I recently purchased a small video camcorder from Amazon. You would think this to be nothing unusual, so why bother writing about it. Well, I think there are lessons in e-commerce that we can all learn about what they do and how they do it.

Amazing customer service

Ordering on Amazon is a real breeze. The site knows me whenever I’m there and it offers me 1 click ordering. When I ordered my camcorder there was an offer of a free accessory with the purchase. I selected an item and added it, but at the time of checkout it appeared I was going to be charged for it, so I deleted it from my shopping cart. As you can imagine I was a bit disappointed.

I wrote to Amazon and explained what had happened. They were really good and I promptly received a response asking me tell them what the accessory was and they would send it out. There was no questions asked. It was immediate, problem sorted.

But here’s the really amazing part of the story, the camcorder that I ordered on Sunday afternoon, arrived on my desk on Thursday afternoon - half a world away!

What makes e-Commerce amazing

There’s a real proliferation of e-commerce sites around and most are really bad. The reason why they are bad, in my opinion, is because there’s no little thought about:

• the online customer experience
• the back-end processes required to run an online business

It is these things that Amazon excel at, and which other online businesses should emulate as appropriate.

The online customer experience

There is a lot more than just the plain old twaddle you get from web developers and designers who always bring out the same old mantra about usability, without being able to successfully define what they mean. Yes, easy and intuitive use has a lot to do with it, but there is a whole lot more to it than that. It’s about having a ‘psychological integration’ with the user, understanding the triggers that cause a person to buy, and understanding what needs to be done to encourage and support the buying decision.

Once you’ve got their money there is also, it’s also about how you ‘farm’ your customers so they become second time buyers (can be a bit hard when you’re selling only one product!). This means having a system in place whereby you can communicate and keep contact.

Back-end processes

I talk to many businesses wanting to set up a shopping cart or e-commerce component to their business, but many have not thought through whats actually required. Basic questions like, “what happens when you get an order”, or “how do you manage returns” are significant issues that need to be thought through and integrated into the business. Another significant issue is what is the staffing implications for such a venture.

All of these issues must be considered and have developed systems and processes, which ideally should integrate with the back-end functionalities of the website.

e-Commerce done well has a cost
- and a huge potential reward

I was talking with a developer who I trust about e-commerce.  We both agreed that it is a misconception that a e-commerce website is cheap. There is a cost for things to be done properly, and lets face it, you generally only have one opportunity to get it right when you’re selling online.

Don’t get me wrong, doing things online is, in most cases, is a lot less expensive than doing it offline, but it can still cost. I like to look at it in a comparative way. If you were setting up a shop in a mall you would be spending big dollars in order to get a slice of the action, and these costs would be ongoing. The same analogy should be applied to doing things online (after all it is a business channel). You must give it the investment it deserves if you want to make a good chance of it, especially when you consider the rewards online are potentially much greater.

For the life of me, I just can’t understand how so many people can have Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) so wrong for so long. Just to check, it is 2009, right?

SEO Horror

I’ve recently been asked to make some changes to an existing website. How could I refuse, brand new client, well designed website. I then had a look at the source code for the home page, in particular the title, keyword and description tags. My first thoughts were ‘amusing’. The description tag, despite being a long monotonous story was, at a pinch, relatively within the subject area. But the keywords were anything but.

I then proceeded to look at the tags for all the remaining pages of the site, only to discover they were an exact copy of what was on the home page. Oh, and by the way, the title tag, was the name of the company. Well, I suppose that’s better than having nothing there at all.

The big issue for me is that it appears that websites such as this, are sold under the guise of having been optimised. Whereas, optimised they are not.

Using title and description tags to best effect

I’m going to be a bit loose and liberal here, but hope you’ll see the point. The emphasis placed on meta tags is misplaced. From an optimisation perspective the important tags where care needs to be taken are the title and description tags. The title tag should give the reader and idea about what the subject of the page is.

