by Jackie Baker
When I ask for website submissions for this column, the very first thing I want to know is what is your goal for your website?
“My daughter says I need to have one”, or “everybody has one so I should too” definitely don’t count. I’m talking tangible, profitable goals. And these goals ultimately come down to just one question: what do you want people to do on your website? This is the most important question you need to ask yourself when building a new site or revamping an old one.
by Jackie Baker
Before search engine optimization can be successful in driving conversions, not just rankings, you first need to ensure that your site is usable and compelling. Sure, a good optimization campaign may improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic. But those visitors are likely to leave as quickly as they came if the site is difficult to use.
Dynamic-Living.com has done a great job of creating a clean, simple, well-organized website. Their visitors will have little trouble finding the products they want and getting through the checkout process. With a website in good shape, their next step is to perform optimization so that they start ranking for relevant keywords.
The website offers products for individuals with disabilities that aid them in independent living at home. They don’t stop at just offering products; each comes with extensive information and resources.
A few nice “extras” include a section for related articles and shipping and return policy information. Checkout Process What to fix: I’m not a big fan of the way the intial checkout page doesn’t have an obvious “continue” button. As it stands, there are two steps on this first page. The first is viewing and/or updating your cart. The second is inputting necessary information for shipping costs. There are three pieces of information collected here one at a time. At first, only “choose country” is visible. After you make your selection, a field in which to enter your zip code appears. You then have to click “calculate shipping costs.” After you’ve done that, you get your shipping options. Only after you’ve chosen those does the “proceed to checkout button” appear. I would much prefer to see all of the shipping fields available as well as the checkout button. If a visitor misses a field, they should remain on the page with an error message indicating which fields were forgotten. I’m a pretty savvy computer user, and at first I thought that I couldn’t checkout from this cart page. I contemplated clicking checkout at the top of the page before I saw the small gray text explaining that to continue I needed to complete the next step on the page. If I was confused, the older portion of your target certainly will be. You don’t want to lose sales because the path through your shopping cart isn’t obvious! There are also few links within content to key pages on the site (using keywords in the link text) and no general keyword phrases incorporated into headers or the first few sentences of copy on each page, which are also prime optimization locations. When optimizing for specific products, use a variety of terms in key locations. For example, use “amplified phone” and “amplified telephone.” While the product names on the site are fairly descriptive using terms that people are searching for, many of them aren’t ranking well even for less competitive terms. Be sure that the different terms for referring to a single product are included in the title tag, meta description, page title, section headers, first few sentences of copy, and any in-site links pointing to that page. An SEO campaign targeting general audience phrases like independent living as well as a variety of phrases for each product will help the site to rank for more relevant phrases and draw traffic that is more likely to convert. Want more from your web site? Go here to see the original:
Links to checkout are obvious in the top right corner of the website, and you are also taken to your cart when you choose “buy” on any product page. Again, the page is well laid out; it’s logical and makes it easy to continue through the checkout process while the necessary actions like “remove from cart” are obvious if you need them.
ShoppingCart. ShoppingCart. Cart: Empty Safe Shopping Check Out • Dynamic-Living.com Skip to main content. (888) 940-0605 Monday to Friday 9 am to 6 pm EST …
Choosing and Implementing Relevant Keywords
The first step in any SEO campaign is determining relevant keywords. In this case, Dynamic-Living.com needs to target general phrases related to their audience as well as the more specific product terms. Some general terms to target would include keywords like:
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Site Clinic: You’ve Got Great Usability, Now Start Optimizing.
by Jackie Baker
When it comes to the front end of a website, there are two primary areas that can make or break your online success … your content and your navigation. You need to have engaging content that speaks to your visitors and addresses their needs and questions. You also need to ensure that it is logically organized, easy to browse, and easy to search. Good navigation functions to both allow visitors to easily find information and to drive visitors to your goal.
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Site Clinic: Navigation Usability Can Make Or Break Your Website
by Jackie Baker
I’m a huge fan of blogging – whether it’s just a hobby or part of your business strategy. While blogs are be a lot of work, they can also be very rewarding.
I love the way Curtis has designed his home page. Where most blogs display the most recent articles on their landing page, Curtis has used his home page to feature content and drive visitors deeper into the site. Visitors can quickly scan the homepage and get a good idea of the kids of information they are going to find on this website, and then go directly to it.
Incorporating Key Blog Elements
There are several “must haves” for good blogs, and BeFitAndBeStrong.com has most of them:
- Prominent subscribe by rss and email links with text and icons (primary conversion point is accurately positioned at the top of the right column)
- List of categories (primary blog navigation)
- Author photo and brief bio at the bottom of each post
- Links to featured/popular content
- Links to related posts following each article
- Buttons to submit articles to social sites such as Del.icio.us
- Catchy page titles
- Videos/images to supplement copy
- Author responses to comments
by Jackie Baker
Mary Beth is an independent distributor with Flint River Ranch, a company that sells all-natural dog and cat foods. She sent me a plea for help: her site, Pets Love Flint River, is only generating a sale every few months.
Utilize a right-hand column
Studies have shown that a three column format is the most effective layout for e-commerce websites.
Left Column: navigation. (Links that are organized, easy to scan, and left aligned!)
Center: Content. All of your product information goes here.
Right Column: Call to action items and other features.
The right column is a great place to put buttons/links for “view cart” and “checkout.” These are most effective when they are bold, designed to look like buttons, and incorporate traditional icons like a shopping cart. These should be a contrasting color that stands out from the rest of the design. Underneath the shopping cart buttons, you could incorporate secondary and tertiary calls to action such as “request a free sample” or ” become a distributor.” You could also use this space to incorporate testimonies.
Unless it’s a requirement of the company, I’d move the distributor notice that is currently to the right of the header, and incorporate it as an actual page under the link “distributor info.” Or, it could be incorporated in the footer. While this is important information, it is getting too much attention and could potentially be driving visitors away.
Make the Checkout Process Smooth
One major issue with the checkout process on PetsLoveFlintRiver.com is that there is no navigation. If you start checking out, but want to add a different product, there is no way to get back to the shopping pages. There’s no link to home, to shipping information, or to contact. Visitors need to be able to return to other pages without having to click the back button. All global navigation links should still be a part of the checkout pages.
On a positive note, the checkout process on PetsLoveFlintRiver.com is as simple as possible. The less you ask for, the more likely visitors are to give it to you. Another well-done piece is the error page; if a visitor skips a required field and tries to submit the information, they are given an error page that says exactly what information is missing. They are then sent back to fix it. On the other hand, poorly handled errors are a quick way to lose a customer.
I would also suggest making the action buttons (“continue” “add to cart” etc) a color other than green. There is so much green in the design already that a contrasting color like blue or yellow would stand out better. On another site I recently reviewed, the color of the “add to cart” button blended in and I recommended changing it to red or something else bold. All the site owner did was change to color and add a shopping cart icon and his purchasing immediately went up around 200%. Sometimes the smallest changes make the biggest difference.
It’s Not Always Just About SEO
The basic optimization done on the PetsLoveFlintRiver.com is causing the site to rank well for some branded terms that are relatively competitive. But getting visitors to come to your website doesn’t do any good if they are unable to find their way around. Cleaning up the navigation and making it obvious that this is an e-commerce site should go a long way to boosting online sales.
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Site Clinic: Basic Principles Of E-Commerce Design