• you don’t end friendships or love affairs…you “opt-out” of them
• you can’t read any text wider than about 600 pixels
• you can think of 17 different ways to describe something as free without actually using the word “free”
• the shopping list you give your spouse has all the important items squeezed into the top lefthand corner of the piece of paper
• you look for the unsubscribe link in direct mail
• you reject birthday cards that don’t have the postal address of the sender printed on the reverse of the envelope
• your signature on checks includes your job title, address, phone number, fax number and website address
• you delete people from your address book if they fail to return your phone calls three times in a row
• when people accept your dinner invitations, you send out another invitation asking if they’re sure
• the photos in your wedding album don’t have labels…they have alt tags
• you send everyone two Christmas cards…one text-only, the other with images and colors

Source: eMailMarketer.com.au

Every time I think I am ready to tackle blogging, I find my interest leaning elsewhere to either design projects, concepts or outside personal interests. So I've made it a goal of mine to blog AT LEAST once a week with important information to help website owners and their websites. The content will be written by me personally.

In addition, I'll be bringing in content from outside sources that I've read and find useful. I'm not one to re-invent the wheel so if I find good information, I'll share it!

I'll continue to update the blog with recent project completions and hope to put forth a better effort at blogging this year. As always, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook with the latest info.

In this article we’ll look at nine specific factors that are generally present on well-designed e-commerce websites.

1. Ease of Navigation

When attempting to sell products to visitors, the first requirement for selling a product is that the shopper has to be able to find specifically what he or she is looking for. Effective navigation is important to any website, but it’s especially critical for e-commerce sites. Lost visitors will result in lost sales, so every effort should be made to have a site with clear, logical navigation.

E-commerce sites often face considerable challenges with navigation because of the number of products that are presented on the site. Large sites, such as those of department stores, have to be especially careful with navigation, because finding what you want will usually become increasingly difficult with more options. One factor to consider is how the average visitor will attempt to find a particular product. What makes sense to the designer or to the company owing the site may not be the same path that the average visitor would take to find a product. Sufficient user testing is extremely helpful for identifying potential navigational issues.

Examples:

The Pottery Barn uses a drop down navigation menu to help visitors find what they are looking for. The top level of the navigation menu contains links to the major product types that are available on their site, and hovering over a link will bring up the drop down menu that helps to narrow it down to find more specific products.

Nike’s online shop uses a vertical navigation menu. When you hover over an item, such as “Men”, you will then be presented with options for different product types, brands, collections, and sports, making it easier to narrow it down and find what you want quickly.

2. The Design Does Not Overpower the Products

The focus of an e-commerce site should be on the products that are available for purchase. A design that is extravagant for no legitimate reason will usually do more harm than good, as it will draw attention to the design of the site and away from the products. Yesterday we posted a showcase of e-commerce sites with a minimal design approach. There sites have chosen to keep the design simple so that the products don’t have to compete for the attention of visitors.

Examples:

Apple uses simplicity in the design of their products as well as anyone. Their online store takes the same approach with a clean, attractive design that does not provide any distractions for shoppers.

Rapha has a beautifully design website, but it still has a rather simple approach.

Shoe Guru is another very well-designed site that avoids anything excessive. The page shown below lists the men’s athletic shoes that are available. The page simply provides a product photo, name, and price, as well as a link to the product page for more details and purchase options.

3. Easy Checkout

User experience on e-commerce sites is critical to success. If the checkout process involves too many steps or is confusing, shoppers will wind up abandoning their cart with items left unpurchased. Ideally, the checkout should involve a minimal amount of steps and should be as easy as possible for shoppers.

Examples:

Add an item to your cart at White and Warren and you will immediately see the contents of your shopping cart. You will be presented with the options to continue shopping or to checkout. If you chose to checkout, you can login as an existing customer or create a new account.

At BCBGMAXAZRIA when you add an item to your bag, rather than being taken to a new page, your cart will appear on top of the page you are viewing. If you wish to checkout you can simply click the link to do so, or you can close the bag and continue shopping.

4. Branded

Many shoppers are influenced in their purchasing decisions by the brand, and so the need to establish a strong brand is import for both online and offline selling. In the cases of stores that sell online as well as in physical locations, the website is only a part of an overall branding strategy. In these cases the website should work well with other branding efforts of the company so that customers feel comfortable on the website.

