It started as a Tweet:

Who wants a FREE $50 gift code? Here it is: TLTW7897 First come, first serve – and all tees are ON SALE FOR $12!! http://tinyurl.com/yqe9f

Bryan Eisenberg (@TheGrok) caught it among the noise that is twitter traffic, then predictably, he forwarded it to me and the rest of the staff. 50$ bucks off t-shirts at Threadless.com, very cool.

So like any wearer of T-shirts I followed the link and was immediately impressed by the home page. Copy easy to read and clear, check! Design functional and attractive, check! Navigation clear easy to understand, check! Images enticing, check! A cool variety of off-the-wall tees, check! Several ways to start browsing, check!

So I hover over the down arrow to “Browse by Size“. An attractive drop down appears on the hover, and I am presented with the following:
All is beauuutiful, birds are chirping, sun rays are shining. Next, I move my mouse down under Guys, and I click on my size…2XL.

This is where things go wretchedly wrong…

Somebody cue Homer Simpson.

Doh!
Now please correct me if I am wrong (I’ve been wrong about this once or twice before), but those are human beings of the feminine persuasion right? I’d be willing to bet anyone a FREE $50 Threadless gift code that I am looking at a whole bunch of ladies. Not that I am complaining about that, but I was expecting to see guy t-shirts. Wouldn’t you be?

So, I hover over the nav and click again on the 2XL under Guyyysss. Same thing. The same thing happened after I clicked on all the guys sizes.

I would be interested to see what the bounce/exit rate would be on this page. I would bet a lot more than $50 that Threadless.com is bleeding guys on this listing page. I wonder how many guys are thinking they are in the wrong place.

The reason I like to shop by size is that when I am shopping for T-shirts I hate to fall in love with a T-shirt that is not available in my size, it just grates me. Threadless.com must realize this, because they make it easy for you request notification if your size is not in stock.

The interesting thing is that many of the tees on the site have thumbs of male and female, so male model pics are available. Does Threadless know something I don’t? Do females modeling t-shirts sell more effectively to guys buying t-shirts for themselves? Are us guys that secure in our masculinity that we can buy shirts that ‘girlys’ wear?? Or, are the shirts at Threadless.com that cool that model gender just doesn’t matter?

P.S. I couldn’t even get the coupon to work either.

In this screencast, we’re going to show you how two brands — Tide to Go and Under Armour — continue to miss out on converting browsers into buyers, even after the post-game traffic surge is over. Depending on who you ask, these sponsors’ ads (”Interview” for Tide and “The New Prototype” for Under Armour) were pretty decent. The products don’t seem to be the problem, either.

Nope. What we have here is a failure to convert. So, much like the New England Patriots are doing right now, let’s see what we can learn from some video analysis:

Let’s take a look at some post-game stats from Reprise Media’s Search Marketing Scorecard:

• 6% of companies included a call to action, asking viewers to visit their websites–a decrease of nearly two thirds from last year

• 93% did not buy search placement for concepts relating to their ads, including spokesperson names, slogans and taglines. Among the brands that failed to buy featured stars’ names as keywords were Bridgestone Tires (Alice Cooper and Richard Simmons) and Sunsilk (Marilyn Monroe, Shakira and Madonna). Unfortunately, notes Reprise, given that the celebrities are often the only thing that viewers remember about an ad.

• 74% still neglected to include a call to action on their Web site landing pages, leaving users “directionless.”

These figures are important because they illustrate a common misconception among multi-channel marketing campaigns: While the TV ad’s success can be measured by the traffic it drives to the website, the traffic alone is meaningless. When visitors can’t convert, you lose.

Want help converting online? Download “10 Tips to Start Optimizing Your Site” for free!

In case you missed his farewell tribute, enjoy…

But will Gates actually stop making headlines? Probably not so much.

Gates still retains his title as one of the richest dudes in the world and, of course, he will now focus on making the world a better place. It’s enough for even the biggest Mac fanboy to have a few warm fuzzies for Gates.

