Comments on: “C’mon, Man, Do Some of that Optimization Sh*t”

By: Henry

Henry — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:40:34 +0000

I like this post
it is exactly true.
In my opinion, all the optimization may not matter if your customer support is terrible.

By: I'm not saying

I'm not saying — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:34:50 +0000

This is so true. So many clients want a magic bullet that really just does not exist.

By: Rohit

Rohit — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:21:02 +0000

he he he he nice post

By: Troy Scheer

Troy Scheer — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:03:40 +0000

Damn, Jeff, I thought that SEO, Conversion, User Experience stuff was just magic that happened with the snap of a finger. That’s what most clients think. You mean that isn’t the case? In all seriousness, good stuff, Jeff.

By: Looking backwards to look forward (Small Business E-Commerce Link Digest – July 10, 2009)

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:26:07 +0000

[...] these efforts show the road to improvement relies on setting the right goals, putting in the time, fixing what needs to be fixed. Yes, it’s definitely more important in the long run to work smarter. But, sometimes [...]

By: Guide2carehomes

Guide2carehomes — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:03:56 +0000

I’ve seen little tweaks here and there make a big difference. Just ordered ‘Waiting for you cat to bark’ – I’m looking forward to reading that!

By: PetsRight

PetsRight — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:15:38 +0000

Great article. The title alone had me laughing out loud.

@Søren Sprogø – Wow. That’s honesty for your a**! Lol.

By: Goldberg

Goldberg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:20:18 +0000

You are right Jeff,Sometimes those little tweaks here and there can work wonders with conversions.I have seen a lot of site with little bit of optimization changed the way visitors use to perceive them before.

By: ian

ian — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:29:24 +0000

Are you sitting in on my client meetings?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:18:27 +0000

Ed,

That’s just the thing, isn’t it: if the client’s site really is deeply flawed from a usability or web-conventions standpoint, than seemingly small changes can have huge impact, but if the site is already at least par-for-the-course design and usability wise, the chances of that are much lower.

Alex,

No question – nothing is so helpful as a better reality when it comes to customer experience/satisfaction. Luckily, many of the same techniques used to evaluate and plan customer experiences online can carry over offline as well (and vice versa).

- Jeff

By: Alex Fisken

Alex Fisken — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:05:35 +0000

Great post Jeff. Another important issue that always almost gets neglected are optimizations to business process and the end-to-end user experience. All of the optimization in the world may not matter if your customer support is lousy, have sub-par products & services, etc. Most often this requires organizational changes and buy-in from stakeholders further up the chain from web teams.

By: Ed Hall

Ed Hall — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:04:18 +0000

Had a client once who had his navigation bar on the right hand side of the page in the middle – donut! Moved it to a traditional placement and his sales went up ten fold overnight, simple things usually but navigation is key in my view!

By: Søren Sprogø

Søren Sprogø — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:50:59 +0000

Heh, it’s funny when clients ask “but can’t we just make the Add-to-Cart button green instead of red, and expect an increase in conversion rate that’ll give us thousands in added revenue?”

When my answer is “No, you site is sh*te. You should do a complete redesign, I don’t do makeup on pigs”.
(Yes, I’m sometimes honest like that).

By: Mark Alan Effinger

Mark Alan Effinger — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:12:26 +0000

Jeff – oh, how true.
11th-hour implementations are, sadly, the norm with many clients.

And expectations of radical improvements in traffic-usability-conversion without testing…

Then again, that’s what makes this industry so engaging. Always something new to try, record, and duplicate.

Nice post. And a classic flick if you find an extra 90 minutes…

Best,
ME

By: John : Site Doublers

John : Site Doublers — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:02:13 +0000

A good tactic is to break down the huge projects into phases – with some split-testing built in.

Do the revamped product shots in just one category at a time and test for an uplift.

If it looks good then this will help with morale and budget for the next categories.

If it doesn’t help at all then maybe forget this idea and try something else.