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Our goals with the design changes we've made is to bring more of a community element to WebProNews. One way we're doing this is by publishing more sections from the WebProNews forums (including featured site reviews). Another is by publishing reader testimonials. You'll notice the addition of editor Brittany Thompson to the line up. She's the WebProWorld newsletter editor and will be deciding what posts fit in WebProNews. Needless to say I've been involved in this overhaul and didn't touch the review project on Friday or Monday. I plan to get some emails out today. Did I ever tell you about WebProNewsFrance? I had a great time finding content for it - emailing French SEO companies with articles until I discovered Michele Ramponi of 1re Position. She was great to work with and delivered a fantastic French article. She's also working on a WebProNews piece on web marketing in Europe.
Best Wishes, Garrett French WebProNews Team |
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Small Business Six Quick Tips For Holiday Online Retailers   If
you're an online retailer looking at the impending holiday season, you might think
it's too late to make any changes to your website that will affect holiday sales.
You might even be thinking you'll just have to see how the season shakes out online
and make changes next year. For you, here's an early holiday gift: It's absolutely not too late. Retailers still have a solid month before the heavy online shopping season begins, and there is still time to make website enhancements or tweaks that can improve your shopper’s customer satisfaction and impact your bottom line. Specifically, here are six enhancements you can put to good effect right now, for this season: 1. Price cautiously during the holidays. Be sure the impact of product pricing and shipping will have the intended effect on increasing revenues before you rush into making ”free shipping" offer. 2. Focus on search and advanced search functions. It may sound obvious, but many retailers don't understand that the holiday season brings the highest percentage of first-time visitors to their site through shopping search engines and aggregators. The biggest complaint I hear from online shoppers is that the search function is difficult to navigate or the advanced search is hidden. 3. In a study about online holiday shopping my company did last year, the two things that emerged as having the highest impact on whether customers were likely to buy were product browsing and ordering process. Product browsing can be dealt with by addressing search functions as mentioned above, but when it comes to ordering process, make sure you have adequate and easily available online help. Many retailers "hide" their 800 number or help functions because they may not want to staff them. But remember: If someone is looking for help on how to buy his wife or son a widget for Christmas and he can't find it, he'll go elsewhere to buy.
5. Be aware that Spanish speakers are now the largest minority in the country and, according to Shop.org, they are the single fastest growing segment of website shoppers. Do not ignore this audience. It is not too late to add product descriptions, ordering processes and surveys in Spanish in order to capture this valuable segment. 6. Review your recent click stream and customer satisfaction metrics with an eye toward last-minute changes. It is not too late to make enhancements to your website that could have a huge affect on your holiday sales, and you could be overlooking something quick and easy. One of our clients was able to make a quick website adjustment after customer satisfaction metrics identified that shoppers couldn’t find what they wanted to buy online because they were confused by the category titles (for example, when home decor items are organized by collection name rather than by the room they’re intended for). After spending months trying to prioritize website changes, customer satisfaction metrics identified a simple change for this retailer that they were able to implement in just a few days time. Almost immediately, the change led to a significant increase in conversion rates. These are six issues that we consistently see having the greatest impact on customer purchasing behaviors. All six are things that companies are aware of on some level. The trick, especially this late in the season, is to put aside experimentation and guesswork about web development. Instead, it's time to understand and emphasize factors that have a direct impact on the depth of customer satisfaction and loyalty, therefore paying direct dividends. Highly satisfied shoppers will shop more often and spend more. Focus your efforts, both large and small, on improving their satisfaction and improving your success — both this holiday season and beyond — and you will win your customers’ loyalty. About the Author: Larry Freed, an expert on Web effectiveness and Web customer satisfaction, is president and CEO of ForeSee Results, a market leader in online customer satisfaction measurement and management, which utilizes the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). He can be reached at Larry.Freed@ForeSeeResults.com.
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"In
an effort to improve its corporate reputation, adware company Gator has launched
a legal offensive to divorce its name from the hated term "spyware"--and so far
its strategy is paying off. 
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