The description tag serves a slightly different purpose. This should be used to invite people to open the page. In some ways this is like and advert that calls the reader on a search engine page to action. And yes, both the title and description tags should contain the appropriate keywords!

Keyword tag

As far as the keyword tag is concerned, none of the major search engines are going to penalise you if you don’t have this tag - in fact they don’t even look at it. That said, I still use the keyword tag, but more as an aid to remind and help me focus on what the exact keywords for that page are.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while lately. And let’s get this right from the start. A lot can be achieved with a website in terms of lead generation and customer fulfillment. But, there are some things that the internet is not the best medium for. It seems strange that I should ever be saying these things, but in my opinion, you’ve got to use a variety of delivery mechanisms to keep your customers.

I have often found that many web developers are strong advocates for email newsletters. And, many organisations have adopted the email newsletter like a duck to water. Invariably the reason why they have adopted this mechanism of delivery is because of cost. It’s much cheaper to send out a email newsletter than it is to print and deliver through the standard mail system.

The question that needs to be asked is whether there is a downside to this. Well, I for one think so. I know from my own experience that email newsletters are not always read, and this is not because the content isn’t good, it’s because people are busy and looking backwards and forwards in their email box. Therefore if there is not something right at the top that doesn’t hit your reader right between the eyes, it won’t be read at that moment, and as the day progresses will become less and less f a priority.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying forget the email newsletter. There really is a place for it. It is a mechanism to quickly, efficiently and economically deliver a message to your customers. But if you want to be remembered by your customers I think you need to vary the delivery to include a paper based version of your newsletter every now and then. Yeah, it’s going to cost you more, but there’s one thing that you can be certain about, there’s a greater chance that it’s going to be read and kept by your customer. What value do you place on that?

The tale of two chambers

I’d also like to share with you my experience as a recipient of newsletters. I’m a member of two chambers of commerce. One has adopted a 100% policy of delivering all their newsletters by email. Guess what? I hardly read it and I haven’t been to any of their functions in the last year or so. It also sends me a monthly PDF newsletter and I can’t recall opening one. I’m now wondering what value this chamber really offers me and my business.

The other chamber that I belong to still sends me things by email, but it also sends me its monthly newsletter in printed form. Guess what? I read it, I may not read it immediately, but it gets read.

If you think about what’s going on here, one chamber of commerce has cut its cost by sending things electronically, and if I’m anything to go by has probably suffered lower participation (and, as a consequence will suffer lower membership). The other had continued to use both email and printed communications and has a higher participation rate.

What’s the big lesson

The Internet is a really tremedous medium for generating leads, ordering, delivering content, getting information and customer fulfillment (to name a few). But the internet is still a fairly sterile environment and doesn’t fulfill all the requirements building and maintaining relationships with customers. So as much as possible vary the delivery mechanism and use printed newsletter every now and then.

The internet has not replaced other mediums of comunication, it has just added another channel for us to use to the best effect.

I’m currently working with a new client re-developing his website. We’ve identified a number of things we need to do in order for him to generate sales leads. Every time I do this it’s a learning experience for me.

I was quizzing my client on his product and what made it different and stand out. I got bombarded by all its features. This guy really knew his product inside and out. He had an intimate knowledge of how it worked and performed. I was truly amazed by his wealth of knowledge.

But I wanted more than just features, I wanted to know, and I wanted him to understand that we needed to translate each of these features into real tangible benefits for his market. This was where the hard work began. But in the end we got there. We both gained a lot from this exercise

As I was reflecting on this experience I had a “eureka” moment. I finally understood something that has been on my mind for years. We are the majority of us such awful salespeople. It’s not as though we don’t know our products. Obviously, from the experience I have just related, this guy did, and no doubt it’s something we can all relate to.

The reason why we find it hard to sell is because, despite having a great product knowledge, we often have a very poor kmarket knowledge. That is, we don’t know the needs, wants and desires of our market, and as a consequence we don’t know how our products or services can actually benefit that market.

