I recently spent the weekend at Social Dev Camp Chicago and came away with a lot of good contacts and a head bursting with notes to self and ideas. Here’s my take on the kinds of things that you as a small business owner can think about and put into action.

Value is determined by the buyer not the seller

Think carefully about this one. It takes a minute to sink in, but in this age of consumers sharing their favorite products on Facebook, it’s more important than ever. What value do you provide to your customer? The lowest price is not necessarily what people need. They will perceive

Bringing it to the Real World

One of the biggest trends being discussed, was how to integrate social networking into your overall marketing plan. Cross promotion in the real world can really engage your customers.

• Have a “like us on facebook” sign at your store. (If customers like your page, can you offer them something as a thank you?)
• Show a  QR codes on the window. The customer can scan with their smart phone and receive a coupon or promotion info.
• Other stores have products that give you credits on Farmville and other facebook games.
• If you have a fun product, link it to a game in a mobile app. (Design t-shirts, accessorize your scooter or tie promotions to an established game)
• Monitor your business name in Twitter and actively reply if there is a customer service problem that needs solving.

Bottom Line – Know Your Customer

There was talk at this conference about the possibility of a bank tying into your web searches, setting aside funds for the purchase and then sending you alerts when you were close to a store with a good deal on what you had been searching for. If that feels like big brother to you; to your kids it sounds cool and to their kids it will be expected and normal. Make no mistake, mobile location based internet will be a bigger player in years to come and how you tie into that with your social presence and your mobile site will be critical.

It all comes down to that first headline – value is determined by the buyer, not the seller. If you can add value, communicate that value and make it easy for them to join then you have a client for life. In my mind, social networking is great and can have real value, but without real customer service behind it, it doesn’t mean much.

Further Resources

What is a qr code and why do you need one?

Facebook adds a Customer Service app

Social Media Trends for 2010

Usability & Navigation

Make sure it works

I was on a beauty product site the other day and they had a questionnaire to determine which line of their products would be best for me. I actually spent over 3 minutes filling this form out, only to find out that the submit button was broken and did not work. I never got the information I was looking for and was frustrated enough to find the contact page and let them know. I never got a reply and I’m very unlikely to re-visit this site or buy the products now.

Be vigilant about is broken links and have someone test your site regularly, especially to external links that are not in your control. Nothing screams unprofessional site like links that go to Page Not Found. Any time you change anything, it’s always good practice to test for this. You can check your site right now with this tool. http://validator.w3.org/checklink

If it’s not ready, don’t put it out there

Say NO to "under-construction"

I strongly encourage forethought and planning in site design, but that doesn’t mean promising links or info that is not ready yet. If the content for the page is not ready, then don’t put it in the navigation. How many times have you seen COMING SOON! only to come back a week or month later and have whatever was coming still not there? Design the navigation so that adding pages later is no big deal, but “under construction” and “coming soon” are  just not cool.

If Mom can’t figure it out, it doesn’t make sense

When I first designed my own site, I did some very artsy things with my navigation. Instead of the straight choices across the top or side that you see almost universally, I embedded the links into the header art. I showed this site to my Mom and despite the fact that the giant leaves to the right had Portfolio and Contact written on them, she didn’t know that was where she was supposed to click until I showed her. Oh. Eventually I got around to changing my navigation to something more conventional. Maybe not as cool, but if your audience can’t make sense of it, what’s the point?

For more on this, check out the Mom test video.

Is it easy to use?

We’ve all been in sites where how to get to the next step, refine the search or figure out the shipping before buying was just not apparent. User testing, (this is a great place to use your Mom again), is critical. Even small companies can enlist family and friend help. This is where you really want to find someone who is not you or your designer. If it’s not easy to use, the chances of repeat visits, otherwise know as business, are slim.

Engagement & Conversion

Engaging your audience and converting them to sales are the holy grail for e-commerce sites. Once you’ve got the structure making sense and working, making your site attractive to your target audience is next.

Know your audience

Know the audience you're designing for

Design elements

Why are quote and buy buttons often large and hot colors? Because they work. Why is navigation across the top or on the side? Because that is where we expect it to be. Your site can be your own without being so unconventional that nobody knows what you’re offering or how to get more

Call to action example

information. All e-commerce sites and even those that are just service businesses should have some kind of “Call to Action” on as many pages as possible. What that is depends on what you want your audience to do, but if you want them to get a quote, or sign up for a newsletter or search or buy, makes those actions obvious and don’t be afraid to test different methods.

Customer Service

OK, this seems like a no-brainer, but it bears repeating. If you’re selling something, at some point you will have to deal with your customers.

• Don’t surprise them, be up front about things like shipping costs
• Don’t make them search for a way to contact you
• Make returns and other policies obvious

If you are selling your own products, make sure this process is completely tested as well. The system that works is one that can handle the exceptions well. Very few people will talk about an uneventful order, everyone will complain about a bad one.

Sell your Credibility

Belong to a chamber of commerce, a trade association, have a profile on Linked In or a fan page on Facebook? Tell the world about it. Not only does bring credibility to you and the services you offer, but it has the added bonus of adding more SEO to your site. Do you see what’s happening at bottom of this page?

Test it, track it

Google analytics

How do you know what pages on your site are being visited? How do you know how long they are staying on a page? How do you know if your customers are bailing in the middle of a sale? How do you know that you really need to make sure that your site works in IE6?  How do you set up A-B testing to see which landing page works better? One word: ANALYTICS. Google analytics is free to install. There is no excuse for any site and particularly an e-commerce site to not have the tracking code installed. Business is all about measured results. This is where it starts.

