Facebook.....Social media's Godfather.

Facebook is the most powerful social network in the world on sheer numbers alone. Closer to home, there are over 10.7 million active users in Australia alone so creating a Facebook presence (Facebook Page) makes a lot of sense. Several Australian businesses like Quiksilver, UGG Australia and Bonds have forged the way and built enviable online followings by taking their brand onto Facebook.  According to a study by eMarketing Connected, of the top 50 brands in Australia, 48% of them have a presence on Facebook so the message is clear - if your business isn't on Facebook, your competitor most certainly will be. The best aspect of Facebook is that it lends itself well to both product and service based websites and can be a great medium for customer engagement, feedback, and brand development for your products or services. It's ability for your posts and products to be liked and shared amongst people's networks is one of Facebook's biggest draw-cards and works particularly well on ecommerce sites for commonly used items or items where you're more likely to purchase/use based on a friend's testimonials or comments. Think about how often you've clicked on a link on your own News Feed of something that your friend has shared and you start to see it's power.

When you're thinking about creating a Facebook Page, consider the word of mouth aspect and whether or not it is a product/service that can be shared around and also whether it's something that people want to hear about. What works well for a website selling electronics and fashion might not work as well for taxidermists or plumbers who might not have much to share via Facebook.

Ideal websites for Facebook: gifts, electronics and technology, beauty, fashion, footwear, travel, pretty much any ecommerce based website where you want people to spread it amongst their network.

Twitter.....Powerful promotion in 140 characters.

Properly applied, Twitter is just as powerful as Facebook in that the people that 'follow you' are people genuinely interested in what your business has to offer be it products, services or information. The tricky part to Twitter however is being able to enticingly market your message with a 140 character restriction. Like Facebook, Twitter has a variety of business types that suit regular tweeting; If you're selling products on your site Twitter is a great way to highlight products or push featured products; if you're service is based business, tweeting regular offers or specials keeps your followers engaged and increases the likelihood of them contacting you; and if you're a business with select or specialised information to impart, tweeting about recent Blog or News articles gives your users even more reason to visit to your site for more details.

Ideal websites for Twitter: fashion, beauty, sites that Blog and publish News frequently, social commentary, specialised services, promotional websites, tourism.

YouTube. It's more than just Justin Beiber videos.

Whilst it isn't a social network per se, linking and embedding YouTube videos - or better yet creating your own YouTube channel should you have a number of videos - is a great way to socially showcase your business and it's products/services in action. It's sharing capabilities with the likes of Facebook and Twitter make for a great three-pronged push of your online brand. YouTube is traditionally used to show what you or your business has to offer be it a specialised skill, product or offering but can be used in other creative ways from showing testimonials and building credibility, to giving a guided tour of your business and making how-to videos - the sky is the limit. With a host of options and features to take advantage of (the ability to add call to action buttons to videos to drive more traffic to your site is a particularly good feature) YouTube is a relatively low cost way of adding interest and a bit of dynamism to your site............and who knows, do it right and your video could be the next viral sensation.

Ideal websites for YouTube: products that would be benefitted with a how-to video, sites that have a showroom, promotional websites, tourism, travel, commentary, sporting, technology and the 'geek factor'

LinkedIn....It's not what you know but who you know...and who they work for.

Whilst Facebook and Twitter get about in jeans and a t-shirt, LinkedIn takes pride in wearing a suit and tie. As a business networking tool, many businesses/individuals (over 100 million professionals worldwide and over 2 million active users in Australia) will attest to LinkedIn's powerful ability to reach out to people in your network that you've done business with or hope to do business with in the future. You create a profile much in the same way you would a Facebook profile but approach it in more of a professional, CV sort of way with details of past employers, key skill-sets and recommendations. LinkedIn is perfectly suited to specialised and professional services and since consumers tend to do more research for higher-priced services, prospective customers are able to check out your profile and see your previous work, clients and any recommendations that might be relevant. 

Ideal websites for LinkedIn: professional services, recruitment, sites where credibility of the person/service is key.

Google+......It's Google Plus

Google+ is Google's second foray into the world of social networking. Offering many of the features of Facebook, Google+'s steady take-up is a great alternative if you didn't want to use Facebook. With many home pages set to Google, it's presence is just as visible as Facebook. Google+ has a number of offerings similar to Facebook namely in the form of Google+ Pages for businesses wanting their own branded page and +1 which is Google+'s equivalent of 'liking' something on Facebook. Many businesses team both social networks up for maximum exposure. Google+ also lets you to create social groups called 'Circles' - this is quite powerful in enabling you to post information for specific circles to view for truly targeted messages.

