose a little control than to lose the visitor all together because the font is too difficult to read.

Bulleted lists
When using bulleted lists, be sure to use the proper list markup, (UL, OL and DL) and (LI, DT, DD). While you can insert bullets with code or using an asterisk, using the proper markup is the best way to ensure that it renders properly across multiple platforms.

Alternate image text
All visual images on a page (not those used for page formatting) should contain alternate text describing the image. This ensures that the image is properly described for text readers and those surfing with images turned off.

CSS-less browsing
Many devices don’t use CSS when rendering a web page. Make sure that your site can be viewed and browsed satisfactorily when CSS is turned off.

These are just a few quick accessibility issues that should be adhered to. While most users are still using traditional browsers, mobile phones are becoming more widely used for web surfing. Designing your site with accessibility in mind assures that it scales properly for different browsers, mobile phones, screen readers, etc. By doing this you’ll capture more of your target audience.

Need a full-site usability analysis? Pole Position Marketing provides comprehensive site architecture and usability reports that help your site succeed. Purchase yours today!

I think that by now everyone pretty much agrees that words are an important part of your website and your online marketing campaign. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, sometimes just a few words can provide the right mental picture your audience needs in order to make that final buying decision.

For many business owners, writing can be a daunting task. Sure we know our products and services inside and out and putting what we know into words is easy enough, but that’s about as far as it gets.

Is that enough to sell? Sure.

Could more be done to sell better? You bet!

Continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

One of the great things about online marketing over the past decade is that it allowed small businesses to compete against the big guys on more of a level playing field than the off-line world allows. Over the past few years, though, the playing field has been tilting like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. As more big corporations jump into online marketing and invest tens, hundreds and even thousands of thousands of dollars each year, it becomes increasingly difficult for small businesses to gain headway.

Continue reading at Search Engine Land…

Sites that are designed to sell products and/or services must go the extra mile to enhance the visitor’s engagement with the website. Shopping cart abandonment (shoppers abandoning their carts before deciding to pay for the “items” they’ve added to their cart) can result in a significant loss in potential sales. But much of that can be reduced when the shopping process is streamlined and geared for shopper satisfaction.

The selling process–from initial interest to the very last checkout page–must be able to grab shopper’s attention and proceed to drive them through to the finalization of the sale. But even after the sell, you must deal with customer service issues in order to keep the sale finalized. Good customer service will bring your purchasers back for another and another and another. Here are fourteen general usability guidelines that will enhance your shoppers overall experience on your site.

Images vs. content
Images and content must work together to provide the user with a satisfactory experience. Relying too heavily on images and other media can be distracting, especially to those that really need to read more about what you’re selling before they are comfortable making a purchase. On the other hand, too much content on the wrong pages can also turn some shoppers away. A proper balance must be struck.

Content organization
Content must be purposeful and have a beginning, middle and end. Each page should expose need, show the importance, provide the benefits and, provide a call to action. Don’t forget to speak to each reader’s emotions.

Text formatting
Site content should be readable and understandable without the use of stylesheets. Don’t rely on visual gimmicks to get your point across as many often won’t render properly in plain text browsers.

User level
Content must speak at the reading level of your target audience. Don’t neglect to write to both expert and novice users as applicable. Not everyone coming to your site is fully knowledgeable in your topic. Meet their needs verbally, without talking down to the more advanced users.

Cross-browser rendering
Different browsers will display a site in slightly different ways. Know your audience and what browsers they are using. Then make sure that your site looks clean, clear and professional across multiple browsers.

Plugins
Site should avoid using plugins that are required in order to experience the website. Most visitors won’t install these plugins and will therefore move on to other sites. While these features can be nice additions, be sure to provide a site that appeals to the lowest common denominator of your web users.

Page formatting
Keeping your site consistent from page to page makes the conversion process easier on your visitors. Don’t surprise them with a different format on other pages that forces them to rethink about how to go about continuing with the shopping or checking out process.

Eliminate distractions
Keep your site free from pop-ups and other distractions that pull visitors away from the sales process. Reduce clutter such as ads or too many up-sells. Sometimes it’s good to eliminate many navigation options, provided it enhances the customer’s experience rather than confuses them.

