Six Web Analytics Metrics

Knowing what web metrics to monitor can be a daunting task sometimes.  There are some basic ones you should keep track of while you have SEO, PPC, or other online marketing strategies running.  If I had to choose six web metrics for you to track these would be what they are:

1. Conversions – I would track the conversion ratio of people filling out your online request or completing a website sale.  Although this excludes people viewing your contact page and calling you on the phone it does narrow down to a specific demographic of people taking a definitive action to learn more about your products or services. It  captures those people requesting more information.

2. Visitors – This metric is fairly obvious as to why it is important – to see how many people are coming to your website.  This will encompass overall marketing efforts (search engine optimization, pay-per-click, online marketing, tradeshows, events, offline marketing, etc.) and if they are bringing more eyes to your website or not.

3. Bounce Rate – This metric shows how many web visitors came to your website and immediately left.  This is a good analytic to monitor to see if the quality of traffic is good or not.  If web visitors are searching for a product/service you do not offer or if you do offer what they are looking for but your website does not do a good job of portraying that you offer that service/product users will immediately leave.  The lower this number becomes the better.

4. Time on Site – This is a good metric to watch as it shows the interest level of web visitors and if they are finding the information they are looking for.  If they are staying on your website for a long time they are most likely digesting useful information.  Although in some cases the opposite is true (users may be on the website for a long time because they are searching for information they can not find).  In general this is not the case as internet users have a very short attention span and generally leave a website if they can not find what they are looking for.

5. Top Web Content – This report is useful in determining characteristics of your target audience (at least the ones making it to your website). You can find out what information they are looking for the most, where they are spending the most time reading, what webpages are more likely to encourage someone to contact you in the end, etc.

6. Keywords – This report is more in-depth than the above reports but is useful because it will show you the top keywords people are finding your website on.  It will help you learn more about your web visitors by learning what keyword phrases they are using, what they are looking for, , and how they reference your products & services.  You can also filter out your company name from the keyword list to find a better list of terms of people who are looking for what you offer but do not necessarily know about you yet.  You can also filter between paid and non-paid keywords.

*I would always compare these to the last month so you can see the difference and how things are improving or becoming worse, what areas need help, etc.  There are tons of reports and metrics in Google Analytics which you could waste all day mulling over.   If you want a quick snapshot of what is going on, making positive strategic decisions based off of these, and learning more about your target audience every month these are the metrics I would focus on if I were you.  If you need help putting together your first month analysis I would be more than happy to help you understand what to look for and how to gain useful insight from it.  Contact me anytime if you want assistance.

Posted in User Centered Design | 5 Comments »

Good Examples of E-commerce Usability

Notes from my day – Here are a few examples of sites that have best practices in
place for conversion improvement/persuasion architecture:

1.  http://www.ice.com/ – they do a good job on the homepage mixing
promotions and products together well.  On the homepage some key
elements are the contest, why shop ice, search dropdowns on left,
newsletter subscription, ‘features’ categories on left, etc.  Their
product pages have good photos, some even have videos, customer
ratings, (small add-to-cart button is bad, it should be bigger),
product details, and live chat (price should be more noticeable too)

2.  http://www.shoeline.com/ – on the homepage they do a good job of
categorizing shoes into every possible category but keeping it easy to
find what you are looking for at the same time.  Brand is important to
them so they list those well too.  The product pages have nice big add
to cart buttons, price is easy to see/view.  The ‘return history’ is
something that really helped them out, the product descriptions are
shorter than I would like but very descriptive and use bullet points.

3.  http://mycacties.com/ – this one is a magento store.  They do an
excellent job on the product pages of keeping it simple yet giving the
information required in order to make a decision to purchase or not.

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25 Items to Address in a Website Redesign

Here are some notes I came across from a while ago on items to address when you are going through a website re-design so you don’t have to do another one in a long time.  This includes online marketing items mainly and does not address web design in and of itself much – more on the lines of search engine optimization and persuasion architecture.

