Google Chrome Extensions – Improve Google Chrome Functionality

For anyone using the Google Chrome browser you’ll know its a slick browser with no frills, and at present is work in progress. However its fast, user friendly and simple, just the way i like it. Its clean and uncluttered which is great as you can add any desired features and functionality by installing Google Extensions. Just like with Firefox Add-Ons, Google Extensions allow to design your browser exactly how you want it, adding to the user experience.

Google Chrome Extensions are small software programs, applications that add functionality and usability to the Chrome browser. You can write them using web technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. And thanks to the thousands of generous web developers who create these, you can now pimp and super-charge your Google Chrome browser with a myriad of Google Chrome extensions.

You’ll find Google Chrome Extensions covering every possible web area including: development, blogging, social media, SEO, marketing, usability, shopping, sports, fun, etc.

A few tips when adding the Google Chrome Extensions: When you download the extensions they will appear at the top right hand side of the browser, next to the Omnibox (address and search bar). You can change the position of each extension icon by clicking and dragging them left or right.

If you have over 15 extensions and you don’t want to shrink the Omnibox too much then simply move the slider (located to the right of the search arrow) and the extensions not visible will appear on the drop down list accessible by clicking the arrows to the right hand side of the browser, near to the spanner icon.

When you have installed the extensions you may have to set up or amend the ‘Options’ on each specific extension, so either right click on the extension icon of your choice to find the ‘Options’ link. Alternatively to get to the full Extensions Manager page (where you can also disable and uninstall the extensions), right click the extension icons and click ‘Manage extensions’ or another way to get there is to click the spanner icon (top right of Google Chrome) > and click ‘Extensions’.

Check out the Google Extension page to find your desired Google Chrome Extensions: https://chrome.google.com/extensions

Here are 10 handy Google Chrome extensions for optimum usability:

1) Lastpass – description for all to come.

2) TooMany Tabs for Chrome

3) AdBlock

4) WOT

5) StayFocusd

6) FastestChrome

7) Ultimate Chrome Flag

8 ) Google Quick Scroll

9) Smooth Gestures

10) One Number

Here are 5 useful SEO/Marketing/Social Google Extensions:

1) Chrome SEO

2) SEO Site Tools

3) iPageRank | SEO Tool for Chrome

4) IE Tab

5) Shareaholic

I originally found a few of these Google Chrome Extensions at these 2 sites: appleviews and DownloadSquad

Check out the Google Extension page to find your desired Google Chrome Extensions: https://chrome.google.com/extensions

When processing orders on eBay I normally use Royal Mail to ship my sold items. Maybe once every 2 months I sell a bigger item and ship this using a courier service from Interparcel.com who offer UK and International Delivery by comparing quotes, giving you the option to choose a courier based on price, delivery time and insurance, etc. And every time i log back in to book a larger item by courier i hit my favourite eBay Faux Pas.

eBay is a money making machine run by accountants and not web usability experts. They seem to have absolutely no sense-or simply don’t care-of the sheer inefficiency of using the eBay website, especially from a merchants perspective when processing an order. The usability, efficiency and productivity is just diabolical.

Compared to a processing an order on eBay, processing an order using a premium ecommerce software or average ecommerce software for that matter, is like night and day. The words inefficient, frustrating and sh*te come to mind! They should give out free anti-anxiety tablets before you log into the backend.

For me eBay has no heartbeat, its cold and clinical like an Apple Store and its built on an antiquated platform and controlled by dictators. Don’t even try to use ‘eBay’ and ‘common sense’ in the same sentence, its not possible. And if you dare question eBay’s control… beware, 1 step out of line and your account can be suspended by the flick of a switch.

A good friend of mine who has been selling on eBay since 2004, has 30,000 plus feedback in his Anchor level Shop, spends approx £9K per month with them had his store suspended recently due to one missed invoice, and this was simply as a result of an oversight when he was away. That’s the level of empathy eBay show!

eBay has always had a knack of positioning itself to its users, not only as market leader but the one in control, the boss and if you don’t follow your Sargent’s directions then get you’ll get your ass popped with a Smith ‘n’ Wesson! Thanks to the legend Eazy-E there for the poetry But when you get hold of support by phone or email or read the support files, its “do as i say or f**k off” positioning.

So what is the problem I have with eBay order processing. Well I could write all night about this and the various usability problems experienced, especially where they can improve the user-friendliness. But the main thing that I hit upon every time I wish to book a collection with the courier, getting a buyers contact details!  How hard can it be?

With every other ecommerce system out there; phone numbers and emails addresses are highly accessible and visible from within each individual order, and rightfully so to aid you in processing an order as fast as possible.

Communication with your customer when processing an order is absolutely critical, even more so when you are at the mercy of an intensive feedback system that controls your eBay search rankings, rating and ultimately your success. P*ss one customer off who has had a bad day and your feedback score could drop!

Contacting a customer by phone is an important step for many reasons: your product, the order, etc. Maybe you want to give them a quick call to ask a Question in order to complete the order without problems arising in the future. Colour, size, quantity, ‘can you wait for a backorder or can i send you an alternative’, ‘I’m sending you frozen food, will you be in on x date to sign for the delivery?’, etc, etc. There are a myriad of things that the communication lines need to be kept open for.

From personal experience I used to sell iPod Car Kits, Parking Sensors and other in car gadgets worldwide, processing thousands of orders per month and this type of product constantly presented many a technical question. Without immediate phone communication this just adds big time, resources and costs. There are some big companies on eBay selling tens of thousands of products monthly so the labour costs for these guys must be extortionate.

