Thankfully, this isn’t as hard as one might think. Thanks to the proliferation of programs that let you build your own website without knowing code, many eBusiness owners are building websites that may look nice, but load slowly. All it takes is a businessperson with the willingness to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the basics of website performance to optimize their site and make it load faster than those competitors relying on computers to put their sites code together. And so, since you are one of those willing business owners, lets talk about -

Things to remember when making your website faster:

• Simplify, simplify
• Learn the Technology, and keep up with it
• Appearances count

Keeping It Simple.

It is an unassailable fact that websites take time to load, especially the first time someone visits it, before it has been cached in their system. And since some security-concerned consumers won’t even cache their websites, it make sense for an eBusiness owner to be sure their website loads fast, while still getting all the necessary information into their front end. While there are many ways to optimize your website, one of the simplest ways any owner can make their site load faster is to make sure that your page is simple, but effective.

I know you’ve spent a lot of time designing that alluring front end – after all, we already discussed the importance of User Experience, but a good business owner should remember that its easy to clutter up the storefront windows with too much stuff. If consumers have to wait to window shop, it won’t matter how nice the experience is. If you find your website is loading too slowly, consider cutting some big images, or just combining several image requests into one big image. Or, even better, remember to keep it simple when you design the user experience itself.

Keeping Up With Technology

“Once you’ve been coding for a while, you begin to take something for granted.”

-Jeffrey Way

Sadly, even those of us who don’t mind mucking about in coding can find ourselves falling prey to a much more difficult problem than keeping it simple. We can slip into patterns and habits that mean we lose track of how the world is moving around us, and therefore fall behind. This complacency can be costly in the world of technology, and even if you’re a small business owner who has hired someone to do your coding for you, it makes sense for you to know the technology, just to make sure your website is as fast as it could be. After all, there’s no guarantee that this business will be as important to your webmaster as it is to you, so you should make sure that you have a practical knowledge of things like HTML5 and CSS scripts (or even useful add ons), even if it isn’t a working knowledge, so that when you ask your webmaster why the page is loading slowly, your eyes won’t glaze over under an assault of technobabble. Knowledge is power, and while learning code may be too much to pile upon your other responsibilities, you should know when there are better ways to make nice windows for your storefront, since better windows give a better view of your product, which is what you want, right?

Keeping Up Appearances

And speaking of windows, there’s an important fact to remember about the internet – one that can’t be stressed enough. Appearances matter, and a page that looks like it’s loading faster can sometimes be every bit as effective as one that actually does load quickly. Clean windows are as good as really advanced windows when properly presented, and a consumer that feels like the site has improved will feel catered to. It shows them that you really care, which is good for business/consumer relations. So remember, if you really can’t part with your new, hard won UX design, a little reorganization of the HTML can make it appear to load faster without cutting anything. And be careful using automated webpage designers, as they rarely use efficient code.

All in all, it’s important to remember that, as a small business owner, your website is your responsibility. Having one that loads fast reflects well on you. Whether you code it yourself, hire a webmaster, or use an off the shelf program, you should know enough about emerging trends to keep up with the technology. Knowledge is power and will keep you from falling behind, getting fooled, or just having a slow website (no matter how well designed). So make sure to keep the windows clean, sweep the floors, and we’ll see you next time!

So here you are, the dedicated eCommerce operator, and after having invested a great deal of time into designing your online store, you notice that it still doesn’t look quite right. You can’t put your finger on it – after all, you designed a website that any consumer would want to visit, one that is open and honest and friendly, and still demonstrates to the customer why they should buy your products. If it feels like you have the general concepts of design down, but would like to get into the specifics, it may be time for some discussion about advanced user experience.

Psychology and User Experience Design
are by nature highly intertwined fields.

-Catriona Cornett

User experience experts know that connecting with your audience improves conversions. But one of the most difficult things about maintaining a storefront in the world of eCommerce is that the internet, by its nature, is an ever changing beast. After all, the world of the internet fifteen, ten, even five years ago is very different than the world of the internet today – not only because of drastically increased modem speeds, which allow websites to be designed with a lot more information, but also because common computer requirements like monitors have become bigger and better, allowing the clever eCommerce merchant to design a much more vibrant storefront than was previously possible. In order to keep conversions high, but costs low, eCommerce operators need to design compelling websites that don’t need to be updated often, striving for a sense of timelessness that can be easily adapted.