Website Refresh Items

1. Define value from customer’s perspective and multiple personas.
2. Focus on emotion.
3. Focus on end-benefits (from all clients)
4. What are the customer’s real needs/wants?
5. “Why should I buy from you?”
6. What other options are there? Address them.
7. How is your product and company different from others?
8. What process does the client go through to buy the product/service?
9. What information do they need to know before they buy?
10. Establish trust!
11. Identify clearly points-of-action.
12. Internal linking! Link keywords to relevant pages.
13. Find “hidden area” – information they are looking for that they can not find anywhere else.
14. How? Why? Who? What?
15. Be relevant – address needs, values, beliefs.
16. Make copywriting personal! “you” not “We” – address feelings.
17. Establish confidence! Use emotion to appeal.
18. Scanning – use headings, quotes, links, bullet lists.
19. Homepage – communicate UVP and get them to click deeper.

Generating Leads

1. Time is precious to clients, value it and get their attention by showing how you can help their business by speaking in their terms.
2. Questions potential clients have:

1. 1. How will this service help my company?
   2. We’re doing okay, why do we need it?
   3. Is there another company out there that is better?
   4. Will their solution really work? Can they prove it?
   5. Is the company credible?
   6. Can we afford it?

1. Focus on the positive aspects, not negative pain points. Ask the client ‘where do you want to be after this project?’
2. Automate lead generation with items such as messagemaker that are based on actions and behaviors taken by the lead.
3. Use stories and case studies to communicate with your leads.
4. Increase the likelihood of closing deals:

1. 1. Design marketing communications for each phase of the sales cycle, from awareness through consideration to purchase.
   2. Focus your marketing efforts on points in the buying process where high potential prospects are leaving.
   3. Increase face-face time you have with clients.
   4. Track marketing leads that close.

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Website Usability Checklist

Here is a website usability checklist I recently put together for a shipping company when we were preparing their website to get ready for some PPC traffic from the search engines, hopefully it can be of use to others.

Usability Checklist

1. Current location within the site is shown clearly
2. Link to the site’s main page is clearly identified
3. Easy to use search function is provided, as needed
4. Clear Visual Page Hierarchy
5. Main idea digestible in 3 seconds
6. Clear path to objective
7. Minimal resistance to complete call to action
8. Clear path to contact information
9. In-text links descriptive (not ‘click here’)
10. Links easy to identify in all elements
11. Number of links/buttons under 15
12. Company logo linked
13. Main heading clear & descriptive
14. Critical content ‘above the fold’
15. Bold/Italics used sparingly
16. Main copy specific and concise
17. SEO Friendly URL

Specific Actions

1. Change out page photos to include a descriptive/specific headline
2. Add contact forms to key pages
3. Update Headlines

Headline Examples (current vs. new suggested examples)

1. Mission Critical Shipments
   1. Shipments On-Time 98%
   2. 24/7 Live Monitoring
   3. The Secret to On-Time Shipments
2. Electronics and High Value Specialization
   1. How We Handle Electronic Shipments
   2. Guaranteed Electronic Shipments
   3. Everyone Should Handle Electronic Shipments Like Us
3. Sophisticated Transportation Solutions
   1. Beyond Just Pickup and Delivery
   2. Before Pickup and After Delivery
   3. Need More Than Just Point A to Point B?
4. Value Added Services
   1. What Our Competition Does Not Usually Provide
   2. Extras All Shipping Brokers Should Provide
   3. Extra Shipping Services at No Cost
5. Trade Shows
   1. Stress-Free Trade Show Shipping Solution
   2. The Easy Way to Transport Your Trade Show
   3. Don’t Worry About Your Trade Show Equipment

Posted in Landing Page Optimization, User Centered Design | 3 Comments »

How to Track & Measure Website Goals

Too many times I get asked the question from people interested in SEO, PPC, or other online marketing strategies how to measure success of whether the strategy was successful or not.  I always respond that it is very easy yet difficult to measure success of online marketing campaigns, here is some elaboration.

Whats The Scoop on Analytics Tracking?