Please Note: The eBay system may have been updated for business customers and you may now be able to phone your customer but for a personal account its not easy.

Collection Scenario: So I log into Interparcel.com and get a quote, i select my favoured option and complete the delivery form. This is where the problem lies as all courier companies websites’ ask for a phone number. This is so the courier can phone the recipient should they not be able to locate their address, etc. And i know its getting more stressful for couriers with the increasing time spent in traffic jams. So they need to work as efficiently as possible when they have lots of drops.

eBay do not give you this info, nor the email address in the customer order data. You have to click trough a 4 step process to get this info emailed to you. Its absolute madness. Now you may say “just put a made up number into the field to satisfy the mandatory process” but why should we have to. From initial contact with your website to final delivery drop the whole process should be seamless for customer to courier. This is basic and key information that eBay should allow to be easily accessible.

It gets worse… This 4 step process to get the required contact info by email, requires you to give the buyers user ID and your product Item number to the Find Contact Information form and only then will eBay email you the details.

And in my experience it emails this info to your email address not your eBay email account. So i now have to open 2 windows, 1 for the order processing and one for my eBay emails. However window 3 is also required. 3 windows to 1) Copy and Paste your buyers ID into the Find Contact Information page 2) Copy the Item No into the Find Contact Information page and 3) to get the email with their details on.

And to add even more frustration when you submit the Find Contact Information form, eBay automatically emails your contact details to your buyer. This may be useful in some situations but i think the majority of times your customer will simply not require it and may get perplexed when receiving this email.

Not the most efficient system I’m sure you’ll agree, and if you add the time that it takes to get eBay’s unreliable emails, often hours if it lands at all, you can see the time spent on this cr*p all for a simple phone number/email contact that should be given as standard in the individual order data for each customer.

That’s it just mentioning the word eBay, Paypal, Gumtree or any other company eBay owns increases the pulse by 30 beats. In my personal opinion… Bottomline eBay usability sucks!

What do you love or hate about eBay? Feel free to leave your comments below, positive or negative, please go easy on the French!

Juice37

In a recent article by Simon Mills of the Daily Mail he raises some very valid questions about Apples aggressive and subliminal marketing methods and how these use the rawest of emotional triggers like scarcity and fear to get you to hand over you’re hard earned money. Essentially we’re talking about the way they make you feel left out and inferior if you don’t use their tech products. Its definitely worth a read, Apple fanatic or not!

What are your personal thoughts on Apple, do you salivate at the mention of an imminent Steve Jobs Product Demo?

Anyone that owns the iPhone will know that its overrated, nice phone with some gizmos, but definitely overrated and for this product alone they use explosive marketing techniques to sell it, that could easily sell snow to an Eskimo. Like in the iPhone ad’s they are loaded with marketing techniques to get you so emotionally charged that you NEED one NOW! And if you don’t own one you are a schmuck!

They package their products and software using a superficial antiseptic positioning that appeals to the widest category of user. Clean and clinical visual aesthetics giving you a plethora of solutions to problems that never even existed! Usability and operational protocols that make your head spin and can waste hours upon hours of your valuable time by giving you an “experience” – have you used iTunes recently? Absolutely dire user interface in my opinion!

And for the iPhone users reading this… What! you haven’t got the app (promoted in the recent TV ad) that enables you to switch your house lights off from your mobile when you have left them on… how on earth did you ever manage to live without it? Well, if your a fully coherent adult then maybe you do what what most sensible humans do and turn them off before you leave the house, just a suggestion. Its the aggressive marketing of useless products such as this, highlighting fabricated problems that make me question the sanity of an Apple lover!

Simon Mills’ article headline is “WHY I HATE APPLE”, but I certainly don’t hate Apple i just personally think that they use very hard and aggressive marketing tactics – or some would even say manipulation – when selling you overpriced technology made in intensive working conditions, and it seems they have an increasing number of Apple followers hypnotized by their marketing blurb and design posturing who say “yes sir” to their every command. Strange, or is it?

Here are two quotes from guys who have recently got their hands on the iPad when launched Friday May 28th 2010. The first lad had been queing at the Apple store since mid day Thursday.

“I can’t explain it – ridiculously amazing. I want a go on it now. I’m so excited”. Jake Lee, Essex

“Just to see this is fantastic. It is a phenomenal event. There’s never been anything like it. To say i was here is rather a nice feeling, it’s a momentous occasion and I’m enormously excited”. Stephen Fry, TV Presenter.

Is it just me or do these 2 fruit-loops want certifying with Apple Trauma?

I take you now to a recent article from The Daily Telegraph, Business section titled “Factory Suicides force China to rethink ethos” written by Malcolm Moore that is absolutely worth a read. Here are a few related blogs that cover the same story.

The article focuses on the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China and how 11 suicide attempts have been made this year alone with sadly 9 being successful. It gets worse! A recent update in Malcolm Moore’s articles now suggest there have been 16 suicide attempts with 12 suceeding in killing themselves.  Here the 300,000 workers make the iPad in addition to assembling products for Apple, Dell, Nokia, Nintendo and Sony. The most recent suicide casualty being 19-year old young man, Lai Hai from the central Province of Hunan, who fell from the roof of a dormitory building  at Foxconn’s  Longhua factory at the end of May 2010. “This leaves the largest manufactuer in the world in crisis” Malcom writes.