Examples:

Oakley is a well-established brand that is recognized as a leader in their industry. Their website does an effective job of working with their existing brand. It is an attractive website that stands out from many of the others that are selling sunglasses online.

Crate and Barrel’s website is well-designed and fits well with the companies overall branding.

5. The Design Style Matches the Products

Like any other type of website, e-commerce sites can have countless different design styles. However, when designing an e-commerce site it’s important to consider the style of the products that will be available on the site. This is a little bit more relevant for smaller stores with a specific type of product and for websites of a particular brand or company that has established a certain identity.

If the design style does not match very well with the particular products that are for sale, there will be a disconnect that exists and visitors may have a hard time relating to products and determining if it is right for them.

Examples:

Innovative Baby sells clothing, furniture and other items for kids. The design and color scheme of their website does a good job of matching up with their products, but it still looks professional and appealing to the adults who are likely to be the ones doing the shopping.

ShopRush’s website has a trendy look that fits well with its salon products.

6. Showcases the Most Popular Products

Many e-commerce sites make an effort to showcase items that are likely to be of interest to visitors, obviously with the intention of helping visitors to find something that they will buy. A number of sites are using a large area on the homepage that they can use to promote current sales, new product lines, or whatever will generate interest. On theses sites, this area will often be updated frequently, or it may include some type of slideshow.

Examples:

In the image below you will see that Eddie Bauer uses a large portion of the homepage to promote an end-of-season sale. There is a very large image and links to sale items in several categories: men, women, bags and gear, and white sale.

When you click on “Girls” at TOOBYDOO, you will arrive at the page shown below. There are links on the left to specific types of products, but a large portion of the page is used for promoting popular items. A large image of a specific item is shown with a link to buy the product. There are several different products that are promoted in a rotation.

7. Promotes Related Products

One of the keys to a successful e-commerce store is the promotion of related products that the customer may also be interested in. Sometimes you will see related products listed and shown on item detail pages, and other times you will see suggestions being made after adding an item to your cart. Promoting the right products that buyers are likely to be interested in is key regardless of the approach that is used.

Examples:

When looking at the detail page of a comforter on The Company Store, visitors will be presented with related products such as cleaning and storage products. This is an excellent example because someone who is going to buy the comforter may easily be influenced to add on these other products to take care of their original purchase.

PacSun shows related products to the right of the screen on product detail pages, where they will easily be seen by all visitors that are looking at a specific product.

8. Effective, Accurate Product Photos

Selling online is different than selling in a physical store because the buyer cannot touch the product or see it in person before making a buying decision (unless they have seen it somewhere else). Providing quality photos that accurately portray the product can help to overcome this challenge and can make the buying decision easier on visitors.

Examples:

REI includes many different pictures of products, in this case a tent. The pictures show the product from several different angles and stages, as well as packed up. Potential buyers will be able to get a very good feel for the product based on these photos, and not buying it because of a fear of the unknown is much less likely than would be the case without as many good photos.

Armani Exchange includes product photos from all angles so that potential buyers will not have to assume how the back or sides of an item will look.

9. Effective Site-Wide Search

Although navigation is critical for making it easy on visitors to find what they want, there is still the need to allow them to search. Some visitors will still have trouble finding a specific product even with good navigation, and with larger e-commerce sites it may often be more feasible to simply do a search than to move through several layers of links. The type of search and the amount of options that should be offered to narrow the search should be based on the size of the site and the items that are available.

Example:

At Lee, after choosing the type of product you would like to look at, the left sidebar will include some advanced search options that will narrow down the products being displayed if you are having trouble with the items that are shown.

Author:  Vandelay Design

If you are worried about the outdated text or broken links then, website design and maintenance should be the solution. Planning for website design and maintenance should be ideal for updating the website. One can easily find service provider for website design and maintenance. There are several service providers out there offering with high quality website design and maintenance and that too at competitive prices.

The websites dealing with ecommerce, information needs to be updated regularly. For instance, the news related to the company, images, information on products, web content, prices and the content needs to be updated.

The sites that abstain from changing content and the overall appearance for a long period hold risk of losing interest of the visitors. For an old site, more changes in website design and maintenance needs to be done. It would also allow the site to maintain its freshness. Taking certain steps should allow you to take right decisions related to website design and maintenance.

Some web beginners would charge on hourly basis, while the rest would charge on monthly basis. Sometimes, website design and maintenance can be planned in such a way so as to allow you to makes changes on own.

