10 Keys for Retails Stores Who Want a Successful Website

 

If you own a retail store and want your website to function at a high level, the metrics you measure for success are slightly different from those of an e-commerce based website.  Here is a 10 item checklist you can use to make sure your website is performing at a high level.

1.  Make sure your website has a clear path to the action you want visitors to take. Sounds obvious but most people miss it.  If you want to collect  names, there should be a clear path towards a download or contact us page.  If you want someone to call, the phone number should be prominently displayed on every page.

2.  Make sure your website has a clear message as to what you do. With the  speed of the internet and the wide availability of options on the web, visitors to your site are impatient.  Deliver a clear message about what your site offers that  immediately resonates with visitors and confirms that they’ve come to the right site.

3.  Avoid using lots of Flash. Flash may make your site look cool, but it will increase your site’s load time, frustrating visitors with slower internet connections.  Flash is
also not visible on some mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads.

4.  Create enticing reasons for your website visitors to come into your store. If you’re main goal is to get more traffic in the door, give them a compelling reason to do so.
Deals and specials that have an expiration date create a sense of urgency and tend to work best.  Just remember that someone on your team (or your web developer)
will be responsible for making these updates.  Make sure there’s an area on the  home page of your site that displays these deals.

5.  Make deals and specials social. Adding the ability for a website visitor to share info about your site, especially timely offers is a great way to let your fans spread the word about your site for you.  Adding a share this on Facebook or ReTweet button to your adds allows your website visitors to become your marketers.

6.  Create coupons that are available only on your website. Even if you don’t sell anything on your site, by hosting printable coupons on your site, you can drive more traffic and can more accurately track which customers in your store came from your website.  Make sure to code your coupons for tracking.

7.  Keep an eye on the right website metrics. Every single website should have Google Analytics or some version of tracking analytics available.  Some core metrics to measure are Unique Visits,  Goal Conversions (made it to a certain page, complete a form, etc), Traffic Sources, Entry Keywords, Bounce Rate and even Click Overviews can provide you a wealth of information about who your visitors are, what they are looking for, even what they are clicking on your site.  You may be surprised by what you find.

8.  SEO must be in place. The internet is an increasingly more competitive place.  Any website worth it’s salt will have, at a minimum, great on page SEO and preferably, a  robust offline campaign as well.  Ranking well in the search engines for relevant keywords that drive traffic is THE most cost affective way to increase business. Period.

9.  Give ‘em a reason to come back. The problem with a lot of websites who’s primary goal is to increase foot traffic is that they do a bad job of keeping customers engaged.  Offer a newsletter signup on your site and in your store.  Use the newsletter to stay top of mind with your clients who’ve already been to your site or already purchased from you, because they are more likely to do it again.  Put links in your newsletter that drive traffic back to your site for special coupons and discounts they can spend in your store.  You can also post videos to your site and drive traffic from your newsletter, Facebook or Twitter to your site to view the video.  This can help increase customer engagement on your site and encourage visitors to come back.

10.  Become an internet snoop. It never hurts to see what your competition is doing. You may see some things you want to avoid and you may seem some things you want to implement.  You can also look for stores similar to yours which are in a non-competing area.  Peruse their websites for inspiration from time to time to make sure your website is staying up to date.

The most important thing to remember when building a new website or evaluating your own website is the end goal.  What do you want your website to achieve?  Does your website accurately reflect the overall aesthetic and feel of your company?  What do other people think about your site?  And remember, if you aren’t measuring how your site is doing, then you can’t improve it.

Google’s Plus 1, All Your SEO Eggs in One Basket

Updated:  Google has announced the update of  +1 and the article from Google is here.  With Easter fast approaching, and Google’s predicted announcement of a new socially integrated service “+1″ into it’s organic search listings expected as early as today, I felt this title was timely

The truth is, so many of us in the SEO world rely on Google’s Organic and Paid Search structure that every move they make can have a major impact on us.

This latest development in Google’s search rankings, dubbed +1, or Plus One, supposedly allows searchers to  enable friends from their social circle to boost rankings for sites they like and trust.  If you are in a social network than your friends can basically influence the results you see for a search phrase.  Searchers have to turn this feature on, but this could have major implications for search as we now know it if widely adopted. This was first announced by the Google peeps in early December, but it looks as though it may be about to launch.  (After all, the twitters are all astir about it!)

Despite the countless number of professionals I know who constantly doubt social media, it’s effects can be felt everywhere, maybe in your search results soon.

Google has already been dropping social suggestions into search but this could be a big step in a new direction for the search giant.  That said, it’s hard to imagine Google scrapping all of the years of research and hard work they put forth on they algorithm based search results which thrive on relevance, for a social popularity contest.

More likely, we’ll see a blend of social recommendations and Google generated organic listings if the Plus One feature is turned on.  This will mean less space for good ole organic listings and a new emphasis on connecting within the social graph to ensure your website and your business stays competitive.   Google knows that it has to stay competitive with Facebook and Twitter, and to do so means embracing some changes.  I’m looking forward to seeing how they integrate social search with organic search and how it effects rankings.

Cheers!