Malcolm goes on to say “A spate of recent suicides at Foxxconn has highlighted concerns over working conditions inside the giant Longhua factory.” The death comes as Apple prepares to launch the iPad in the UK at the end of this week. Yesterday Apple declined to comment on the situation”. I’ll guess they thought something along the lines of “if our bottom-line is on the up, we aint seen or heard nothing”

“The company has drafted psychiatrists, set up helplines, and even strung nets between buildings to catch jumpers. But the latest death shows how powerless it is to stop the suicide cluster from growing.

Nets installed at a Foxconn factory to prevent suicides

I don’t often feel sympathy for Foxconn – it is a notoriously secretive company which has a record of bullying its workers. However, it seems to me that Mr Gou is caught in a nasty bind.

In the full glare of the media spotlight, he was forced yesterday to retract a letter that he wanted his employees to sign that made them promise not to harm themselves.”

Your slick Apple product doesn’t look so sexy now, i bet!

An update posted by Malcolm Moore this week says “Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, said he finds a string of suicides at Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer of the iPad, “troubling”. “It is very troubling,” said Mr Jobs yesterday at a technology conference in California. “Apple does one of the best  jobs of any company understanding the working conditions of our supply chain, ” he added. “We are all over this”. Mr Jobs did not offer an immediate solution to the problem. “It is a difficult situation,” he said, in his first comment on the suicides. “We are trying to understand right now, before we go in and say we know the solution.”

“The reasons for the sudden spate of suicides remain unclear. However, the military-style working regime at foxconn’s Longhua plant, in which more than 300,00 people work, has been heavily criticised. Workers are forbidden to  talk on the production line, even in their short breaks, and many have complained about of feeling lonely and alienated inside the giant factory.”

“In addition, the enormous demand for some products – including the 2m unit-selling iPad – appears to have placed an intolerable strain on Foxconn workers, who are quitting the Longhua factory at the rate of 15,000 a month. On the production line, workers have routinely worked more than 70 hours a week – above Apple’s own guide – to fill orders. Nethertheless, Mr Jobs insisted that Foxconn, which is one of Apple’s most important suppliers , was “not a sweatshop”.

“Foxconn yesterday agreed to immediately raise the basic salaries of its workers by a third. Wages are expected to rise from 900 yuan (£90) a month to 1,200 yuan.  The company which employs more than 800,000 workers in China, said the decision to raise wages was not a direct response to the suicides. It maintains that the spate of deaths is not work-related or above the average rate for young people, and that suicides were mainly caused by personal problems among the victims.”

“Foxconn said the pay rise would help it to attract better-qualified workers at a time when there are labour shortages across China’s manufacturing belts.”

Apple Overtakes Microsoft

And all this as Apple overtakes Microsoft to be the second biggest US company. Rowena Mason from The Daily Telegraph writes “Apple, inventor of the iPod and iPhone, has become the world’s biggest technology company – eclipsing arch-rival Microsoft in size. The California-based company’s shares rose 1pc, taking its market value to more than $222bn by close of trading in New York on Wednesday.

This edged it ahead of Microsoft, which has a market capitalisation of $219bn, and put it in second place behind the world’s largest company, ExxonMobil. The oil giant is worth $282bn. Apple almost went out of business in the 1990s, but has enjoyed a resurgence based on the popularity of its stylish devices targeted at young technology fans.”

So the next time you go for your next big hit, pull out your iPad and salivate over the screen or any Apple product for that matter, maybe you should look a little closer at your values and think about the huge profits made on these products by Apple, what you’re really getting back for investing your hard earned cash, apart from being used a guinea pig for V2 and also take a moment to think about the workers in China and what they are being paid, the intense hours required to work 7 days a week.

This may help you reassess your technology investments and reconsider loading more money into the pockets of the f’kin minted Apple Inc. who manufacturer the oh so sweet and friendly, easy on the eye Apple products.

- If after reading this you still hell bent on grabbing the new Apple iPad then here is where to source it with the least carbon footprint for your country: United Kingdom | United States | Canada.

- Decided to stick with a PC based machine or laptop then this is your best selection: PC World.co.uk

Comments, thoughts, insults. leave them below please. Juice37!

7 Top Tips to Land An Ecommerce Job | Overcoming Ecommerce Job Agency Problems

Looking for an ecommerce job, a career in ecommerce, have freelance ecommerce experience, think you’ll walk into an ecommerce employment position? THINK AGAIN!

A good friend of mine Sid recently sold his product portfolio and ecommerce business and fancied a career inside of an ecommerce business, a change, a new challenge was the plan. So i agreed to help him find his dream position and started to construct his ecommerce CV. However it wasn’t that simple and the problems detailed below came as  big shock to both of us! The keywords to note here are “inept and recruitment agencies”.

These are his ecommerce credentials:

• 10 Years Ecommerce Experience covering A to Z of ecommerce.
• 10 Ecommerce websites briefed, built, launched and traded from and subsequently sold – with no prior experience. No mean feat!
• Multi-channel retailing: Online and Offline mix.
• Total 50,000 products handled across the sites: source, stock, sell, ship, support.
• Stock and Drop-Ship products to UK and Global customers.
• 100,000 pages SEO engineered and listed in Google’s index, with top rankings achieved.
• Handled 50 supplier accounts.
• Returns reduced from industry average of 10% to 1.5%
• Feature rich, pioneering driven bespoke ecommerce solution with many exclusive mods.
• Skill set used on sites: Web Content and Product Description Copy, Explosive SEO, Integrated Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing.
• Traffic Generation techniques including top Google Rankings for any desired keyword.
• Usability and Conversion refinements decreasing bounce rates from 90% to 35%, increasing conversions from 1 in 200 to 1 in 33 from natural organic SEO traffic. PPC traffic conversions at 1 in 15.
• Pioneering checkout process refined with “Cart & Checkout Abandonment Rates” refined from 80% plus to 30%.