Usually the most difficult aspect of setting up goals and objectives to track on your website is determining what those goals are and finding out how to track them online.  It seems fairly easy, but when you really dig in and ponder it you may find its more complex than you originally thought.  Lets take a  local doctor as an example.  Obviously a major goal or objective of the website will be if people come to the website, become interested, and contact the doctor to ask a question or even setup an appointment.  The easy objective to setup would be if the website has an online request form that you can track how many times people use it to send an email.  The only problem is that many emails may be from non-client communications.  Some examples may be someone who is emailing to ask about a job, a current client emailing to find out when their next visit is, or an insurance company contacting the doctor to try and get him to service their clients.  Unless you have separate forms or handle different requests in varying methods you can not weed out which emails are which easily.  Even more so what do you do about people who do not fill out the form?  Some website visitors may prefer to call the office instead of send an email; this would be difficult to track unless you only put your phone number on your contact page and keep track of how many people visit that page – even that method lacks credibility because you do not know how many of those people actually called in.

The good news is that the technical aspects of tracking success is actually fairly easy, straight forward, and quick to setup.  I am most familiar with Google Analytics which is a free anlaytics tracking program that is currently the most popular web analytics system out there.   In Google Analytics you can setup a goal for almost anything you want to.  If you are an ecommerce website you can set it up to track revenue, if you are a ski resort you can set it up to track ticket sales, if you are a web design company you can set it up to track incoming emails, etc.  Sometimes all you need is the url of the ‘thank you’ page of a goal or action that you want to track.  You may run into problems with technical integration if your goal or action is delivered by a 3rd party vendor who will not allow you to enter the tracking code onto their website.

8 Easy Ways to Improve Your Tracking

1. Concretely determine what your main goals are. Make sure you have thought through and you really know what factors contribute to the overall success of your company and which do not.  For example it may be as simple as tracking revenue for an e-commerce site, or as complex as tracking orders over $500 and for customers who make more than one purchase per month.
2. Don’t be afraid to have more than one goal to track. You may have multiple goals and objective for your website, don’t be afraid to track them all.  You may track online email requests, people hitting your contact page, and people who sign up for your newsletter.
3. Determine offline goals via offline methods. One simple example is having your staff who answer the phone start to ask how they found out about you so you have that information to supplement your analytics statistics.
4. Place a dollar amount to every action. Find out what every objective you are tracking is worth.  You may learn that 5% of people who sign up for your newsletter purchase your products at an average value of $95.  That way you can place a value of $4.75 per newsletter sign-up.
5. Work Together. Coordinate with other departments to get as much information as you can to work together. Offline marketing, online marketing, sales, management, support, and customer service all should work together to ensure goals are being met.  You may find that you have an excellent sales record but because of poor customer service you never have returning clients.
6. Ensure your web analytics are working properly. If your analytics are not working properly and capturing as much traffic and data as technology allows then you may make big mistakes based off of inaccurate data.
7. Work with 3rd party vendors or get rid of them. If you have vendors that will not cooperate with you to track analytics on their systems you should look into finding a new vendor who is more willing to work with their clients.
8. Learn from your metrics! If you find out your banner advertising is not paying for itself then axe it!  If you find out SEO or PPC are doing really well and bringing in a profit then boost it!

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, User Centered Design | 2 Comments »

People in Graphics and The Effects on Website Marketing

I have always been a big fan of Bryan Eisenburg including his books and blog.  I came across a blog post about website graphics and usability a few days ago and found it very interesting.  It is a bit dated (few months old) but a very good read.  It talks about how something as simple as the direction a model is facing in a web graphic or the direction their eyes are looking can play an important factor in conversion, website usability, and information architecture.

In his example they had two simple ads that were the exact same except in one graphic the model was looking at the product and not at the user.  The one where she was looking at the product had heatmap registers (tracks eye movement) that were much more prominent and kept attention longer.  It was interesting as I tested it on myself as well and I found myself naturally looking to where the model was looking as well.

I plan on experimenting with this website design tactic through some analytical mouse tracking software to see if simple changes like this can have enough of an impact to warrant attention and resources for some of the website I work on.  This is extremely intriguing though in the fact of how such subtle differences that normally would be overlooked and not even thought about can actually have an impact on website metrics and how every single detail must be taken into consideration to truly have an above than average website marketing strategy in place.

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Online Marketing and Passwords – America First Credit Union

I have never ever ever ever [and another 'ever'!] understood why technology security freaks always win this battle: forcing website users to create custom passwords that are virtually impossible to remember. You may wonder what this has to do with internet marketing? well its pretty simple actually – if you force users to create passwords they will not remember they will become very frustrated. If there is anyone who reads this who has never had to request a new password from an online website they have some sort of membership at I would be very surprised! Please post a comment if you fall into this category. In the end you will read how all this came about from an experience with my online banking from America First Credit Union. This IS a website usability issue, and anyone who says otherwise I would welcome the challenging arguments.