Ideal websites for Google+: Same as Facebook basically - any website where you want word of mouth to take over your network.

Wrap up

So there you have a bit of an overview of the major players in the social network space and some things you'll want to consider when deciding which one is for you. Remember though, social networks shouldn't be viewed as something you 'tack on' to your website , it should be integrated. Whatever social network you use, it should compliment your website as that's the end destination ideally so make sure you dedicate some time each week to manage your various profiles. Don't neglect your followers or customers and by keeping your content fresh and up to date you maximise the likelihood of them visiting your website and picking up the phone. 

1.) Metrics are down

If your single biggest generator of sales/service leads is your website and you notice your figures consistently dropping for no particular reason, it may be time for a redesign. It could be a drop in email enquiries, sales through the website, enquiries in store, an increased bounce rate or something as simple as the phone not ringing as much as what it used to - whatever metric you use to gauge your business health. Since your website is generally the first port of call for any new customer, making a good first impression is critical and powerful tools like Google Analytics help to pinpoint areas of your website to pay particular attention to during the redesign.

2.) Your users tell you it's time

Whilst your metrics will give you an idea that things need to change nothing is more valuable than actually talking to your customers about improvements that could be made. Surveys work well but face-to-face conversation yields the best results. It could be something as simple as providing a feedback form on your website as a pseudo suggestion box. It will show your customers that you're genuinely interested in their feedback to enhance their online experience as well it shedding light on other topics like your brand perception and what your competitors offer. Offering a small incentive also helps in getting people in to see where improvements could be made and word of mouth of the incentive could potentially lead to an increase in sales/enquiries in the short term.

3.) You've outgrown your original functionality specifications

Your first website might have had the basics and has done the job until now. But you've been established for a while and you're embarking on a redesign and one of the biggest factors to think about is it's functionality. Does your new site need the ability to create custom forms? An ecommerce facility? Does it need to have a sign in area for secure pages? Email marketing perhaps? Is there a process that you do right now that your website could potentially automate or streamline for you? Compile a wish-list with the critical functionality first along with a 'nice to have' list for non-essential functionality to get a broad picture of what your site requires.

4.) It's about as pleasant to look at as Quasimodo

Aesthetically speaking, we're more likely to use a service or buy a product from a website that we find visually appealing. If your website is sporting gaudy graphics from 2001 or has more flashing lights on it than a Vegas Casino during a power surge then a redesign is definitely a priority. An altered site structure, quality logo teamed up a more appropriate colour scheme, stylised call to action buttons and elegant typography all greatly improve the look and feel of your site and thus with the possibility of converting that visitor into a customer. A redesign is also great time to think about overhauling the imagery on your site and how much you would benefit from choosing relevant good quality stock photography or having your products/services professionally photographed.

5.) It been a long time since it had a refresh

If it's getting to the point where you can't remember when you last updated your website that in itself is a reason to embark on a redesign. While most websites go through incremental changes over their life, wholesale changes should be made every couple of years [adjust based on opinion]. A redesign not only shows that you're willing to invest back into the website for the benefit of your business/customers/users but also that you're keeping your finger on the web pulse and moving proactively within your industry. Your current customers generally appreciate a revamp as well the added benefit of potentially obtaining new customers who might not have visited your site previously because of how it looked or functioned.

6.) Your competitors are updating their sites and you don't want to be left behind

A website redesign might be triggered based on what competitors in your industry are doing. If you're in a small market and your major competitor redesigns their site, they might attract additional traffic purely out of curiosity initially. If that initial curiosity turns out to be repeat trade because that site does something that yours doesn't, they are sales that you've missed out on with no guarantee or reason for the user/customer to come back to your website. If your website isn't proactive be reactive to what other businesses are doing.

7.) Your Website Optimisation is lacking

You could have the best looking website in your industry but if it's not optimised for Google and the ever-increasing smartphone/tablet demographic visitors just aren't going to find you. A redesign in combination with an SEO campaign sets up your website to perform better on relevant keyword searches so that people find you quickly and easily. Optimisation also applies to file formats ie. Flash animations that don't display or behave nicely on some smartphones/tablets. If mobile-based browsing figures into your online strategy, Flash-based elements need to be removed in favour of alternatives like Javascript animations.