Towards that end, in this article we’re going to discuss:

• Simplicity
• Sliders (and Fly Out menus)
• Search

Simplicity:

As monitors have grown over the years, one of the things many website designers have overlooked is the switch from 4:3 and 5:4 aspect ratios to the more film-like 16:9 (those of you who understand fractions may be wondering how 4:3 is different from 16:9). The fact is, more than fifty percent of home computer owners have upgraded their monitors to wide-screen, a fact that an eCommerce website could use to eliminate one of the most common annoyances of the internet age – the scroll bar. While in many cases a scroll bar may be unavoidable (one of the major instances of this are in articles, or anything with a long list of comments), but if your goal is to get your storefront right up in front of the customer, designing for a rectangle instead of a square – and therefore avoiding the pillarbox look – can help make sure that nothing is hidden off page from the customer. And as we’ve discussed before, customers love the ability to take in as much information as possible at a glance.

Sliders (and Fly Out menus):

That being said, there is a constant war between presenting as much information as possible, and avoiding the clutter that comes when your website has more information than can be displayed on one page. Using fly out sidebars to replace the pillars that once dominated the sides of your website can allow you to present broad categories that slowly become more and more specific, allowing the customer to find exactly what they’re looking for, without losing that link to your main page. Sliders work in a similar fashion, allowing you to display a great deal of enticing information without having to cram the main page with pictures and details, especially when that space is better used making the page easier to navigate, instead of cluttered, since negative space is just as an important consideration of design as what you fill the pages with.

Search:

However, you can’t put everything into a slider or a fly out menu, or rather, you shouldn’t. An eternal list of drop down and fly out menus can become annoying in a completely different way than clutter, so there is a point of diminishing returns for your categories, before you just have to let them navigate to a new page. But there will always be a segment of consumers who know exactly what they want, and are only interested in checking your prices and comparing your deals against your competitors. For this sort of customer (whom it is every bit as important to keep happy as the browsers, maybe more so), your website needs the internet equivalent of an index – the search bar. Thankfully, you have many options for adding a search bar, all of which allow you to maintain website simplicity, without sacrificing product variety.

As you can see, despite the constant threat of Moore’s Law and it’s effects on computers, there are some ways you can adjust your website in order to remain timeless. Even if the technical aspects of these ideas change, a website that stays simple, avoids clutter, and allows people to search it will never go out of style, at least in its skeletal form. So get out there, and keep the people happy, so they keep coming back!

Over the years, as the world wide web has grown, it has come to encompass many aspects of a users life. While once it was used for nothing more than sending email between friends, making the rare purchase of an exotic, hard to find item, or venturing into a chat room, there are now billions of ways for people to spend their time online, including one of the more recent, but important, considerations for an eCommerce operator – social media.

Digg, Twitter, Facebook, RSS Feeds, Blogs, even YouTube, are just some of the sites people have used to turn what was once a sea of people looking for connections over the internet  into a community. It’s a paradigm shift in the way we view our social connections, which are no longer limited by geography, time zones, long distance phone costs, or even simultaneous interaction. This is a realm every eCommerce website owner should take some time to understand because, at its heart, it is the feeling you’ve been trying to cultivate – the trusted neighborhood businessperson who’s open 24/7. Making yourself a part of the communities customers already participate in can help with that. Doing so may include incorporating viral marketing, more hits, and occasionally conversions from demographics you may not have even considered. But be careful. Every strategy has its risks, and the last thing you want is for the community to turn on you.

