Google Your Name

Seth Godin has a good article on his blog today — Personal Branding in the Age of Google.

He gives an example of a friend who places an ad on Craigslist for a housekeeper and then Googles the names of three applicants. The results are humorous but sad at the same time.

I googled my name a few moments ago — I’ve done that in the past, but have to admit that I don’t do it regularly enough (I was about to set this up as a weekly calendar item, but thought better of it and set up a Google Alert which will email me results every day — Trackle could be helpful with this as well). The results were encouraging — nothing embarrassing! But I did notice that the fourth result for my name was a Twitter post. When I post to my Twitter account, I am often not thinking about how it will look to someone searching for information about me. Something to keep in mind.

Seth Godin is right when he writes:

Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.

A word to the wise for those interested in maintaining their personal brand online.

Tip of the hat to @chrisaperez (also see Chris’ blog).

The Perfect Checkout

The latest issue of Catalog Success magazine includes an article by Amy Africa, an expert in ecommerce strategy. 5 Steps to the Perfect Checkout is a solid summary of ecommerce principles which, if implemented, will minimize abandoned carts and thus increase conversion.

While much of what she shares has been said before, there were some jewels of information which made me sit up and take notice:

• Before building a one-step checkout, start with a more traditional five-step checkout to identify the sources of cart abandonment. I might add, if you currently have a four- or five-step checkout and are considering moving to a one-step checkout, make sure to mine all available data to get an idea of where your potential customers have historically abandoned your shopping cart.
• Too many alternate payment options can increase abandoned carts. This was an eye-opener for me because multiple payments is currently all the rage. It makes sense though. Many ecommerce strategists have, for example, said that too many choices on the home page can lead to confusion for your customers. Why wouldn’t the same principle apply during the checkout process?
• It is important to include your phone number in your checkout pages. While we are fond of the idea that the web should replace the call center, including your phone number in your checkout pages is actually a hedge against abandoned carts. If your potential customer wants to call you while they are in the midst of the checkout process, it’s because they are having a problem and are on the verge of abandoning the order.

Those were just three of the jewels I found. I would encourage you to read the entire article.

Amazon Has Made Itself Indispensable

I was driving into work a few days ago, thinking about two things which Amazon has done which makes it indispensable for me as a shopper:

• Amazon Prime. I pay $79 per year to participate in Amazon Prime. What do I get for my $79? Free two-day shipping. Or one-day shipping for only $3.99. Both with no minimum order amount. And the free two-day and low-cost one-day shipping options are available for literally millions of items.
• Universal Wish List Button. I added the universal wish list button to my browser’s bookmarks toolbar and now I can add anything to my Amazon wish lists from anywhere on the web, even if Amazon doesn’t sell the product! Non-Amazon products I add to my wish lists include a link to the page from where they are sold.

Amazon may have other reasons for offering these programs, but one thing they both do is ensure that I will keep coming back to Amazon.

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A Digital Media Strategist Will Evaluate Your Analytics System

Photo Credit: Lordcolus

This is the eighth and final article in an eight-part series which describes the role of a digital media strategist in improving the website operations of a company or organization.

Actionable analytics are the lifeblood of any online operation. Without precise analytics, you will have no way of knowing whether or not you are accomplishing your goals for your internet operations. You will also not be able to perform tests to improve your operations so that your goals are accomplished sooner and more efficiently. And without actionable analytics, you will have knowledge, but your knowledge won’t result in any improvements to your online operations.

In many ways, I could have placed this article second in the current series, immediately after the first article about reviewing your goals for your internet operations, because analytics is the foundation of everything you do online.

1. In order to examine the sources of traffic to your website, your digital media strategist will need web analytics.
2. Improvements to your landing pages will require web analytics so that your digital media strategist can perform tests on various aspects of those landing pages.
3. While your digital media strategists’ experience will allow her to make recommendations regarding the overall design of your website, it is your web analytics which will allow her to ensure that the changes she recommends result in greater traffic and more conversions rather than less.
4. Similarly, your digital media strategist will rely upon his expertise to recommend changes to the content and copywriting of your website. But it is your web analytics which will demonstrate that the changes he recommends will help you accomplish your goals.
5. The search and navigation features, which are crucial to the success of your website, can also be quite problematic. Without a foundation of strong web analytics, your digital media strategist will not be able to test the various recommendations she makes for changing these functionalities on your website.
6. And finally, web analytics are important for discovering and solving problems which may exist with our calls to action and the vehicles through which your visitors respond to those calls to action (your shopping cart, your newsletter signup form, etc.).

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A Digital Media Strategist Will Analyze Your Call To Action, Your Web Forms, and Your Shopping Cart

Photo Credit: tinou bao

This is the seventh article in an eight-part series which describes the role of a digital media strategist in improving the website operations of a company or organization.

All of the elements of your website which we have discussed so far are designed to shepherd your visitor to the point where they will read and respond favorably to your call to action. Your website can be perfect in every other facet, but if it fails to ultimately persuade your visitors to take the desired action, then you have ultimately failed.

When your digital media strategist began evaluating your efforts in the digital realm, she interviewed your organization’s key personnel to discover your objectives for your website and your other online operations. Strongly connected to your objectives are the various calls to action which appear on your website. In many ways, they are the culmination of your objectives. Your calls to action are asking your visitors to take actions which, in aggregate, will lead to the fulfillment of your objectives.

Your digital media strategist, therefore, will analyze your call to action (purchase, lead generation, etc.) and the vehicles through which a website visitor can respond to your call to action (shopping cart, contact form, etc.).

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