I’m constantly amused by the number of  web design and developer sites I go to, where wearing their expert status hat, they pontificate to us mere mortals that you need to have original content on your website. And that’s as far as their advice goes. Period!

Apart from copying content from one website to yours, I’m really at a loss as to what these guys mean by “original content”, they don’t explain what they mean. If you compare their websites directly you’ll quickly conclude (and at the same time become bored out of your tree) that there is nothing terribly original in any of their content. It’s the same-old telling us how marvelous they are.

So, what is original content?

To find out what “original content” was, I had a look at Google’s advice to webmasters and site owners. It’s pretty clear that what they mean is “authentic content”. That is, it’s your content and not copied and pasted from some other site.

I think website content must be defined who you are writing for and their needs. It may be that you’re not offering anything different to your other online competitors.  But, because you are marketing to a distinct audience, the difference will be reflected in the content, and hence it should be authentic and unique.

You need to keep your content “fresh”

We often hear web designers and developers say that you’ve got to keep your content fresh. If you don’t, not only will Google punish you, but so will everyone else by not visiting your site. I think we need to examine that notion in a but more detail.

For me, this notion of “fresh” is a load of rubbish. If your site is to generate leads or make sales, the only time you want to change your content is to improve its rate of conversion. If the content on your site is pulling in the punters, why would you want to change  it? All that you’re is the ability for that particular page to generate traffic and convert lookers into buyers.

To change what working is just sheer lunacy.

Not being one to eat my words, I do think there is a place for fresh or new content on a website. So, it probably is a good idea to designate pages or sections of your website where you are constantly updating content with new articles or news releases. But, it’s important to make the distinction between these pages and the pages that are designed to pull the punters.

There are any number of websites that haven’t changed their content for years. To my knowledge thay have not been penalised by the search engines and appear high in rankings. This can only happen because they are wll optimised and pull in the punters for their owners.

I do think it’s important to challenge the notion that visitiors won’t return to your site if there is nothing new there. May be, may be not. Let’s look at visitor behaviour (or rather our behaviour) on websites.

Why I visit a website is because I want something. In many cases I’ll hardly revisit that website again, or only because it has got something that I want. The fact that it has or hasn’t got new content is probably not going to matter that much, as long as my first experience was good. As a general rule, I’m not going to be going back to the site in the hope of finding “fresh” content. I don’t know about you, I’ve got better things to do with my life.

Now there are exceptions. What I have been talking about has been about websites whose sole focus is to generate leads or make sales. Other sites, like informational sites, there is definately the need for the continual and regular update of material.

In a previous blog I talked about promise and fulfillment and I thought because it was so important to the user experience we should talk about it in a bit more detail.

When a person is searching it is usually for a reason, they want something to  make their better, easier, more prosperous easier or to take away some pain they have got. Usually most surfers will start by using a search engine (probably Google!).

The promise

The search results are options for the surfer and every result is one that he could click on. What appears in these search results are assolutely pivotal to the success of any website. Most website owners would be absolutely flawed to know that what appears here is the first and only chance that they have to get these surfers to open their site. But, what’s more every website owner has the ability to manage and control what appears in this introduction.

The search results are comprised of two elements:

• The Title tag
• The Description tag

In the search engine results the title tag will appear at the top and will be the hyperlink that will take the surfer to your site. The description tag will be the two lines that appear beneath. These threee lines are going to be the first contact a surfer (and someone who is actually looking for what you sell).

If you are going to use these two tags well, you’ve actually got to think carefully about how you use them. They actually have to be a total and tantalising summary of what a person will see if they click on your link.

I believe these two tags actually have to be a promise and create an expectation. If a surfer click on this link they will be under no illusion about what they will see when your site opens.

Fulfillment

Fulfillment should be realised when a vistitor, who has clicked on your search engine link arrives at your website. Their expectation should be immediately met.