To avoid unwanted scenarios, in addition to being careful, you should also:

• Be Coherent
• Be Consistent
• Be Considerate

Be Coherent:

Twitter, while an excellent source for posting quick snippets of information, has some severe limitations on word count (less than some texts in fact). If you plan on operating a Twitter feed, you must consider it from a very different perspective than your blog or Facebook entries. As always, text must be clear and engaging – make sure your Tweets say what need to be said, despite the word limitations. Also, remember that business blogs are different from personal blogs, even when that’s what they’re masquerading as. Unlike personal blogs, business blogs are not a place for the business owners to ramble on about the minutiae of their lives; they are a way to allow your customers to see what you’re like, as if they stood across a counter from you every day and chatted. The online presentation of your personal life should draw from reality, but shouldn’t be any more realistic than those 70′s sitcoms about 50′s lifestyle. Present an idealized view of the company owners and employees, in order to demonstrate to the internet why your eCommerce business should be their Arnold’s.

Be Consistent:

Once you’ve established a coherent and concise posting strategy, stick to it! Establish a pattern in your posting, and make sure that once you being to post regularly, you continue at that pace, since it does not take very long to establish an expectation in your fans. For some eCommerce merchants, especially the early days of entirely web based businesses, like web-comics, there was nothing more important than consistency. Consistency is what establishes loyalty. Unless you are offering some sort of radically creative method of engagement, it’s far more likely that people will keep coming back if they know when you’re posting and can set a schedule around it. Whether it be their coffee breaks at work, or when they get up in the morning on certain days, or even just when they check their RSS feeds, people like to fit certain activities into a routine.

However, also keep in mind that you should share some sort of consistency across channels. A company that has a philosophical disconnect within its own content sends out the wrong message to the global community, and should be avoided at all costs. When designing the initial stages of your social media push, make sure that they all share a voice, the “voice of the company“,  as it were. This can be the difference between presenting a company that feels like the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, and presenting a united front that inspires confidence.

Be Considerate:

Continuing on that thought (but taking it in a slightly different direction): if you’re going to start up a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, and a blog, remember that while consistency is important, it is possible to drive people away with an overabundance of posts. This is especially true if your post count isn’t proportionate to what you have to say. If you really want to start a blog, but don’t know if you can engage a worldwide audience three times a week, then don’t initially. Instead aim for twice a week, or once a week, or once a fortnight. Once you establish a schedule, fans will feel rewarded if you later increase your post rate. Keep in mind, though, if you decrease your post rate, you risk losing followers, each of which is a small potential source of word of mouth and viral marketing. Perhaps even more important than setting a schedule you can keep, is to avoid making people feel like you’re recycling content. People are far more willing to forgive late content that’s good, than content that feels like its wasting their time. So if you post something to your Twitter feed, make sure you don’t try to pass it off as new content in a Facebook status update. Your fans, followers, and customers will not appreciate this, especially if they subscribe to you in multiple locations, only to get repeats of the same news over and over again. And worse, they might find it insulting and wonder why you didn’t think they would notice. Insulting your fan base is the last thing an eCommerce merchant wants to do.

Don’t let these warnings scare you off. The world is growing closer, thanks to the community of social media, and all it takes is someone willing to put in the effort to turn this to their advantage. Maybe make some tests runs first – start a personal blog before you add one to your website. Read the popular Twitter feeds, check trending content, or look at the most popular fan pages on Facebook before you jump in. After all, there’s an entire world of socially connected people out there, just waiting to hear about your business. How are you going to bring it to them?

Holistic: The treatment of whole entities as if they, as fundamental components of reality, have an existence other than as the mere sum of their parts.

As you can probably already tell, this post will be dealing with something a little more complicated than just raw data. As a small business owner breaking into eCommerce, you have many things to worry about: your product, your website design, and whether or not you’ll need to hire someone who understands this whole internet thing. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget one of the fundamental attributes about the internet, which is: for most people, the internet is a place to have fun.

So what does this mean for your online business? Well, it can be a potent source of word of mouth advertising, if properly tapped. Many of the people who spend a lot of time on the internet are not your run-of-the-mill folks, and are therefore very aware of traditional media and advertising. Things like adblock, flashblock, and other technologies allow the technologically savvy to only take in the ads they want, which becomes a problem when you’ve shelled out some of your hard earned money for advertising space. So how do you get through to this clever and jaded segment of your consumer base?