Conclusion:

So there you go - a brief overview of topics that a web development company would take into account when tasked with a redesign. Armed with your own individual reasons and hindsight from your previous website experience/s, you'll generally find a redesign process is a little simpler second - or whatever iteration you're up to - time around. Whilst the above indicators are strong reasons to kick-off the redesign process, we're interested to hear what your particular reasons might be so feel free to let us know below.

Because photo shoots can be expensive and not everyone has the budget to spend a couple of grand on unique imagery, I recommend that the client and I work together to source imagery from online photo libraries for their Website. Often clients try snapping pictures on their iPhone to use for their Website Design, but stock photography offers a better solution as the shots are usually professionally composed, have great lighting, and are a fraction of the price of having a custom photo shoot.

Below are some tips for finding the perfect stock photography on iStock.com for your Website:

1. Create a free account with istock www.istockphoto.com
   Istock was originally founded in 2000 as free stock imagery website. It has now become an online, royalty free, international photography provider operating with the micropayment business model. You simply sign up for free and purchase image credits. Images cost between 1 and 150 credits, depending on their size and intended use.
   
   Although I prefer using iStock for their easy search tools and affordable prices here are some other stock photography websites:
   
   • Think Stock (cheap) (http://www.thinkstockphotos.com/)
   • Shutterstock (cheap) (http://www.shutterstock.com/)
   • Getty images (better shots but quite expensive) (http://www.gettyimages.com.au/)
   • For more options just enter ‘Online photo libraries’ in the browser search window. 
2. Search tips for effective and quick results:
   
   The key to finding what you’re looking for quickly is to use the filters and advanced search methods.  At the top of the iStock website it will ask you to search by the type of file you require ie. photos, illustrations, video, audio or flash files. I recommend choosing a file type first, then entering a key word, or a couple of specific keywords to narrow down the search even more.
   
   Selecting the appropriate file type will save you time so you avoid searching through file types that are not relevant.  Once you get your relevant search results you can narrow down the search results further by using the options under “Narrow Your Results”.
3. Finding imagery in the correct orientation
   
   It helps save Website Designers time if the image/s are provided in the orientation they are going to be displayed in on the site. As you can imagine it can be difficult to get a vertical image to fit in a horizontal space.  Eg. banner images are usually in a horizontal format.
   
   IStock makes it easy to find imagery based on their composition. Simply click on the arrow next to “Photo & Illustration Filters” and you will be presented with a list of further filtering methods; one being orientation. Tick the box with the orientation you are searching for to further narrow your search and save you time.
4. Using the Colour Picker
   
   Under the orientation filter is a colour picker, which can be very handy. A lot of the time websites follow a particular colour scheme. Instead of using Photoshop to manually adjust imagery, why not try to look for pictures that naturally match the site. The search colour can also be picked by using the colour pick tool or putting in the hexadecimal code. If you are unsure what hexadecimal code to use please consult your Web Designer.
5. Narrowing down the Price Range
   
   Photography on iStock can range in credits from 1 – 150. 1 credit is somewhere around AU$1.20, depending on the currency exchange.  When TWS clients search for stock photography for their Website Design we ask them to find images that are around 5 credits because we spend 20-50 credits of imagery per site depending on their Website package.
   
   IStock has a slider in the left hand column that allows users to filter the price range searched, one dot being the cheapest and four dots being the most expensive. To the right of the price range it also lets users know how many images are available at that price point e.g. Four dots (16), Three dots (47), Two dots (261) One dot (Over 999)
   
   These days the ease and speed at which good quality images can be purchased online leaves no excuses for a site to look cheap, unattractive and unprofessional. Clients look more favourably on your business, are willing to pay more for services and products and will keep coming back. A happy customer is a repeat customer.

The fact is that they are lying and even if they think they are telling the truth chances are their discovery will be short lived.  This is because Google makes approximately 500 improvements to their “search experience” in any given year.

Evolution of Google Search

If you have a few moments it might be worthwhile for you to watch Google’s own video on the evolution of search

As the video explains Google started with the concept of PageRank or one website increasing another’s ranking or profile on the web by “voting” for it by linking to it.  From there it grew from just indexing websites to what Google calls “Universal Search”. Which returns news, video, images scholarly articles, patents and much more.

The Future of Google Search

There are few growing trends in Google and the other major search engines.  Most of these developments have been made based on demand, by this I mean people have been searching for these things and Google is making changes to deliver the most relevant answer:

• “Quick Answers”: To test this just type in your favourite major sports team or a common question such as what the weather is like.  For example I just typed in Weather Sydney  and received the following result.
  