Contact information
Your contact info or links to contact information must be clearly displayed and easy to find on every page. Don’t make your visitors to have to hunt to find you. Sometimes displaying an 800 number on every page can lend additional credibility and trust.

External links
Don’t be afraid to link out to other sites, but be sure that all external links have a purpose that serves to enhance the user experience. Link out only when valuable to your visitors and in a way that won’t move them away from the sale.

Customer feedback
Allow your customers to provide you with feedback regarding your site, products and services. Be sure a feedback option is easy to find. Giving visitors the option to be anonymous can also be beneficial.

Order fulfillment
Once an order has been placed, be sure to continue to provide visitors with the reassurances they need. Let them know when they will be contacted, when products will ship and provide information on order cancellation and/or returns.

Follow-up program
Once a sale is made and order completely fulfilled, implement a strong follow-up program. This can encourage repeat business and even company evangelism, if handled properly.

Customer delight
Your site should aim to do more than merely satisfy customer expectations but leave them delighted with the process and products. Meeting expectations isn’t enough, enhance your site that it exceeds expectations and makes your site stand out above your competition.

When competing for shoppers that go beyond the initial sale and become long-term customers, every little thing helps. Ultimately it’s about meeting the shoppers needs, wants and desires. The more you can provide them the information they need in the format they want the more likely you’ll be to make the sale. The richer the customer experience is the more likely it is that they’ll keep coming back time and time again.

Need a full-site usability analysis? Pole Position Marketing provides comprehensive site architecture and usability reports that help your site succeed. Purchase yours today!

The copy of your website falls very distinctly into the marketing realm of website management. Yes, search engines look at copy too, and adding certain keywords can help you achieve search engine rankings rankings, but each page needs to appeal to your readers first.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Developing your site so that it enhances your visitors’ shopping experience and improves conversion rates does not automatically mean that you have a site that is friendly to the search engines. Similarly developing a site that is search engine friendly doesn’t automatically make it user-friendly. But these things are also not mutually exclusive. You can please both search engines and website visitors.

While search engines are important, keep in mind that your visitors are even more important. When making edits to your site always consider the implications on both your human visitors and the search engines as well. Every change you make will have either a positive, negative or neutral effect on your human visitors and the search engine spider. You need to know ahead of time the effect any particular change will have and use that as a basis for determining if its worthwhile or not.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Trust is a key usability issue when it comes to running a successful online business. Most people automatically view web businesses with a bias against them compared to their brick and mortar counterparts. Your ability to convince your visitors that yours is a trustworthy business is one of the key components to getting visitors to convert into customers.

Creating a website that conveys trust can be tricky. There are rarely any answers that are always “right” for every visitor. There are, however, several factors that have universal appeal to the weary shopper.

Company info
Provide your visitors information about your company and its primary owners and operators. Treat your shoppers with a company history and links to frequently asked questions, policies and physical location. The more information you provide the better satisfied any concerned shopper will tend to be.

Prompt responses
Shoppers want to know that they can rely on a company to meet their needs and concerns quickly once contacted. Be sure to respond promptly and professionally to all customer inquiries. Don’t let email or phone messages go unanswered for more than a couple of hours, especially if requests are urgent.

Feedback options
Create ways for visitors to provide user feedback regarding your products or services and encourage them to do so. Be sure to follow up with feedback and use it to better your services.

Transaction security
Emphasize that online transactions will be handled securely and that privacy is a top priority. Using secure logos and links to privacy policies page is a must.

Offer discounts
Sometimes discounts can be a negative, making you appear desperate. However when implemented properly and professionally, percent-off discounts and coupons can be effective and giving visitors an added desire to move forward.

Delivery options
Be sure to provide low cost and/or varied delivery options. Having more options available allow visitors to select the delivery method they prefer and trust the most, which will then lend additional trust to you.

Brand and product quality
If you sell brand-name products, be sure to emphasis this as your customers will be more likely to purchase a product brand they recognize. If you don’t have brand name products, create a brand and emphasize that. A unknown brand name product is still better than a no-name brand product.

Off-line retailer comparison
Provide your visitors compelling reasons why they should purchase products from you rather than an offline competitor. Highlight free shipping, lower prices, easy access customer support, etc.

Return policy
Adding a no-hassle return policies can clinch a sale. Be sure to have return policy information easily available and spell out exactly what is required to return a product and/or get a refund.