Now, any ecommerce business looking at this condensed skill set and CV/resume will instantly know these are stats that are pretty unique. This is someone with an innate, internalised ecommerce experience that would benefit any ecommerce business, big or small. Anyone who can turn £500 start up costs into an annual turnover of 1 million in 3 years in the animal that is ecommerce can handle any ecommerce roles, period!

What happened next may SHOCK you!

So we put a solid and refined CV together using the above ecommerce achievements as the foundation and hit the job boards and job websites: JobSite, Monster, Reed, Total Jobs, Search, etc. Ecommerce jobs in the UK are few and far between with only approximately 10-15 per month being made available, so the competition is pretty competitive. But with a CV including the above skill sets and experiences you’d think would get my mate into the interview rooms quick, right? Wrong! not even a sniff!

Ecommerce Job Agenices – The Resistance to landing your Dream job!

Love em’ or hate em’ Job Agencies NOW control 95% plus of all jobs advertised in the UK. Here in lies the problem. Not only does your CV have to work if and when it gets in the hands of the employers, it first has to get through the slippery hands of job agencies many of which have employees (recruitment consultants) that are next to useless, with absolutely no experience whatsoever in your chosen market, be it ecommerce, web design, web development, etc. Your only opportunity to get an interview and fulfil your future ecommerce destiny is literally in the hands of these ecommerce job agencies operated on the shop floor by these squeeky recruitment consultants!

Ecommerce Jobs  - A Commission fuelled Lottery!

The job market in 2010 is literally a lottery, its a fierce and competitive commission driven free-for-all market controlled by ecommerce job agencies and their IT/ecommerce consultants. FACT! 2 out of every 10 applicants for an ecommerce job are actually a serious contender to be offered and get that job, such is the inept ability of ecommerce job agencies and their consultants to put forward the correct applicants.

So naturally the question is; why do companies even bother using ecommerce job agencies to ultimately hire new employees? Its anyone’s guess why! If you are deadly serious about hiring the right person, an exceptional and high quality individual then how can you possibly leave it to chance by using a money hungry, post graduate, debt heavy, pimple faced moron? The reality is, they do…

So before i detail our 7 key observations how to land your dream ecommerce job, let me give you a few of my mates’ recent experiences. Names below NOT changed to protect the identities of those involved. These recruitment consultants need to be named and shamed and uprooted from these key positions so genuine and high quality ecommerce candidates get a fighting chance to land their dream ecommerce jobs and give incredible value to their employers.

Jessica Logan from Michael Page Recruitment. The way my mate was treated by this individual was pretty much indefensible. The initial phone call from Jessica Logan was like an onslaught and interrogation loaded with resitance and animosity making my friend immediately feel uncomfortable and on the defensive. I heard the call and it was like an interview for Robert McGarby’s assistant! …and this was the initial call!

There is a saying in NLP “The meaning of my communication is equal to the response that I will receive” and this suggests that communication is like a mirror, if you are abrupt, aggressive and forceful, that is exactly what you’ll get back.

Ed Sutcliffe from Search Consultancy in Leeds is another Turkey. Sid applied for a few ecommerce roles and sent his CV to Search Consultancy and Ed Sutcliffe was the guy handling the online retail/ecommerce jobs there. Never once did Sid get a reply, response, not even a “no thanks” from Ed. So after 2/3 weeks Sid spoke with Ed Sutcliffe directly on the phone and he said “send the CV over, i have no record of it” – immediately we knew this was total BS as Sid had emailed it 3/4 times for various ecommerce roles. So Sid emailed the CV again with an email explaining why Ed should put Sid forward for ecommerce jobs, detailing the key skills and experience above. Again no reply, no response, not a whisper!

What the recruitment consultants, and anyone taking actual interviews-when it gets to this step-needs to know, is that in 2010 and beyond, to get the best out of people you need to build rapport, this is critical to get a feel for the candidate and get the best out of them. When you put someone through an intense interview like process when you are trying to find suitable candidates, this simply doesn’t work. It isn’t the ecommerce recruitments job to interview the candidate! So using these antiquated techniques they immediately build a gulf not a bridge.

An actual quote from Jessica to Sid was “your CV is simply not good enough for a 25-30K ecommerce job, there are many other candidates with far stronger CV’s, you don’t even have a degree”. BS! if she even bothered to look at the CV and the sites built, traded from and sold which includes 50K units sold, 5 million turnover, etc, anyone can see we have a high a calibre candidate here who can add massive value to any ecommerce company.

Don’t Judge a book by its Cover!

Job agencies and recruitment consultants need to be smarter than judging people on face value, a phone call! We found a few of the agencies, making rash judgements and not liking Sid and judging him on the phone call alone. This was a a result of the articulation on that given phone call, but this was because of poor and inappropriate questions and poor communication from the consultant.

