Web users selfish says Jakob Nielsen

Users want in and out - that's it!

An interesting article by usability guru Jakob Nielsen on how users are becoming less patient when they are online. Far from wanting to spend time having a look at all the latest offers and promotions users are very task focussed and just want to complete the task as quickly as possible.

Neilson says 'I do not think sites appreciate that yet'. 'They still feel that their site is interesting and special and people will be happy about what they are throwing at them'. 

By and large I agree with his findings. I know when I am online and in 'buy' mode I pretty much know what I want and do not want to be frustrated by bad design or usability.

He also notes that while not perfect search engines 'rule the web' and in 2004 40% of people started at a sites home page and then drilled down to the page they actually wanted now only 25% of users do so.

So the message is pretty clear, make it easy for users to find what they want and make the process fast!

And as if by magic....

Let it not be said that companies do not listen. I have been inundated with replies since yesterday suggesting sites that provide exactly what I’ve asked for – product videos. However, as with most things that sound too good to be true, it is, except for our friends at ASOS (As Seen On Stars) www.asos.com. Just use the “Click here to view catwalk” link on a product page to view their great offering.

Those in the dress-buying business (as a married man I’ve had to cut back) have let it be known to me that video could perhaps have the opposite effect to the one expected. Where a picture may entice someone to buy, a video might persuade them not to. Hey ho. My New Year’s resolution is to not even try to delve into the mind of the dress buyer.

Show me the video!

Whilst online stores cover their ears and pretend not to hear us, they will find we will only turn the volume up and our message is: we want to see product videos before we buy. A 2-D photo of a dress - no thanks. A video of the garment on the catwalk – now you’re talking!

Whilst the retail sector plays catch up and tries to give us the touchy-feelyness we crave, we will need to be satisfied with zoom, a semi-new online gimmick to show us more detail of the products we are browsing. Different examples of the same tool can be found here and here. I for one will continue to buy offline until they show me the video!!!

Rank it and they will come?

In the late 90's the old adage of "build it and they will come" comes to mind when looking at the approach to search, although we have progressed quite rapidly since the good old days.

It's nearly 2008 and there have been some major developments in the methods used to entice users into converting on your site; some of the more basic ones are almost subconsciously accepted into widespread search practices.

These smaller but still effective methods such as calls to action in your result description are definitely effective; this technique has been well tested and proven in PPC.

But the more interesting changes have been with the bigger players in the market, highlights have included:

• Googles acquisition of Doubleclick

With the sheer amount of user data that Doubleclick have accumulated over the past 10 years, combined with the technologies and acquired companies that Google own; this could lead to behavioral targeting on a level never seen before and a new era in the true performance marketing side of search.

• Omnitures acquisition of TouchClarity

With February’s acquisition of TouchClarity, advanced behavioral targeting methods were tied into one of the industry’s most popular analytics packages.
Banks in the UK are already well on their way with integrating behavioral targeting into their search campaigns.

It’s been an interesting year in the user experience side of search and the industry is gearing up for what looks like a very active 2008.

SEO for Christmas - Do It Now!

Christmas already? Why you need to get your SEO going!

A couple of choice articles in the last day or so have got me thinking about Christmas already. At least from an Search Engine Optimisation point of view. First off I saw this article which was how Harrods has launched their Christmas range, only 138 days to go until Christmas Day!

And the other was this one which was highlighting the need for shopping and retail websites to make sure they are designed to attract the increasingly free spending group of so called 'light shoppers'. These tend to be more affluant and older shoppers, and the expectation is that in the coming Christmas shopping window there expenditure will rise by 57% as opposed to the 28% increase from the regular 'heavy' shoppers, usually aged 18 to 50. (phew, I am just in that demographic!)

The report from Logan Tod highlight some key areas that sites should ensure are in tip top condition:

• Clear, well written text and images
• A good internal search function
• Clear delivery details

We would also say in order to rank well for your Chrismas search terms you need to make sure site contains the relevant content, obvious of course but it may not do so at present (no pun intended).

Try to create groups of individual content, so 'Childrens Christmas Presents', 'Teenager Christmas Presents' or 'Family Christmas Presents'. Or group by Price, by Style or by Brand. We would always encourage you to write your own, or get, user reviews, of each product. Go beyond the usual manufacturers descriptions.

Also, think about where you are getting links from and to. Really focus on getting the links in deep to product or category area. This may benfit your site more quickly than links just to the home page.

Above all, start doing this now. The shopping window may not yet be open, at least not with me, but as we all know, SEO takes time and you only have four months to go!

p.s. We know there is more we can add to this, and will, but I am off to a meeting and just wanted to get this down before I forgot about it, like I did yesterday!

£100BN e-sales

British shoppers have spent £100 billion online since online retailing or e-tailing was launched 12 years ago. Last month alone over £3 billion was spent online in the UK!

These figures are remarkable and only continue to grow. IMRG ( Britain's online spending monitor) has recorded the first online transaction as a book bought from W.H Smith in April 1995. Since then sales have increased with an estimated 44% growth rate annually.

James Roper, CEO of IMRG, says online shopping tends to take place on weekdays as buyers use their PCs at work, and Mondays are busier because families discuss what they want at the weekend. Lunch-hours are especially busy with £14m worth of goods expected to be sold between 1pm and 2pm. The e-tail peak comes three weeks before the busiest day for offline stores - the 23rd of December.

Andrea says:

'Online shopping has become integral to our buying habits and this brings exciting challenges to search. Many UK major online retailers have been late adopters of transactional sites and have not factored SEO into their sales strategies - an oversight which will prove costly..' 