Decision regarding the usage of Macromedia’s publishing program is quite important. The program offers with an array of advantages for the users. It would allow you to connect to live sites, yet make draft for the web pages where the changes need to be made, editing it and updating the work. After completing all of these steps, one can make it online to live site. ‘Contribute’ operates like any daily day-to-day desktop type of program. Using it is quite simple and would allow you to update without having any troubles. If you are looking forward to make changes on your own then, you should probably try out this program.

It is advisable to seek some professional help for website design and maintenance. The experts would help with website design and maintenance the best way. Irrespective of the path chosen for website design and maintenance, having a practical approach for keeping the site updated should be fine.

Author:  vpatel
Source:  ArticleDashboard.com

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Jason Stevensen Photography

Jason Stevensen Photography was looking for a clean and simple look with an eye catching entrance and a way to manage their gallery of pictures. In addition, he was looking for a new updated logo to match his personality.

For the home page, I took a photo from his collection and created a collage from that photo. The photo is broken up into separate pieces while still maintaining the original photo composition. In addition, when you hover over the individual pieces of the image, the visitor can reach the various galleries of the website which are showcased with a sample from that gallery when hovering.

For a clean and simple gallery, I used Simpleviewer to display all the photos in a thumbnail format with the larger picture appearing once clicked on.  The result is a clean yet innovative website for this talented photographer.

Articles have been known to be the driving force in driving traffic to a website. Articles are a factor in giving site high rankings in search result pages. The higher a site ranks the bigger slice of the traffic flow pie he gets. With a large amount of traffic, there are more profits and more potential for other income generating streams as well.

But, it is not just about stuffing your site with articles; they have certain requirements as well. These requirements must be met to obtain the maximum benefits an article will provide for your site. A well written article will catch the eyes and interest of your customers and keep them coming back for more.  They would also be able to recommend your site to others.

Here are some tips to help you and assist you in making your articles. Below you will read about four things all articles must have to make them successful and helpful in making your site a profit earning and traffic overflowing site.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases.

An article must always be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases. As each website visitor goes to a site, there are those who are not merely browsing but actually looking for a specific something. When this happens, a searcher usually goes to a search engine and types in the keywords they are looking for (e.g. Web Design, Meningitis, Tax Lawyer etc.). It could be anything they want.

The Important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you must have articles about cars and their parts.  There are many tools on the internet that provide assistance in helping a webmaster out in determining what keywords and keyword phrases are mostly sought out. You can use these tools to determine what keywords to use and write about.  

Keyword Density

Now that you have your keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them fully. An article must have good keyword density for a search engine to “feel” its presence. Articles should at least have ten to fifteen percent of keyword density in their content for search engines to rank a site high in their search results. Getting a high rank is what articles do best for a site.  If your keyword is web design, then the phrase should appear in the website a few times.  The 10 to 15% rule is really only a guideline, because things such as keyword stuffing (adding too many of the same keywords) can actually cause your website to dwindle in search engine rankings.  A good search engine such as Google actually also uses keyword relevance to see if the keyword is relevant to the rests of the article’s content.  If not, you can have as many keywords as you like, but you won’t achieve much success with them.

Good Article Content

Like what is stated above, you cannot just riddle an article with keywords. They must also be regarded as good reading material. Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic. As more people believe in you, they will be able to trust you and your products.

Linking Articles

And another important thing to remember. If you are going to submit articles to ezines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, DON’T ever forget to include a link to your site. A little resource box with a brief description of your site and you should always be placed right after your articles that you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site.

Author:  Rian Schoeman
Source:  Network with the Poet

While freelancers who’ve made efforts to escape time-based pay get some pretty neat perks, there’s a trade-off: a heightened risk of over-work.

Unless they’re being given more work than they can feasibly do in the time, 20, or 40, or 70-hour per week workers don’t necessarily need to be more productive. For project-paid freelancers, the speed with which we can fly through tasks will dictate how financially successful we are.

And there’s the rub. There’s nobody telling us to go home at the end of the day, there’s no point beyond which our work is unpaid simply because it’s late in the evening, no time when the office lights start to go out, no pre-paid hours. We complete a task, we get paid, and we can complete most tasks at any time of the day or night, on any day of the week. It’s no surprise that many freelancers are overworked. The lure of “one more project, one more invoice” can be hard to resist.

