A common mistake that many web site owners make is "over designing" their sites. Let's use a fictitious example of a classic car replacement parts website as a case in point. This company has been in business for 10 years and they enjoy a strong catalog following. They want to increase their sales and expand their business by utilizing the Internet as an additional sales platform. Although not necessarily a home business per se, but a small family owned business that has been highly successful in offering post-war classic car replacement parts. The time has come to expand or stagnate.
The very first thing they do is right on the money. They research a web designer for the site build. (This would also be an appropriate example for a home based business as well.) After careful consideration and deliberation they decide to chose a web firm that specializes in flash animations and over-all state of the art technique. After many weeks of working with the designers a fully optimized site is built and put up on the Internet.
After a few days the site is indexed properly and starts to receive a small amount of traffic. From the onset the site designer makes sure to communicate that it takes time to be ranked for their specific keyword phrase "classic car replacement parts," and that it may take months to see any results. After a full year they are not seeing any appreciable increase in traffic or business and the web site cost and fees are not being paid for.
Someone on the management team suggests that they do not invest any more into the site and write it off as an expensive test. As a consultant I would strongly advise them to not abandon this site.
As a consultant I would suggest that they need to further analyze their customer base. Here are some of the things I would suggest.
Utilize free resources such as Google Analytics (r) and Google Webmaster Tools to gather site and customer information. Invest in pay per click programs such as Google AdWords (r) or Yahoo Marketing (r) to keep a steady flow of traffic to the site and help to pay back some of the sunken investment in the site. It's important to keep this open long enough to gather an appropriate amount of information.
Let's say that by doing the above there is a large enough of a sample to analyze. What did we find? There were hundreds of clicks that landed on the home page or the specific landing page but were abandoned right there. They never bought. The sample showed that many viewers had lower resolution screens, older browser and older flash versions. This is important because of the flash animation on your site. Also the new versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome have many of these supporting features built in. Viewer loyalty was low (They didn't come back) and average site time was very low as well as page depth (the total number of pages viewed.) There was a high level of abandonment for those that did want to buy, but got to the shopping cart and then aborted before finalizing the sale. ( a form of buyers remorse)
This is unusual, especially for such a small niche to happen.
Why did so many viewers drop out after viewing the home page? Let' see if we can make some sense of it all. You know that buyers want your products because they have bought from your catalog very successfully. Then why didn't they buy from your site?
A possible and likely reason for some of the short stay issue could be in the site design. Sometimes simple is better. The reason is not everyone's computer has the latest operating, Internet and Flash software. Your site might not show well in older browser versions and consequently any scripting may cause additional problems. This is not to say that your potential customer is backward it may just mean that they have older computers and operating systems that won't display well. Many viewers get spooked right away if there are any oddities on a site.
Also consider that some one running and older Pentium PC or an older version of a Mac your site with all of its Flash and graphics may take a long time to load. This discourages customers as well and is a deterrent to viewing your site. It's important to understand your customer base first and then add some bells and whistles later. So what is the answer?
Begin by creating a simpler site that is easy for anyone to get around. After all your primary purpose is to open up your market and sell more products to a larger audience.
Always set your site up with a simple cost effective way of analyzing your data. Google Analytics (r) is a great choice because not only is it free it's really good. The other plus is if you use AdWords to advertise you can set Analytics up to capture information right up until the sale is completed using the Goals function on Analytics.
Your best choice is to start out slowly and ramp up. Whether you run a thousand page site or a simple two or three page blog, always have a way to analyze your data. Work smarter not harder.
The very first thing they do is right on the money. They research a web designer for the site build. (This would also be an appropriate example for a home based business as well.) After careful consideration and deliberation they decide to chose a web firm that specializes in flash animations and over-all state of the art technique. After many weeks of working with the designers a fully optimized site is built and put up on the Internet.
After a few days the site is indexed properly and starts to receive a small amount of traffic. From the onset the site designer makes sure to communicate that it takes time to be ranked for their specific keyword phrase "classic car replacement parts," and that it may take months to see any results. After a full year they are not seeing any appreciable increase in traffic or business and the web site cost and fees are not being paid for.
Someone on the management team suggests that they do not invest any more into the site and write it off as an expensive test. As a consultant I would strongly advise them to not abandon this site.
As a consultant I would suggest that they need to further analyze their customer base. Here are some of the things I would suggest.
Utilize free resources such as Google Analytics (r) and Google Webmaster Tools to gather site and customer information. Invest in pay per click programs such as Google AdWords (r) or Yahoo Marketing (r) to keep a steady flow of traffic to the site and help to pay back some of the sunken investment in the site. It's important to keep this open long enough to gather an appropriate amount of information.
Let's say that by doing the above there is a large enough of a sample to analyze. What did we find? There were hundreds of clicks that landed on the home page or the specific landing page but were abandoned right there. They never bought. The sample showed that many viewers had lower resolution screens, older browser and older flash versions. This is important because of the flash animation on your site. Also the new versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome have many of these supporting features built in. Viewer loyalty was low (They didn't come back) and average site time was very low as well as page depth (the total number of pages viewed.) There was a high level of abandonment for those that did want to buy, but got to the shopping cart and then aborted before finalizing the sale. ( a form of buyers remorse)
This is unusual, especially for such a small niche to happen.
Why did so many viewers drop out after viewing the home page? Let' see if we can make some sense of it all. You know that buyers want your products because they have bought from your catalog very successfully. Then why didn't they buy from your site?
A possible and likely reason for some of the short stay issue could be in the site design. Sometimes simple is better. The reason is not everyone's computer has the latest operating, Internet and Flash software. Your site might not show well in older browser versions and consequently any scripting may cause additional problems. This is not to say that your potential customer is backward it may just mean that they have older computers and operating systems that won't display well. Many viewers get spooked right away if there are any oddities on a site.
Also consider that some one running and older Pentium PC or an older version of a Mac your site with all of its Flash and graphics may take a long time to load. This discourages customers as well and is a deterrent to viewing your site. It's important to understand your customer base first and then add some bells and whistles later. So what is the answer?
Begin by creating a simpler site that is easy for anyone to get around. After all your primary purpose is to open up your market and sell more products to a larger audience.
Always set your site up with a simple cost effective way of analyzing your data. Google Analytics (r) is a great choice because not only is it free it's really good. The other plus is if you use AdWords to advertise you can set Analytics up to capture information right up until the sale is completed using the Goals function on Analytics.
Your best choice is to start out slowly and ramp up. Whether you run a thousand page site or a simple two or three page blog, always have a way to analyze your data. Work smarter not harder.
About the Author:
Home Business Research is one of the top home business information sites on the Internet today. Get plenty of free information at our Website Design site.. Free reprint available from: The Power of Website Design.
No comments:
Post a Comment