If the consultant had asked better questions and tapped into Sid’s passion for ecommerce, then their response would have been so much different. Re-read the above NLP quote to understand this! We found many of the questions to be hot air, generic and totally useless questions. So they need to actually look at results and not judge by one simple phone call. The great Richard Branson springs to mind, not very articulate but what a business genius!

Job agencies and recruitment consultants need to be smarter than judging, not linking and judging people on poor articulation. The thing is many that talk-the-talk cannot walk-the-walk, they are hot air.

Experience Vs Theory!

Anyone with any common sense will know experience is priceless and although formal degree education is a nice tag to have, essentially a degree shows you have the ability to learn and assimilate theoretical knowledge and articulate this learned theory during an exam or completion of modules, etc. But when you’ve actually experienced and lived real life scenarios this gives your subconscious the ability to associate, internalise and gain through actual involvement and this ultimately allows for later reference, recall and practice. Simply not possible through mental education and learning alone.

So Michael Page have a lot to answer for and themselves should recruit stronger people as they get a large chunk of the available ecommerce jobs. And when they have an inept, totally inexperienced individual like Jessica Logan handling these key ecommerce job positions, they are denying genuine, hard working and exceptionally skilled and experienced ecommerce retailers the honest chance of getting ecommerce interviews.

7 Top Tips to Landing Your Ideal Ecommerce Job

1. Build your CV so its clean, simple, no more than 2/3 pages and detail your most recent job roles, positions, achievements and experience high up on the CV as many recruiters will not read it all and many will even fail to view any external links so get as much key data on the page as you can.
2. If you have problems and resistance from the ecommerce job agencies or recruitment consultants, simply move on.
3. Following on from number 2 – If you can establish the company that has the available ecommerce position go direct. But once you are being represented by a recruitment agency then do not go direct, following the instructions and protocol of the consultant.
4. Realise that many recruitment consultants are A) in this job for the money (commission), B) many have recently left university or have moved into recruitment from other non related markets – again for the money, so you have to educate them-where possible-to your skill set and how to best position you to future employers so you get the interview shot.
5. Take as many interviews as possible as its a numbers game, the more interviews the more chance of landing a job. Its also a good idea to take interviews to get some experience and build up your momentum and confidence.
6. Post your CV and covering letter (if available and required) on the website job Boards (JobSite, Monster, Reed, Total Jobs, Search, etc) to get exposure and importantly use pertinent keywords in your Title field and in your Profile as its like any other search engine/website and you will be found by matching your data to searchers keywords.
7. Finally be warned that very few recruitment consultants show any loyalty to you. They will hound you before, during and immediately after the job interview process-as they want their commission, but if you don’t land the job or are not suitable for whatever reason, then don’t expect most consultants to contact you to give you feedback, many will rapidly disappear. Unfortunately you are treated like cattle!

If you find this article useful, have comments to make or if you think you have points to add, please make a comment below, tweet on Twitter or share on your desired website. Thanks Ian – Juice37

Web Usability | The Difference Between Average & Exceptional Web Design

Less than one person in every one hundred visitors to the average website will buy or take your desired action, be it a sale, email optin, RSS subscribe or contact request! Increasing this visitor-to-sale conversion rate is all about usability and implementing a simple conversion path, that takes your visitor by the hand from entry to exit, your Most Wanted Response.

Good usability is about 1) Becoming Your Customer and 2) Attention to Detail.

Become Your Customer.

Get inside your customers’ minds and be them. See, think and feel what they do when buying using your site and buying your product. It is about how your website should look based on its theme, colors, design, layout, etc, to make your browsers buyers want to spend time and money there. Get them to take action and give you your most wanted response. With regards design you essentially want something that is contemporary, clean, and inviting to your potential and target customers; often neutral is best with lots of background white space, a clean color, like a light grey/gray and 1 or 2 accent colors to give identity.

As an example, a website aimed at new mothers could use light blues, pinks and images of attractive babies. A website aimed at selling high-end, exclusive furniture might well use blacks, grays and white to demonstrate class, with guarantees and security logos to build trust and show that the website offers customers military strength security and that they are safe to spend here. In either case, use words and language that your target customer understands and uses.

Taking the time to fully understand your target customer will consequently dictate the look and feel of your site, especially relating to the features, layout, design, logo, colors and language used.

Attention to Detail.

Be detailed and specific, clean up typos and grammar. One spelling mistake can give the impression that you do not check things. If you cannot spell, or cannot be bothered to check your spelling, a customer will doubt that you can handle their credit card and personal details responsibly. These are subconscious thoughts and references that customers make.

Good Usability makes the Difference.

Usability includes everything from the way the graphics, images, text, navigation menus are used on the website. Prospects (potential customers) need a simple, clean path from entry (entering your website) to exit (having bought your product) without resistance or site elements that make them have to think or work out what to do.

Using poor quality website software will affect usability for you and for your customer. Problems include; a slow load time in your user’s browser, poorly laid out products, inferior search engine optimization features, all leading ultimately to an arduous visitor experience.

Good website software loads fast, has a great structure for the user so they can find your categories, pages and/or products easily, and is built so Google can find and index your pages and products with ease.

3F Strategy:

The days of having a simple 5-page brochure website with your company details and a few pictures are long gone. Your average website now generally has at least thirty pages plus, many over a thousand pages. These are big websites with lots of content and multiple images per page.