Minimal / clearly distinguishable ads
Don’t clutter up your space with ads. Keep your visitors focused on purchasing your products. If you have ads in informational areas of the site keep them to a minimum and make sure they don’t overpower your own information.

In an anonymous world where customers cannot examine a product or meet with company reps face to face, trust is much harder to come by. Online businesses have many more hurdles than offline businesses when it comes to establishing trust with their customer base. This means that as an online business, you have to do more than just create a compelling reason to convince people “why you” rather than a competitor. Establishing trust is the key. Your shoppers need to believe without a doubt that, as a business, you’re not just in it for yourself, but that you care and will take care of the customer. Without having established any sort of trust there really is no sale.

Need a full-site usability analysis? Pole Position Marketing provides comprehensive site architecture and usability reports that help your site succeed. Purchase yours today!

A website is much like a home. In order for it to function as intended it has to be built to be structurally sound top to bottom. On the web you can think of search engine spiders as the building inspector who come by from time to time making sure that all areas of your site can be properly access. This isn’t a perfect analogy of course because the search engines don’t issue citations if your site has blocked access to a bedroom. That, and they are also taking stock of your valuables, something that we probably wouldn’t appreciate any home inspector to do!

But you can also think of your human visitors as friends that you invite over. Not only do they admire the contents and aesthetics of your home but they also want to make sure they can find certain, ah, facilities, should the need arise.

A properly built web site will ensure that the search engine spiders are able to access all pages of your site with more importance placed on the more important pages. It will also insure that the human visitors are able to accomplish their goals, either finding the information they came for and/or purchasing your product or service.

When optimizing a website we are often faced with tough decisions. What changes should we make? What will be the effect of those decisions? Ideally you want to make changes that only enhance the search engine and user experience. In the last installment I looked at three paths of SEO that quite simply are not your best options. When updating or changing your website any recommended change that falls into any of those three categories should simply be avoided. Today I’m going to discuss three more paths. While none of these are ideal options they do present better choices than the paths addressed previously.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

We all want to know if we have what it takes so succeed. Let’s find out by answering these three simple questions:

1) Are you happy?

Your happiness should not be determined by your current situation. Where you are, what you do, how much you make are not things that determine happiness. True happiness must come from within. If you’re not happy with who you are now then chances are that you’ll not be happy in a different job, different location or with more money. For you, then, success can never really be achieved. It won’t matter how much money you have or how many people look to you as a mentor, you won’t be happy until you get just a little more. Being happy today allows you to be successful tomorrow.

2) Are you generous?

Many people think that being successful means you have to be ruthless. You have to bark orders, make demands, shout and scream and basically be a selfish jerk. In fact, the opposite is true. While many people do get successful by keeping others down, those that are truly successful are those that rise to the top bringing others with them. The most enjoyable success comes when those around you know that you appreciate them and are not just using others for your own personal gain. Bring others up with you and they’ll keep lifting you higher.

3) Are you willing to sacrifice?

Many people want success but they are afraid of what that means. To be successful you have to be willing to sacrifice many things that you love. You’ll have to spend more time away from your family and often have to do things that you don’t always enjoy. You’ve heard it said that it’s lonely at the top, and this is often true of successful people. The higher you go the smaller and smaller your peer group gets. Leadership means that you have to make hard decisions that can be unpopular with those below you. You have to be able to make the hard choices in the face of opposition. For many, the desire for success is less than their fear of what it takes to achieve it.

Is that it? Well, no, but if you can’t answer yes to each of these questions then you probably don’t have what it takes. True success doesn’t come from any strategies or 12 point plans, it comes from within.

Search functionality
If possible, create an extremely robust and accurate search function for the website. A good search function should be able to provide visitors the information they are seeking even if products are misspelled in the search box or search products are not offered at all. Be careful, as anything less than a perfect search function only serves to frustrate rather than help visitors.

Navigation paths
Create clear navigation paths from the moment a product is added to the shopping cart. This path should allow them to continue shopping, continue through the purchase process or get additional questions answered as needed.

Calls to action
Informational and product pages must consistently use clear calls to action encouraging shoppers to buy now, save for later or post a review. This not only gives your visitors options but compels them to continue moving forward in the process.

