4 Tips to Ensure Your Site is Customer Focused

Website conversion is increased using a variety of strategies all of which play an important role in the ultimate effectiveness.

I seem to constantly mention that one must make sure they pay careful attention to the customer experience their website offers. After hearing this so many times one might ask “Why do you keep saying this? Enough is enough already.”

The reason I continually bring it up is because it is one of the most important factors playing a role in your success, yet is most often overlooked by many store owners. This quite possibly could be because the customer experience is an all inclusive concept involving many systems working in unison.

The customer experience is not a single tangible element which can be held or altered but rather a series of elements which make up a system upon which the customer relies to get them to their end goal — making a purchase. For it to be effective each of the elements which makes up the system must each be in top shape.

A big part of that customer experience lies in the content (text) your site uses to describe everything from products to the way you use them to your business itself. This is your chance to shine — and many stores fall short.

“Words have the power to influence. Use them carefully but wisely.”

Take the following example from a dealer selling automobiles.

Company Focused: The auto dealer features a particular automobile in its inventory as offering “30 miles per gallon.” Although customers may find this promo informative, they may not see the benefit this statement offers them.

Consider this reworded description.

Customer Focused: The auto dealer lists the car and says “spend less on gas and save more money with this gas-efficient vehicle getting 30 miles to the gallon.” Now this phrase speaks to the customer. It provides them with a specific benefit that buying this car will give them. Everyone wants to “spend less and save more” right?

So after that introduction and example, here are 4 tips you can implement to ensure your site is focused more on your customers and not yourself.

1. Examine your content “bulk.” Content is what encourages customers to continue through the conversion path toward a completed sale. From product page and shopping cart wording to customer assurance terminology which builds confidence, make sure your site includes plenty textual content aiding users at understand the purpose of each page, where to go next, and what to expect.
2. Analyze and assess your content. Who does your content focus on (speak to)? Is it your customer or your company? While content should describe your offers, products, and company (to name a few), it should do so from a customer perspective. Turn any “we” / “our” statements into “you” statements.
3. Describe product and shopping benefits. Let your customers know more than just about what you offer; tell them how your offers or how shopping with you (instead of competitors) will benefit them. For starters, try to include one benefit for each attribute. Customers who clearly understand the benefits are more likely to turn into sales.
4. Start from the top and work your way down. Begin updating content on the high level pages of your site (home page, product pages, shopping cart, etc…) — pages that play the biggest role in moving customers toward conversion. Once the top level pages are out of the way you can focus on the lower level pages of the site. Another good option is to take a close look at your website analytics program to determine which pages have the highest bounce and exit rates. Examine these pages and use them as a starting point for your improvement with the goal of keeping customers from abandoning at those points.

To your success!

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Things to Consider When Starting an Ecommerce Business

I get asked this question quite often; “I am starting an e-commerce business. What are the main points I should consider?”

Well, for starters, successful websites should address 4 distinct areas. If any of these areas is flawed, you risk losing sales.

Having said that, here is a list of what I’ve found from experience you need to consider.

Hosting

Shared vs. Dedicated? Each has their pros and cons (for a later post). Make sure you allow for scalability either way.

It doesn’t matter what items you have in place and how great the site is if the hosting platform is unreliable. You’ll lose current customers fast and have a hard time attracting new ones. Your server platform must be reliable, fast (provide enough bandwidth during peak times) and easily scalable to allow for company growth.

A Merchant Account

This is one component you’ll need in order to accept credit card transactions. You get this typically through your bank. You can find them on the Internet, but research carefully before you choose. Picking the wrong merchant account provider could make a big difference in how your cash from sales is handled.

Merchant accounts typically charge you a fee based on a predetermined percentage rate (varies among card companies; i.e. VISA, MC, AMEX, Discover, etc…)

Payment Gateway

This enables you to connect from your website to your merchant account in order to process credit cards in real time. There are several good providers out there. I recommend Authorize.net.

Payment gateway providers typically charge you a monthly rate based on the amount of transactions that run through the system with a minimum monthly transaction amount for anything under a certain level.

Secure Certificate

Shared or Private? I recommend a private SSL (buy your own don’t use one the host provides to everyone) as private SSL’s typically see higher conversion rates (visitors that convert to sales.)

Private SSL’s are very inexpensive and there are a number of companies that provide them such as GeoTrust, Thawte, Verisign, Comodo to name a few.

Shop around. Pricing can be high on some yet reasonable on others.

Shopping Cart platform and infrastructure (technology)

Do you want to go OpenSource or are you looking for a custom solution. A few keys here. No matter the route you choose, make sure your cart is rich in features and is stable under high load volumes.

You want a cart that is flexible enough to adapt to change (you’ll need this for testing what works to cause visitors to buy from you; this is a critical element in achieving higher conversion), solid enough to provide fast response times under peak times, and has the ability to scale as your business grows.

Like the hosting I mentioned above, without the right infrastructure in place, it will make no difference how “good” a cart looks, or what other elements are in place to “make it succeed”. In the end you’ll pay dearly for a shop that is “non-reachable” due to technical problems.

Market Strategy

This is a big one. Like the others, if you have no market strategy, it won’t matter how many other elements are in place; you’ll have a hard time seeing optimal and sustained growth results.

