eCommerce Simplicity

In the last 6 months, I have been closely paying attention to the development and maturation of Magento Commerce - the latest and by far greatest open source eCommerce solution. After implementing it on a few development domains here at Trinity, I quickly realized that this solution is head and shoulders above OS Commerce - the long standing king of open source eCommerce platforms.

Even in a standard installation, with no customization from a technology perspective, I was blown away at the level of functionality that is provided. Here are some snapshots of what this software can provide.

• Catalog Promotional Pricing by percentage or fixed amount with ability to restrict to stores, categories, products
• Free Shipping Option
• Multi-Tier Pricing for quantity discounts
• Customer Group-specific pricing and group-specific tier pricing
• Landing Page Tool for Campaigns
• Search Engine Friendly URL’s
• URL Rewrites
• Recently Viewed Products
• Recently Compared Items
• New Items Promotional Tool
• Up-sells in Shopping Cart
• Cross-sells on product pages
• Send to a Friend for all visitors, or registered users only
• Send Wishlist to a Friend by Email or RSS
• RSS Feeds for New Products, New Specials and New Tags

Wow. I know many enterprise level platforms that do not have this type of functionality. Most impressive to me was the ajax based cart page that allows a user to progress through a transaction without having a page load as well as the guided navigation functionality that is allowed to be customized through the back end by aligning attributes to the taxonomy.

What is a bit of a challenge at this stage is finding developers for the software. Being that is so new to the marketplace, you have to hunt to find someone with experience.

I highly recommend loading the software on a domain and having some fun with the customization capabilities. If you want to see it in action, and view the homepage UI with an integrated multivariate testing solution (google optimizer), check out Skateboarding Direct

Its amazing how everyday occurances that happen within interactions in the physical world, can accurately reflect concepts that mimick it in a digital one.  Take for example the concept of providing clear and consistent naming conventions, better described as providing clear visual cues for users to complete tasks and follow a path.

So every day, or almost every day, a person arrives at our office looking for the county courthouse that resides in the same building.  And typically, we let the person know that they missed the sign for the courthouse and it was located on the first floor.

Now this physical sign is very visible.  Its just missed by 1 out of every 35 people or so.  But it proves the point that instructions and persuasion has to be clear and VISIBLE.  Make sure to clearly tell your users the pathways to the tasks that they are trying to achieve.

Ok, so you probably have absolutely no idea what I am talking about from the title of this post.  Don’t worry, hopefully after reading the rest of this, you will gain a better understanding of a new development within affiliate marketing which is going to change the dynamics of search engine optimization.

First, lets look back in history.  Affiliate links (ie links from other sites to yours within a advertising network) did not typically help natural search rankings.  Typical affiliate links would go straight to a link network (ex. http://cj.com/t_a.php?id=00292282) and get re-directed to your site.  Because of the tracking parameters within the URL string, as well as the fact that the incoming visit was based from a re-direct, affiliate programs did nada in helping out merchants in organic search efforts.

One company has changed that however.  A company called Link Connector has created a technology that allows affiliate programs to be executed by code that is installed on the server of a merchant.  No longer, does the re-direct need to take place from the affiliate network.

Their technology is called “naked link technology” and essentially allows a web publisher to use a query free outbound link (ex. www.trinityinsight.com). Code on the merchant side when the page loads, communicates affiliate details with Link Connector and drops the cookie on the user.

What does this have to do with SEO?  Well for starters, your affiliate campaign is going to assist in link building.  A website can dramatically improve the speed for which a link campaign is being conducted by using Link Connector.  Link Connector has signed some high profile companies lately such as American Greetings, Gunther, and Wordtracker.  Their publisher network is likely far behind CJ and LinkShare, but their technology makes it worth it to engage.

If you are considering a affiliate program for your marketing efforts, consider Link Connector.  You will be literally killing two birds with one stone… Well ok, maybe not “killing” your link building efforts - but it will be a great supplement to traditional efforts.

Search engine optimization is hot among businesses within all sectors.  No matter what industry you may be in, increasing your natural rankings within Google should be somewhat of a focus for your internal marketing manager.  At Trinity, our job is to ensure the quality of our client’s search programs, primarily on the natural side of the house.  The only way to keep your rankings however is to follow the algorithm and ultimately understand the factors that are paramount in SEO trends.

This year has been an interesting one to say the least with Google.  The BIG change was dropped in May, when many sites were given a “N/A” for pagerank.  Much different than the “google sandbox” (ie where your site sometimes sits when it is new to the index), the sites that were discounted included sites that allowed “manufactured” links within their webpages.  Also discounted to a higher degree was that of reciprocal linking.  Often a staple of online marketing and link building, the value that the reciprocal linking practice provides has been reduced greatly from the past.