Product presentation
Present your products in a way that allows the visitors to quickly glean the information they need. Use clean images, allowing multiple views and image enlargements to give the visitor a complete view of the product they are purchasing.

Product availability
Listing product availability his a helpful signal that shoppers can purchase this product now and expect to receive it quickly. At the very least be sure to tell your visitors if the product is out of stock or will be have any shipping delays due to availability.

Product comparison guides
It is extremely helpful to allow shoppers to compare product features and benefits side by side. If you don’t sell multiple products then create a comparison between your product and your competitors. Be honest, if your product lacks what a competitor’s has, document that appropriately.

Customer product reviews
If possible allow your shoppers to post reviews on your product pages. Don’t discriminate by removing unfavorable reviews, these can be helpful and show that your reviews can be trusted and that you stand behind your products despite the occasional negative comment.

Up-sell / cross-sell
Be sure you are using your up- and cross-sell opportunities to the fullest potential. Provide a list of related products that typically go along with any current items in a shopping cart or product being viewed. You can also show similar products that have different features that might be more to the shoppers liking.

Add-ons
If applicable, allow shoppers to purchase additional services such as product engraving, customization, gift wrapping, etc. These features can make a nice up-sell opportunity while giving the visitors that customization offer that they need for special purchases.

Representative contact
Some shoppers want the comfort of knowing that they can call and get assistance with their order. They may even rather place their order over the phone. Meet your visitor’s needs by providing an easy to find 1-800 contact number along with other contact information.

Billing options
Provide your shoppers with multiple options on how to pay for their purchase. Some shoppers are more comfortable with one form of payment over another and allowing their preferred option can be all it takes to get them to hit that “pay now” button.

It’s not your products but your shoppers that are most valuable to you as a business. Most likely, the same products you sell can be found elsewhere and at a cheaper cost. This means you need to make sure your shoppers are treated accordingly. Ensuring that your site meets and exceeds shoppers needs and expectations provides a comfortable and trustworthy environment that will make shopping and buying easier. This, in turn, will improve your conversions selling more products at a smaller expense.

Many SEOs obsess over search engine algorithmic details. They spend hours looking at the minutest of details hoping to achieve the perfectly “optimized” web page. In the process they often forget that the web page can’t just be optimized for search engines, but must also be optimized for human visitors.

Optimizing for spiders and visitors are both important for a web site’s overall success. But I don’t think they are necessarily equally important. In order for the search engines to be able to index and rank a site, a “search engine friendly” website architecture must be implemented. And while having a search engine friendly site is good, it must not be accomplished at the expense of the visitor. At best, it must complement the user friendliness of the website. At worst, it must be invisible.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of your my favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that “give back” to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and the list goes on.

None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that that we are valued as a customer. Most times we are probably not even be aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.

Branding is a viable marketing strategy

Businesses worldwide invest millions of dollars in branding campaigns each year. In fact, let’s put aside pure branding campaigns. If you think about it, providing good customer service is branding too. The quality of customer service a company provides (good or bad), causes an image of that company to be branded into the consumers mind. Over time, a little here and a little there builds up into a solid perception of that company. Whether they like it or not they have established a recognizable brand by doing little more than going about their business.

When it comes to realizing the benefits of branding, most companies will tell you that it is valuable. But increases in sales can rarely be traced back to a single customer service or branding event. But that doesn’t negate the value or stop companies from investing their money into these types of campaigns. The lack of trackable ROI on a per-sale level doesn’t make branding (or good customer service) an unnecessary expense. In fact I don’t think any consumer would argue against the necessity of excellent customer service.

So what’s all this have to do with social media?

Social media is branding

Over time Target may see an increase in brand awareness and overall sales due to their clever TV commercials that do little more than show people dancing around a red target symbol, but I doubt they can trace any sales increase to a single commercial spot. I’m sure Wal-Mart can’t track a single purchase to the addition of the elderly employee standing at the entrance greeting customers. But when we walk through those doors, we feel that Wal-Mart cares just a little bit more about me, the customer. So goes social media.

When we engage in social media and online social networking, we similarly don’t see any immediate, trackable results. But, like branding and customer service, we don’t need to in order to understand that it’s valuable. When companies engage in social media they can’t think of it as a traditional marketing expense with a return on investment that can be shown on paper. Results won’t be seen immediately, and usually only after a very long period of time, and you’ll not likely be able to pinpoint a single new sale or customer an a particular branding campaign.