Everyone raves about the charisma of Apple’s Steve Jobs, but can you picture Jobs poking fun at himself like this? Where will we find Bill Gates next?

It’s been a good week for personal brands & authenticity; first Hillary sobs, then Gates makes Jobs looks a little like a statue.

Who woulda thunk it?

In this edition of Screencast, I’ll show you how some e-tailers are helping their online shoppers navigate the gift-giving season, while others are, well, let’s just say they’re hoping to receive (your money). For instance, WalMart.com doesn’t seem to do anything special to help gift shoppers. Meanwhile, Etsy.com — a site where independent clothing designers and artisans from around the world their wares — proves you don’t need a Wal-Mart-sized budget to sort merchandise into gift guides for the customer. BarnesAndNoble.com has a nice gift guide that helps you find gifts to match the person’s style, but good luck finding it; their guide is hidden in drop-down menus and poorly phrased navigation buttons. Amazon.com does it best, and although there’s room for improvement, as you’ll see, they engage gift shoppers front-and-center on the homepage (a smart thing to do in December) and they do a good job of limiting choices. That’s right. When it comes to deciding between gifts, less is definitely more more — just be sure to show them things they’ll like.

Our gift to e-tailers? How about some holiday bonus tips:

• Provide a Gift Buying Guide
• Overcome “analysis paralysis” by limiting choice
• Allow customers to shop THEIR way…
  • By relationship
  • By “most popular“
  • By price
  • By characteristic (i.e., type of gift)
  • ASK your customers how they would like gifts sorted

There you have it! Sort. Categorize. Limit their choices to stuff that’s relevant, and let that momentum pull them toward the sale. And do yourself a favor: Don’t wait until Cyber Monday ‘08 to help gift shoppers spend their money on you. Engage them directly by using language and navigation that address their needs right away. And if you’re still leaving cash on the table, make a resolution to get help.

[Special thanks to Conversion Analyst Ron Patiro for his help finding these examples.]

My family’s been hobbling around on the original Xbox for a few years now, and I’ve decided a game console upgrade is long overdue. If I were more patient, I suppose I could wait until Christmas — but patience is overrated. I supposed the release of Halo 3 has me chomping at the bit. (At least I’m not the only one. Check out how Halo 3 is moving Xbox consoles.) So, I’m trying to decided whether I want to buy the Wii or the Xbox 360 now, and which one will have to wait until Christmas. The only thing up in the air is which console I’ll buy first.

To help me make this decision, I’ll go online to visit each console’s main site. This screencast documents my journey and, ultimately, the winner:

(If you’re reading this via RSS, click here for video.)

I could’ve made dozens of suggestions for each site, but it was the category pages that made the biggest difference in helping me make my decision. The Xbox 360 game listing page looks good. While it did give me the ability to sort and search games, it was limited compared to the Wii. New games or not, sometimes these subtle differences are enough to send comparison shoppers like me to the competition.

Xbox 360 does a few things right:

• Great use of game thumbnails
• “Buy Now” call to action
• Top searches

Some suggestions for the Xbox folks:

• Add a “view all” function, so we can scroll the entire listing
• Allow sort by more criteria (e.g., # of players, release date)
• Printable & sharable listings

While the functionality of the Wii’s listing page was superior and helped me make my decision, that doesn’t mean this page is great. The Wii page is far too complicated and looks out of place in comparison to the rest of the site. So, raw functionality wins, but this doesn’t exactly feel as effortless as using one of those magic wand-like Wii controllers.

Here are a few suggestions for the people over at Wii:

• Add thumbnails to the listings
• Include a call to action
• Change dreary page color to match the rest of the Wii site
• Add “view all” function to scroll entire listing
• Printable & sharable listings

Author of “Motivation from the Inside Out: Rethinking Rewards, Assessment, and Learning” and “Beyond Bribes and Threats: Realistic Alternatives to Controlling Students’ Behavior”, Alfie Kohn wrote this piece for the New York Times in 1993 about rewards in the workplace not motivating employees the right way.