So where does a SEO go to get results?  Glad you asked…Here are what we see is teh emerging trends today in SEO - but by tommorow, they may have changed so research is key.

1. Daily content

It seems like a no-brainer but you would be shocked to know how many sites sit without being updated for months.  At Trinity, we have seen first hand how powerful this is.  In our SEO engagements, a large portion of our work is centered around content development.  We syndicate the content on the web, bookmark it in social sites, and then re-formulate the content (so its unique!) for publishing purposes on our client sites.  No matter what you sell or offer on your site - write about it daily!  Include RSS feeds to help with content integration from the blogosphere.  Create a blog and use the “tag and ping” tactic to inform technorati and other news sites of your content.  Following these processes is a must for high rankings.

2. Widget development

Ok, you may have to outsource the development of this one, but by creating a widget and marketing it online, you can literally have thousands of links coming to your site.  Think through what type of widget may make sense for your business from a marketing perspective.  Get creative!  Is it a functional tool?  Daily content updated via xml?  Joke of the day?  It really doesent matter.  All that matters is that it is unique, catchy, and marketable - both on your website and via viral marketing on the web.

3. Back to basics - Keyword selection and HTML

Lets not forget SEO 101.  Make every page unique.  Make every page’s meta data unique.  Target terms that have less competition but a high volume.  Use phrases within your title tags segmented by “|”. Looking for a great tool to help you in identifying the best terms to target?  Download the SEO for firefox tool and see what wonders it does for your keyword research. Get it at http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

There’s so much more, but this is enough to hopefully get you down the right path with SEO.  Drop me a line if you would like to learn more or just talk shop..

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SEO Trends
SEO

“What can we do to get our PageRank higher”?  These words are said to me at least once a week from clients, partners, and friends alike.  Google, by applying a measurable ranking to a webpage and by making it visual to anyone with a Google toolbar, has created an environment in which search optimization projects are frequently judged by this performance indicator.

But the question lies…How really important is PageRank to a website?

Lets not forget, pagerank is only one singular factor in the Google algorithm.  Primarily a measure of inbound links from on topic websites, pagerank does a good job of showing the level of percieved “authority” that is provided to a website.  But in doing research lately, Im realizing that it seems to be devalued within the latest tweaks by Google.

Look at Red Envelope.  When searching for “gifts” they show up on the first page.  Looking at their page rank - they have a page rank of 1.  Maybe this is an update or data center bug etc. - but this shows that pagerank is not the primary element to improving natural search.

The Trinity Insight website is another great example.  We have a pagerank of 4, which for a two year old site is not terrible but also not amazing.  However, we rank in the front page and even top three for our target keywords of ecommerce consulting, ecommerce strategy, etc…

The secret you ask?  Content.  Continuously updated, on target, and of good quality.  Dont get me wrong, pagerank and links are vital to natural search - just dont get consumed by thinking of increasing pagerank by adding inbound links when you should be considering your user experience and what content you can provide to better serve your core demographic.

SEO
PageRank

In a previous post, I discussed the new Google Analytics and how this version has placed a greater emphasis on path analysis.  For those who may be new to the topic, path analysis is the practice of reviewing website behavior relating to browsing tendencies, in an effort to better understand the effectiveness of copy, content, and information architecture.

One of the most important tools in being able to conduct effective path analysis is the ability to generate uder defined “funnels” for processes that exist on your current site.  For instance, as an eCommerce merchant, you may have the following processes that you want to track.

 Cart - Checkout Transaction process

Search Results to Order Process

Homepage to Email sign up process

Key landing page conversion funnels within PPC advertising

In these instances, when conducting path analysis, you want to create page progressions that replicate how a user will shop your store and identify the pages that are creating the most leakage.  Omniture, a web analytics software leader, provides the capaibilties to do this exercise by dragging and dropping pages within their PathFinder report module.

By creating these page progressions for path analysis, you can identify the pages within the progression that are losing high numbers of visitors.  By taking new approaches to layout, copy, creative, images, etc on these pages - you will be taking the steps necessary to be proactive in positively impacting convesrion rates through concrete web analytics data.

Web Analytics
eCommerce
eCommerce Usability

Migrating a blog from the new version of Blogger is not easy.  In an effort to test out alternative tactics for link building/SEO tactics, Trinity has migrated to this new blog which is run on the word press platform.