But social media is still important. It provides a way for companies to get out there and get noticed. It’s an opportunity to go where the consumers are and create a presence. Like a TV ad, you don’t have to wait for consumers to find you, you go where they are. But instead of forcing yourself on them while they are watching their favorite TV show, social media let’s you actually hang out with them. You’re not the ad on the wall, you’re the guy holding the drink telling stories that your audience finds fascinating.

Social media is better than branding and customer service

Because of the direct interaction social media affords the client with their customers, it truly is better than any branding campaign, including one-on-one customer service. Customer service means that the target consumer has to become a customer first (or at least be very close to becoming a customer) before you can make a good impression.

Social media, however allows you to brand yourself long before anyone becomes your customer. And it can often be the catalyst that brings them over. And why wouldn’t they? You’ve already become a part of the group. In fact, if you’ve done your social marketing right, you’ve already become their friend. This is interactive branding at work.

So don’t be afraid to participate in social media just because you don’t see the ROI. You’re not likely to, at least not immediately and not in a way you can pinpoint one event causing another. But over time, you can build your social reputation. This leads to credibility. And over time that credibility and awareness will very likely lead to an increase in your customer base.

Hat tip to both Jennifer Laycock and Patrick Schaber who both, for whatever reason, wanted to hear my thoughts on this. That leaves me to tag Nathania Johnson, Ross Dunn, and Chris Winfield.

Since creating a website that is “user friendly” is often difficult and time consuming, I thought it would be fun to explore a few ways to create a dissatisfying user experience on your website. Unlike the dozens upon dozens of things that go into creating a website that provides a positive visitor experience, one that creates an atmosphere of trust and is likely to improve conversion rates, creating a dissatisfying experience can be done fairly easily in just a few steps.

In fact, while I’m sure there are just as many things that can derail a visitor on a website, there is no need to implement more than a few. We have found that any one of the four things listed below will do the trick!

Not able to find specific information

Visitors come to your site for a reason. Maybe they are researching a topic, seeking to gain information, or are comparing differences between your offerings and a competitors. In any case, your visitors are often searching for something specific, and maybe they even want to take action once they have the vital pieces of information they seek. Maybe that information is product specifications, pricing info, or perhaps just a phone or email address. Do what you can to hide this important information. Be sure to provide only basic, general information about your topic, product or services and avoid any decision clinching specifics.

If you feel you absolutely must provide more information, make sure that it is buried in the midst of a lot of text or that any links to this information is difficult to find. Nothing says we hate you like hiding important details or contact information!

Confusing website

People are easily confused, which makes this an easy task to accomplish. Don’t waste much energy thinking about things such as layout, design or navigational consistency. When developing your content, speak in broad vague terms and use as much industry technobabble as possible. Don’t worry about website architecture either, that’s just a huge time-consuming task that ultimately prevents your visitors from having to do any real work to get the information they need. If you make it all too easy, then your visitors won’t feel that your information is valuable.

Slow website

If you happen to have a lightning fast server you might want to find a new one. You’re probably paying too much for hosting anyway. But if switching hosts is too much of a problem, then see what you can do to slow it down. You can do this quite easily by using poorly implemented code, excessive codebloat or extremely large images. Add lots of flashy tools and multimedia that must be used such as flash based websites that have to download the full file first.

Since many metrics services look at time spent on a website as an indicator of a site’s overall value, the more you slow things down the better things look. Slow sites mean visitors must remain on the site longer just to get the information they need. This can be a boon to advertising.

Broken Links

Nothing tells your visitors that you care than handfuls of broken links on your site. I suggest you change URLs frequently and that you don’t perform monthly broken link checks. This is actually entertaining to your visitors because broken links create something of a game. And who doesn’t love a good game of hide and seek, right?

There you have it, four quick and easy ways to dissatisfy your customers. The great thing about these is that you don’t have to think to hard about any of them. In fact, they require hardly any thought at all. When I think about how best to go about creating this kind of unusable environment two words come to mind, random and haphazard. Not only are those both fun words, but they make for a fun website.