Kohn suggests that these rewards act the exact same as punishments and create negative work environments.

I call BS on this simplistic presumption. The problem isn’t the reward itself. The problem is misunderstanding the person’s motivations and thereby offering the wrong reward.

Our whole lives are motivated by an internal sense of worth, measured by “rewards” — both internal and external. We’re each addicted to our own reward system. It stains every action we take.

The same applies to the buying process, and to your website.

Creating personas, profiles, and buying perspective for our clients is what we do each day at Future Now. This work is based on our instrument of choice, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Myers-Briggs is commonly used among psychologists, and has the largest database of respondents. Millions take this test annually.

According to the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (define) — which is based on Myers-Briggs but inspired by the ancient Greeks — people default to four primary temperaments:

• The Artisan (”SP”; Sensing-Perceiving)
• The Rationalist (”NT”; iNtuitive-Thinking)
• The Idealist (”NF”; iNtuitive-Feeling)
• The Guardian (”SJ”; Sensing-Judging)

In our work we focus tightly on how people prefer to behave in the buying process, so we label each temperaments differently to reflect just that. In Future Now-speak:

• The Spontaneous (”SP”; Sensing-Perceiving)
• The Competitive (”NT”; iNtuitive-Thinking)
• The Humanistic (”NF”; iNtuitive-Feeling)
• The Methodical (”SJ”; Sensing-Judging)

People tend to be surprised when they test themselves and find they’re an SP, SJ or NF. At this point, they’ll often say something like “Well, this doesn’t make sense… I’m extremely competitive!” Of course, most of the successful people we work with often are. Just because you’re not an “NT Competitive” doesn’t mean you don’t compete fiercely; you just compete for different reasons and different rewards.

The Spontaneous often competes and is primarily motivated by the thrill of the winning experience, the adrenaline rush.

The Competitive often competes and is primarily motivated by big-picture status, the trophy on the shelf.

The Humanistic often competes and is primarily motivated by the success of the team, one for all.

The Methodical often competes and is primarily motivated by the satisfaction of a job well done, winning is it’s own reward.

Of course, you’ll likely see a little bit of yourself in each of these — depending on the situation — but you may find one more appealing than the others.

Does this apply to your website? Of course!

Since buying usually triggers reward centers in the brain, these four types of motivations are relevant to the buying process. If you promise the wrong rewards, you’ll create a negative buying experience. Here’s somethings you can do in your product descriptions:

For the Spontaneous, briefly describe the thrill/experience the product provides.

For the Competitive, show them how the product will advance their goals.

For the Humanistic, show them how the product will positively affect others.

For the Methodical, describe in detail how the product will help them get things right.

If you have a minute, share some examples with us of websites that push your reward button — and let us know your temperament. Not sure of your own type? Take an anonymous (and free) online test.

All too often, companies get so hung up on optimizing their sites to convert late-stage, ready-to-buy customers that they don’t realize that creating the most relevant experience is really what helps them in the long term. For instance, I may end up buying the cheapest car insurance I can find, but I’d prefer to do business with a company that’s transparent about teen driving coverage and expenses. I’m not ready to buy today, but that’s fine. Soon enough, I will.

So, for the next few minutes, see what happens as I browse Geico.com, StateFarm.com, and Progressive.com in this early-stage buying scenario:

(For those reading this in RSS, click here for the video.)

As always, we hope to hear more suggestions on websites to cover. We’ll do our best to insure it’s something each of us can walk away with.

We’d love to hear some comments from parents or anyone who’s bought car insurance online. Oh, and don’t be afraid to steal this video. Just stay away from my daughter’s car.

(For those reading this in RSS, click here for the video.)

Does your website stink? If so, you may want to read this. In the meantime, we hope to hear more suggestions from Grok readers for websites to review. We hope to hear some creative suggestions, and we’ll try to make sure there’s something everyone can learn.

For Part 1 (of 3), Lars had us take a look at Orrefors.com, a high-end glassware site with some conversion and persuasion-related stumbling blocks that prevent customers from quickly getting the information they need. Orrefors is a great example of beautiful design getting in the way of the basics. There’s a lot they do right, and hopefully someone from Orrefors is reading so they can do even better.