  If you had put in “Manchester United” it would show you their latest result.  In short Google try’s to answer your question in the body of the search results page, so you don’t even need to load another website. 

• Instant Search: Although sometimes annoying, for the last year Google has been trying to guess what you are going to finish typing while you are in the middle of your word and simultaneously change the results below for the term.  As illustrated in the above video if you start typing in bicycle h it will presume you are going to put in bicycle helmet and show you results for that search string.

• Voice Search: Although Voice Search has been available for a while now, it’s still very much in it’s infancy.  However, expect to see large developments in this space in the months ahead.  The growth and advancement will be based on the increased use of mobile devises for search, which tend to make it more difficult to type and easier to speak requests.  Apple’s Siri is a good example of this.  Expect to conduct all your searches on your mobile through speaking into your phone and then be able to scroll and select the result once the search is complete.

• Further Integration with Social Media:  One area that Google has struggled with in recent times is how to incorporate Social Media into its search results.  This has caused a few problems, including a conflict of interest as Google grows its own major social network Google+.  Look for more integration with the major players in social media in line with the current “+” combined with the search query that Google has integrated with Google+. 

What does this Mean for Me?

Since I work for the best SEO company (mandated by management) I always like to bring it back to how does this affect our clients.  Although most of what I describe is fun to look at and exciting to think about (for some of us), the basic facts remain.  To grow your business online, you need a website design company that understands your business and builds you a website that is built for lead generation.  Then you need to combine the site with the right mix of search engine marketing.  To simplify, you build an online lead generating machine then you push the right traffic to it, which will then pick up the phone and call you for your products or services.

Gaining trust and building credibility quickly are an important part of online shopping. If people can see phone numbers, email addresses and/or a physical address they will feel more confident that you are a real business.

Having your phone number featured prominently in your banner area (the top area of your site) will allow potential clients to call you quickly and easily without hunting around in the footer for contact details. Larger more established companies often hide their phone numbers because they don’t want calls but a small business owner needs to give their clients every opportunity to build a relationship with them.

9. Important information and security

In line with having clear contact details visible you should also have information available about your returns policy, how much you charge for shipping, warranties you may offer etc. If you have a lot of information you want to display you should have an FAQ’s (frequently asked questions) page which should address the common questions your customers might ask. You should also have terms and conditions and a privacy policy clearly displayed in the footer of your site.

It is important to assure your potential customers that your site is secure and their personal information is going to be stored and transferred securely.  An ecommerce store should have HTTPS (hypertext transfer protocol secure) and SSL (secure socket layer) certificates for all pages of the shop, this ensures all information is encrypted when it is sent to a payment gateway for a payment to be processed. You should display the logo of the company that provides your digital certificates or at least an SSL logo somewhere prominently on your homepage.

10. Personal info - about the company - values and mission

Having an “About” or “About Us” page is important for all types of visitors to your site whether they be first time users, repeat customers or potential businesses who want to advertise or work with you. For the first time visitor this is where they will go to find out who owns the business, how long the business has been trading, whether you have clearly defined values about the service you offer. For repeat visitors they may want to find out if they can do more on your website, subscribe, sign up to an RSS feed, follow you on Twitter etc. For visitors who want to work with you they will want to know if you offer advertising, how successful your website has become etc.

Your about us page will need to address visitors that your website attracts so should be an evolving page as your website gets more successful.

11. Simple checkout process

The easier it is to buy the less likely you will be to suffer from “cart abandonment”. This is when a customer gets to a point in the cart and then gives up. There can be many reasons for abandonment but some of the common ones are: shipping information is not available early enough or is too high, payment types don’t suit them, an item is out of stock but they haven’t been told until they get to checkout or simply that the process is just too long and complicated. A one page checkout is not always the best solution for all products but most products won’t need anything more than this. One page checkouts use Ajax (this allows information to be collected and processed without refreshing the web page) to allow you to fill in your personal details, shipping information and payment details all on one page rather than a two or three page checkout process. It is a faster checkout process and generally holds customers attention long enough to make the sale. A recent study in Canada found that a one page checkout rather than a two increased the completion rate on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics online store by 21.8%

12. Freebies and specials

When visiting a website, potential clients will always be looking for freebies, special offers or reasons to buy from a website. It may be the difference between them buying on your site and another. Offering free shipping after spending a certain amount is a popular offer that not only encourages customers to shop on your site but also to perhaps spend a little bit more to receive free shipping. For sites that offer products that people buy as gifts, free gift wrapping is often a great incentive for someone to shop on your site. Many sites now offer special offers, either by time or with voucher numbers or discount codes, all of these incentives will potentially boost sales.

