personal blog of Kimberly Carroll
If you’ve ever done the card sort exercise, you will be interested in this idea: websort.net which uses Flash to create virtual cards and lets users perform the requisite task online.
Interesting idea. Great demonstration of using flash for good rather than evil.
My tip: instructions are sparse – hit the forum for the most helpful information.
Recently, seeking tangible research on user behavior on the collection and recall of information I encountered an article by Harry Bruce of the University of Washington titled Personal, anticipated information need*.
Two recommendations here… The first is to read his article. The second is to read others in the journal that published him: Information Research. The journal isn’t pretty, but it’s a good read.
*Official citation: Bruce, H. (2005). “Personal, anticipated information need” Information Research, 10(3) paper 232 [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/10-3/paper232.html]
This research from Mark Russell at Wichita State University will give you a first hand look at an eye tracking study. This is not a full-blown study with conclusions, but does give you a view of 3 different store approaches to one product type and shows exactly where the user’s eyes were drawn and the duration of the view.
If you find this kind of information fascinating, you should take a look at Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook ($247). The heatmap studies alone were worth the price; you can improve your landing page conversions in just a few days (or however long it takes you to read 190 pages).
Want to know which sites your visitors are also visiting?
http://www.alexa.com
Who is linking to your competitor’s site, but not to yours?
http://www.linktree.info/
What is the overall visibility measure for your site?
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
Want all the gory details on a URL?
http://www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo/
CUSTOMERS RESEARCH ONLINE, BUT BUY OFFLINE
Roughly half (46 percent) of consumers say they research items online before they buy them offline. Another 29 percent say they occasionally do so, while 25 percent say they never do online research before making a purchase.
Source: BIGresearch
Consumers are actively shopping in store, online and catalog channels. Store shoppers also purchase 16 percent of their items online and 5 percent from catalogues. Online shoppers buy 43 percent of their merchandise in stores and 6 percent from catalogues. Catalogue shoppers buy 19 percent of their goods in stores and 11 percent online.
Source: DoubleClick
ONLINE ADVERTISING THAT FOCUSES LOCALLY MAPS TO THAT TREND
Spending on local online advertising reached $2.7 billion in 2004, up 28 percent from 2003. That figure is expected to grow 46 percent in 2005 to $3.9 billion.
Source: Borrell Associates
YOUR RETURNING VISITOR VS NEW VISITOR DATA IS PROBABLY NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS
Nearly 58 percent of online users delete cookies and as many as 39 percent delete them on a monthly basis. More than one-third (38 percent) say they believe that cookies put their browsing security and privacy at risk.
Source: Jupiter Research
NARROWLY FOCUSED SEARCH PHRASES CONVERT BETTER
Keyword search phrases with four words are the most effective at converting browsers into customers. Four-word phrases for keywords in the top 100 group of words that produced the highest traffic rates converted 38.28 percent of unique visitors into customers in December 2004. Three-word phrases converted 21.89 percent of unique visitors into customers. The conversion rate for five-word phrases takes a considerable dip to 9.69 percent.
Source: Oneupweb
I was recently updating a resource list for an upcoming talk on Search Marketing, and came across these two links. Both are good resources for people just learning about SEO and trying to grasp just how this search thing works. I am a big fan of starting with the basics – the terminology and technology here are just that.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): How to speak SEO Geek
http://www.sempo.org/glossary.php
How Google Works:
When you understand the inner workings, it starts to make more sense
http://www.googleguide.com/google_works.html
Whether you’re hiring a designer, trying to inspire your own team or struggling to make magic with your existing creative relationships, here are some tips on getting the most from those relationships.
1. What are you trying to say?
The best designs come from a solid understanding of what needs to be said. Design is not just pretty for the sake of being pretty – design is communication. Don’t start with color, shape, or style— start with your message and let the ideas flow.
2. Avoid the “Amazon syndrome”. Over and over again clients say “I want to be like Amazon”.
You are not Amazon. You will not be Amazon. Don’t ask for a site like Amazon (or someone else’s) but in a different color. Take the time to think through your real needs… Your real brand goals, not just a rehash of someone else’s site.