I’ve always been a baby steps kind of guy when it comes to SEO. According to Google, they, and probably other engines too, look at over 200 different signals when it comes to analyzing pages for rankings. To attempt to optimize each of these signals perfectly would require a significant amount of work and continuous tweaking in order to find the “perfect” combination. Or let me put it another way, the task of creating the perfectly optimized page is darn near impossible.

Some of these “signals” that the search engines analyze are on the page, some are site-wide, and others are entirely off the page where the SEO has no absolute control, if any at all. The goal of the SEO however, is to try to make all of these things work together. They must leverage those things they do have control over, to complement and/or influence those things they have no control over. The idea then, is to create a synergy with the whole that truly is more than the sum of its parts.

I once heard it said about public speaking that if you have to write out your speech word for word then you don’t know your material well enough. But if you can’t write out your speech word for word then you still probably don’t know your material well enough. The meaning here, in case you missed it, is that you shouldn’t need to write out what you’ll say but you need to be able to.

While looking at every last minute detail of SEO is advantageous, it is effective only to a point. One can’t get mired into trying to get every last little detail right all of the time. To do so often comes at the expense other important things. Instead of focusing on the big picture, you’re mired in the little things that don’t provide the return you may have imagined.

Click here to continue reading at Search Engine Guide…

Finding good employees can often be difficult, especially in an “employees market”. Currently it seems it’s harder for employers to fill a job than it is for job seekers to find one. That means it’s incumbent upon us business owners and managers to get a bit more creative in how we find candidates for open positions. And then, like any good marketer, you’ve got to persuade your top candidates that you not only want them, they want you too.

Ad placement

When it comes to posting ads for open positions you really need to determine where the best place is to post for the particular job. We find that some job search boards are more lucrative than others, in that they seem to attract certain types of people. Here are a few we have used:

Monster.com
We’ve only ever posted one ad with monster.com when looking for an SEO. The first time through we didn’t get much of a response and the rep was kind enough to extend it for another 30 days, which I found quite generous. All said and done, Monster didn’t get us what we were looking for. My limited perception of Monster is more for career professionals, who know exactly what kind of job they are looking for.

Craigslist
Most of our ads go up on Craigslist. Here in Reno it’s still free so you can’t beat that. This has been great for us in finding people who may be interested in a job in a certain field, but have not yet made a career out of it, or are looking to apply their trade in a new industry. The type of candidates we get from Craigslist are people who know where their skills and strengths lie, but they are open to where and how they are applied. Although, that may be a result of the industry we are in and the type of jobs we advertise.

RegionalHelpWanted.com
We use this site generally when we are looking to fill entry-level positions. A job posting is a few hundred bucks but we’ve always gotten greater response from here than similar ads run on Craigslist (and more responses than our professional ad run on Monster.com). This, and other local job boards, are great for finding employees that don’t come with any particular area of skill or experience, but are willing to learn. This is not always 100% true, but it’s definitely a place where job seekers looking for their place in the world can go to find a job.

These are just my experiences and your mileage may vary. The bottom line is that just like any good marketing, you want to make sure you are running the right ads in the right places. You’ll probably have to experiment and test for yourself on this a bit to see what works and what doesn’t.

Creating Your Job Ad

Creating your ad is just as important as where you place it. Many job ads I’ve seen are nondescript, boring and really don’t provide the job seeker much information. In an employees market you really have to go out of your way to convince the job seeker to apply. Creating an ad that is just a bit more informative and special than others can ensure that you get noticed by the job seekers you’re looking for.

Introduction
Start your ad with an introduction about your company. The job seeker has already read the headline/job title, which is what enticed them to click to read the ad. Use this to provide a positive first impression about your company and give the seeker information that will cause them to want to join your team rather than another.

Here is an example of a first sentence we use for our ads:

Pole Position Marketing, a leading company in the SEO/SEM industry, is growing!

It’s short and simple, but gives the reader something to be excited about before they even get the details of the job.

Within the intro you want to talk about the type of person that you’re looking for, mixing in colorful language that describes your ideal candidate.

We are looking for highly motivated and creative individuals to work in our Reno, NV office. Candidates should be passionate about marketing and are looking for a career opportunity that will allow them to start at the ground floor and work their way up. You’ll be part of a first-class team…

Here we’ve touched the broad strokes of the kind of person we are looking for, without getting into the skills or qualifications that they’ll need to have. You see that we also worked in another line the puts them with a “first-class team” that keeps them excited about the possibilities of working for our company.