13. Use social media

Using Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook and Google + on your ecommerce site can spread your message in a number of ways. You can offer special deals or discounts to users who “follow” you or have “liked” your website. You can add a “like” to particular products so they appear on your customer’s Facebook or Google + page,

YouTube videos are a free and easy way to bring your products to life. If you have a product that could be demonstrated, make a good quality video and add it to the product description.

Adding the ability to use social bookmarking is also great for people who may not want to buy straight away but want to be reminded of the page or product they have liked.

14. Upsell and cross-sell

Just as a sales assistant in a shop might offer to upsell another product to you when you are purchasing so can your ecommerce website. Recommending other products that complement a product when purchasing or upselling to a more expensive model is now common practice on most ecommerce sites.  It is a proven way to boost sales and can tie in with special offers or a sale you might want to offer.

15. Have a marketing plan with a budget in place

Australians are spending $13.6 billion online per year and it is set to rise every year. (Source: ABC News). With so much activity it is easy to get lost among the thousands of stores online, that is why a marketing plan and budget are vital to the success of every online store. Creating a website and just hoping people will find it is a huge waste of time and money, you need to use all available marketing channels open to you to promote your business and your online store. This can include online marketing, brand awareness, publicity, print ads, flyers, posters, word of mouth, referrals, the list goes on. Doing nothing to promote your website will result in no sales.

The Prime Property on your Website - Google gets it

The prominence of where your writing sits on each webpage weighs heavily on how important Google thinks it is.  In short the more prominent it is on the page the more SEO weight it carries.  This is why the main heading on the page carries the most SEO weight in terms of your body content.  If you replace this main heading with a catchy sales line such as Australia’s Best SEO Company!  or even worse one with no keyword value Find out Why We are #1 then you have thrown away a great opportunity to place your targeted keywords in a prominent location.

Trying to Hide SEO Content

It’s almost 2012, which means the days of trying to hide SEO keyword content on your website ended 3 years ago.  The search engine robots are just too smart.  Also, if you are trying to hide SEO content it means that content is not relevant enough to that page to be in a prominent location.  This leaves us with the question of why you would be trying to target those keywords on that page in the first place?

SEO Keyword Selection & Allocation

If you conduct the right keyword research using the right software and tools and allocate them throughout your website using the proper site map and theming architecture than you should be able to easily utilise your keywords in prominent areas of your content.  This is easier said than done, that’s why I always suggest utilising the services of a SEO company in Sydney or wherever you live to get this done properly. 

Conclusion

Search Engine Marketing has progressed to the point that you need to utilise common sense more than any coding trickery.  You need to choose the right keywords, you need to use them in prominent locations on your webpages and then you need to do the proper offsite branding to get your name out there and the links coming back to you.  Unfortunately unless your company name is Apple or Microsoft you are going to have a hard time ranking for search terms that are nowhere to be seen on your website. 

So what does it mean for us to mark an IP address as blacklisted? Well, initially it means that that IP address is diverted to a page which contains some explanatory text as well as a form with a captcha. We don’t like to assume that just because an IP has been listed on the register, all requests from that IP are malicious. After all, it is not that uncommon for a legitimate IP address to be hijacked by a bot. So we give the IP address a few opportunities to appeal for clemency, as it were. By submitting this form and correctly entering the captcha, the IP address moves to whitelisted status, and may continue to crawl our sites with impunity. Of the 6,500 IP addresses that we have blacklisted, 300 have subsequently whitelisted themselves, which shows both the high degree of accuracy in identifying rogue IP addresses using Project Honeypot, as well as the need to cover against false positives by allowing users to whitelist themselves.

A blacklisted IP address is given a certain number of chances to whitelist themselves, and if they fail to do so within this time frame, then all subsequent requests from that IP address is redirected to an error page with a 410 status code. This is different from a 404, in that a 404 tells the bot simply that content is not available at this time, but may be available at some point in the future so try back at a later date. The 410 says that there is no content available now, nor will there ever be, so don’t bother trying again.

In the unlikely event that a legitimate IP address makes it to this page, having failed to whitelist itself successfully, the screen includes a phone number to call, and the IP address itself, so that our customer service team can be contacted. We’ve included a tool that allows the team to whitelist any IP address that falls through the cracks in this way. So far, other than a few hiccups on the day this code went live, we have not needed to use this.