So, without further ado… The Orrefors.com screencast:

InformationWeek chronicles a software patent filed by Big Brother, er, I mean Microsoft….

Overall, the software is like adware that figures out what ads to display based on files on the hard drive and what’s being displayed on the screen at a given moment. The advertising software, which could be part of the operating system, a standalone app, or an application feature, would use information gleaned from documents, music, computer status messages, and e-mails as context for ads. However, the software could conceivably gather information on every file on a user’s hard drive and send it to advertisers, and the application does little to assuage security and privacy concerns. Read the entire spooky article...

So, you mean to tell me there’s software in the works that’ll gently reach into my happy little computer, harmlessly read my innocent hard drive, stream my private data on a soft, fluffy cloud back to Microsoft, then, based on what it finds, kindly deliver me even more pleasant and delightful ads than I already get?

Boy, I can’t wait! The pop-ups, the spam, and the intrusive banner ads just aren’t enough to feed my appetite. Please, please, please give me more.

The answer to your marketing woes is not some new ad delivery system, or some new technology. When are businesses going to figure out that the simplest thing to do is work create a great product or service experience and let the rest take care of itself?

If you want a more sophisticated marketing strategy, try this.

If you don’t know how to create a great customer experience, try this — and pay special attention to Chapter 14.

-Demanding “Polished and Professional” Ads
-Informing without Persuading
-Entertaining without Persuading
-Decorating without Persuading

Most of these mistakes center around the advertiser’s fear of offending the audience.

Roy H. Williams, the ‘Wizard of Ads,’ makes the case for not being all bound up in the tentacles of fear when you are creating your ads.

Oftentimes, fear is the enemy of profit. If you’ve been doing marketing or advertising for more than a few weeks, you’ve likely watched at least one great ad idea crushed under the foot of someone courageously challenged.

Read Roy H. Williams’ entire Monday Morning Memo…

First, track where on the site visitors are engaging your chat.

Second, use chat transcripts to extract the common questions visitors are asking.

Third, provide those answers on the same pages where they’re being asked.

Simple enough?

If you have a lot of visitors engaging chat on your product pages — and you have lots of skews — it’s likely that you need to provide more information on your product pages.

Many of your visitors are bailing because their questions aren’t being answered, many of them won’t think to start a chat to get those answers, and others simply prefer not to chat.

The path to better conversion is to simply answer your visitors’ questions. If you’re unsure what they’re asking or where, many of those questions are sitting in your chat logs. Go take a look.

Forrester Research, a market research company, projects that online book sales will rise 11 percent this year, compared with nearly 40 percent last year. Apparel sales, which increased 61 percent last year, are expected to slow to 21 percent. And sales of pet supplies are on pace to rise 30 percent this year after climbing 81 percent last year.

Growth rates for online sales are slowing down in numerous other segments as well, including appliances, sporting goods, auto parts, computer peripherals, and even music and videos. Forrester says that sales growth is pulling back in 18 of the 24 categories it measures.

The article then speculates as to the reasons why online sales are slumping:

The slowdown is a result of several forces. Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits. (Read the entire article)

What a punch in the gut…

It cites a few more reasons, but none allude to the fact that many online shopping experiences still, um, suck. While allowing shoppers to shop online and purchase offline is still a vital health metric, we’ve watched average online conversion rates stand still (according to Shop.org and eMarketer), staying within one standard deviation for several years.

A rising tide lifts all boats, but as the tide calms, will online businesses still be able enjoy healthy growth? That depends. If yours is one of the handful of sites that’s been successful maximizing conversion and ROI, probably. But if your site’s been lifted by the tide, hold on and prepare for downtown.

Is this the 2.0 bubble starting to burst? Is this what it’s going to take to get online marketers and sellers to get serious about their subpar conversion rates?

You tell me.

