A lot of companies agree that they have problems with their category pages. Coming into the Holiday Season, it’s incredibly important to think of those things that will help the visitor move through her buying process easily, and improving the customer experience on category pages can have a real impact.  Optimizing category pages can prevent “pogo sticking” behavior, reduce bounce rates, and improve overall conversion.  Our clients are bold enough to work with us to verify the best of…

...continue to read "Help the Visitor Choose: Let Her Click to Compare"

OK, Grok faithful, we all know that the Holiday Season is coming fast. Last year was “make or break” for a lot of eTailers, and this season will be critical for many more.

The ones who make it through will be those who are passionate about the customer experience, AND who are able to prioritize their work between now and the “Holiday Crunch” so that the hours expended actually impact the number of sales they make.

Where do you start if you want your…

...continue to read "Keep Them In the Cart this Christmas"

Increasingly more people are joining the optimization crowd. Savvy marketers need to do more with less budget. Others just want to beat their competitors. No matter the motivation, optimizing your conversion rate is a no-brainer.

What seems more difficult is deciding where and what to optimize. All of us have our plates full already. Adding optimization to the heap seems uncomfortable, even painful.

It doesn’t have to be.

It may not be easy, but very little that is worthwhile ever is.

When no clear starting line…

...continue to read "What Is Your True Conversion Rate?"

When you think of a cherry picker, do you conjure up images of someone who only picks the easiest or ripest fruit? Or does it perhaps have some artisanal connotation, waiting until only the proper time before action is taken?   Is that how you go about optimizing your web site?

Or are you a lettuce picker? The sort of person that toils for long hours in the field and accomplishes a long day’s back-breaking labor of work that most…

...continue to read "Low Hanging Fruit: Cherry Picker or Lettuce Picker?"

Here are the top 10 converting websites for June 2009*. These are based on Nielson Panel data and are calculated by user to final conversion. Conversion-rate data is based on visitor conversion rates, not session conversion rates: i.e., No. of unique customers/No. of unique visitors.

1. ProFlowers 24.0 2. Vitacost 23.3 3. 1800Flowers 19.5 4. Roamans19.2 5. Office Depot 18.5 6. Blair 17.3 7. QVC 17.0 8. Victoria’s Secret 16.8 9. DrsFosterSmith.com 16.4 10. Amazon 16.4

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Benchmarks according to the FireClick Index

Increasing your conversion rate requires…

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With apologies to Anthony Edwards, Tom Cruise and Paramount Pictures, that’s what it feels like (some) clients say after looking at a set of more challenging Website improvement recommendations.

These clients want their conversion rates to improve, but they don’t want to have to change much.  After hearing tales of magical conversion rate lifts from simple tweaks, they look past the hard recommendations and ask that I “do some of that optimization stuff“.

And to be fair, sometimes easy website changes…

...continue to read "“C’mon, Man, Do Some of that Optimization Sh*t”"

Here are the top 10 converting websites for May 2009*. These are based on Nielson Panel data and are calculated by user to final conversion. Conversion-rate data is based on visitor conversion rates, not session conversion rates: i.e., No. of unique customers/No. of unique visitors.

1. ProFlowers 38.6 2. Office Depot 28.0 3. Online Retail Total 25.6 4. Vitacost.com 25.0 5. Quixtar 23.4 6. ;Blair 23.4 7. Roamans22.6 8. 1800Flowers 20.5 9. Woman Within19.6 10. Spiegel 18.20

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Benchmarks according to the FireClick Index

...continue to read "Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: May 2009"

Most companies measure keyword performance – and especially PPC keyword performance – based on one factor: did that word or phrase bring converting visitors to the site on the visit in which they converted.

So the natural thing to do is trim non-performing words and phrases in order to increase the efficiency of your PPC spend.  And that’s exactly what one client did, except rather than increasing his efficiency, he dropped his sales by 30%.

Why?

Because, depending on what you…

...continue to read "Are Your Analytics Causing You to Lose 30% of Your Sales?"

Conversion rate = The number of people who take the action you want them to take divided by the total number of potential people who could have taken that action.

When you break that sentence down, you start to understand how to optimize your conversion rate.

Who are these people? Are they all the same? Do they have different characteristics, needs, questions? Do all these people have the same amount of product/service knowledge that you do? Are they…

...continue to read "How to Optimize Your Conversion Rate(s)"

Here are the top 10 converting websites for April 2009*. These are based on Nielson Panel data and are calculated by user to final conversion. Conversion-rate data is based on visitor conversion rates, not session conversion rates: i.e., No. of unique customers/No. of unique visitors.

1. ProFlowers 42.8 2. Vitacost.com 28.9 3. Office Depot 25.0 4. MetroStyle 24.5 5. Woman Within 23.0 6. Schwan’s 21.1 7. CDW 20.8 8. 1800Flowers 20.8 9. Landsend 18.8 10. Drs FosterSmith 18.30

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Benchmarks according to the FireClick Index:

...continue to read "Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: April 2009"