OK, we’ve looked at IP addresses. What other ways can a web development company identify bots? The linked article gives a good list of techniques, specifically using Apache, but easily extendible to other languages.

http://perishablepress.com/press/2009/02/03/eight-ways-to-blacklist-with-apaches-mod_rewrite/

Of that list, we currently have a list of user agents that we filter out. Any requests from a user agent on our list are immediately diverted to the 410 error page. We do not provide the opportunity to whitelist themselves, as we are confident that any visit to our sites from one of these user agents is not acceptable. 

It’s possible for a web developer to create a really long list of such user agents, but the ones we are currently targeting are listed below. Some of these are legitimate spiders that we do not need to crawl our sites, such as foreign language search engines, and others are malicious.

Note that we are not saying that requests from legitimate-seeming user agents are definitely ok. In many cases, bots are sophisticated enough to mimic real user agents. But we can be pretty sure that any requests from the list above are unwelcome to web developers.

Referring back to the list of techniques mentioned in the ‘eight ways to blacklist’ article, we also currently perform some blacklisting by query string. We like to think that our sites are protected against sql injections, and take measures to ensure that these cannot reach the database, but identifying the types of query strings that might be associated with these types of attacks means that we can redirect any such requests to our trusty 410 page as well.

The remaining methods suggested (request method / request / referrer / cookie / request URI) we have not tried, but are open to looking at in the future.

In utilising these techniques, we do need to be careful that we do not eliminate the ability for legitimate spiders to crawl our sites.  When we moved this code online, we realised pretty quickly that a small bug in the code meant that as well as preventing harmful bots from crawling our sites, we were also denying google, yahoo etc. This is a bad thing, and was fixed very quickly. What was less obvious was that some of the remote merchant facilities that we connect to for our ecommerce engine were being blocked in their attempts to send us callback messages, and thus were unable to indicate a successful transaction. As a result we had a build-up of orders sitting in our system in a pending state, despite the fact that clients noticed the funds from those orders sitting in their accounts. These examples indicate the need to be flexible and aware, when redirecting requests.

So there you have it - a checklist of steps that a web development company can take to reduce the frequency of bot attacks. For us, this is an ongoing process, and I’m sure I’ll be back at some time in the future to list new techniques we’ve tried, and what the results have been.

Australian Search Engine Market Share

Google dominates in Australia unlike virtually any other major market in the world. A recent report from Hitwise shows the breakdown of daily searches in Australia as follows:

HitWise: Search Engines ranked by Volume of Searches for the 4
weeks ending 12 November 2011

With over 93% of searches each day being run through Google, there is little questioning the dominant player!

New Zealand’s Major Search Engines

The breakdown in NZ isn’t too different from Australia. A report earlier in the year from Hitwise shows the breakdown to be:

HitWise: Search Engines - Volume of Searches for the 12 weeks
ending 2 July 2011.

Search Engine Statistics in the United Stated of America (USA)

The English speaking world’s biggest market has altered slightly in the past two years as Bing has made some inroads into Google’s dominance of market share. Google is still the clear leader but it will be interesting to see what impact the Bing / Yahoo partnership has in the coming years. When combined, Bing / Yahoo now account for almost 30% of American search engine results each day:

HitWise: Search Engines ranked by Volume of Searches for the 4
weeks ending 12 November 2011

It is interesting that Bing has been able to make such inroads into the US market when compared to the Australian market. As a web designer we are constantly asked about how much emphasis to put on optimising for Bing and Yahoo and our feedback is to only focus on Google. If Bing / Yahoo can eat away at Google’s share in Australia as they have in the US this message might change.

Search Engine Market Share in the United Kingdom

The UK Search Engine landscape has become much more ‘normal’ in the past decade. During the growth of search in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the UK typically had a few important search engines that didn’t exist in a major form outside of the UK. Since this time the market has become more typical of other large English speaking countries, with Google once again dominating:

HitWise: Search Engines ranked by Volume of Searches for the 4
weeks ending 12 November 2011

Major Search Engines in China

It would be remiss to not include statistics on the search engine usage in the world’s biggest internet market. The statistics below highlight that unlike in most major territories Google is a minority player.  It will be interesting to monitor how Google’s fragile relationship with the Chinese Government plays out in the years to come. The tense relations in the past year have seen Google’s market share slip to the advantage of Baidu.