Website Analytics

Get yourself a good Website Analytics package. Some are free and some cost a bundle. For starters, Google Analytics offers a super tracking system that’s free and provides you with more than enough data (when properly setup) to get your company moving in the right direction.

In order to succeed you need to be able to measure how effective your implemented strategies are on your visitors / customers. Website analytics allows you to do just that. Without them you are a sitting duck. You will have no way of knowing where your problems are on your site, how to correct them, or if the direction you are heading is the right one.

For more on properly setting up Google Analytics, you may want to read my 6 part series called Google Analytics Demystified.

Advertising

What channels will you utilize to generate traffic to your site? Online / Offline? A combination of both? You need to decide this. Determine your target market and plan your advertising strategies accordingly.

Areas to consider for traffic generation are:

• Organic SEO
• Paid Search Advertising (PPC)
• Blogging
• Social Networking Sites
• Online Press Release Services
• Opt In Email Marketing (don’t spam)
• Print Ads in Trade Magazines and Journals
• Radio
• TV

Order Fulfillment / Inventory Management

Put systems in place that will support the demands of customers (they like fast delivery) and will not overtax your internal infrastructure.

You’ll make customers happy and gain more if you have processes in place that promote fast and efficient shipping.

Likewise, make sure your cart has a method of tracking inventory. Not only is that important for keeping track of your business, but it will ensure you don’t make customers angry by allowing them to buy a product that, after completing the transaction, you have to have to then tell them the item is out of stock. This is a sure way to lose customers.

Customer Retention

Put systems in place to keep in touch with past customers. Building an ecommerce business often means keeping a “base” of repeat customers coming back for more. As new customers enter the funnel, they build on top of the base that is already there. Combined, the two drive the business toward growth.

There are numerous ways to retain customers. Offline methods such as postcard follow-ups, coupon offers, brochures, and more. Online methods include much of the same although the delivery is usually via email. So make sure you have an email provider (preferably a company that’s sole purpose is to get your email delivered) with a good reputation for delivery. When looking at this, consider checking to make sure they are not “blacklisted” (which will decrease the chances of your emails actually arriving at their destination.)

Here are some helpful links that may assist you in checking the “listing” status of your ISP or mail service provider.
Distributed Sender Blackhole List
DMOZ Blacklist Directory Listings

There are practically an infinite number of items one could say should be considered when building an ecommerce site. The listing provided in this article is a good start.

To your success!

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The True Purpose of Google Analytics Funnel

I got a question from a reader here recently and after posting a comment back on it, decided that a full post would be best for everyone. Comments can get buried at times and this topic is worth taking note of.

The question involved the use of Google Analytics Funnel tracking and went something like this.

Is it possible to set up a funnel with a determined starting point and ending point, but where the pages in between don’t matter? In other words, a user comes in on Page A, then they could either go to Page B, C, or D, and then from there go to Page E. All I want to know is how many users who came in via Page A ended up at Page E. I don’t care what happened in between. Is that possible?

Taking note of the true purpose of funnel tracking will shed some light on why not caring about what happens in between the initial click and the end goal can backfire on you.

The Purpose of Setting up Funnel Tracking

One primary objective of any e-commerce site should be to drive visitors down a “specific and intended path” guiding them all the way to then end result (a sale.)

Providing that path gives users direction. The direction you provide builds customer assurance which in turn builds confidence. Both lead to more sales.

Allowing customers to “aimlessly wander” through your site will result in less than desirable results and lost sales. If you want them to buy, you need to take their hand and “show them the way”.

Funnel tracking is used to measure how effective a particular process is at leading your visitor down an intended path then converting that visitor into a goal (for e-commerce sites that ideally is a sale.)

It provides a detailed path analysis depicting where in that process you have problems (also called barriers) which prevent your visitors from buying. Funnels provide a “starting point roadmap” for addressing sections of the site that need adjustment and attention.

Leaving the “meat” out of a funnel (all the pages in between the initial click and the end goal) only defeats the purpose of setting up the funnel in the first place.

Having said that, if you really want to setup a funnel without any pages in between mattering, then it is possible (but not advisable) and, you have to be able to read and interpret the data figures to make sense of it all.

This Example Explains Further

Joe has a website. He wants to increase sales. To meet his objective and as a first step, he knows he must have an analytics package in place. He adds Google Analytics to his site and sets up funnel tracking.
Read more

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How to Use Google to Survey Your Customers

Came across this excellent post on the AWeber blog today and thought it was worth sharing.

It flows perfectly in line with my recent post on how to use Google’s Grand Central to get a customer service phone number and virtual PBX system for your company — all for free.

In the AWeber post Justin talks about a creative method of using Google Docs and AWeber to survey your customers. I know you’ll enjoy reading it. Very eye opening. Ah … the power of Google.

Read the full article here.

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200 Words That Make Money

Since the initial writing of my post 14 Words That Lose Money, I’ve had a number of requests for a post on words that make money.

So, here is a list of 200 Words that make money. I’ve put in bold those words that you might want to consider using in various areas of your e-commerce store to persuade buyers (although product descriptions could also benefit from many of the others as well.)

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