Yet, a surprisingly large number of businesses both large and small simply do not understand websites and their architecture. They launch websites that actually drive customers away because they are slow, cluttered and use complex navigational menus that you would need a college degree to understand.

However, you can easily make your website work exceptionally well. In fact, the most simple, basic strategies are often the most effective, but the most overlooked. Many of the latest software, web tools and website modules available offer make it easy for your site to be dynamic and interactive. They allow you to add more content, more easily, without having to call your web developer every time you need to make a simple tweak to the information on your site.

‘At a fundamental level you need to implement a 3 F Strategy: Your website must be Fast, Functional and Familiar!’

Most people go onto a website with a specific goal in mind - for example to read an article, sign up to a newsletter, subscribe to your RSS feed or buy a product. You have to help them accomplish that goal, and fast. People do not want to wait forever to negotiate their way through arty graphics or unfamiliar navigational menus or even worse, wait for Flash to load.

Many sites still have not taken this lesson on board; even a decade after some big name online websites and retailers went belly up. Pretty but ineffective websites with unnecessary Flash interfaces and areas that users never venture into are very common. In addition, even with broadband internet in millions of homes around the globe, many websites still take forever to download. Let’s say it again – you only have approximately 5–7 seconds to make them stick, or your prospects are gone!

‘User experience and interactivity is critical for your success on the web, as that’s all there is! This is the conversion process personified!’

Your website should also function like other successful sites. Therefore, if you design a new menu interface with buttons in unfamiliar places, your users may not know how, or simply not bother to learn how to use it and then leave your site. A user may admire a pretty site once, but they will not return nor make a purchase. In contrast, people will return to a 3 F site (‘Fast, Functional and Familiar’) repeatedly. Your 3 F site will generate sales, repeat traffic and increasing profits.

Word of Warning: The danger of the readily available and open source website features and modules is that they have in some instances brought needless complexity within the reach of anyone. This can result in the temptation to spend a lot of time adding them to your site, leading to a huge waste of time, energy and money.

‘As the Saying Goes: KISS = Keep it Simple St*pid!’

Website Usability Essentials | Usability Tips for Your Website

A clean, clear and simple navigation layout, with multiple navigation and product search options is the way to optimize usability—and consequently maximize sales.

Know your Customer.

If you do not know who your customer is, find out – and quick! We’ll discuss this in more detail shortly, but in order to maximize your most wanted response, sales and conversions you need build your website specifically for your target customer.

Demographics & Psychographics.

This is simply about communicating to your audience effectively. Every personality type, every age group (within reason), every intelligence level and every internet experience level can land on your website. Have you considered building your website for the visually impaired, so they can easily navigate? How about providing how-to guides and help videos, to educate your users? These are just two simple examples to get you thinking.

Multiple Languages.

Offering multiple languages and selling globally can on average add 25% to your sales and conversions. This obviously depends on the most wanted response of your website and if you sell products, the products you are selling, and its suitability to be shipped overseas. However, having a global reach gives you and your customers a win-win situation.

Ask your web developer if they have a stable and reliable multi-Language module, and can you see it in action on a live site. Many branded e-commerce software solutions now come with this option. When testing on a live website, look for any text overflow in box headers, etc, as words can be longer when converted into other languages.

Google’s Free Website Translate Tool.

Google offer a Website Translator module that can be integrated into your site in minutes, by way of a simple piece of code. This will add a simple drop-down menu to your site, in your chosen location, and will provide your site users with approximately 50 different language conversions.

Note: Any text overflow present, when your default language is converted, is something you may just have to accept. So weigh up any negative effect of this text overflow versus the simplicity of using this module, and the extra sales you could get as a result of selling globally.

• Google Translate Tool: http://translate.google.com/translate_tools

Contact Forms.

Using a clean and simple contact form is essential, so that would-be-customers can reach you easily. I prefer contact forms to displaying an actual email address on the live site, because spammers can get hold of your email address. If you add a CAPTCHA challenge response (security code) onto your contact form, any spam attempts are blocked.

Search Box.

All good websites, especially e-commerce websites must have a search box option, as this is one of the first features a user will look for when entering your site and searching for products. More often than not, prospects will have arrived at your site direct from the Google search engine where they will have used the search box feature. So give them consistency and offer a search box.

Note: Test your search feature for accuracy of search results, before making your website live. If you give poor search results to your visitors—as many low-end websites software and e-commerce solutions do—you will deny your prospects and customers access to your site information and product offerings and frustrate your site users.

See Google’s Commerce Search for ideas: www.google.com/commercesearch/

Easy Navigation & Product Menus.

Finding information, areas of your site and products easily is down to using a clear hierarchy of tiers, using text links or buttons to navigate from the home page down to the relevant information and product pages. This clear structure is critical so your site user knows where to click to find the area, information and products they want. Use clean and uncluttered menus and product menus and navigation bars. If you have a long menus, split these into groups with a small heading per group so that it’s not one long—hard to read—menu.