The danger of overwork is compounded because project-paid freelancers have a habit of not keeping accurate tabs on the hours we work. If you enjoy what you do, working out exactly what to track can be a puzzle. Does feed reading count as play, or work-related research? What about answering emails — not all of which are strictly business related? The work-life divide is often a blur.

The problem

The only thing standing between 80 hour weeks is either a) a lack of projects or b) will-power. If you’re feeling overworked, you’ve probably got enough clients. The only variable left is self-control: the ability to say “I’ve worked enough today,” and stop. If you don’t yet have it, how do you get it?

The first question to answer is: do I feel overworked? It’s a gut feeling you get. Not necessarily all the time, but it will rear its head occasionally, maybe at the end of a day when you’ve worked from when you woke up until when you tumbled back into bed, or when you realize that you haven’t seen your best friend in a while. The next variable is how you react to that gut feeling. It’s all too easy to say: “But I need to be working this much right now, because of this, this and that.” In other words, if we overwork now, we can relax later. That ‘relaxed later’ is usually postponed ad-infinitum. Sound familiar?

One solution

This isn’t the only solution and I don’t claim that it will work for everyone. All I can say is that it worked for me, and my freelance routine probably isn’t much different to yours (liaise with clients, do work, invoice, get paid… eventually). Even if this solution won’t work right out of the box for you, it might be made workable with a few adaptations.

The process starts with a calculation: what’s the minimum amount you need to earn in a week in order to live? In other words, to pay rent, bills, buy food and have a little extra spending money left over — let’s say, $50. That’s not your ideal income, of course, but it’s the benchmark for your absolute Minimum Weekly Income (MWI) — the amount you must make to keep your affairs in order. You should only allow yourself to overwork in order to meet your MWI.

The next calculation is your cap: your Target Weekly Income (TWI). The formula is this: your average hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours you’re willing to work. Let’s say you’ve worked out your average hourly rate to be $30 and you want to spend 30 hours a week on paid tasks. Your TWI is $900. When working out the hours you want to work each week, I’d always suggest subtracting roughly 5 hours (or 2 hours for part-timers) to account for non-paid, work-related tasks (like managing accounts, answering email and liaising with clients). In this example, the person would be working 35 hours, and get paid for 30.

If you’re not sure of your average hourly rate, take the last month’s worth of jobs (or the last two-weeks worth if your memory is as bad as mine) and divide how much you got paid for each job by roughly how many hours the job took. Then add up the average hourly incomes for each job and divide by the total number of jobs over the time period. The result is a rough estimate of how much you earned per hour of work last month.

The purpose of the TWI is to establish a ceiling: the point where you stop working or accepting new jobs, even if you haven’t reached the maximum amount of hours you want to work in a week. Sometimes you will work less than full-time hours, but this is to balance out those weeks where you have to struggle and over-work just to meet your Minimum Weekly Income. Alternately, you can keep working past your TWI until your reach your work-cap for the week, but you should claim the time back as earned vacation time, or raise your TWI if you over-earn consistently.

To show you a working model, here’s my overwork safety net:

1. MWI = $300 (If I have to, I’ll exceed my work-cap to meet this minimum earn).
2. Work-cap = 10 hours (I’m finishing a communications degree and have a lot of other projects going on — I don’t want to do more than ten hours freelancing a week).
3. TWI = $500 (The weekly earn I aim for — I can stop working once I reach it even if I haven’t reached my work-cap).
4. Average hourly rate: $50 (I work fast, and I won’t accept jobs with a lower estimated hourly rate unless my MWI is in danger).

If you feel like you’re regularly exceeding your TWI while staying within your work-cap, it’s time to raise your TWI by increments.

As you can probably guess, this model does require some rough time-keeping but your career is still defined by income rather than hours. If we’re to be honest, we can’t avoid overworking unless we define what overwork means for us.

Author:  Skellie
Source:  FreelanceSwitch

What are the top three messages you come away with? Can you even narrow it down to three?

Technology companies tend to take the 'throw everything at the wall' approach to messaging. I don't mean that negatively. Well, maybe I do. It's just that technology products have so many different ways they can impact different customers, so many cool things that companies want to talk about.Tech marketers often fall into the trap of trying to tell everyone everything - and then let the audience pick what's valuable to them.

The problem? Customers can't ‘consume’, much less remember, all the messages you give them. They are not sponges. They can't absorb every aspect of your technology like you can - they don't live and breathe it every day as you do. Neither do your sales reps for that matter. Neither do your partners.