It’s not as hard as you think – make your advertising a game, and make your website seem exclusive. This isn’t rocket science, and in fact, the technologies and techniques for doing so are well past their infancy. For example, there are always things like:

Quick Response Codes & ARGs

Quick Response Codes

Quick Response (QR) Codes are a phenomenon that has potential for connecting the real world with your internet storefront in a clever way. What are they? Well, to put it simply, QR Codes are a way to encode a graphical hyperlink on a business card or piece of paper, without having to worry about that clunky “httpcolonslashslashwwwdotXdotcom” nonsense. Although popular in Japan and Europe, they haven’t really caught on in the United States. This may seem like a con, until you consider that your goal is to attract the technologically elite. These are the people who are aware of this trend, and may be frustrated that an idea like this hasn’t caught on among businesses in the U.S., especially when it’s so simple to implement. Sticking a QR Code in the corner of a document instantly signals to those “in the know” that you’re part of the club, which could be that little bit you need to make your company stand out among the crowd – especially if they tell their other technologically savvy friends. The best part is that you don’t need to create it as a special document, just append it to your business cards, brochures etc., or maybe even near your URL. Even if someone isn’t technologically savvy enough to understand, they may ask you what it means – and that will help make sure they’re thinking of your company.

Alternate Reality Games

If QR codes are a more passive way to attract the technologically savvy and perpetually curious, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are the active way. For those who don’t know, an ARG is usually a combination of real life and the web that creates a story. Usually the story is so odd that it sucks people in through sheer curiosity. Although they certainly take a lot more work than QR codes, they offer a much larger time investment for their followers. Additionally, they play into that most fascinating of all human drives, the lure of a payoff. Seeing that your company or product (or even free samples of a product) is the reward for fun and challenging work creates a positive mental link, and will attract customers who want to brag about the experience. Even better, they’ll want to brag about the experience but not the ending, forcing their friends to go through the ARG themselves just to see what’s up. Word of mouth is a very effective form of advertising, since it feels very natural, and while the technologically savvy often hate being pitched to, they usually love being rewarded.

Viral Videos

And speaking of pitching to the technology crowd, it seems prudent to put in a note about avoiding attempts to create your own viral marketing. While not impossible, this is a dangerous route to go on, and you’re much safer simply making normal commercials. The reason for this is that, while the technologically savvy can be great allies in terms of passing along word of mouth, they often have sharp tongues, and a bad attempt to push viral marketing on them can backfire. This creates bad word of mouth and may push customers away. While large companies can soak this cost, a small business might not be able to, so be very careful before you try to create viral video marketing. No one can know what will go viral – but you can know how to create a game.

Some Other Things To Keep In Mind

There’s no doubt that the internet elite are a power force in the online community, although its rare you will see them band together to do anything more than cause havoc. But while the news often prefers to report their more nefarious acts, the fact remains that they have their own forums, often far away from the mainstream, where they actively discuss what is interesting and creative. Now you have some suggestions of fun things that can draw in the technologically savvy consumer, and hopefully have him or her talking about your product long after they’ve been to your website and made a purchase. And while you’re creating these interesting QR Codes and ARGs, don’t forget the simple stuff, like the fact that Google ranks websites differently when they’re in stacks of 100 (which is often how busy searchers organize their pages), and the ease of adding a share button to your website, for those little boots when you get followed or favorited, which is another form of word of mouth. Now, go out there and start figuring out ways to pull in the top tiers of the technoliterate – you’ll be glad you did!

A/B testing, for those of you who aren’t sure, is when you offer the users of your website an option between Choice A and Choice B, and use their preference to help you decide which to use. Sounds pretty simple, right?

Well, in some ways, it is. Often, even a simple change can make a drastic difference in how your customers perceive your website, and can lead to dramatic changes in your conversion rates – one of the most important metrics you should be keeping track of. However, one can’t always guarantee that A/B testing will yield such amazing results instantly, so it’s important that we keep a few things in mind when setting up your test:

What To Keep In Mind When A/B Testing:

• A Dramatic Change Is Not Always Necessary.
• Many Small Changes Can Be Made For Tailored Results.
• Don’t Rush The Test – Give It Time To Be Statistically Significant
• Don’t Test For Too Long, Either.