Here are the main reasons why this is a very stupid idea:

1. “Create a password that has at least one lower case letter, one upper case, in between 6 and 8 characters long, has one and only one special character except for ‘*’ and does not contain your name” – well that doesn’t leave much room for creativity does it? I hate it when I read things like this because even after reading it and trying to meet all the requirements it literally takes me about 4 to 5 tries before I get a password that it will accept, and by then its one I am sure I will never remember.

2. The password you end up with is something you would not have normally chosen and contains characters that you will never remember. This creates the issue of you having to write your password down somewhere on a piece of paper with the website it is associated with – far much a greater danger of losing that piece of paper that someone could easily use than a hacker trying to guess your password!

3. “You must reset your password every 30 days” – totally retarded! This simply creates a situation where you have to call support every time you want to login to the website because you never remember the password you chose for that month.

4. “Don’t try to tell me what to do, I’ll do it how I want to!” – Teling users what to do online is a bad idea as it insults their intelligence and makes them very upset. The internet is one aspect of life where most website goers feel totally in control and hate it when they lose that power. In the end it is the website user who loses out if their online access compromised. I am the one that must pay the price if I do chose a password that is easy to guess, let me take that responsibilty of choosing a password that is hard to remember, not forcing me to choose a password that is not only hard for a hacker to guess but hard for ME to remember as well!

So this blog post was spurred this morning because I logged into my bank account, America First Credit Union in Utah, and it forces me to answer special questions I setup about a year ago if I login from another computer other than my home one. Of course I had no idea what answers I had put in so it blocked my access. “who is your best friend?” – well I don’t really have a ‘best’ friend, just lots of ‘equal’ friends, what type of dumb question is that, it may have worked well when I was in elementary school. ‘What was your first car’ – well I know that one, an ’89 buick skyhawk, or was it a ‘skyhawk’ or a ‘buick skyhawk’? no, I think it was ‘Skyhawk’? – idiots, how are you supposed to remember what you typed in even if you know the answer and on top of that I am pretty sure it was case sensitive.

As you can tell I was very upset, but it didn’t end there. In order to restore my access they started asking me my address and such, I tell them my zip code which is ’84045′ and they say on their system its ’84043′, so I tell them ’43′ is for a neighboring city in Utah called ‘Lehi’ and that my city, ‘Saratoga Springs’, just got a new zip code a year ago. They say it won’t accept my new zip code – ok so you are telling me even though I know my own zip code that its wrong and you can’t use it – again the idiots come out!

So by the time I get access I am pretty frustrated already, I am actually thinking of switching from America First Credit Union and moving over to Washington Mutual where my business bank accounts are, they just seem so much more user friendly and technology/online usability friendly as well. I have had far less issues with their online banking system then America First Credit Union.

Posted in User Centered Design | 1 Comment »

Ten Simple Web Design Tips

When developing a new website there are many factors that you should consider before you ever begin coding the website. In order to make best use of your time and talents, you can follow some simple guidelines that will help you make the best site possible.

1. Use wireframes. One of the first things you should develop when you are working on the creation of a website is a wireframe. This is a simple graphical layout that can be quickly sketched with a pencil and paper. In this sketch, you can use simple shapes, such as squares, rectangles, circles and others to represent different parts of the website. For example, you might have a tall rectangle in the middle of the paper to denote where the main content of the page will be, and a short wide rectangle at the top of the page to denote the header of the website. Using a wireframe in this manner will help speed up the design process.

2. Create the content first. Before working on any design work, try to come up with your content first. If you try to do both design and content work at the same time, you may feel overwhelmed and frustrated. By creating the content of the pages before you create the design, you will have a mental picture already prepared for what the website should look like.

3. Code by hand, if at all possible. If you have a choice between a GUI editor and creating the website by hand in a text editor, it can be very beneficial to use the text editor instead of the GUI utility. Coding a website by hand can reduce unnecessary code in the website, and there are some designs that can be difficult to implement in a GUI editor. Additionally, if you find pieces of other websites that you like, you can have an easier time inserting them into your website if you do it by hand, instead of with an editor.