Unfortunately most people who click on a search engine link do so out of desperation and are only hoping that their expectation can be met, because in most cases they are not. In many cases there is a total mismatch between what appears in a search engine listing and the content of the page. The the cases where there is a match,  the adrenilen of the visitor is not pumping, simply because both the title and description tags have been poorly written.

You don’t have to be good to be the best

For many website owners this will be put straight in the too-hard basket because they think it is too hard to do. Let me tell you straight, you are either lazy or just don’t understand that just about any change you do that sharpens up your title and description tags (as long as you remember to keep your keywords in tact) will lift the click through rate of your pages. By creating interesting descriptions that grab the attention of your market, you will obtain a higher click-thru rate than your competitors.

I’ve often visited websites in which I have had a strong and immediate interest in, but in the end I’ve just clicked the back button and gone to another site. I didn’t leave because they did not have a product or service I was interested in, but because I didn’t feel there was a compelling reason to either buy, or make an enquiry.

But why didn’t I not buy, or make an enquiry? Well there can be many reasons. but one reason I’d like to focus on is because rather than being presented with a list of benefits, I was given a list of features.

I find that when I’m given a list of features on a website, I’ll do one of two things. I’ll either glaze over and leave, or I’ll start comparing other websites for a list of features, and the one who has the longest list will get the sale. Pretty stupid I know.

What will get me really close to the “Buy Now” or “Submit” buttons are benefits. Because, all I really want are benefits or something to take away the pain.

If you look at most websiites that have features, you’ll find that they have been written by a geek or technical person. Most of these features are pretty incomprehensible and leave you with a feeling of “so what”.

I’ve been to some websites that give hints on writing content that say that listing and detailing features is the right way to go and that you should not list benefits. I have to say I beg to differ. It really makes me wonder what the purpose of such websites are.

I’m of the opinion that if your site is to sell of generate enquiries, then you must engage and educate your visitor about why your product and service is what will provide the right solution. As much as you can you want your visitor to act now and not to think about it or compare with other products and services on other sites. If that happens, your chance of a sale will decrease.

So, how are you going to help your visitor to take action now? One of the most important ways you can do this is to use the language of your market and having understood exactly why they need your product or service. it is then that you will be communicating in the language of benefit.

I cringe when I visit a website where it wants me to give my whole life story before I can buy or register for a free newsletter. From my point of view, the whole value proposition is wrong, I’m giving a whole lot more value than I’m receiving. So, from this perspective, there’s no way I’m going to buy or register.

Just so you know, I have another pet nark as well. I hate having to register on a site before I can buy. In fact, I hate it that much, I won’t buy. Why should I have to register in order to buy? The chances are, my purchase is going to be a one-off, and I’m probably never going to go back to that site again. Just give me the ability to get what I want and leave!

Okay, you might want to provide me the option, but it should be my option and not something compulsory. I want to be in control.

The real secret to getting people to fill in forms and register on your site is for the information you’re asking to be proportionate to what you’re giving - there has to be a fair exchange from the perspective of your visitor - not you. So just ask for what’s necessary, and remember your form shouldn’t be like the Spanish Inquisition.

For every field on your form, there’s a question in the mind of the visitor, “why do they want to know that?” If that piece of information is required, or compulsory, they will either walk away or just fill it in with bogus information. Either way, you’re the loser.

Many website owners forget that getting a visitor to fill in a form (and giving personal details) is just the start of the relationship. The relationship is something that could continue over a number of years, so just get what’s necessary now. Don’t be too intrusive. You’re building a relationship, you can get more information (intimate!) over time.

Finding out about people is about establishing a relationship. But right at the start the interest is there, but not the trust. Just think about how you create friendships in your life? You give little by little.

Your website visitor has been around the blocks and will probably have been stung a few times before by giving too much information (just like in real life). So take it for granted that no one will give you an iota of information about themselves unless they’re sure you’re credible and can be trusted.