If you keep these simple ideas in mind, your A/B test should be significant, without forcing you to completely redesign your page. After all, if you already worked hard on your user experience, then you’re not necessarily going to need to rip out the whole thing and start over. Instead, you should focus on improving little bits at a time, and remember…

Small Changes Add Up:

Once you have chosen a page, decide on one element that you would like to use as your testing element. Be bold when it comes to your testing element.

- Mark Thompson, Pro Blog Design.

One of the things that every small business owner should remember is that, although change takes time, not every change has to be huge. You may have a great product, you may have a great website, but what separates the eternal small business owner from that future tycoon is the drive to improve. The nice thing about A/B testing is that, although it’s simple to set up, it allows you that most coveted of all business perspectives: the ability to “read the minds” of your customers.

But while A/B testing gives you access to this holy grail of business treasures, it is best to remember that the consumer pool is best absorbed in little bits. After all, if your product is already selling, then it makes little sense to completely rewrite your page copy. The old adage “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” is alive and well in eCommerce.  But, consider where we would be today if people took every chance they had to improve their good ideas. Instead of approaching changes as grand and sweeping, let the ease of A/B testing allow you to focus on making small changes – adding a word or two, tightening up your copy a bit, adding images, better describing features, or all of the above. Figure out which ones your customers really like, and let that drive sales. Bits and pieces add up. Knowing whether your customers prefer a streamlined interface to a page detailing every piece of information about your product or service, can lead to drastic increases. Often times, your personal information may disagree with what intuition, or the experts, say. Additionally, small changes can give you a wealth of information, especially when bolstered by well defined metrics.

It is important to remember, though, that customers can become burned out on A/B testing. While, generally, people like companies that are trying to improve their user experience, it is easy to focus so much on pleasing the “committee“, that you lose your own personal voice and style. There is something insincere about a website that sacrifices its own point of view for only what the consumer wants. You can’t please everyone, and it takes a certain level of confidence to have that defiant point of view. In the end, your personal tone is what separates your site and product from the imitators and what has come before.

So remember: A/B testing gives you a peek into the customers mind, but they’ve come to buy a piece of your mind. Use testing wisely, use it well, but don’t let the customers become burned out on it.

Now, go forth and test. You may be surprised what you discover lurking in your customers’ heads.

Conversion Rate Analytics

There are a couple of answers to this question, most of which are contingent on the goals you set while configuring your analytics. But some of the most important data you need to watch has to do with your conversion rates. What are conversion rates you ask? Well, the conversion rate is the percentage of people who, upon coming to your site, download or purchase your products. This makes conversion rate one of the most telling indicators of how well your website is working, since it is directly related to your ability to sell your ideas. Whether your intentions are to make a profit selling through your online store, or to sell visitors on an idea, getting them to download your brochure, attend your conference or subscribe to your newsletter, conversion rates can tell you how well you’re doing.

Although conversions are not the be all and end all of eCommerce, they are certainly essential data. This is because conversion rate provides you with concrete evidence that your campaign is working (or not), and a general idea of how well it’s doing. After all, knowing our conversion rates before and after you start buying ads on a certain site can allow you to calculate how effective your advertising budget is, and if they go down when you decide to switch your ads to a different site, you’ve acquired yet another bit of hard, useful data. And while there are several reasons why you shouldn’t obsess over conversion rate, with enough micromanagement, it can help you improve the website experience for those who prefer to do their buying on the internet, rather than just research or job hunting.

What Effects Conversions?

However, in the process of not obsessing about it, it helps to remember that there are a number of concerns on your website that might effect conversion rate. It must be remembered that the internet is a land of misclicks and distractions, a factor which once computed in, can provide you with a great deal more confidence in that 2% conversion rate. Keep in mind that sometimes people click accidentally both to your site and away, that some people haven’t figured out tabbed browsing yet, and will use your window to check their back accounts before returning to buy, and that more than ninety percent of conversions happen offline. I know, this can be frustrating for those of you without brick and mortar retail stores, but don’t let it become discouraging. In the process of setting goals, remember to include micro conversions as well. If macro conversions are things like downloading your programs and purchasing your products, micro conversions can be used to measure how many times “contact us” was clicked, or “about us“, or jobs were applied for, or “print this page” was clicked, and the other signs that your site is being used for research, even if nothing was purchased. Someone interested in your site enough to research it is likely to come back, especially if you were convincing enough with your web copy, which will help you calculate your conversion ROI, which is every bit as helpful as the conversion data itself. After all, if you aren’t measuring the metrics that matter, you’re wasting time that could be used on more valuable metrics.