Needless to say it wasnt easy.  Hunting for WP plugins to handle the new Blogger version was pretty tough…

The tactic that we are integrating into our SEO methodology is called “Tag and Ping” - a process in which blogs serve as a mechanism to build authority status within defined categories.   Its progressive and not utilized by most SEO’ers or businesses

Interested in learning more?  Shoot me an email…

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Tag and Ping

So I mentioned that Google Analytics launched V2 earlier today, but what I did not mention is how sweet this application is! Time after time I am blown away by the Engineers at the Plex‘, but this may be their best achievement to date.

Here’s the announcement on the official GA blog: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2007/05/new-version-of-google-analytics.html

At Trinity, a large portion of our time is spent analyzing client web data. We provide this service to help marketing executives better understand their visitor behavior/marketing spend and subsequently tailor new strategies to capitalize on these trends.

Needless to say, we are snobs when it comes to web analytics. If a business relies on a local log file program to decipher intelligence, we quickly scrap that notion and implement a enterprise level tool. Myself, I was always loyal to Omniture. The best interface, the most flexibility, the best filtering tools. Then there was the pack that followed: Web Trends, CoreMetrics, FireClick, and the emerging player of last year: Google Analytics.

As we all know, what made GA so popular was the price tag. To get the power it provided for free opened up new opportunities for websites and webmasters everywhere. Finally you could get the data needed to proactively manage a website or eCommerce business at no cost!

But GA was still not near Omniture IMO. Well, that’s becoming a moot point…

The new version of GA is a slam dunk. Its obvious that some of Google’s best programmers must have worked on this release and I am excited to show our clients the new functionality that the tool brings. Lets just look at some of the new functionality which makes this new release so cool…

Speed

The flash interface motors through report creation. A new tabbed based interface lets users quickly locate what data they need. For instance, when looking at monthly visitors, and drilling into the direct traffic segment (folks who typed your url) a GA user can now see site usage, conversion data, and ecommerce data instantaneously.

Segmentation

Now marketers can quickly find how users are navigating through the landing pages that they are directed. “Landing page” is now a variable for segmentation and marketers can see how their key pages are performing from a natural or paid perspective. As a SEO’er, this is a great new functionality to help gauge progression. Progress can be judged on not just keyword penetration but also page penetration.

Timeline Functionality

This a very cool enhancement which allows a user to determine the report timeframe using a dragging timeline. Not easy to spot - but take a look and you will find it.

Navigational Summary

Nav/Path reports in the last version were clunky. Now the process is much more streamlined as a user has a direct link to see where users came from and where they went to from a specific webpage. Now GA provides a slick dropdown (like Omniture) and a search functionality to quickly locate the page you want to analyze.

As great as v2 is, there is one thing that I hope will be integrated in the near term…

Dynamic path analysis reporting is still not offered by GA and is now Omniture’s core differentiatorin the marketplace. When visiting Google last month, I mentioned this as an enhancement to potentially roll out in upcoming months. It was viewed positively and hopefully progress will be made towards incorporating such a tool.

Gotta jet - but look for an upcoming post in which Ill take a MUCH deeper dive into dynamic path analysis and why it is so fundamental to web analytics…

Till then…

Craig

GA V2

Back in the blogging saddle. Been away for a bit. Things are crazy here with new clients and trade show logistics etc. Not sure if you have seen but we just inked a partnership with Google Analytics.

Essentially, Trinity will act as an authorized consultant for clients who are looking for strategic and technical help with the Google Analytics software package.

I’m proud of our distinction! We had to go through a rigorous selection process and spent some time working and collaborating at Google headquarters. Kudos to the folks at Google Analytics. They make a great software solution even better with the new V2 GA launch, and, best of all, provide a website of any size the capability to track and monitor both marketing and user behavior.

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Google Analytics
Web Analytics

Was doing a random spin around some of the eCommerce giants when I noticed the unique layout of Zappos.com’s homepage. Zappos has broken new ground before with there “all the time” free shipping and free returns, but now they were attempting new approaches with eCommerce web usability that I found very interesting.

The most obvious was a two boxed approach to on-site search in a unique location within their homepage. Typically, on-site search has always been at the top of a homepage or eCommerce template due to the fact that humans read vertically down as that is what we are trained to do.

Zappos takes a different approach with their new design. Zappos has embedded TWO on site search boxes near the bottom of the fold. Breaking all rules of eye tracking studies and delivering the user to the search box as quickly as possible, Zappos seems to want the user to read the promos before looking for the shoe they desire.

Its an interesting approach and Id love to see the data relating to goal progressions with the search tool.

Web Usability
eCommerce Usability