Further Resources

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-new-rules-for-successful-ecommerce-websites

http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Internet-Marketing/Building-eCommerce-Websites-That-Work.html

http://reach.dzone.com/articles/10-key-practices

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-design/current-style.php

http://www.lakeshorebranding.com/company/blog/simple-ppc-tip-increasing-conversions-with-a-shiny-button/

http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-use-google-analytics-for-beginners

http://www.newfangled.com/how_to_use_google_analytics

Original Article

On October 20, 2009, Chris Campbell wrote:

So you have an idea for a business website and you’ve hired a web designer. It’s a simple enough collaboration. You’re raring to go live. If, however, you wish to encourage people to keep coming back to your site, understand that this takes more than stylish, colorfully designed pages and great Photoshop skills. After all, there are things that a web designer won’t tell you – or can’t tell you – but which you should know anyway. Here are some of them:

1. “Shiny, sparkly, and splendidly bright” doesn’t cut it. It might work as a lyric for a Michael Jackson single (“Gone Too Soon”), but not as an agenda for web design. Out of propriety, or shyness typical of people with artistic temperaments, a web designer might not tell you to keep off the electric neon-colored background, or the blinking rainbow font, or the head copy that scrolls like a snail. Keep off them anyway. You want your website easy for your visitors to read. Don’t give them a headache.

2. Put a “Skip” option on your fancy Flash intro. It’s actually simpler and easier to not have a fancy Flash intro altogether. But in case you decide to have one anyway (it makes sense for some businesses), remember to make the option of skipping it available to your visitors. If your web designer doesn’t tell you this, well – it might be that he just wants more and more people to see his work. It doesn’t matter: put a button so repeat visitors won’t have to sit through the same thing over and over.

3. Say no to popup windows. All right, those ads can bring in a bit of revenue. But make sure they comprise no more than a quarter of your website content. And place them with subtlety. If you want a visitor sign up for your newsletter, buy your e-book, or take the online survey, do it with subtlety. Pop ups are not subtle. Nothing is worse than a popup while reading an article, its easier to click the back button than stay on your site. Very rarely do people bookmark sites with popup ads popping up all the time. (See? Even reading “popup” several times is annoying.)

4. Turn it down; better yet, turn it off. At least give people the chance to do so. I’m talking about the sound that suddenly starts playing when one visits a website. Again, this is a matter of subtlety. Neither your website designer nor you should play DJ and force visitors to listen to audio tracks, be it a business podcast or your choice of background music. If you just have to play audio on your website, place in a prominent area on the webpage the option of muting or pausing it.

5. “Back to top” makes reading a lot easier. Your web designer will probably have learned in design school that reading a page that scrolls horizontally can be irritating. But if you have to have so much content that your page scrolls, make it scroll vertically. And then put a “back on top” option for easier navigation.

6. Don’t ask for TMI, or too much information. Think about it: if you were to visit a website, you’d hate signing up for anything that requires you to enter your residential address, phone number, and birthday, among other personal details. And unless there’s a financial transaction involved, you’d be foolish to give out your credit card information. So build a website that doesn’t ask too much; keep it basic. If you have to use a form with fields that visitors have to fill in, don’t make it mandatory.

7. Highlight your brand and make it easy to contact you. While you may have a shared aesthetic with your designer, it doesn’t automatically mean that he understands your brand fully. Your web designer can’t be expected to double as your strategic consultant. That leaves you in charge of communicating the story of your business through your website, which really is a cost-effective way of establishing your brand. Highlight it. Put a logo, your site name, and your contact information where visitors can see them. And then tell the people what you can offer them.

8. BONUS- Build it and they will come syndrome. Yes the first step to effectively marketing your organization online is through a website, but web designers often are not internet marketing experts. Having a strategy and plan for how you are going to market your business online through email, search engine optimization, paid advertising or maybe even blogging is important to maximizing your investment of your website.

For the small business owner the over whelming amount of information on these subjects can be intimidating, so let’s start with a small primer and understand why you should care.

Social Media – This includes things you’ve probably heard of like Facebook and Twitter, but almost anything online that you can contribute to (like YouTube or Wikipedia) counts. Most mere mortals use this kind of thing for personal enjoyment, but the growing thinking is that this is the new way to communicate and sell to your customers. 20 somethings have never used a phone book, they look it up online. And it’s not just 20 somethings anymore, the biggest growing segment on Facebook right now is boomer aged women. If you watch television on demand or like I do on the Internet, then your exposure to commercials is way down. But if I know my local business and connect with them on Linked In or Facebook, then I know what they are up to. Then as the theory goes, the friends of my friends also know what they are up to and the potential for a new customer is born. Small business competes with large on a more even playing field.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization is the holy grail of getting on the first page or 2 of Google. Not when someone searches for your business name, but when a complete stranger searches for the product or service that you provide. There are many ways to make this happen for your site and there are many experts out there that specialize just in this. This is where content has to be king. Pictures and art have a definite place in telling your story, but as far as the search engines are concerned, words are what they understand.

A really beautiful site that has just the right fonts and colors is just the beginning. If the content is not optimized so that people searching for your product or service can find you, then that’s all your site is – pretty. Most people build a site hoping to increase sales in some fashion. If that’s what you want, then your budget for the project needs to be more than just the design and coding. Without careful content planning and a marketing strategy that includes making it personal with social media and making sure that the search engines find you – no one will come.

Am I an expert in all this? Hardly, but I can direct you to some people who are. I’m the one who makes it all work and look good. But I am learning more all the time and trying to participate more regularly myself. (Which by the way is probably my next article – this stuff is time consuming, how do you manage it?) Adding recent and relevant content is something that Google loves too, one of the reasons we’re becoming a world of bloggers. So, I’ve done my bit, so help me out and do yours. Let your friends know about me and post this on Facebook or tweet it on Twitter for me will you? I’ll do the same for you.