SEO, SEM, web design, coding, iPhone, iPad, Android 

Many small companies are making a wise choice and investing in professionally designed websites that raise the company's level of professionalism, exposure, and sales.

I have had people come to my saddle shop and they were surprised to see that we are just a a small shop because the website made us look so much better.

Online you can be as big or small as you want to be. The web gives small companies an opportunity to go toe-to-toe with big brand companies.  It even gives small companies an advantage of being more flexible and quicker to adapt compared to large companies. However, you must have these things for your website to be effective.

• Usability - Allowing people to find what they came to find, quickly. And then find it again once they come back to your site.
• Findability - If they can't find you, they can't buy from you. Ranking and ranking for the correct keywords are key to getting and keeping customers online.
• Legibility - Does the design of your site allow for quick scanning and easy access to critical information. Can they read your headers, text, captions, etc.
• Clean - Graphics enhance your message. Every piece of your website should motivate your customer to a specific goal.
• Consistent Branding - Reinforce your brand image, building on your logo and other marketing materials.
• Fast Loading - Slow sites lose visitors. Don't be one of them.
• Cross-browser compatible - Make sure your site looks good across all current browsers.

Unfortunately, there are too many companies that just use an online template for their site. These are plagued with problems from being slow loading, brand destroying, unprofessional, and search engine unfriendly. Don't settle when it comes to your website. Would you want a lousy salesman talking to all of your potential customers and ultimately turning them off to your business and products?

Comparing the single (one page) checkout process to a multiple page process and conversion rates.

There was an excellent study done on the Vancouver 2010 olympic online store to compare conversion rates of a one page, two page, and four page checkout proccess. The single page checkout process was the clear winner and led to lower cart abondon rates.

• Successful completion rate for the entire checkout process increased by 257.26%.
• Overall site conversion rate increased by 0.54%.
• We also observed some unexpected improvements during this experiment, like an increase of 8.54% in the average order value!

Here are some great take aways from the differences.

• The one page process did not require users to login or set up an account prior to purchase. They placed the option to create an account AFTER the completed purchase. A very logical place to put it. Once they have purchased, they will want to track the progress. So after the purchase is a great time to collect additional information.
  
• Additional information like "Shipping Address" is only shown if they are shipping to a different address than the billing address using AJAX.
• They provide inpage pop-up windows to discuss shipping information, return and refund policy, and their privacy policy.
• They can get estimated shipping costs prior to going to the checkout page.This allows them to see total costs prior to giving out any personal information.
• They provide a customer support phone number right on the checkout page that allows them to talk to a representative without having to leave the checkout process to resolve any concerns with checkout.
• A large, prominant "place order" button is used with the subtext of "Your order is safe and secure".
  

Making sure that you pick the correct metric to measure is extremely important to having a truly successful website.

Recently on SEOmoz's whiteboard friday they discussed how to keep clients happy. Much of the conversation focused around knowing what determines success. A point that I thought was extremely important was tracking and focusing on the correct metric for determining success. Here are some ways to "track" success and why the metric might not be telling you what you think it is telling you.

• PageRank - Google assigns a link ranking to sites based on the number and quality of links pointing at your site. Google updates PageRank about every 3-4 months. Unfortunately, while many people chase the "green pixel dust" they ignore creating great unique content to get links naturally. Also since it is updated infrequently, it is just an indicator of if your link building is moving in the correct direction.
• Number of Links - In general it is better to have more links, but getting links through link farms or other artificial building methods will ultimately have a negative impact on your rankings.
• Number of Visits - In general it is better to have more traffic, but if that traffic doesn't actually do something, are they beneficial? The same applies for unique visitors.
• Sales - Business metrics like number of sales or number of email list signups is a better metric. However if you don't compare that to the number of visitors you might see that you only convert one of every X number visitors which isn't good.
• Conversion rate - This is linked to sales per visitor. Normally the higher the conversion rate the better. But if you only get 5 visitors per year, but you convert them all, you still only had 5 sales. As we've stated before, first increase your conversion rate and then focus on getting more customers.