When you overload your audience with too many messages, you risk not communicating at all.

The solution? Try synthesizing everything to threes. Three is the magic marketing number. Okay, I'll admit, sometimes I stretch it to five. But never, ever, more messages than that. Anything more is noise.

Why three? Because studies have shown that that's the optimum amount of information ‘buckets’ that a person can process at any given point in time.

 "But I have more messages than three, more value!”

Sure you do. The trick is to create, organize and then tie your story together so that it flows in blocks of three messages at a time.

So how do you do that? I create a positioning matrix with three facets***. Starting at the highest level, I create three key messages, then drill down into stories within each facet.  For example:

• Start by synthesizing your overall message into three key areas. I usually create these messages, around three standard arenas; your company and its expertise, your solutions and their customer value, and your market and your leadership within it. 
• Under each of those aspects, create up to three evidence messages that demonstrate your success in that specific area. At this point, I'm usually still at the business level benefits, and I haven't entered the technology zone as yet. Think business evidence, based on customer success, at this point in time.
• Under each of those three areas, add three highly specialized messages with very specific proof points. And guess what? Now your messaging can dive into those technology claims you were chomping at the bit to share.
• Now go look at your target markets. For each target market, apply the top three messages that map to their specific problems. Tune them to meet the specific market needs, and add the supporting evidence you need from real world customers in that market. 

Great messaging synthesizes a crisp and compelling story that customers and prospects easily and quickly comprehend and value.

By following the rule of threes, you'll be able to create just those stories.

Author:  Rebel Brown
Source:  Phoenix Rising

As customers, do we need a corporation to satisfy our emotional needs to earn our loyalty? In response, I thought of the top 10 reasons why your customers are being difficult:

(1.) You're the only game in town or one of a few, limited options

You may feel you have a captive audience, but realize that it takes a special effort not to be arrogant in those circumstance, and your customers don't like the treatment. For example, if you're looking for a high speed Internet provider, there may be only one to choose from in your market. Mobile network with broad global coverage? Same thing, one or two.

(2.) People want to be part of something bigger/better

On the other hand, if you are the only game in town, how about considering the community and the people who look up to your company? Are you as a company excited to be part of that community? Are your people encouraged to contribute?

(3.) Customers feel you're charging too much

Especially when everyone is facing tightening economic conditions, there isn't perceived or tangible value coming out of your rates. That's why it's a good idea to communicate about context in your marketing. Your good deal will be put to the test by your customers with their peers.

(4.) You're not listening to what they have to say

There are rules to follow and incentivesto be had, and they both point in some other direction than where the customer wants to go in the conversation. If you were in court, they might say you were leading the witness. Allow customers to say what they want to say. Maybe ask clarifying questions.

(5.) You're being negative

The conversation may have started on the right foot, but you continue to talk about what can't be done, the rules and policies - in other words, you have a bad attitude. And now that is transferring onto the call. How many of you have experienced this?

(6.) You're not soliciting feedback

This could even be worse than not listening. We all know that what we like may not be what others want, even at home. Why would this be different with customers? Are you changing a product, their product, or the packaging without asking, first? Think about what Pepsi did recently with Tropicana packaging. Go by the old axiom - if it aint' broken, don't fix it.

(7.) You're asking, but not following up

One more step on the infuriating scale is when you ask, acknowledge what your customer is telling you, and then do nothing about it. If a customer takes the time to give you input, the expectation is that there will be some kind of follow up. Wouldn't you expect the same?

(8.) You make it difficult to reach the right person

Many touch points may be good in marketing parlance, but when it comes to customer service, they plain suck. Have you experienced one or two transfers when calling a company? I can count up to five and then back to the original number.

(9.) You change the rules on them

Managing expectations is one thing, but today the rules and the fine print are changing so often, that it's become difficult to figure out what is included and what isn't, with anything. There's an impact on trust here.

(10.) Some customers are always going to be difficult

It's not personal, let's face it, there may not be a way of pleasing them. Does that mean you should stop trying?

About the Author:  Valeria Maltoni helps businesses understand how customers and communities have changed marketing, public relations, and communications - and how to build value in this new environment. As a communicator with 20 years of experience, 10 of which online, she specializes in marketing communications, customer dialogue, and brand management. Valeria has come to define modern business as a long and open conversation. Conversation Agent is recognized among the world's top online marketing blogs.

Author:  Valeria Maltoni
Source:  Conversation Agent