Depending on the marketing strategies you’re pursuing, most people who come to your website will have found you through a search engine (most likely Google). They’ll come to your site filled with the high expectation they’re going to find what they want more or less immediately and their pain or problem is going to be eliminated.

But, if your site is poorly layed out and signposted the chances are extremely high their expectations of immediate gratification are going to be crushed and they’ll leave, never to return again.

There can be any number of reasons for a poorly structured and layed out site. But there are perhaps two reasons worth commenting on:

• Unique design
• The dog’s breakfast approach

Unique design

We’ve all seen it a hundred times before, sites that have the unbridled desire to stand out and be unique. Sometimes this is through the desire of the owner to be different, but in other cases its the desire of the designer to break the mold. Whatever, it won’t help the owner to generate more leads or sales. Sites like this are only good for the CV of the designer.

There are unwritten rules for the design of websites. And while they may seem absolutely uninspiring, they work. Lets take an example to illustrate the point. Printed newspapers, with all their years of experience, can teach us many good lessons about layout and presentation. They’ve learnt a singularly important rule that their audience are creatures of habit and the only way to keep their market is to be consistent with presentation and layout.

When all said and done your market doesn’t want to think when the arrive at your website, they want it dished up in a way that’s easy to follow. For them - and you - familiarity breeds success - not contempt! If the purpose of your website is to sell or to generate leads the sole purpose of design is to sell. At the end of the day, you’ve got to make the call, are you primarily after good looks or good results.

The dog’s breakfast approach

People who follow this approach normally have a recessive gene that geneticist’s have only just identified. This gene is call the “structure” gene. It makes these people incapable of creating or establishing order. If we are to look on this in a kindly manner, we might refer to these people as “stream of consciousness” writers. Great for writing novels in this genre, but bad for websites.

Promise and fulfillment

The approach I take is that of Promise and Fulfillment. When I search for a product or service and I’m confronted by a litany of results that are actually promises. If I click on this link I am going to find what I want. In other words, I’m going to have my promise fulfilled.

As a website owner the copy that I use in my title and description tags are actually promises. It is therefore important that what is created here is both accurate and engaging - a true reflection of what is going to be found on that page.

With a solid structure and clear signposts, visitors will find what they want in a way that doesn’t make them think.

We all know that whenever anyone comes to your website for the first time you start with zero credibility and zero trust. You’ve got a hell of a job ahead of you to build that trust and credibility if you are to establish a relationship in which you can “sell”. What surprises me is the extent some website owners go to tell big fat porkies (lies) about the size of their business.

In other words, they try to make themselves appear as though they are a huge multi-national corporation with offices in every county known to mankind, when in actual fact they probably work out of their garage or in the spare bedroom.

I understand the dilemma small businesses have on the internet. People believe that if you don’t look big no one is going to contact you. But at the end of the day, giving the pretense of something that you’re not is just a big fat lie, and won’t do you any favours when it comes to building up trust and credibility.

I’m writing this from a New Zealand perspective. We’re a small country, in fact, a very small country somewhere close to the bottom of the world. Most of our businesses (probably 95%) are classed as small to medium, and when I say small to medium, I mean very small and very medium. That’s our reality.

The difficulty that small businesses believe they face (and it’s just mind block) is that if they don’t pretend to be big they won’t get the work or sales they so desperately want. However, the reality I see on the ground is small independent contractor are happily applying their skills and knowledge in large companies and government departments.

Ok, I know we’re in a bit of a recession here, but even the real large contracting companies are feeling the pinch right now as well. The large companies and government departments employing these independent contractors do so on the basis they bring value to the table.

I think the same thing applies to small business websites. It’s about showing the value you can offer your market, rather than the big lie about how big you are. Be happy with being what you are and the big value you offer. At the end of the day it’s all about your integrity.