Ultimately, those things you focus on and track will get the most attention and the most improvement. So make sure you set good goals, track your progress, and evaluate along the way if you are focusing on the right data.

2010 will be the year of shorter, more concise, and quicker information.

I read SEOmoz's 8 predictions for SEO in 2010 and figured I'd make my own (some of which I total agree with SEOmoz.

1. Conversion Rate Optimization will take off. After reading Call to Action by the Eisenberg brothers I was convinced. Increasing conversions or conversion rate optimization is the absolute best way to make more money in the long run. (But we knew it was important back in 2005.)
2. Advertising dollars will go to social media. With more and more people interacting through tiny messages (first texting, then facebook status updates, then tweets) it becomes even more important to interact on social sites. Everyone wants to hear and be heard. Also with Facebook's advertising being so targeted, you have an amazing opportunity to hit your specific demographic.
3. Facebook status and twitter will increase in ranking importance. As Google tweaks its ranking algorithm to incorporate these messages, they will face an uphill battle to filter the noise and get at the real information. I am sure that it will cause a comparison between real sites and the tweets that point at them. Plus because of the quick nature of these items, Google will have to index faster and evaluate faster to identify those things that are important and also determine how "lasting" the information is. 
4. Both Google and Bing will attempt to become more sticky. Finding ways to present the information in short concise snippets without leaving the search engine will improve usability and will increase revenues from increased time spent on the respective engine.
   
5. Everything is going to smaller, simpler, and quicker messages. If it can't be said in 140 characters then I haven't focused the message enough. The texting/twitter world will continue to have its impact on how people want their information. They don't want to truly interact. They want to say what they want to say without all of the previous years' perfunctory requirements of protocol.

All in all, people will demand their information quicker and in short, concise, to-the-point snippets. Social media is in, traditional media continues to flounder. You will be required to know your audience even better and provide them with information quicker. Seems like we will all need to step up to the next level.

Avoid these e-commerce shopping cart mistakes to lower your cart abandon rates and increase sales.

Did you know that on average 52.1% of people abandon shopping their online shopping carts?

Primary reasons for abandonment include high shipping charges, high cost of items, price comparison with other sites, saving items for purchase later, and cumbersome checkout processes that required too much personal information.

Here are the top ten (plus one) mistakes that websites make with their e-commerce sites.

1. Call your Shopping Cart a Shopping Cart. Cute names like bag, handbag, or tote add confusion to what the customer is really trying to do. Also add a shopping cart icon to increase access.
2. Use "Add to Cart" instead of "Buy Now". While buy now is a great call to action, less savvy web users hesitate to click buy now. Add to Cart is noncommittal and tells the person they can keep shopping.
3. Give a noticable visual cue that items have been added to the cart. Whether you take them to the "view cart" page or have another visual cue, make sure it is noticable so they don't sit there clicking the same button, wondering if it really added to the cart.
4. Don't get in the way of them ordering more. If you take them to a "view cart" page every time they add an item, they are less likely to purchase more. Especially if getting back to where they were is difficult. Give them an option to "Add to Cart and continue shopping" and a "Add to Cart and proceed to checkout" option.
5. Show confirmation before cross-selling. People want confirmation that they successfully added to their cart. Don't show cross-sell items until after you have confirmed the newest item is in their cart.
6. Don't require people to register before adding to cart or checking out. People HATE to register before they have truly committed to purchasing the product. Also, requiring more information than is necessary is a deterrant. Even something as simple as asking for an email address can keep people from purchasing because they fear they will be spammed.
7. Use a method for removing items from the cart other than making the quantity 0. Less savvy users become frustrated when they can't figure out how to quickly and easily remove items from their cart. Give them an easily identifiable icon to click on to remove the item.
8. Don't include instructions on how to use your cart. People don't read them. If you haven't made it simple enough, they'll just go somewhere else to buy.
9. Don't require them to scroll to find the "update cart" button. When people add more items to their cart, they still want an easy way to update and don't want to (and won't) spend the time to search for the update button.
10. Don't  require personal information before they know total costs. Again, people are hesitant to give out personal information until they know they want to buy. So, don't ask for lots of information before giving information about shipping and total costs.
11. Show your site is secure. Display security items prominantly so you remove any hesitation about security and let them know exactly why you need their information and that it will only be used for this order.
    