I’m sure at this point things are starting to feel a little complicated (and if they aren’t, congratulations!), but don’t worry. While tracking the various conversion rates can be difficult, it’s not any harder than following your favorite team. All it takes is a bit of time and practice before you’ll get it, and keep in mind that the web is a large, scary place, and if you keep in mind that even a 2% calculation can lead to a great deal of profit, depending on your average order value. But the obvious follow up question is, assuming I’m not obsessing, and have discarded extraneous metrics while incorporating necessary ones, how do I improve my conversion rates?

Improving Conversions With Web Analytics

Well, as we’ve already mentioned, web analytics is all about data. And now that you’ve got your conversion rate practices refined, you can start thinking about how you wield that data. Using this data, you can refine the processes on your websites, particularly when it comes to leads and the sales process. Consider that you check your data, and you find that an odd amount of people start the checkout process, but never finish (abandon the checkout). This could be a problem with your security loading speed, trust, your density of text, or even your safe words display being unreadable so they can’t checkout. Once someone has made the decision to buy, they’re close, but not roped in yet, so you need to make the checkout process as smooth as possible, and your analytics data should provide plenty of opportunities and insights towards improvement.

But if they’re not even getting to the sales page, then maybe the problem is with your sales copy. Thanks to your analytics and conversion rate, maybe your strategy for making a simple website with less professional copy, so as not to scare away the old ladies, is hurting your business, and it’s time to invest in someone to write better copy for you. Sometimes the right data can mean the difference between finding out whether you’re capable of being a one person band, or if what you really need is a slightly larger team. Checking the ROI of your analytics can tell you whether or not your investment in a copywriter will increase sales enough to cover the position.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

And after you’ve streamlined your checkout process, and written stellar copy thanks to a few late night courses on speech writing and psychology, if you still want to improve your conversion rates there are a few tips and tricks you can try. After all, you’ve found out that information is beautiful, and there’s no reason your customers won’t either. Show them how your products and ideas will improve their life, then assign them their own metrics, and study their conversion rates to see which charts, graphs, and graphics are the most effective. Save those, build more in their style, and use them in your advertising campaigns, where they can spread their impact across the entire internet. As you can see, the potential of an entrepreneur wielding a solid set of goals and data is limitless. And if you get stuck in the process, you can always come back to refresh your knowledge. Or just because you feel like there’s always more to learn, and places to improve.

But when you recovered, as the serious eCommerce entrepreneur you are, you got online with the goal of looking the term up. And now you’re here, you’re interested, and you’re a little confused. What are web analytics? Are they really worth investing in? What are they going to cost me? How much time do they take?

Don’t worry, all these questions have answers. And I’ll make sure to direct you towards the experts capable of helping you have the best possible experience with analytics.

What are Web Analytics?

Web analytics are any system of taking the information about your website visitors and using it to improve your website. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, most people who own their own website are unaware of the tools and definitions that make this field useful. How many times have you sat down and wondered why your visitor count never goes up? Or wondered which pages on your website are visited the most?

Sound like exactly what you need to help improve your site? I thought so. But now the obvious question is, how do I use them?

Well, maybe you want to start simple, test this mysterious new system out before you really dedicate yourself to them. If this sounds like you, then I would suggest starting your own Facebook Analytics page, just to see what’s up. Even the website will give you a crash course on how to use their program and why it’s useful for those businesspeople trying to reach a larger audience via Facebook fan pages. For those of you more interested in taking a direct plunge into the deep end, you can try Google Analytics, or the Webtrends Data Extraction API.