Give Various navigation options so Customers can Easily Find Your site info and products:

• Use a simple search box that scans your site content for matching keywords
• The header navigation bar can have a specific link or for ecommerce sites a ‘Shop’ link/button linking to a page with this specific information and all your product categories listed all on the one page
• Alternatively use a header navigation bar with a drop down menu displaying each main category or subcategory
• A left hand site menu or product menu can detail each product category or subcategory, using text or graphic headers for each and as in the paragraph above following a linear path to the products
• Taking navigation to its optimum level, a filter module giving the savvier net user a way to drill down through product attributes, to find specific products in seconds
• Thumbnail page (category or subcategory) will have sort features to filter by type, price, date, amount, or alphabetical order, and the ability to ascend & descend these options and a ‘View Items Per Page’
• Specific site items, areas and Product promotions on your home page or left or right hand columns – for example Top 10 Best Sellers, New Arrivals, etc.
• You can position site areas, modules and information including ecommerce site elements such as Best Sellers and New Arrivals in your main site header navigation bar for optimal prominence
• Footer Links provide quick access to specific categories or direct to specific site areas and best selling products (this is a good strategy for SEO too)

Link to your key site elements and products from your Blog, How-to Guides, Videos, etc.

Highlight Categories.

When a site user is in a specific category on the website, highlight this on the navigation bar so they know exactly where they are on the website at any moment. This can be by way of a different shade of button or an underlined or bold font. Alternatively, use detailed header text to show in what category they are currently located.

Breadcrumbs or Breadcrumb Trail.

The small horizontal links positioned at the top of site and product pages—directly below the header navigation bar—give users a way of keeping track of the path they have taken, and show them their current location within your website. The term comes from the trail of breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel in the fairy tale; as they go deep into the forest, they drop breadcrumbs to help them find their way out.

Breadcrumbs are very useful on deeper sites, especially large e-commerce websites that have lots of categories, products and pages. It is your decision if you want to use them. Some websites do, some do not. They can be used for navigational purposes, and/or as an advanced SEO strategy.

Most sites use these poorly. This means that a large percentage of site users and e-commerce shoppers do not know what they are, or what they do. If you are using these for user navigation then do exactly that, showing people their current location on your website. It is important to highlight that the breadcrumbs are navigational links and can be clicked—instead of having these small but very useful links camouflaged.

I’d even recommend highlighting the breadcrumb link of the area of the site they are currently in, like this below highlighting the current location:

You Are Here: Home > Category > “Your location”

Ecommerce Checkout Breadcrumbs:

Using a breadcrumb trail in your checkout process is highly recommended even if you opt not to use one for your product hierarchy.  This is detailed more in section 5 entitled ‘Checkout’, further down.

The top two breadcrumb images below are positioned at the top of the checkout page. The bottom 2 images are both used on the same checkout pages. The text in bold, ‘You are Here’, sits at the top of the checkout pages and under the site main header; the small round icons sit at the bottom of the checkout pages. You can be flexible and also use one or the other, either at the top or the bottom of the page.

Sales Funnel – Guide Your Visitors.

If you want people to get to your key “money pages” and site areas and if you have an ecommerce site-buy your products, take them by the hand from entry (entering your site), to exit (ordering a product, taking your desired action): either explicitly tell them exactly what to do within each step, or make it so obvious and self-explanatory that nobody could miss it. This is your sales funnel. Good sites and good e-commerce websites have them. If a customer lands on your home page, then subtly guide them to your category pages as fast as possible, then into your main pages or product pages, and then into your checkout or most wanted response/action page with as few steps and as little resistance as possible.

Ecommerce Website Product Hierarchy.

Ecommerce websites follow a hierarchy or tier structure, like a tree with branches. However, if you go deeper than three clicks—from the home page— before you get to a product page, you will lose visitors and Google will struggle to find your products for ranking and SEO purposes. To get it right, there are typically two popular product hierarchies used on ecommerce websites.

Recommended Ecommerce Website Tier Hierarchies:

1)      3 Tiers: 1. Home Page > 2. Category Page (or thumbnail view page) > 3. Product Page
2)      4 Tiers: 1. Home Page > 2. Category Page > 3. Subcategory Page (or thumbnail view page) > 4. Product Page

3 Tier Product Hierarchy.

If you have a DVD website for example, you would structure it like this.

Tier 1 – Home Page: The Home Page is the top tier and displays your products by category on the product menu links. When a customer clicks a product menu category (such as Comedy, Drama, Sport, etc.), they enter into the Category Page (also known as a thumbnail page).

Tier 2 – Category Page: All products within this specific category will normally be laid out on the page using a thumbnail view. This is like a preview of all of the products in this one category page using a small thumbnail image per product, maybe a small intro description, possibly price and customer review rating and a ‘view more’ or ‘learn more’ (or similar) button. When you click the thumbnail products link or image, you enter into the main product page for that particular product.

Tier 3 – Product Page: This is the product page where the customers will ‘add product to cart’ before entering the checkout. You will display main product images, description, price, add-to-cart/basket button, etc. on this page.  See Element 7 for Product Page information.

4 Tier Hierarchy.

If you have a clothing website, you could structure it like this.

Tier 1 – Home Page: The Home Page is the top tier and displays the products by main category on the product menu links. When a customer clicks a product menu category (such Men, Women, Children, etc.), they enter into the Category Page.

Tier 2 – Category Page: Here the categories will display sub categories from within the main categories such as (Men’s: T-shirts, Shirts, Knitwear, etc). When a prospect then clicks a product link such as T-shirts, they enter the Sub-Category page (also known as thumbnail page).

Tier 3 – Sub Category Page: All products within this specific category will normally be laid out on the page using a thumbnail view. This is like a preview of all of the products in this one category using small thumbnail images, maybe a small intro description, possibly price and customer review rating and a ‘view more’ or ‘learn more’ (or similar) button. When you click the thumbnail products link or image, you enter into the main product page.