Following these tips will help increase sales and lower your cart abandon rate.

How to fix Ubuntu shutdown problem with blinking white cursor by using acpi=force.

I had found this fix once before, but then when I went to look for it, I had to dig for about an hour to find it again, so I'm posting it here. I've seen this both on Jaunty Jackalope and Karmic Koala. The system would try to shut down but it would show "System Halted" but then just have a blinking white cursor and the system wouldn't shut down until you pressed the power button.

This fixed the problem for me:

Modify /etc/modules and added

apm power_off=1

Then I modified /etc/default/grub and added this after quiet splash (this might be /boot/grub/menu.lst if you are running anything prior to Karmic Koala that runs off of the new Grub 2 boot loader)

acpi=force apm=power_off

After saving that file I had to run

sudo update-grub

And that seemed to fix it for me. I'm not sure the /etc/modules modification is necessary. I don't remember doing that the first time, but it was a while ago. Hopefully this helps someone else that is having problems with Ubuntu 9.10 shutting down.

2009 Website Browser Statistics Review.

IE 7 is still the browser of choice, but some of the IE 7 crowd have recently switched over to IE 8. Mostly we saw a move from IE 7 to IE 8 with Firefox gaining another percentage and eveyone else staying practically the same from the middle of 2009.

The web browser war is still waging and it looks like some of the IE 7 crowd have finally started converting over to IE 8. Currently it stands that IE 7 is top, followed by Firefox, then by IE 6 and then IE 8 and Safari.

Takeaways

Label placement is important in usability of HTML forms.

There is an amazing study done by uxmatters where they compared different label placements in forms. Here are the results:

• Label position—Placing a label above an input field works better in most cases, because users aren’t forced to look separately at the label and the input field. Be careful to visually separate the label for the next input field from the previous input field.
• Alignment of labels—In most cases, when placing labels to the left of input fields, using left-aligned labels imposes a heavy cognitive workload on users. Placing labels above input fields is preferable, but if you choose to place them to the left of input fields, at least make them right aligned.
• Bold labels—Reading bold labels is a little bit more difficult for users, so it’s preferable to use plain text labels. However, when using bold labels, you might want to style the input fields not to have heavy borders.
• Drop-down list boxes—Use them with care, because they’re so eye-catching. Either use them for important data or, when using them for less important data, place them well below more important input fields.
• Label placement for drop-down list boxes—To ensure users are immediately aware of what you’re asking for, instead of using a separate label, make the default value for a drop-down list box the label. This will work for very long lists of items, because a user already has the purpose of the input field in mind before the default value disappears.

Avoid these common website mistakes that keeps your website from communicating effectively.

Too many people have the "reading the label from inside the bottle" mentality when they think about their business. A great article by Todd Follansbee still holds true for all businesses online.

Here are some common mistakes that businesses make about their website:

1. The user knows something about what your business is.
2. The user is willing to "work" and dig a little to find out about your business.
3. The user realizes that your business is special or unique.
4. The users wants to do business with you.
5. The user is interested in your business.
6. The user came as a result of a recommendation or sought you out specifically.
7. The user knows what you want visitors to do or "get" from your site.
8. The user understands the unique terminology and nature of your business.

