August 2, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at August 2, 2009
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You know the feeling. You have visited a website, had a look at couple of products and then left. Then a few days later you came back to the same store only to find out that you can’t recall what products you liked and damn it, there is no “recently viewed items” feature. Is that the case in your online store? Apart from that you are not helping your returning visitors to buy from you, you are probably also loosing sales. Perhaps only a few percent, but when you are turning over millions per year, that small percentage could mean a lot of money. The best example of recently viewed items I seen is from onlineshoes.com (see below). The reason? Because it’s always visible on any page your are on and easily accessible. Or other stores like johnlewis.com or overstock.com place the “recently viewed items” into product pages. See example […]
July 31, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 31, 2009
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Pre-launch pages can work wonders for almost any type of business if marketed properly. In this post I will show you 2 pre-launch pages, from typekit.com and kissmetrics.com, which in June 2009 attracted 39,000 and 20,000 unique visitors respectively. Why a pre-launch page is important? With a pre-launch page you can start promoting your upcoming website via PR, blogging, Twitter etc. and create buzz around your business, service or product right away, because you already have a mini website. Many times the launch of your new website can take longer than anticipated for various reasons like money issues or development of your product (service, software etc). For example kissmetrics.com launched their pre-launch page in July 2008, which is more than a year ago. But since then they have attracted over 288,395 visitors to their site. That’s 288,395 visitors aware of their product before they even launched it! Guidelines for successful pre-launch page: allow people to get […]
July 31, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 31, 2009
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The purpose of a “welcome email” isn’t just to tell your subscriber, “hey dude, you are on our list“, but also to use it to make people buy from you by offering them incentives, for example, in the form of a discount code (see example below), free shipping, free sample or anything else you can think of to get that sale. More examples at: 5 great welcome e-mails…
July 30, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 30, 2009
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You have probably heard of the deal between Yahoo! and Bing that will help the two companies to take on Google. This deal seems to make Yahoo and Bing worth your optimization effort. So if you don’t have an account with Bing Webmasters Tools, now is the time. Bing webmasters tool isn’t that as robust as Google webmaster tools, but Bing is planning to catch up. Also submit your site with Yahoo Site Explorer. More on this issue how Micsrosoft/Yahoo Deal Change SEO…
July 30, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 30, 2009
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When designing your home page, it is very important to know who your audience is. This is done by dividing, or segmenting, customers into groups with common attributes. For example, you are selling software for small, medium and large enterprises with different prices and possibly features too. The only way how you can help your audience quickly find what is relevant for their needs is by segmentation. A good example is from nuance.co.uk selling their product to B2B and B2C market as well.
July 29, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 29, 2009
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Free trials are popular because they’re perceived to be the shortest route to a sale, but what they really do is eliminate a huge subset of potential customers at the outset—people who may well have the relevant pain or problem, but who simply don’t want to expend the time or hassle downloading, installing and evaluating the actual product. Read full article….
July 29, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 29, 2009
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Are you burdened by sales tax compliance? Are you searching for ways to reduce your exposure to sales tax audits? If so, than stop spending valuable time on sales tax processes and join a FREE 30 minute webinar and you’ll learn to remove the hassles from sales and use tax compliance within QuickBooks. This webinar is a ‘must see’ if you are experiencing challenges related to sales tax compliance. Don’t waste additional time on manual compliance efforts; instead learn how your business resources can focus on revenue generating activities. Join this webinar and learn to: Create a new revenue stream for your business Save time by automating sales tax calculations on transactions Expand the sales and use tax knowledge and capabilities of your business Reduce your exposure to costly audits
July 28, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 28, 2009
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Free On-Demand Webcast In these tough times, marketers must be proactive, agile and ready for change in order to generate results and prove ROI. Integrated online marketing is the buzz, but is it hope or hype? In this free on-demand Webcast we demystify the hype and help you deliver in a downturn. Click here to view this on-demand Webcast now.
July 28, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 28, 2009
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Looking for an idea how to push software sales? Great example of how to sell software is from circuitcity.com newsletter. The unusual thing about this mailing is that circuitcity.com sell a range of products but instead they have decided for this approach, to promote only one product. Things they have done well: visible call to action above the fold with money off offer product video included testimonials included a comparison chart included all the versions of the software included in one e-mail money back guarantee included in the e-mail as well
July 28, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 28, 2009
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5 great sign up page ideas for your website. And here one more idea about how you can make your form shorter with expandable window. What I like about this feature is that you can make your form look shorter thus look a bit tidier. I also recommend you read this post related to sign up pages “How a Simple Headline Test Increased Conversion by 30%“. If you want to increase your conversion rates in your sign up page then I recommend you check our a/b and multivariate testing service, which comes with 100% money back guarantee if we don’t improve your conversion rates.