Tier 4 – Product Page: This is the product page where the customers will ‘add product to cart’ before entering the checkout. You will display main product images, description, price, add-to-cart/basket button, etc on this page. See Element 7 in the following pages for Product Page information.

Sort Feature.

It is critical within the sales funnel process to offer usability options to your prospects and existing customers, but you must make it seamless. Category (Thumbnail pages) must provide various sort-filtering options that could include:

• Sort by Type
• Sort by Price
• Sort By Color, Brand or other specific
• Sort by Date Newest added to Site
• Sort by Best Selling
• Sort by Amount in Alphabetical Order
• Ability to ‘Ascend & Descend’ all of these options
• View Quantity of Items Per Page’

‘Sort By: Type, Price, Date, Amount, Alphabetical Order’:  this enables customers to quickly find the product they want—then you can get them into the product page so they can place an order.

Two Popular Shopping Cart Processes.

When customers ‘Add to Cart’, there are two common methods used by e-commerce websites.  It is important to test each before selecting a model to follow. We’ll discuss more on this testing (Split Testing) in Step 4.

Standard Cart Process: When a customer adds a product that they want to buy to their cart, they are automatically taken to the Shopping Cart page (as the image below shows). From here they can click ‘Continue Shopping’ that will take them either back to the product page they have come from or to the home page (this simply depends on how you set the site up). Alternatively, your customer can click the ‘Checkout’ button and place the order on the Cart/Basket page.

New Cart Process: When your prospect ‘adds product to cart’ they stay on the product page. They are then presented with a confirmation (pop up) displaying the cart activity. They are not automatically taken to the cart page as in the Standard Cart Process. The cart page still exists, but you only go there if you click the ‘View Cart’ or ‘Basket’ link.

Ecommerce Trade Accounts.

By way of a simple trade application form on your website—similar to a contact form but with company details—you can offer trade customers a discount on products. Trade customers complete the form and their details are then stored in the e-commerce trade module, in your Content Management System (CMS) back-end, awaiting your approval. It’s all managed there.

Website Conversion Essentials | Conversion Tips for Your Website

Usability and Conversion go hand in hand. Without great usability your website conversion rate will suck. Conversion is the process of converting a prospect into a customer. A conversion equals a desired action (your Most Wanted Response) such as an email opt-in, RSS subscribe or sale.

When you first launch your website, it will not be firing on all cylinders. There is no way you’ll get it converting at the optimum visitor-to-sales conversion rate from the outset, until you analyze user data – and this can only be carried out once you actually have enough traffic to gather usable data. Only when you consistently get at least 50–100 people a day on our website will you have enough metrics to judge and get actual results. The more unique visitors per day, the more accurate the data will be.

However working on a website that is growing and not yet at its peak is not a problem. As the saying goes ‘You Don’t Have To Get It Right, you Just Have to Get it going’ so realize there will always be room for improvement, and increases in your conversion rate.

‘Use these critical conversion tips on your website today and immediately boost profits… or use when you have enough user data!’

Marketing Costs vs. Conversion Increases.

Should you be spending money on marketing if your conversion rate is poor? You can and should, but then at least pause when you get enough data to analyze and refine, as mentioned above. The key to good conversions is Traffic>Conversion>Relationships, and the results can be explosive that are attainable if you continue to refine your website over its life cycle. This can increase conversion rates from 1% to 4% overnight from organic traffic alone, PPC is typically much higher. Moreover, by doing so, if you sell one product per day at $100, then overnight after making subtle design and navigational changes you could be taking $400 without spending another cent on marketing.

Websites and E-commerce websites characteristically have two main resistance points. This ultimately means visitors to your website will stay and take your most wanted response or buy your products, or they will leave faster than they arrived.

Resistance Point 1: The moment a prospect enters your website.

As you approximately have 5–7 seconds to capture your visitor’s attention, you need to get them interested in what you have to offer and make them stick to your website. They will either click to another page, buy your product or leave. If they leave on the page they enter on, this affects your visitor-to-sales conversion rate and bounce rate. Resistance Point One can come from any design or layout element: poor colors, images, text (headlines & descriptions), buttons (shape, color, and text), badly worded links, poor navigation, a design that’s too busy, price, etc. Remember, this is primarily a subconscious decision.

The average conversion rate on websites including e-commerce website is less than 1%. Less than one in every one hundred visitors to the average website will leave without buying a product. Bounce Rate is the percentage of people that enter your website on a specific page, and leave from the same page without clicking to another page —they see only a single page before leaving.

Resistance Point 2: Any Step of Your Website Action page or Checkout Process on an ecommerce store.

In this example we’ll look at an ecommerce website but simply relate it to your action process, be it an opt-in, RSS subscribe, form action, payment process or order.

Scenario: A prospect has landed on your website, and they are interested in your products. They ‘add to cart’, and enter your checkout process. This is the next critical zone where prospects tend to bail out! Average dropped shopping cart percentages (also known as cart abandonment rates) are in the 80% plus range. This is when a would-be-customer leaves your cart checkout process and your website without buying. For every one hundred people entering the checkout process, only twenty or less on average will complete their order.

For every additional step (or page) you have in your checkout process, you potentially lose more and more would-be customers. We will address this in section 5), ‘ Checkout’. There may obviously be more areas of your website that create resistance to your prospects, but it is of critical importance to get these two points right.

Usability and converting traffic comes down to the old adage ‘KISS – Keep it Simple St*upid!’