In reality, your business needs your site to:

1. Explain why your business is special right from the start.
2. State simply what business you are in -- at first glance, from five feet away!
3. Provide all the information a user would need to do business with you and, in case need more, offer an extremely simple way to get in touch with someone at your business identified with a name and a picture.
4. Provide an easy way users can refer the site to a friend, not by just a URL but by directing visitors to a special page (or home page) that explains your business and unique value proposition, that is, what makes your business special. You don't want to unintentionally direct someone to a page within the site which fails to present your business at its best (such as a sign-up page).
5. Give users a reason to act now.
6. Eliminate all anxieties by clearly reassuring users that you won't misuse any personal information, that you offer secure transactions, and are trustworthy.
7. Make sure, by testing new users, that your site works properly, is laid out sensibly, and delivers information in an intelligent way that leads to a lead or a sale.

Only by assuming that your users know nothing about your site will you convert the most visitors. The best part is that people who come to your site already motivated and with some awareness about you, will also find the site easy to navigate and respect your business sense even more.

Who Else Wants to Build Links and Rank Higher in Google

Link Baiting has become common place to increase organic inbound links and rank higher in Google. There was a great article by Andy Hagan but he broke his site to pieces, so I had to do some digging to find it again. Here are some of the best from his article with my comments throughout.

Content is still king. But if you venture into my little world, you’ll find that packaging is queen, promotion is the crown prince and a baity title is the Sword of Excalibur.

Start thinking. Anything can be link baited. Sell a special kind of Dacron pillow? Maybe you need to write "101 Secrets to Sleeping Revealed." The idea of thinking outside the box is critical when coming up with great link bait.

The point is that your topic has a link bait piece (or a dozen of them) waiting to be written. Granted, some topics will require a bit more creativity in coming up with baity content. That’s fine.

It's all in the Title

I've already posted about the importance of your article heading and quick ways to come up with the perfect title by using eye catching words.

Delivering what you Promised, Quickly

Well, content is only crowned as king when it has focus. Focus comes from the title. In the title, you are making a promise to the reader: here’s what you’re going to read/learn/achieve in this article. All your content should be devoted 100% to meeting (or exceeding) this promise. Anything else no matter how "valuable" is fluff and should be cut out. Readers do want in-depth resources and advice, but they want it in a concise, focused serving.

Provide a "hook" in the content. Here are some basic types of hooks:

• News Hook. The news hook is when you are the first to scoop a story; everyone who carries the story will then (theoretically) link to you as the original source.
• Resource Hook. The resource hook occurs when you make an extremely helpful piece of content that everyone will naturally want to bookmark (like this one!). This may be my favorite hook, because as opposed to the news hook, it encourages people to link to and bookmark it for a long period of time. Content that sits there and naturally obtains trusted, relevant backlinks passively? Isn’t that the original white hat SEO dream?
• Contrary Hook. The contrary hook is when you refute a common myth in your niche. Most little areas of the blogosphere hold certain beliefs to be self-evident; all SEOs know that META tags are dead; all Web2.0 designers know that writing validated code is the right thing to do. Calling these people wrong will usually incite them into talking about you, and linking to you.
• Humor Hook. People love to laugh, especially at people in their industry or niche.
• Tool Hook. A good link bait tool has one of two characteristics: 1) It is actually useful; or 2) It feeds bloggers’ egos.
• Award Hook. No official awards in your tiny niche? Why not host them yourself?
• Giveaway Hook. Anyone who has been to an SEO conference recently (or any other conference for that matter) is stocked for life on pens, highlighters, key rings, and loads of over freebie junk. Companies fight to give trinkets away at certain events because, when directed towards the right audience, giveaways are a great way to drive sales and get a return far better than any ordinary advertising.
• Research/Statistic Hook. Sometimes just compiled numbers, or any kind of scientific survey, will get a lot of link love, especially in an under-studied area. And while a scientifically-conducted study with valid methodology will often get better links, the (sad?) truth is that almost anything can pass as “research” on the Internet.

Socialize

Today the buzzword is social media. Everyone wants to comment on every piece on mundane life. From Tweets to a new Facebook status, everyone wants to connect. Great ways to communicate are right at our fingertips and growing every moment. Why not socialize about your link bait?