And then finally, we work in a broad overview of the job:

…overseeing various areas of client projects with a concentration in promotional linking. Primary tasks will include internet and keyword research, working in the social media segments and negotiating content placement.

The position from which these samples were taken is one that isn’t so easily defined in language the average job seeker understands, which is why we then provided a bit more detail in another paragraph. This particular ad is designed to speak to the person who doesn’t know what their career is going to be but is open for opportunities. The next paragraph speaks to that individual specifically:

Don’t have a marketing background? Not a problem. Our ideal candidate will be highly motivated to succeed above all else. If you’re willing to work hard, we’ll train you. You only need a passion for marketing, helping clients succeed, and a desire to do what it takes to build a career in the search marketing industry.

Job Tasks

Next up we provide a list of the job tasks and responsibilities. We try to be as thorough and clear as possible so the reader knows what’s involved. It’s important that this information be accurate to avoid (as much as is possible) getting resumes from job seekers that ultimately won’t be interested in the position.

Qualification

Here we list more about the type of candidate we are looking for and what specific skills they’ll need to have to do the job effectively. Here are some typical qualifications we list on most job ads:

• Excellent writing and communication skills
• Strong computer skills
• Ability to multi-task and thrive in a fast-paced environment
• Must have a high level of integrity
• Must be able to work independently and as part of a team
• Highly motivated and passionate about success (for themselves, the clients and the company)

These are just a few of the more generic qualifications we use, but we add others that are specifically related to the job as well.

Conclusion

Now you want to wrap things up. Give the reader more information about your company and the benefits of working for you. If you offer things such as vacation pay, PTO, health benefits, etc, give the reader the broad strokes. This can be a significant factor in their decision making process.

And then wrap things up with more cleverly written prose that speaks to the job seeker’s emotions. Oh, and don’t forget to add your call to action:

If you want to be part of an incredible marketing team in a creative and collaborative office environment, drive performance for online businesses, learn new skills, and have some fun along the way, let us know why you’d be a good fit and send us your resume today!

The Selection Process

Once you get your candidates then you’ll want to screen carefully. We do this in a number of ways depending on the position. For a copywriter position we sent each candidate an assignment. We found that many dropped out once they saw what the job was actually about. The others completed their assignments and we then scored them. This gave us an idea about exactly how each candidate is able perform the job. In this case, we sent out the assignments before the interview, but you might want to do it the other way around.

For other candidates, we send out a five-page motivational questionnaire asking all kinds of questions about the individual such as what kind of environment they are looking for, and what types of things they expect from the job. These questions are helpful in gaging the person on things that are more job-environment oriented rather than just job oriented.

Obviously the goal here is to find the most qualified candidate for the position, as well as the person who is the best fit for your team. For us, the latter often tends to be more important than the former. I’m willing to invest and train someone a bit if I know they are going to be a good fit for the environment that we have already developed. When working in a close-knit and interactive environment, it only takes one person to drag the atmosphere down.

Ultimately, you want to find the right person who fits best on all levels for what will be required of them. If you do that, not only will you find someone you’re happy with, but someone who will also be happy to be working for you. And that creates a long-term mutually beneficial working relationship.

How engaged a customer is with your website will determine whether they can be persuaded to buy, comment, download or submit their information for you to follow up on. Customer engagement goes beyond just getting the customer’s attention, you must keep their attention. This can be done by providing your visitors near immediate gratification.

To do that you have to first know who your audience is, know what they seek and then also know their purpose for being on your site. Knowing all this then lets you work toward meeting the needs of your target audience. But it also means taking things a step further and building a relationship with them. The ability to build a relationship with your visitors can be crucial to driving them through the persuasion process. Relationship building starts the moment the visitor hits the website.

Getting attention
Every page of your site is a landing page. From the moment visitors land on that first page you need to grab their attention. This doesn’t require any gimmicks, but it does require the ability to organize your information in a compelling and visually friendly way.

Reassurance
Each page of your site must continue to assure your visitors that they are where they need to be to get the information they came looking for. Placement and words used in page headings, contextual links, bullet points, etc. can all be used to reassure your visitors that you have the information they need without much more than a quick glance.