3. Feelings.
Tell your designer what message and feeling you want to convey, and then give them the freedom to convey it in a fresh, new way. Their outside perspective on your project is valuable, and you need to step back long enough to let them do their job.
4. Share the big picture.
Be sure you are sharing the big picture with your design team. If today’s web site is going to blossom into a network of mini-sites, they need to know that up front. This tip will keep your designer happy and save you money in the long run. It will also keep your “add ons” from looking like “add ons”.
5. Cows can’t make milk faster, neither can creatives.
Resist the temptation to cut back on the planning stage of your design projects. It’s an important part of the process. A creative director at Hallmark tells a ditty about the creative process that goes something like this… Just because the farmer stands at the edge of his field, waves his fist and says “make milk faster” doesn’t mean it works. The same applies to the creative process. We need to chew our creative cud, lounge in the grass, moo a little. When we’re ready, the milk will come rushing forth, or at least when we give the teat a good pull it’s there to serve.
6. If you don’t have content, you’re not ready to design.
If you have not worked through your sitemap, rough content, site organization, feature list and related exercises you are not ready to design. Site design is fundamentally about communication and without content, a designer has nothing to work from. Resist the urge to rush things until you have truly done your homework.
7. It’s NOT about you.
It’s not about you, your friends or your colleagues. No one cares if you hate drop down menus and your boss loves them. What matters is what your customers think, want and feel. YOUR job is to get that information to your designer so they can do what needs to be done. Comfort yourself with the piles of money you’ll make from happy customers.
8. You are entitled to an opinion but you have to back it up.
You are allowed to have a voice in the creative process. It’s a welcome addition to any project, but you must have something meaningful to say. “I don’t like it” won’t make your project successful, but “I don’t like it because _________” has much more potential.
Don’t just say, “I don’t like green.” That says nothing of real value. If you say “I’m concerned that the color looks depressing and we need cheerful and youthful,” then you are giving great feedback because you’re talking about message rather than telling them how to design.
9. You only need one decision maker.
No good design was ever created by a committee. The more people who have a voice in the process, the more muddy and diluted it gets. Others will often give conflicting advice, have biases of their own and even ulterior motives. Take input, it can be highly valuable along the way, but YOU decide what the final decisions are. Make a decision and stick to it.
10. Remember that you’re not the designer.
If you were doing the creative work yourself, I bet you could make something yellow, but could you make it feel upbeat and friendly? Probably not – that’s what you hire designers for. So think in terms of emotions & feelings. At the initial planning stage, show your designer sites that appeal to you for this project, but dig deeper and figure out why. Resist the temptation to become the designer.
10 1/2. You can’t please everyone.
Bill Cosby said “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” If you want a sure-fire way to have a boring site with no personality, try and build a site that pleases the whole world.
Go back to #1: Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
A few quick notes on creating keyword campaigns
Cost-Per-Click (CPC) ads on Google and Overture are nothing new, but perhaps thinking about them in terms of cost per acquisition rather than per click is new to you. To review, CPC works like this:
Or is it?
Let’s say that you get 100 clicks on your ad.
And of those 100 clicks, 1 person buys your product. (that’s a 1% conversion rate)
Let’s say your average sale is $35.00
You paid this much for your ad: 100 x 10¢= $10
Which means your Cost-Per-Acquistion (CPA) was $10
Can you afford to pay $10 for every $35 you make?
CPA is an important consideration when creating PPC campaigns.
It’s affected by:
You can dramatically alter your CPA by paying attention to:
Where do users expect to find the shopping cart? This diagram shows the most popular answers (the darkest blue areas).
This diagram comes from a research study by Michael Bernard which many of you will find interesting.
Michael studied various components of web sites and where users expected to find them. From search boxes to merchandise links, Michael’s research offers some valuable insight.
Enjoy!
Sometimes new ideas are met with a barrage of naysaying. Saw this poster (PDF) from What A Great Idea with the challenge to be curious first – for at least 30 seconds – before naysaying a new idea. You may be surprised at the results!