EnfoDesk: The Seasonal Survey of China Internet Search Market in
Q2, 2011

Biggest Search Engines In India

As the third biggest nation of internet users in the world, the search engine market in India is a significant one. There are over 100,000,000 internet users in India and unfortunately it is difficult to get up-to-date data on the current state of the search engine market. It is clear that Google is the dominate engine. Google releases from earlier in 2011 suggest their market share is around 75%. This is in keeping with statistics from 2008 that had Google with 80% of market share. The remaining 20-25% of market share is split between Bing, Yahoo and local player guruji.com.

Japan’s Largest Search Engines

With nearly 100,000,000 internet users out of a country of 126,000,000, internet usage is at 80% in Japan and along with countries like South Korea has one of the highest rates of internet penetration in the world.

Japan is an interesting search engine landscape in that it the last remaining market where Yahoo is the market leader. Yahoo in Japan is jointly owned by Yahoo and a local organisation called Softbank. To complicate matters further, a deal struck a few years back between Yahoo and Google, saw the Yahoo search results powered by Google. The recent deal between Microsoft and Yahoo whereby Microsoft’s search engine Bing would power all Yahoo results makes things less clear in Japan. Search Engine Watch reported at the beginning of 2011 that Yahoo held around 56% market share in Japan with Google holding around 31%. Baidu, the dominant player in China has made a push into Japan in recent years to mixed success.

Conclusion

Hopefully the statistics above provide a snapshot of search engine market share in some of the more important markets for Australian businesses. As web designers as well as an SEO company it’s important that our e-commerce clients have a handle on the state of play in global search engine markets. Significant markets that I haven’t been able to cover are Germany, Brazil, Russia, France and Indonesia. I will look to cover these in a future posting.

13 Ways To Minimise Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates

Outlined in the list below are practical steps that you can take to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rates. These are listed in no particular order:

1. Shipping Costs Clear and Early:

It is pretty much unanimous across all serious surveys that the addition of shipping costs to an order is the largest reason for shopping cart abandonment. Make sure your shipping rates are clearly articulated across your website and that they do no shock customers once calculated.

2. Trust Audit:

It is one thing to have customers add an item to a basket, but a much bigger hurdle to have them leave personal data such as address and credit card number on your website. Users will make a subjective decision on whether they trust the store they are buying from. Well known sites like Amazon don’t need to worry about this, but smaller online retailers don’t have the luxury of being a household name.  Consider adding the following to your website;  your physical address (good for SEO as well), your phone number, a returns and privacy policy, any logos that build trust such as SSL certificate, security badges, credit card icons and known brands. Also pay attention to where trust building devices are located, have them appear close to checkout and payment buttons. You also need to ensure that your level of web design is appropriate, eg it is professional and meets the level of design quality customers would expect in your industry.

3. Provide Reasonable Exit Avenues:

It is a common misconception that if a user doesn’t buy from an online store that the visit was futile. As a website owner you need to provide prospective customers with reasonable exit avenues, eg ones that benefit you. Examples of this would be to encourage users to call with you if they have questions or don’t feel comfortable buying online. If you are selling a complex product users might feel more comfortable calling you (hence exiting the cart) but in a successful way. You may also consider an email sign-up or wish list function to have users engage with you in future even if they don’t buy in the first instance.

4. Checkout Options:

Different users will feel comfortable buying in different ways. Depending on your target market you should consider allowing users to checkout in a manner with which they are comfortable. These include allowing regular users to log back into an existing account to speed things up, to allow new customers to create a membership account for your website as well as allowing users to check out as a guest if appropriate.

5. Reduce The Number Of Checkout Stages:

If you have an overly cumbersome or drawn out checkout process you should consider reducing the number of checkout pages / stages customers need to complete. This doesn’t necessarily mean a one page checkout in all instances, but it means working with your web designers in reducing the number of checkout pages to a sensible and streamlined form.

6. Intuitive Wording and Graphics:

Make sure that the wording in the checkout process makes sense and follow norms. Don’t defy convention; users are accustomed to wording like ‘Add To Cart’ ‘Checkout’ ‘Buy Now’ etc. Don’t reinvent the wheel with terms like ‘Add to Bag’ ‘Move Forward’ etc. Make sure that the colour and size of buttons is also clear and large. Make the next step obvious through appropriate size and colouring.

7. Explain CVV:

Whilst consumers are becoming more familiar with the CVV (card verification value) there are still users who are unsure of what this is. When asking for the CVV number, include instructions as to where this can be found on a card, eg these are the 3 digits found on the back of your card.

8. Introduce A Progress Indicator:

If your checkout process is more than 3 steps then you should consider indicating how many steps are left, or at least explaining the steps to checkout before a user enters the checkout process.

