When throwing a shindig, do you spend a fortune in time and money on the invitations only to neglect actual party considerations, so that when guests arrive, they quickly become disgruntled and leave? You do!? Well, don’t! And you shouldn’t make that same mistake with your online presence. Businesses often fail to augment their websites, instead hyper-focusing on SEO and page rankings, only to have potential customers go to their site, be unimpressed, and hightail it elsewhere. SEO Book recently addressed this bad practice with a few easy-to-remember points:
- Visual design: Understand your visitors and create a look that you think they’re expecting to see.
- Usability: Simply put, the site should be easy to use–not confusing.
- Utility: The site should put forth a convincing, clearly stated reason for the visitor to engage.
Keep these suggestions in mind, and maybe next time your guests will stick around long enough to buy your product (or hit the pinata, or whatever it is you’re into).
Read the full story at seobook.com
Econsultancy conducted a telling survey of 4,000 subjects–2,000 each in the US and UK–that provides great insight into current consumer behavior. For example, more than 80 percent value, at least to some degree, the options of multichannel retail (online, in-store, catalog, etc.). Another important finding is that more than half of all consumers in both countries research items online before purchasing offline (ROPO effect). Finally, as we’ve mentioned before, a substantial proportion of consumers are now using mobile devices for tasks like finding stores, comparing prices, and of course, making purchases.
Read the full story at econsultancy.com
Chris Barnes at ReelSEO offers a great article on the digital media revolution and how it could be initiating a golden age for consumers. Barnes believes that companies that fail to embrace and master the latest digital arts will be left wallowing in the proverbial dust, while those that do will reap untold rewards. For example, one online jewelry retailer recently added short product videos for all their merchandise–they found that conversion rates for visitors who viewed those videos spiked by 400 percent. This is only one of thousands of rich-media success stories.
Read the full story at reelseo.com
Finally, for you stock-watchers, Internet Retailer reports that many key online retailers are on the gain despite an overall drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Read the full story at internetretailer.com