July 27, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 27, 2009
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Should you use one page Ajax checkout? Here are 5 reasons not to. 1. I have found mostly complaints from website owners than anything good about one page checkouts as you can read from the selected forums below: http://www.webproworld.com/ http://www.magentocommerce.com/ 2. Gap.com is the only top 500 online retailer using a one page Ajax checkout but according to econsultancy.com posted in January 2009 Gap.com saw some decrease in conversion rates in their one page Ajax checkout. Gap.com is still using the one page Ajax checkout till now. NOTE: as we all know, TOP 500 retailers are very quick in implementing new things, especially if those things increase conversion rates. Apart from gap.com I can’t recall any other stores using one page checkout. 3. According to this post from getelastic.com, three step checkout process convert the best at 6.2% whereas one page checkout converts at only 2.5% as you can see […]
July 25, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 25, 2009
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SLI Systems will be hosting a webinar in August on the anatomy of a great ecommerce site search and improving the user experience. The 30-minute webinar will be held on Thursday August 13, 2009 at 1pm PDT. Ed Hoffman, VP of Worldwide Field Operations will: Discuss recent trends in site search Explain how implementing these features can improve the user experience and in return increase sales and conversions Conduct site search critiques – to be considered, indicate your interest on the registration page Have a short Question & Answer session
July 25, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 25, 2009
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Here is another great example of how a/b and multivariate testing can increase your conversions. These examples are from Highrise sign up page. Source: Highrise blog. Read the full story…
July 24, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 24, 2009
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I am always fascinated by successful, well known online stores and their features, and this is where I am get inspiration from for our projects. Usually they are the first to introduce something new to enhance their visitors experience, so that they can gain a competitive advantage and more sales. So what shopping carts are these “big boys” making hundreds of millions dollars using and how much does it cost them? NOTE: this is for illustrative purposes only and not an exhaustive list of shopping carts and online stores. ATG shopping cart is used by: bestbuy.com, target.com, officemax.com, B&Q, landsend.com Certona shopping cart is used by: victoriasecret.com DemandWare shopping cart is used by: ninewest.com, timberland.com And how much? Prices are around 50k+ per year. What do you get for that money? Shopping carts that automate and personalize the online buying experience for your visitors. Business and customer analytics, multivariate testing […]
July 23, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 23, 2009
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Does your e-commerce store show “no results” search page when searching your site with certain keywords? According to Sli Search around 10% of searches return “no result” page result. If you want to know how your site search deals with it then I have two simple test solutions. I use them when I carry out free website inspection services on our client websites. I simply put my full name in their search field and watch what result I get. Then I use one of their products or categories in their search field, but I deliberately misspell it. This simple test gives me some ideas about their current search and what could be improved. Some ideas about how you can improve your site search: incorporate “auto complete” feature in your search box. Good example of site search with auto complete is at vistek.ca show results with some of the words show spelling suggestions […]
July 23, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 23, 2009
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I have found this very useful post from carsonified.com about how highrise.com increase their sign ups by 200% by doing A/B or multivariate testing. This result clearly demonstrates the importance of A/B and multivariate testing for any business. On the Highrise.com home page, they have tested various calls to action buttons: Free Trial, Sign-up for Free Trial, See Plans and Pricing. And the winner is: “See Plans and Pricing” – increase in sign-ups by 200%. Read the full story at carsonified.com.
July 22, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 22, 2009
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Do share buttons works and do people really used them? I personally believe share buttons are very useful and every blog would hugely benefit from having them. For example proimpact7.com currently receives more than 35% of traffic from different social networking sites thanks to displaying sharing buttons in each post visibly. And some of you reading this post right now arrived to our site via social networks, just because one single person has posted it somewhere. After you start using them, I can guarantee you that your traffic level will increase by minimum of 20% if your content is of any value to anybody out there. Highly recommend! Bellow you can see a chart from AddToAny, a company that provides web publishing buttons, about how people used their AddToAny sharing tool. NOTE: This chart only represents websites using AddToAny sharing tool and unfortunately doesn’t tell us what the percentage of […]
July 21, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 21, 2009
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In just 30 minutes you’ll get a concise presentation of best practice techniques using email remarketing to improve website conversion. Just the key facts, and no fluff. A recent research report by the ETailing Group showed that targeted email is now considered the top tactic to drive website conversions in 2009. This 30 minute best practices briefing explores how you can use 1-to-1 real time email to drive website conversions, and what kind of results to expect. What you will learn + Why remarketing is hot in a downturn + How to use real time email to improve your conversion rate + What results to expect + How to measure results + Best practices – how to ensure that customers will love your remarketing Independent tests consistently show that an immediate follow up to something a customer does is best practice. Response rates drop off rapidly in the minutes after […]
July 21, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 21, 2009
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Did you know that the average conversion rate within Internet Retailer’s guide of America’s 500 largest retail websites (ranked by annual sales) is a mere 3%? Forrester recently reported the same across e-commerce at large. In contrast, Adobe Scene7’s customers profiled in Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide have an average conversion rate of 6% – nearly 2X higher than both of these industry averages! Scene7 enables companies to grow revenues, enhance customer experience and cut production costs with solutions ranging from dynamic imaging, evideo streaming, and ecatalogs, to visual configurators, targeted email & print, dynamic asset management, and web-to-print. If the top retail websites are profiting, why shouldn’t you? Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Guide facts: • Scene7 customer conversion rate is 2X the industry average • 7 out of the top 10 mass merchants use Scene7 • Over 100 Scene7 customers earn $60 billion in online revenues • Scene7 has […]
July 21, 2009
Published by Jan Petrovic at July 21, 2009
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Shopping is all about exploration. Before buying, shoppers wants to consider different models, shapes, sizes and colours. In the table below you can see traits in terms of how important each is to getting shoppers to complete a purchase. By looking at that list you realize that shoppers don’t want that much. All what they want is an easy shopping experience… This is the task of web design agencies to get that right. Obviously free shipping, easy returns, product range, special offers, checkout security and shoppers privacy are also very important aspects. You can download full study in .pdf on brand loyalty.