I just don’t have the emotional fortitude to endure online shopping carts and checkout processes. By the end of a buying session, I’m always left with ground-down teeth and a dozen less hairs (as you can tell by my photo below, I have very little to spare).

I’m not alone. PC World curmudgeon John Dvorak shares my pain. All his peeves are mine.
He rants about carts freezing during an order submission, entering phone numbers in the proper format, long forms and errors that force you reenter data, and the infamous “please do no hit the submit button twice” message.

Money quote:

None of this would bother me if shopping-cart software had just been invented. But this stuff, in Internet years, is old and established. Why haven’t these simple flaws been changed by now? Do any of these vendors actually use this stuff? [Read the entire article]

I want to buy online – I really do – but it just hurts too much.

But the person that would is sure to respond passionately to such a bold headline. According to Fast Company, if you want people to love you, you’d better figure out who’s gonna hate you…

We examined more than 1,000 Match.com ads–from men and women, old and young. Our search yielded headlines like this one: “Hey.” Folks, if your opening line is “Hey,” you better be hot.

Another said “Looking for love.” Well, duh, you’re on Match.com. At least two-thirds of the headlines said nothing–and did it poorly.

Why do these headlines suck so much? Fear. Fear of saying too much. Fear of saying something clever that someone might think is stupid. Fear of saying something revealing that might turn someone off. The headlines try desperately not to exclude anyone. In doing so, they succeed at boring everyone.

The “Hey” phenomenon is rampant in the corporate world. Branding is nothing more than a company’s personal ad, and companies are as bad at it as singles. Gap (NYSE:GPS), for example, is the “Hey” of fashion, thus its recent woes. And Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) –who, exactly, does it want to date? Brands with enough scale think they can get away with being generically likable. And some can, at least for a little while.

Your company is an athletic math nerd; not everyone is going to buy your goods. In fact, more people won’t buy from you than will. So, why are wasting so much time trying to be all things to all people in your marketing?

If anything, the fear of being disliked afflicts marketers more acutely than daters, because the stakes are higher. “Most marketers feel that if they make a bold statement, they risk not just alienating customers–but also their boss, and their boss’s boss,” says Charles Rosen, founding partner of Amalgamated ad agency. “That fear takes the edge off of all communications.”

What exactly are you afraid of? Stand up tall. Say who you are. The only thing more embarrassing than humming Seinfeld with your customers is humming it broke and alone.

(Note: Many of us around the office are quickly becoming big fans of Dan & Chip Heath who authored this article. My copy of their book Made to Stick is screaming for mercy from all the dog ears.)

…online marketers are largely unaware of their customers’ preferences.

The article then rehashes the common knowledge that online marketing spend is up, while average conversion rates are steadily sinking. It also cites a few research studies that speculate as to the reasons why conversion rates currently suck.

Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the “U.S. Retail E-Commerce Update,” said the disconnect between spending and results can be attributed to online retailers doing too little traditional market research while relying too much on Web metrics.

The article continues…

Online marketers “treat Web metrics like religion,” he said. “They don’t look at what’s behind the numbers.

“Market research tells retailers why customers are doing things, which is different than only measuring what consumers are clicking on,” said Grau. “Online retailers can use focus groups, e-mail and consumer conversations with customer service agents to find out what people care about.” But Web analytics follow user behavior, and that kind of data doesn’t explain why people do things, he said.

The article also refers to those sites that perform above average, suggesting that:

…top-performing e-commerce sites–those with conversion rates of more than 10 percent–stand out from the pack because they “know their customers and their competition well enough to provide a one-stop shopping experience,” with convenience and customized features suited to their target audience.

Far be it from me to argue with these conclusions, but they’re too shallow for my tastes.

Let’s speculate for a minute…

Let’s imagine that:

• You know WHO your customers are.
• You know WHAT your customers are doing and not doing on your site (i.e., web metrics).
• You actually know WHY they’re not converting.

Now what? Do you now know HOW to convert them?

Every client we’ve dealt with has had enough WHO, WHAT, and WHY information on-hand to make a positive impact on their conversion, but most have yet to figure out HOW to leverage this information to maximize and optimize their conversion rate.

