One of the hardest things for us to explain quickly is exactly what it is that we do for clients. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s that explaining in layman’s terms the concepts of Search Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Website Usability is often difficult in a nutshell. Our industry is so new and many people don’t realize how much work goes into (or should go into) creating a powerful and profitable online presence.

Now Google has put into a few short words what we’ve struggled with for years…. We help our clients win the Zero Moment of Truth: that time before they even go to a store, before they have decided what they want to buy or what company they need to contact…

It’s a great read and goes to the heart of what we’ve said for years, “if you think people aren’t searching online for products or services like what you offer, you’re wrong and someone else is getting their buisness. Business you could be vying for but aren’t.”

Download this free book, it’s well worth your time: http://www.zeromomentoftruth.com/

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing AdWords, Google, search engines, sem, Zero Moment of Truth, ZMOT

(This is a two-part post – Part one covers site usability issues that limit our ability to shop luxury sites)

It’s been well documented that luxury brands are late getting into the ecommerce game. It wasn’t until after the recession hit in 2008 and many high-end designers found their products relegated to discount bins in well-known upscale department stores, that they started getting serious about the online space.

The problem isn’t that they’re late to the ecommerce world, the problem is they are bringing their glossy magazine mindset to their websites, and in doing so, they are building sites based on how they want their sites to function, without considering how users want to shop.

Flash heavy sites, light on usability

Most luxury brands break many, if not all, usability rules. They create sites that look and feel like look-books, not ecommerce sites.

These sites are largely flash driven, with big glossy images, pages that load slow, often have their own “unique” brand specific navigation and are anything but easy to use. Once a user figures out how to get to the product level (no easy feat on many of these luxury sites), the information provided is so basic it’s almost not useful at all.

Don’t believe me? Compare the experience of looking at Stuart Weitzman shoes on Zappos.com, versus on StuartWeitzman.com.  On Zappos.com, we have easy filtering of products, fast page loads, navigation that matches the mental models we expect from ecommerce sites, and detailed product descriptions and reviews. All of this is accomplished without “cheapening” the brand at all.

On the company site, we are subjected to big, bold flash pages that are utterly useless to a user. The user has to go 4 clicks in (clicking “shop the site”) two different times on different pages, just to get to shop a “default” style of shoe. The default is set to pumps. If we want to shop flats, or something else, we need to click again. Web sites aren’t the same as brick and mortar stores, and users don’t have the same expectation or attention span when shopping online. In a flash (no pun intended) users can find the same brands and products elsewhere.

Site Usability is only one part of the problem. In Part 2 – we’ll go over why even those brands that have usable sites are still missing out on sales.

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Website Usability Ecommerce, internet marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Website Usability

Everyone agrees that mobile ecommerce will continue to grow. Mobile commerce will account for much larger percent of sales in 4Q 2011 than it did in 4Q 2010, no doubt.  But for growing buisnesses that have lots of marketing (and technology) needs, how do you know when it’s the right time to spend limited resources on creating a mobile platform?

In Google Analytics, you can review traffic and sales from mobile devices. The critical factor is making sure to account for iPads. For many businesses, iPads make up a large percent of what Google considers sales from mobile devices. But the thing is, while iPads are definitely mobile… they aren’t technically considered mcommerce because you can shop a  website as though you were on your regular laptop. The experience is the same. So, it’s not like trying to navigate a site on an Android, Blackberry, iPhone or other smartphone where the user really needs either an App or a slimmed down site that’s easier to navigate on a handheld device.

To get a true sense of revenue from mcommerce, you have to pull out iPad traffic and sales. Once you look at those numbers from 2010, triple or quadruple them for 2011. Then you’ll have an idea of how much traffic you can expect, and the kind of revenue it may generate. In looking at the estimated increase in traffic, would your revenue increase appreciably if you provided those users with a true moble experience? What if a better mobile experience doubled your conversion rates? Is that enough to justify the investment?

Once you’ve done this quick overview, you can get a sense of revenue from mobile and you may decide it’s worth the investment now. Or you may decide that for the remainder of 2011, you want to focus on growing sales for the website as is and that mobile might need to wait another year.

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Ecommerce, ecommerce reporting, Google Analytics, mcommerce, usability

Google announced a new version of Google Analytics today at the Google Analytics User Conference in San Francisco. The version is being rolled out to a select number of users and will eventually reach everyone. We are thrilled about some of the new features that will make it easier to extract the data that we are looking for. Some of the highlights include multiple dashboards and multiple advanced segmenting options.

We are excited to see what other features they will have to offer and will keep you updated on what’s to come.

Here is the link to the full post:

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/03/looking-towards-future-of-google.html#links

Search Engine Marketing digital advertising, Digital Marketing, Ecommerce, Google Analytics, Online Marketing, sem

We’ve been gone for a few months, while we were busy moving the business to NYC.  But that doesn’t mean we weren’t working and keeping up with the latest news in Online Marketing.

We’ve been waiting for ages for AdWords to automate some of the things that we can set up in advance – like making an ad with a special offer live on the day of a sale and then pausing that ad when the day is done.

Well, today they announced this very feature! We don’t use many automated tools here (we think generally speaking that automation works in Google’s favor), but we’re excited about this feature. No more staying up until midnight to turn on promo ads!

To read more about it, check out the AdWords blog:   http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/12/adwords-rules-and-so-can-you.html

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing AdWords, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, sem