9. Use Inline Validation:

Inline validation is the process whereby a website gives users feedback in real-time if data they have entered into a field is wrong, or in an inappropriate format. All checkout processes should make use of this. Do not allow users to submit a page and then be informed that they haven’t complied with the required fields or data format. Inform users in real-time that the data they have entered is inappropriate. 

10. Include Links Back To Product:

When taking users to a snapshot of the products in their cart, the products themselves should link back to that products profile page. This allows users to quickly double-check that what they are about to buy, is in fact what they intend to buy.

11. Include Product Imagery Within Cart:

This leads on from the point above. When users view a snapshot of their order you should include a thumbnail of the product they are about to buy. This confirms to the user that the product they want, is the one that is about to be shipped to them.

12. Easy To Amend Order:

Nothing is more frustrating as a user than not being able to easily add, remove and amend items in a cart. Do not make users have to clear their entire cart in order to remove one product, or to amend the number of products to be ordered. This should be a quick and intuitive process.

13. Don’t ‘Kill’ The Cart:

A study from Forrester Research found that 24% of customers use their shopping cart as a de-facto wish list. Basically users expect to add items to a cart one day and be able to check it out the next. It is vital that your shopping cart is a ‘persistent shopping cart’. This is a cart that users cookies to store the order in a cart for a defined period after they are first added. This allows users to come back and simply checkout when they are ready. It is staggering just how many online stores in Australia do not make use of this technology.

Hopefully by following these steps you can reduce your ecommerce abandonment rates, increase your website conversions and get better value out of your marketing dollars. If you feel that you can’t achieve these steps with your current website, and are interested in having a chat with one of our consultants about how we could assist don’t hesitate to give us a call on 1800 981 442. As a web design company we have built over 500 online stores and are constantly improving our methodologies based on ongoing research to build better performing online stores.

Excuse me… but did your website designer have to make things so busy?

In truth the answer to this question is often… yes. But only because it was what the client wanted. Sometimes when a website is first being planned there is a lack of confidence in the message, the content or the product. This can result in the visual design of the website being pushed that little bit too far. The key to a successful website is generally great content delivered in a simple but effective way. You don’t have to be as basic as Google. There are plenty of great examples of clean simple design creating an effective website that becomes commercially successful on a huge scale.

Go find yourself an SEO Company

This is not really a web design tip, however something most of the successful sites have in common is that they are really well marketed. Whether they are using traditional methods or focussing on SEO or other online methods they are successful because they take their marketing seriously. For most websites a professionally run SEO campaign is a must when it comes to generating large amounts of traffic.

Where’s all the funky new technology my web design firm keeps pushing?

We’ve all been there. We go to a conference or read a blog posting on some new technology that is going to revolutionise web design and we want to see it in action! As a general rule though most large successful websites avoid using anything too new or untested. Being on the bleeding edge can alienate some users and can also lead us away from getting the basics right - delivering great content in an easy to use way.

It’s like I’ve been here before…

This might not sound very exciting but most large and successful websites stick to a few basic rules. They understand that their website is not central to their user’s lives and that to ask a site visitor to change the way they think about site navigation, browsing products or making a purchase will result in a number of users leaving the website.

For most websites the content, the images, the products and the message should be unique. The standard parts of the website should generally be just that - standard.

Website Design and Stock Images

Before the web became huge, most companies used photographers to capture unique imagery that reflected what it is that they did. The massive explosion in stock libraries has changed all of this and the vast majority of images you see on websites nowadays seem to be from one of the major stock libraries. There is nothing wrong with this (we use stock images ourselves) but it is important to keep away from those images that have become so popular that you see them over and over again. I’m talking about the middle aged businessmen everyone here in the office calls the ‘istock guy’, the image of two men in suits shaking hands, the smiling women wearing headsets and waiting for your call. Most successful websites either choose their stock imagery very carefully or they spend the extra money and hire a photographer to create unique and effective imagery for their website.

Successful websites are never shy about what they want

Successful websites feature prominent calls to action on every page. Whether they are urging you to buy something, perform a search, get in touch with them or download useful information they make sure you know all about it.

This is the sort of thing that can be easily incorporated into almost any website. You’re building a website for a reason and it is critical that your site users are reminded to take the desired action.

How does this impact on my web design?

Whether you are looking for corporate web design or web design that is pushing the creative boundaries you should take the time to visit and analyse those websites that have dominated their respective industries. Understanding what it is about their website design that keeps people coming back will give your website a considerable head-start as you strategise about ways to make your website the envy of your competitors.