What’s in it for them?
If your visitors can’t immediately figure out “What’s in it for me?” then you will quickly lose their interest. Your visitors need to quickly find resolutions to the questions, product information, benefits and ultimately the question of why they should buy from you. If this information cannot be addressed on each page, provide obvious links to the pages that do.

SEO vs. usability
On-page SEO should enhance, rather than distract from, the visitor’s engagement on the site. If your copy is poorly developed because you’re trying too hard to insert keywords into the text, then your visitors will be pulled away from, rather than engaged in, the message. Good SEO considers users, not just search engines.

Textual links
Textual links should be used as frequently as necessary to provide a customer-engaged navigation path. Contextual links, as opposed to standard navigation elements, allow visitors to click through finding the information that most interests them without forcing them to think about where they want to go next. Provide the path and they will follow.

When you don’t engage your visitors by providing them the information they want in a way that speaks to their wants and needs, then you’re mostly just speaking at users rather than to customers. You want your visitors to have a personal experience as they interact with your website. Make them feel as if you developed the site just for them.

Need a full-site usability analysis? Pole Position Marketing provides comprehensive site architecture and usability reports that help your site succeed. Purchase yours today!

I’m not a Google hater. In fact I have no real problems with Google other than the standard fare. I don’t always agree with what they do and they, at times, appear to be quite hypocritical. Many would simply chalk that up to big-business. But Google’s no Enron, at least not yet. My only real problem is that Google tends to talk out of both sides of its proverbial mouth, and expects the SEO community to take them at face value. But we really can’t anymore.

I had an alternate title for this post: “Ask not what Google can do for you, but what you can do for Google”. We’re moving into a new age where we have to pay closer attention what Google does — despite what Google says.

Click here to continue reading Search Engine Guide…

A couple of Saturdays back I had to spend the day at the office to get caught up. You know how that is, come Friday you realize that you haven’t gotten to all the tasks on your plate so you have two options: 1) Get to the office over the weekend and work a few extra hours, sans distractions, or 2) wait until Monday to get caught up. Of course we all know the latter doesn’t ever really work because come Monday you start the process of getting behind all over again. Stupid Mondays.

So the other Saturday while putting in a few extra hours I had left to grab a burger with the King. All was going quite well until I headed back to the office and saw this:

OK, now before you think that I was driving through a residential neighborhood, I wasn’t. This was no lame residential attempt at a Halloween decoration. This was a lame business to advertise a Halloween sale. I kid you not.

But wait, there’s more.

Do it right or do it cheap?

I’m all for saving a few bucks here and there and finding ways to do things less expensively. That’s just my nature. But I never put saving a few bucks ahead of doing things correctly. The way I see it you always have four options:

1) Do things inexpensively and right
2) Do things expensively and right
3) Do things inexpensively and wrong
4) Do things expensively and wrong

I put those in order in which they way they should be done.

All too often people consider cost first and foremost. Whether it’s the right or wrong way is always secondary. Their methodology is more like this:

1) Do things inexpensively and right
2) Do things inexpensively and wrong
3) Do things expensively and right
4) Do things expensively and wrong

The problem is, when you only look at price, you simply end up doing things this way:

1) Do things inexpensively and wrong
2) Do things inexpensively and right
3) Do things expensively and right
4) Do things expensively and wrong

Obviously that is the path our good friends at Reno’s Internet Auto chose. When it comes to spending money on your business, or any kind of marketing, you should never, NEVER choose a path based on expense. Never. Always first look to see if it is the right or wrong way to do things. Once you know the right and wrong way to do something then you can start looking at your pricing options.

I’ve been reading Mike Moran’s new book Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules (IBM Press), But I don’t think this is they type of “do it wrong” he was talking about.

That’s the great thing about the web. If you don’t like something you don’t have to view it. You simply don’t visit that site again. When you see stuff like this offline the only course of action you can take is take a different route. And that doesn’t work for everybody, especially those who live and/or work nearby.

From what I understand, this isn’t the first time Internet Auto has walked this path. Diana tells me that they’ve done this before. Many times. I’m not big on government intervention, but aren’t there regulations on public advertising? This is really nothing more than visual spam, and we don’t need that.

C’mon Reno, we can do better than this, can’t we? Well, I guess every city has something to be embarrassed about.