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.

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.



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.


I was in heavy notebook shopping mode this afternoon. as Ive been sick of my heavy Toshiba dragging me down at every airport and tradeshow. I was in full research mode looking for the lightest laptop I could get with enough power to run my vital apps.

In doing so, I went to many web properties. I entered ” light laptop” numerous times. Now, when I went to Circuit City (directly, not through an ad), I was provided a enticing “promo” in the homepage of the primary real estate of the site for a notebook computer.

Almost automatically, I clicked the spot and was being merchanised to on the sub-category level. Data shows that once a user has progressed to this point in an eCommerce transaction, chances of conversion dramatically increase.

The question is - did Circuit City have some type of tracking software set in place and a program with other web entities so to present RELEVANT CONTENT AND PROMOTIONS to my needs at that current time? If they did, it worked and I was fully engaged in the user experience.

This is what I feel is the next big thing in eCommerce, not flash based merchandising designs which seem to be the hot thing at eCom trade shows.

My opinion, in this instance it was completely random. Circuit City did not have the processes in place to have their site present so intelligently. But you can replicate this type of targeting on our internal site and create a much more engaging experience for your visitors and customers with current technology available today.


Happy Easter everyone. As I have a few moments here, I thought I would blog a little about path analysis and how it can be such a powerful driver for conversion improvement. For those who are new to the term “path analysis” - essentially is the tracking, monitoring and strategic planning related to the primary online processes within your web site.

Any website that is established with the goal of monetizing traffic should conduct path analysis to properly gauge site performance. In conceptualizing a monitoring plan, the business should first outline the goals or scenarios that are to be monitored. In a basic eCommerce business - the following four processes should be monitored:

1. Cart to Conversion process (ie. after someone adds to cart, what percentage of visits are converting into sales for the business)

2. Search to Conversion (ie. after someone receives a search result, what percentage progress to the cart and then finalize the order process)

3. Site to Email (ie. What percentage of overall traffic that visits through the homepage is progressing to the email sign up option)

4. Spotlight Products to Conversion (ie. eCommerce sites usually “spotlight” 3-8 products within the homepage - how are these products doing from a conversion perspective?)

By seeing the percentage of traffic that progresses through these processes within your site, your business will be able to identify areas of the site that are causing visitor confusion or inhibting conversion rates in some form.

Knowing this data can set improvements in motion to hopefully reduce that leakage and drive incremental improvements.

Remember, if your conversion is 3% today - just getting one more person out of the 97 who didnt buy will impact your sales 33% on the upside! Optimize those sites out there!


I was recently asked by thestreet.com to provide my perspectives into the new Google Checkout Service.

After taking a look at a variety of different eCommerce sites that had Google checkout, it seems to be be a seamless integration within an existing platform infrastructure and provides a clean and user friendly transactional experience.

Google’s main effort here is to make the actual “purchasing” portion of the conversion funnel quicker and easier for consumers. The problem is that users must make an account with Google and input their credit card information within their system to get up and running. My perspective is that this additional step will cause a roadblock in penetration, at least initially, as consumers will be slow to adopt to the extra step.

Ebay is already defending their turf by banning Google Checkout within their site. Smart move as the Paypal unit generates a substantial amount of profits to the ebay enterprise and is the business that is most impacted by Google’s new offering.

Although Google’s solution is not a stored value system, it still is an alternative payments processing solution that stores credit card data. Very similar to the convenience offered by Paypal and their direct debit processing form a checking account.

Google’s carrot with adwords (every $10.00 spent on adwords gets $100.00 free processing within Google Checkout) should make more retailers take the time to integrate the payment alternative on their site. Now will consumers embrace it in the way Paypal was embraced? - only time will tell…

 <a href=http://www.technorati.com/google+checkout rel=”tag”>Google Checkout</a>

In my conversations with online retailers, I frequently get asked about web copy and my perspectives into selling site visitors.

I think in most scenarios, the depth of web copy correlates to the “selling variables” of the product. To effectively sell online you must sell to a vistor’s “head” and “heart”. By outlining emotional benefits such as “A picture so clear that you feel in the first row” and intellectual benefits such as “a best in class 19 inch LCD viewing area, wide enough to handle any illustrating application” you cater to both parts of the human decision process and increase your chances of making the sale.

What you must remember though is that eCommerce shoppers dont read for long - they scan. Hit your emotional points first in a paragraph that is no more than 4-5 lines long. Then hit your viewer with the key specifics in bullet form. There’s a reason why leading etailers such as dell and amazon use bullets - follow their lead…

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