I wish it were as easy as running a few focus groups, creating a few new promotions, offering free shipping, etc–but, it isn’t. If it were, the average conversion rates wouldn’t suck.

Marketers need a system that will manage the seemingly endless variables, understand quantitative and behavioral data, help them prioritize resources for conversion impact, synchronize cross channel message, give them deeper insight into web analytics, equip them to develop relevant creative on-demand, then turn it all into online customer experience.

A tall order, for sure. Thankfully, I know of a such a system

Here’s a sample:

The key is to cover all the bases when it comes to the different learning styles of the audience. Let me elaborate on that point a bit.

One way in which otherwise quality content fails to satisfy the needs of much of the prospective audience is by failing to address different learning styles. Moreover, failing to properly structure the different approaches to communicating information will leave many of your readers confused and your content in shambles from a flow perspective. Read the entire post…

Brian continues the post offering details on the “four learning styles” (’innovative,’ ‘common sense,’ ‘analytic,’ and ‘dynamic’) and then gives a simple framework for addressing each in your copy.

If you’re new to using these types of copywriting methods to increase conversion, we strongly encourage you to take Brian’s advice. You’ll be delighted with the results.

Brian’s framework is a rock solid head-start in building a more robust persona set. So, if you see results with his method, how much further would customer personas take you in your optimization efforts?

(Editor’s note: For a first-hand education on writing for personas–and different learning modes–as they relate to your website, consider joining us in our Brooklyn office on April 17th for the Persuasive Online Copywriting workshop.)

You may have noticed that some of your ad units have started to look a little different lately — we’re happy to announce that, just in time for spring, we’ve given our standard ad units a fresh makeover. After extensive testing and research, we’ve found that the new formats are not only visually appealing to users, but they also perform even better for publishers and advertisers. Read the entire post…

Assuming your ad is relevant, you can no-doubt expect better click-through rates with this new look.

This is good news for some, bad news for others.

For those who are serious about ROI and conversion rate optimization, this is a gigantic net positive as you’ll both get more traffic and be better able to convert it.

But if you’re one of the many with wimpish conversion rates, hopelessly addicted to high-volume traffic to maintain growth, then your ad budget just got bigger–and you’re slowly falling victim to traffic cost inflation.

Looks like it’s time to get serious about landing page optimization. While those new AdSense clicks will cost you, many of the tools needed to maximize ROI are little to no cost.

There are no more excuses.

Just yesterday, Google announced Google Website Optimizer, which is FREE. Here are some other free resources to get you started.

If you’re going to spend so much on AdSense, doesn’t it make sense to start improving the performance of pages visitors land on once they click-through?

Calls to Action

1.) Is your call to action distinctive? Does it stand out on the page?
2.) Button language and/or hyperlink anchor text
3.) B2B Concerns – Are you asking leads to submit?
4.) Button Colors & Shapes

Point of Action Assurances

5.) Privacy policy: is it easy to understand?
6.) Return policy and 3rd-party security verification: are they prominent?

Fonts

7.) Choice of font
8.) Readability: how easy are your fonts to read?
9.) To bold or not to bold…

Headlines

10.) Use fractions or percentages to prove your claim.
11.) Ask questions in the headline.
12.) Use words that evoke emotion.
13.) Different types of formatting: bolding, fonts, colors, capitalizations, sizes
14.) Number of words used in the headline
15.) Use exclamation points.
16.) Use text to convey the benefits versus the features of your products or services.
17.) Self-focused (we/I) versus customer-focused text (you)
18.) Use quotations in the headline (consider the length of the headline).
19.) Reading level of the headline

Get examples and more details on testing your headlines

Product Copy

20.) Is the copy more than just a blurb?
21.) How enticing is the copy?

Product Images

22.) Present different Image sizes.
23.) Pay attention to image quality, it affects the perceived value.
24.) Does the image show the product in a different context? (If you are selling tents, are you presenting the package or an image of the constructed tent?)
25.) Product zoom and/or different angles
26.) How enticing is the image?