But maybe you’re still nervous, checking your payroll to see if you can afford to add web analytics, and the personnel to manage it. This is understandable, after all, how can you be sure these programs will help you improve your traffic enough to help cover their costs.

The good news? They’re free. And you won’t even need to hire an extra webmaster to manage them. Like any other part of your business, so long as you know your goals, analytics will provide you with all the information you need.

However, like anything else, analytics has its dark side. Due to the nature of humans to misunderstand and underestimate things, some programs have gotten a bad reputation they’re still trying to overcome, often due more to mistakes made than any sort of deficiency in the program itself. However, since everyone reading this blog is interested in being informed consumers, that’s nothing you have to worry about.

It sounds time consuming, doesn’t it? Before you go leafing through your accounting book again, trying to figure out whether you can afford a second webmaster, or even a temp, just take a moment to breathe and gather your thoughts. You may find that it will take far less effort than you first thought, and in no time at all, you’ll be turning your website into a highly efficient, customer pleasing machine.

Well, that seems like enough for now. Even if you were all bright enough to find this site and read this article, we have to be careful, analytics are a powerful tool, and while even a beginner can use them, there are plenty of depths left to master, such as conversion rates and cross program compatibility, as well as plenty more experts willing to lend a hand. But for now, your best bet is to go out, get an analytics program, and plug it in to start gathering data. Take some time to really see how the innards of your website work. Then, you can come back here and learn some advanced methods for using the information you’ve gathered.

Basic User Experience

Design Is Not Added Value, Design Is Value.
- Gui Bonsiepe

There are as many different theories to design as there are styles of art – all of which have their merits. However, as we discussed in Beginning UX Part 1, a website proprietor must never lose track of their customers. And although this sometimes comes at the expense of one’s own ego, the small business owner attempting to design their own website needs to remember that, it is more important to make a good website than to capture a “feel.” This is not to say a website can’t do both (in fact, the very best websites do exactly that – capture a feel while retaining functionality), but since most people don’t have the time to study art history, technique, and principles of advanced design on top of running their own business, but also can’t afford a full design firm, lets focus on what it takes to make a user experience pleasant enough to keep customers coming back.

Towards that goal, there are a few things every website should strive to do:

• Look Professional
• Be Easy To Navigate
• Give The Customer What They Want
• Be Honest With The Customer

Now, let’s take a look at how even the most basic business owner can accomplish these goals.

Designing your Website

Despite sounding difficult, creating a professional looking website and making it easy to navigate are almost identical issues. Simple things, like making menu bars visible without being obtrusive by choosing simple colors that stand out against the background, and using easy to read fonts instead of “cool” ones that may be illegible or ugly. In general, when first designing for usability, it is better to favor function over form. Think of building a website like building a car – the chassis has to be solid before you can add the fancy bodywork. And also, to keep with the car metaphor, remember to add a place for the customer to put gas in – so make your shopping cart obvious. While it seems like this might seem pushy or scare customers away, remember that the people who want to buy your product don’t want it to be a hassle, and they’re your customers.

And if you’ve gotten ambitious and feel like adding an element of social media, remember not to force someone to sign up for an account (even if it’s free), to browse or buy the goods. However, after they’ve paid, then ask them to join in order to leave comments, or for an easier shopping experience next time. Make joining a convenience, and many more people will choose to do it.

Thinking Of The Customers

Continuing on of this idea of convenience, the savvy eBusiness owner should always keep in mind that they aren’t running a brick-and-mortar store. To that end, remember to show pictures of the items, or even full panoramic rotations if you can. While it is always advisable to have a good copy and written descriptions, humans are very much visual beings. And while you can’t offer a tactile sensation of the product, it’s important to let the customer see what they’re buying. This creates a feeling of trust (remember how we talked about be you becoming their 24 hour “local” store), and establishes that you have nothing to hide. And who doesn’t want to trust their local businessperson?