4. Use CSS. When creating a website that has multiple pages, it may make sense to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to easily control the design and layout of the pages. CSS allows you to define pages styles, formatting, colors and lots more through a single page, called a style sheet. This style sheet is stored on the web server, and each page on the website references it when loading on a user’s computer. This central location for determining the style of a website makes it extremely easy to change things around, and is crucial for websites larger than a few pages.

5. Use HTML. Many web programming standards have been developed since the creation of HTML. ASP, XML and XHTML are all examples of these new, growing programming languages. However, when creating a site, it’s often good to try and use strictly HTML for all of the pages you can, simply because it’s displayed virtually the same on virtually every web browser in use. There are some exceptions, but in general, if you can design a page in pure HTML, then you can reach a broader audience than one that uses a lot of other languages.

6. Look for designs online. Whenever possible, look at the implementation of other peoples’ websites for inspiration for your own. Many mental blocks or problems designing a website can be fixed by looking at what other people have designed, and taking information from those designs and applying it to your own. Obviously, you should not plagiarize code that isn’t your own, but you can use other designs and code for help with yours.

7. Consider using a CMS. A Content Management System, or CMS, is a type of webpage that is easily updated and changed without a lot of code changes required. One of the biggest uses of CMS’s is in the area of blogs, where frequent updates to a website are required. Generally, a CMS takes a short time to set up, and can involve things of a technical nature. Once it’s been set up, however, it is easy to use and can be easily upgraded, changed or otherwise affected however you choose to do it.

8. Avoid standard Frontpage templates. Unless you are designing a website where a standard FrontPage template is required, you should avoid using them. People have routinely used FrontPage and other software programs’ default templates for years, and the designs are not unique in the eyes of site visitors. Try finding other templates online, or create your design from scratch or with the help of an experienced web designer.

9. Test your designs on potential users. The importance of testing designs on users before deploying them cannot be overstated. When designing any type of website, whether it is targeting a large audience or a small one, user feedback is extremely important. Even if you only ask some of your friends or relatives what they think of your website, you can get valuable feedback on design points that you might not have otherwise considered. Testing you designs on potential users will also prevent you from having to redo your designs multiple times to account for things that you might not have caught if you hadn’t tested it.

10. Utilize interface design principles. User interface design principles come from the fields of systems engineering and computer science and are extremely important when designing any user interface, including a website. Color coordination, proper button layout and alignment of content and flow from page to page are all types of interface design principles. If you take the time to do some research in this field and employ some of the principles in your design, you’ll be guaranteed to create a website that is easier and more intuitive for people to use. Many books have been written on the topic, and are available in difficulty levels from novice to expert.

All websites require work and a bit of talent to implement. By following these ten web design tips, you’ll have an easier time creating your websites and they’ll be of a much higher quality than they otherwise would be.

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Online Shopping Experience – Lessons Learned About Conversion

I just got a book called “Called to Action”. I just finished reading the first few chapters and it has been very helpful so far – I am sure I will write a full review on it when I am finished.

There is one section that starts to talk about the oneline shopping experience most website users have; one filled with disappointments and frustrations. Some very common website obstacles it mentions are:

* Having to use plugins
* Forcing downloads
* Figuring out drop down menus and pop up screens
* Not finding the information you are looking for
* Not obtaining a level of trust and credibility from the website

I started thinking about a online shopping experience I had personally last night and it started hitting home. I didn’t realize the process I was going through but after reading that section in this book it really opened up my mind about my own personal shopping preferences.

Phase 1 – The Value Driver & Background
This experience starts more than a year ago and requires a little background information. My wife, Mindy, was born in Korea and adopted by her parents in the U.S. when she was 6 months old. She has always wanted to go back and visit Korea to ‘find her roots’ so to say. We went there in October of 2006 for a few weeks and had a wonderful time. While we were there she was using some shampoo there that she absolutely fell in love with. I didn’t think much of it until we got back home from our trip.