Product Reviews

27.) Do you use Product Reviews?
28.) Do you provide more than just a simple score? Try a more multidimensional scoring system (i.e., quality, support and setup scores).
29.) Are there positive and negative reviews, transparency is important?

Category Pages

30.) Are you accounting for customers early in the buying process when they don’t know the terms associated with the product?
31.) Are you making it easy for those who know approximately what they want?
32.) How quickly can those who know exactly what they want find their product? Ask the big three questions.

About Us Pages

33.) Do you tell the story of your company?
34.) Are you doing something more than just posting a mission statement? Take advantage of the about us page by letting visitors see the personality and the people behind your company.

Contact Us Pages

35.) Build more effective ‘Contact Us’ pages. Make it easy for them to find the information they seek.
36.) Whom should they contact?
37.) How soon can they expect a response?

Forms

38.) How intimidating are your forms? Too many drop-downs and long text boxes make forms seem intimidating.
39.) Remove unnecessary drop-downs.
40.) Remove reset buttons.

Shopping Cart Tips

41.) Check how many steps are in your checkout process.
42.) Include a “Progress Indicator” on each checkout page.
43.) Provide a link back to the product.
44.) Add pictures inside the basket.
45.) Provide shipping costs as early in the process as possible.
46.) Show stock availability on the product page.
47.) Make it obvious what to click next.
48.) Make it easy for the shopper to edit her shopping cart.
49.) Make it your fault if visitors input something incorrectly.
50.) Make shoppers aware that you’re a real entity; give them contact info.
51.) Give the visitor the option to call.
52.) Make it always about your new customer, do not force a new registration instead make it a part of the checkout.
53.) Add 3rd party reinforcement messages.
54.) Present coupon codes carefully.
55.) Deal with pricing issues head-on, include a price match guarantee.
56.) GTC (”Get the Cash) – offer numerous payment options.
57.) Offer point-of-action reassurance; make anything the visitor may be concerned about available and visible during checkout.
58.) Save it for them. Save their cart in case they want to come back later.
59.) When all else fails, survey. If they didn’t complete the checkout, ask them why.

Get more examples and more information about these shopping cart tips in “Save the Sale.”

Load Times

60.) Test your load time. Also, be aware of how fast a page appears to load. Shrink the file sizes of your images, clean your code, etc.

Offer Incentives

61.) Test different incentives; discounts, __% off, added value.

Online Testing 101

62.) Learn proper testing methods
63.) Practice effective testing
64.) Never give up

Welcome to the world of website optimization! Why travel it alone? At the very least get ahead of the game.

[UPDATE: Bloggers, don't forget to add Content Robot's Google Website Optimizer plugin for WordPress.]

Anyone with kids knows the routine when you impart your wonderful child with a bit of wisdom.

“Son, do you want to get hurt?”
“No, Daddy”
“Then please don’t jump on the bed!”
“Ok, Daddy”

Simple, right?

Then, about 8 minutes later, comes that ear shattering scream. Your son is curled up on the floor, clutching his thick head, sporting a fresh bump from a nasty tumble. Seems he was jumping on the bed.

Our faithful are likely tired of hearing the same conversion rate rants from us. For the rest, it’s not until after they take a tumble that they decide jumping on the bed is a bad idea.

Jon Miller at Search Engine Land posted a great article describing why B2Bs are typically unsatisfied with PPC agencies, wherein he makes a bold suggestion that B2Bs should abandon PPC agencies altogether. Here’s a nice little nugget from the post:

You know your business better than the agency. One of the most important skills for PPC success is picking the right keywords that your prospects actually use when they search – something you know best. Also, when determining rankings, Google and now Yahoo! care as much about the relevance of your content as they do about your bid (aka “what you say is as important as what you pay”). This means a good understanding of your business and your industry is at least as important as being a search “expert”. Over time, the balance of power between business knowledge and SEM knowledge will shift even further towards business as Google continues to find ways to reward relevant content and discount search agency tricks.