And on the issue of honesty and transparency: If you’re asking someone to join your website, don’t hide the delete button after they do. While this seems illogical in the short term, you have to remember that you’re relying on a certain level of curiosity to draw them to your site in the first place. Ignoring the fact that many of your first customers with have an inquisitive nature, will lead to trouble, particularly if the lack of a delete button makes them search one out. It’s best to make them not think about the delete button any more than they have to, and to that end, we should all take a lesson from The Purloined Letter about hiding in plain sight. You don’t have to outline it in a flashing neon marquee, but make it visible enough they don’t have to hunt for it- and by doing so, display your confidence they won’t be clicking on it any time soon.

As you can see, it’s relatively simple to design a good user experience – and while basic attempts may not meet the level of the professionals (they have put a lot more time and thought into this after all), hopefully you can take these tips and build a website that is functional and easy to navigate without excessive discretionary funds. I look forward to seeing new, professional looking eCommerce sites springing up all over the web any day now, so good luck, and see you next week.

User experience, also known as UX, is the art of creating a website that makes your customers want to come back. It’s that simple. Although misunderstood today, the old adage “the customer is always right” was the brick-and-mortar equivalent of good user experience – in that by creating an atmosphere wherein the customer felt like they were in control, they would return to your business. The customer felt empowered, you got paid, and it all worked out fine for everyone, since you had the best products on the market anyway, whether you ran a restaurant, a hotel or a general store.

Enter the internet; and with it, the world of eCommerce.

Benefits of a Well-Crafted User Experience

What kind of subtle changes could you make to your product/website/application/service/business that would discretely help your customers succeed, thereby feeling better about themselves, and in turn, your brand?
- Alex Rainert (everyday UX)

There are many benefits to a well crafted user experience:

• Easier site navigation
• Viral marketing potential
• Happier customers

These are all key points, especially when you remember that, while eCommerce is a wonderful thing, it has an essential problem that brick-and-mortar stores don’t have – double blind anonymity. When you sell things online, you will meet almost none of your customers, and will get only the barest glimpse of those who contact you through email and such. This is a far cry from the days where you could know the name of your local butcher, baker, and curio seller, and while the novelty of being able to shop 24/7 was enough to sustain eCommerce in the early days, the market has become so flooded that customers can choose to shop where ever they want.

Why is UX Important?

This is where UX comes in. After all, if the customer is looking for something that sets your product above the rest, a website that makes them feel like they’re buying from more than an anonymous person on the internet can help a great deal. In particular, those who have managed to work the principles of social media into their websites are doing rather well, by allowing their customers to create an online word of mouth through Facebook and Google. A well crafted UX can turn your website (and by extension, your ad campaign, all of your hard SEO work, etc) from the traveling salesman hawking his wares on the street corner, into that village shop that all of a person’s friends like, and they just haven’t gotten around to visiting yet.

Except your store is open all day, every day – so the odds are much greater they’re going to make it in eventually.

“But,” you may wonder, “I already have a good product. Better than anyone else’s on the market in fact. Why do I need to worry about UX? Won’t a good product sell itself?”

And you’re absolutely right. Good products do sell themselves, but being the logical businessperson you are, can you deny the free advertising that comes with winning something like The FWA, or having millions of fans on Facebook? If you already have a good product, isn’t it worth the effort of putting in that time to make sure the website selling it looks as good as the product works? First impressions can be important, especially with the double edged sword that is the internet. All the metrics and web analytics in the world won’t save a website that is hard to navigate – especially if you make it hard for customers to buy your products.

But most importantly, keep this in mind as you ponder redesigning that website you made ten years ago: The internet is in constant evolution. A decade ago there was no Facebook, no YouTube, no Myspace. File sharing was in its infancy, and download rates measured in MBPs were astonishing to contemplate, much less hard drive space in terabytes. The world of computers simply moves faster than the world of brick-and-mortar, and businesses that fall too far behind are in danger of dropping out of the race. Even slow and steady progress is still progress – and remember, the hare didn’t lose because he moved too fast, he lost because he fell asleep. So ask yourself: Is your business’s website moving forward with the times? Or are you napping by the side of the information highway, letting all of those UX wielding tortoises pass you by.

Either way, it never hurts to learn a few ways to improve your website – which is why you should tune in next time for “Beginning UX (Part 2): Crafting Your User Experience” where we’ll explore improving your UX. See you then!