Ever since that trip she always comments on how great that shampoo was; being as dumb as I am sometimes I didn’t take the time to write it down, although I thought it was called ‘Kyocera’. Being Christmas time she kept dropping hints of how great that shampoo was and how she would like to try using it again to see if it really was that great or she was just imaging things while we were having a fun vacation. I realize now that the most important thing to me is that I find the specific shampoo she used in Korea and am able to have it delivered by Christmas so I can use it as a gift for her. I recognized the sole driving force behind my search was that I find this present for my wife by Christmas; other things were not important; I was not searching for shampoo because I ran out of it, I was not searching to try a new shampoo that would help moisturize my hair, I was not trying to find shampoo cheap online to buy in bulk, etc. This driver is unique to me just as the other ones I just mentioned would be unique to others even though the same website could satisfy all of us. It is also important to keep in mind as soon as I found what I was looking for I had a credit card sitting on the desk and was very ready and even eager to make a puchase now so I could get the product in the mail and on the way.

Phase 2 – The Unfruitful Search
Last night I decide to try and find this product. I start searching for ‘Kyocera Shampoo’ which brought up nothing at all; thinking the name was wrong (it was by the way) I started searching for ‘Korean shampoo’ and ‘Korea shampoo’ hoping I could find a list of Korean made shampoos that would include the specific one I was looking for. Finally, after literally about 30 minutes of searching, I come across a site that just happened to have it in stock; however the name was different than I originally thought. The shampoo was called ‘Kerasys’ but I quickly recognized it when I saw a picture of it. I realized I knew what I was looking for (specific shampoo) but in reality I didn’t know what I was looking for (forgot the brand name). This was very frustrating and time consuming.

Phase 3 – Buying Values Can Change
Once I actually knew what I was looking for (Kerasys Shampoo) I started searching specifically for that in the search engines and started to have many more opportunities open to me immediatley. I quickly realized there were many vendors out there that carried the product and now just finding the product was not my top priority; finding one that met my needs was. I think my values changed at that instance I found the brand name from finding anyone who actually carried the product to finding someone who carried the product that could deliver by Christmas, that was trustworthy, and that had a decent price.

Phase 4 – The Online Buying Decision
I narrowed my search down to three online retailers that offered the shampoo as a product. The first was Amazon, the second a salon specialty store, and the third an ebay seller. Here is a review of each one.

Amazon – Amazon carried the product through an affiliated vendor. I have used Amazon in the past and this built a level of trust I did not have with the other websites; although I was disappointed slightly after finding out it was not actually Amazon who fulfilled the order but a 3rd party affiliated salon instead. The price was $24 for shampoo and conditioner with about $7 in shipping. It did have some text on there saying if I wanted it by Christmas I would have to order it by Dec. 15th which was only a few days away. This made me lead to believe the fastest I could get the product delivered would be just a few days before Christmas. One thing that was frustrating is I could not find out how big the bottle was, 8oz or 14oz, as it appeared there were different sizes available.

Specialty Salon Store – This website offered the product for $20 with $6 shipping. It was a 8oz. bottle. They did not have any information about shipping costs; my biggest concern was when I added the product to the shopping cart several website graphics on the page failed to load which made me lose trust in the company that they would have the ability to process my order online if they can’t even get simple graphics to work. I immediatley left after that.

Ebay Seller – There was a ebay seller with the product for $19 with $6 shipping plus they offered a free ‘treatment forumula’ bottle as well which was a ‘bonus’. The bottles were 14 oz. and the shipping time was ’2-5 days’ which was well before Christmas. The seller also had 99% feedback on over 700 sales which built credibility and I have had previous positive experiences buying items from ebay sellers with good reputations. I ended up going with the ebay seller because they had the best price, even a ‘bonus’, shipping was fairly cheap, and they could get it to me the quickest.

Whats There to Learn About Online Buying Decisions?
Overall it was very interesting all the thoughts that were going through my head when I didn’t even realize it until I reflected back on the experience and understood why I did what I did. The winner in the end was the website that provided the information I wanted (size, price, shipping times, shipping cost, etc.), established credibility (over 700 previous positive transactions), and could get it to me on time (within 2-5 days of shipping).

Next time I shop online for something I think I am going to try to vocalize my thoughts and see if it helps me understand my own buying patterns and behaviors to help myself understand consumers in general better.

Posted in Landing Page Optimization, User Centered Design | 2 Comments »