Google Magazine- Think Quarterly

 

Ahh Google… What can’t they do?  They’ve got the lion’s share of organic search, they’ve got free phone numbers and voice mail down, they’ve started digging into the mobile phone market with the Android platform, they’ve got video on lock with YouTube and now they are venturing into magazines?

Well, not exactly.  With the release of Think Quarterly, Google has made public some of the information they share with their UK partners about Data.  On the site, Google says, “Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.”

Powered by Issuu, a free online publishing platform, Think Quarterly makes data sexy. Although Google doesn’t plan on selling any copies, the professional layout, use of fonts, images and style makes this magazine a pleasure to read.

With articles spanning the Visual History of Data Through The Ages and mobile technology, the 68 page e-publication is both fun to read and extremely interesting, especially for tech nerds.

The only bummer is that the Issuu software doesn’t run on the iPad (Flash) but all of the articles are still available from the same site.  On a desktop, the Issuu software makes it even more enjoyable to read, with handy navigation features I’d like to see adapted by more e-readers.

I’m happy Google has decided to share.

Using Press Releases for SEO

A fairly common and often discussed SEO technique is utilizing Press Releases to drive traffic to a website.  I’ve heard folks say, “I generate 1200 links just from one press release!”  While that’s all well and good, it’s important to note that press release links don’t actually improve PR (Page Rank) and so from that perspective are useless.  Matt Cutts (Google algorithm insider) confirmed this at the SMX West (Search Marketing Expo) recently.

No Page Rank Love? Does That Mean No SEO Value?

Just because there isn’t immediate ‘link juice’ from sending out a press release doesn’t mean there’s no SEO value.  You can and should use press releases to drive quality traffic to your site.  If a press release generated 1200 links through distribution and each of those links was clicked on by 2 people interested in your product or service, (and better yet, if you were tracking those clicks to monitor conversions) then you could say that the press release did it’s job.

Even better, from an SEO perspective, if a journalist/reporter picks up the story in your press release and write about it, then any links from that story would count towards your Page Rank.  Not only that, you will get the free publicity and extra traffic associated with the news story.

Measuring Press Release’s SEO Value

Since Page Rank continues to be an important component of SEO, generating great links to your site remains a staple.  It’s important to note that if your SEO provider is telling you that sending out press releases is going to directly increase your Page Rank, this isn’t actually true.  It’s also important to note that this doesn’t mean that press releases are a waste of time and money.  It means that more attention must be paid to the actual SEO outcome of submitting a press release.  Since submitting press releases through the major outlets (PRWeb, etc) usually costs money, it’s important to monitor your ROI as much as possible.  This could be measured in unique visits to the site from the link in the press release, conversions that transpire on the site from the link, or even new customer/client acquisition as a result of the press release.

Inspect Your Site Code!

I recently had my website redesigned.  It needed it.  Badly.  It still isn’t perfect and I’m constantly tweaking it, but from a design perspective, it’s now 100% better than it was before. Despite how excited I was about the new design, I was very disturbed when I got the final product and looked under the hood.

My website’s code was a MESS!

Why, you ask, would I, owner of a website design and consulting firm have allowed this to happen?  Excellent question.  I have a few trusted designers that I work with and I am always looking for more talented designers to match with my clients based on their needs and their budget.   As a start-up company myself, I had a limited budget and so decided to “test” this new designer on myself.  (Her portfolio is impressive and her work, from a design perspective IS awesome)Her designs, amazing.  Her web development/coding, horrible.  What made it worse was that it was never disclosed to me how my site was to be coded.  In fact the agreement stated that “The site will be built using the latest CSS / XHTML standards  and be fully cross-platform and SEO compliant “  To top it all off, When I confronted her about, I was made out to be the bad guy!

Lesson learned:  Always inspect what I expect and ask a lot of questions.

Had I known that my site was going to get an amazing design and then be tossed into Dreamweaver to have auto code generated, I would have approached a different designer about the redesign or re-thought my budget.  Fortunately I know enough about code to have spotted the shabby work.  Unfortunately, she told me that “Dreamweaver generates perfectly sound website code used by hundreds of thousands of web designers and developers, and is a totally adequate and reasonable option for a client with a small budget such as yours was. I have used it for dozens of other clients in the past who have never had a single problem with it.”

YIKES!!! I feel really bad for those clients who probably ARE having problems with their site like slow as molasses load times, crazy high bounce rates and absolutely no way of knowing why their site just doesn’t seem to be working. Clarification:  You can build websites in Dreamweaver and they can turn out fine.  You cannot drop a psd file into Dreamweaver and auto-generate a website that is the standard of CSS/HTML and SEO compliant.

I won’t disclose any names, but I will put the before and after code in this post.  I had the site totally recoded into WordPress so that I can easily access, update and tweak from anywhere (even my phone).

Before Code:

http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/autogeneratedsitecode.txt

After Code:

http://www.dynamicwebsolutions.com/siterecodeintowordpress.txt

The current code is still being tweaked and optimized (when isn’t it!) but I’m much happier with it. You can always click “View” “Page Source” or some variation of that to view the most up to date source code for the site.

I welcome any feedback or similar stories.  Here’s to better code and better sites!

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