While Jon makes a stunningly accurate diagnosis, his suggested treatment is questionable:

The main value provided by agencies is expertise with SEM, and as I’ll explain, you can bring much of that expertise in-house by using the right kind of pay per click management software. A technology solution can create the best of both worlds: the control and business knowledge of doing it yourself, combined with the SEM best practices and techniques of an expert.

We love technology as much as the next guy, it makes life easier. But in-house technology and SEM best practices will likely still leave you dissappointed. Sure you’ll save their fees, and possibly see some incremental gains but unless you embrace a persuasion methodology, you are just jumping on the bed.

How do you find the right keywords? How do you ensure your prospects are being presented with relevant scent from the ad to the lead form? How do you optimize and measure every variant? What if you don’t have any ‘experts’ on staff?

By giving non-marketing experts a methodology for maximizing demand generation, Persuasion Architecture™ and Persuasive Scenarios are proven to solve this dilemma.

Bryan Eisenberg touched on just one aspect of B2B demand generation last week’s Clickz column.

Sure, it’s hard work, but the only thing harder is ending up with knot after knot on your head.

Your company makes mistakes.

Your company’s mistakes affect your customers.

What do you do about those mistakes? Do you puff your chest and act like nothing is wrong?

Do you try to ’spin’ your way out of it.

Stop wasting your time, you are only digging yourself a grave in the graveyard of irrelevant companies and poorly perceived brands.

Instead, try being transparent.

Our friends over at Bazaarvoice have a great post about the recent JetBlue snafu.

The jetBlue situation illustrates the fundamental truth that customers want to know that a company cares about them, listens to their feedback, and takes action to address issues. Read the entire post

In today’s lightening speed word of mouth world, honesty is the best policy.

What are you doing about your goofs? Are you facing them with honesty and transparency? Or are you running for the border?

Example one

Example two

Ok, example two is clearly the superior page for several reasons. But here is my question:

What if example one did nothing else but add the high quality customer reviews (yes even the negative ones) found on example two?

Do you think they would sell more shoes?

Not sure? Our friends at Bazaarvoice have more insight.

And now the most important question: Do you think I would look cute in those shoes?

How effective will the candidates be at using the the web and all it’s mojo? techPresident is a blog set up to do just that, check out this post about how the current candidates are utilizing (or not) Google Pay Per Click (PPC).

It’s time all candidates recognize the power of search to drive highly-targeted traffic to their fledgling websites. Get cracking, everyone! We’re watching.

We’ll be watching as well, and I am sure we can find a few great lessons to share with you about online persuasion.

Ever since that experience, whenever I listen to Stevie Wonder on any other set of speakers, my ears are bombarded with mush; like the difference between a crispy HDTV and a fuzzy old time TV. The only thing that comes close is listening to Mr. Wonder on a pristine set of headphones.

For two years I have endured those horrible white ear buds that came with my iPod. Having had enough, I set out to grab a decent set of cans (’headphones’ to those not in the know).

Without boring you of the details of my hunt (that’s another whole lengthy article), I ending up narrowing the search to the Sennheiser HD 280, I arrived at this decision with absolutely no help from any site that was actually selling them.

Retailers are missing incredible opportunities to sell more product. All they would need to do is simply commit to writing better product descriptions, descriptions that would not only help prospects make a buying decision, but actually lust after products. It can be done.

On my hunt some sites did better than others. You can always count on Crutchfield.com to do a decent job, especially when you compare it to the product copy at JR.com. But JR.com seems to have at least one great writer on the payroll. My question: why isn’t this blog post at JR.com part of the product description? Why not unleash this writer on more product descriptions?

So many clients come to us wanting to find some sort of conversion magic, some technical trick or design tactic that will increase conversion. It seems that most want to ignore that fact that their flimsy product descriptions are fueling buying apathy. So many are willing to invest big cash on a new site design or back end technology, but so few are willing to invest in brilliant writers, or even educate their existing writers.

Sad.

When was the last time a product description had you drooling?