Remove your content from Google!

Google has enhanced their Webmaster tools to include new functionality which enables users to remove content from their index. There are four different types of removal available to confirmed webmasters:

Individual URLs: removes one particular URL.
Directories: removes all pages within a directory of your URL.
Entire Site: removes your entire site!
Cached Copy: if you want a page to be listed, but not cached.

There is also a third party removal option, if a site is no longer live and it still appears in the index you may send Google a request and if this is indeed the case the site will be removed from the index. There are various other removal options like removal of sites if your privacy is being invaded by them and also the ability to flag adult sites that have slipped through Google’s filter.

Robin says:

"Google webmaster tools is a great idea, but are we doing all their work for them?"

Measuring the ROI of your blog

Back in the office after a week of catching up on work after the conference and I'm determined not to lose all of the momentum gained by from the SES conference. After all the talk last week of social networking I thought it timely to raise the issue of measuring the value of social networking, blogs in particular.

My colleague Jessica mentioned that one of her take-home messages from the conference was that SEO is like PR - jolly difficult to measure. Back in the days we used to quantify PR efforts by column inches - so quaint! A mere seven years down the line it's a little bit more complicated and even more important.
   
The PR value of a blog is obvious. It’s an opportunity to vet and respond to customer opinion in an unprecedented way, but the SEO value is less clear. Blogging is perceived as a bit wishy washy by corporates who understandably need to know how a blog can serve their business interests.

Charlene Li of Forrester posted an appeal for help in solving this issue while compiling a report that she has just published.

I haven't yet read Charlene's new study but I did review Likely, Rockland & Weiner's paper on measuring ROI on PR and I liked one of their models.

Return on media impact model:
This is where you track media coverage against sales over time. You measure online media mentions and put them against sales for the corresponding period. Simple, but a bit rough and ready. How do you pull out the effects of extraneous factors that are driving sales, and how do you account for time lag in sales?

So in the spirit of learning to walk before we run - let's get even less sophisticated.

Start by measuring:

• The online mentions your blog generates.


• The leads your blog generates – and leads coming from other blogs.


• Brand lift over time after the launch of your blog. Adidas checked search frequency of the term "Jose" and "Pedro" the names of the boys who featured in their World Cup publicity. It was a term they definitely “owned” and there was massive growth in searches over the campaign.

The key point is that you should start tracking the success of your blog right from the beginning. Like any other marketing effort, it can be quantified.

Utilising videos for SEO!

One of the biggest things going on in Search at the moment is the new focus on link baiting. In a nutshell, link baiting means that rather than asking people for links in the traditional manner, you entice them to give you a link of their own accord by creating content they want to link to.

The science behind link baiting is far too big a subject for just one blog entry, so today we're going to concentrate on a small but interesting part of it - namely Videos.

Entertaining videos are a brilliant way of attracting attention to both your brand and ultimately your website. Either by being promoted by users on sites like YouTube, or emerging as popular virals - a good (or really bad) advert or clip can result in thousands of free links to your website.

I'm sure we can all think of a list of 4 or 5 great adverts that stick in our memory. Just in case you can't however, here's a rundown of some of our favourites from the past few years.

Sony Bravia - Example 1 - Example 2

Sony are undoubtedly the current kings of entertaining adverts, and these two examples are outstanding. The most recent "Towerblock" commercial has already been viewed on YouTube over 100,000 times, and the older commercial featuring that Jose Gonzalez song has been seen over 3,000,000 times! The adverts have been so successful that they have their own website, http://www.bravia-advert.com - and in a demonstation of just how popular they are, a cursory glance tells us that there are over 26,000 incoming links to this very new site!

Carling - Example

Another recent standout is the new Carling "Belong" advert - aka. the one with all the Starlings. As well as having been viewed over 15,000 times already (the ad is still very new) it has sparked a number of fan-made efforts to replicate it. The Carling website has a new page dedicated to the advert (http://www.carling.com/) which already has 600 incoming links despite having only been live a few weeks.

Dove - Example

Dove took a slightly different approach to the video thing with their "Evolution" campaign. This much-talked about clip shows the transformation from a model to a photo-shopped billboard in less than a minute. As well as having been viewed over 300,000 times, it has a sparked a number of imitators and masses of hype. The supporting website - http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/ - has over 21,000 links pointing at it, the majority of them from blogs discussing the advert.

Honda - Example

Just like Sony, Honda have made a habit of making popular adverts. The most well known was the hugely popular Honda Accord commercial featuring all the rolling cogs, which sparked big debates online about whether or not it was real (as opposed to CGI / animated). Between the Accord advert and their more recent "Honda choir" ads, over 300,000 people have viewed them on YouTube alone.

Other famous adverts which have gained a second wind online:

Agent Provocateur (aka. The one with Kylie in her undies)

Volkswagen GTi (aka. The Singing in the Rain one)

Citroen C4 (aka. The transforming, dancing car)

Apple Mac (aka. I'm a PC. I'm a Mac)

iTV Digital / PG Tips (aka. The Monkey and Johnny Vegas)

Guinnes (aka. The Horses and surfers)

Levis (aka. Flat Eric with that song playing)

So, as you can see, getting a popular video online can do your websites the world of good. But, a note of caution should also follow. Whilst getting videos right (or wrong) can do your brand the power of good, it is worth remembering that even if you DON'T put content out yourself, others can easily do it for you, and it may not be positive - as the "iPod's Dirty Secret" video illustrated...