First, some numbers. According to Forrester Research:
Pretty sobering, huh? Especially if you’ve decided that e-commerce is where your business needs to be.
So how do you keep your site from becoming a statistic? Easy, think like a user. Make sure your site is written in language your customers and prospects will understand, which means, at the very least, making sure the site’s areas are labeled according to how people will use them, not with the terminology you and your employees use internally. And, wouldn’t it be great if someone came up with words to take the place of "user name," "password," "log on," and the rest of the computer jargon that the Internet has forces us to live with?
Do you sell products with warranties that customers could use your web site to register on-line for? Could you allow customers to sign up for a service that will remind them by e-mail when the warranty needs to be renewed or when their product is due for maintenance? Can you establish links connecting products that should logically be sold together, but which usually are not, like dishwashers and dishwashing detergent? These three ideas were suggested by subscribers to the on-line newsletter, Inside 1to1, as features they would like to see on Sears’ web site.
Another idea worth mentioning: use the web site to offer rebates, coupons, gift certificates and other premiums when the customer is ready to buy, not just when there’s a sale. The point is that for Sears’ site to be truly successful, the company needs to think not about its own goals (which always boils down to increasing the bottom line), but about the goals of those who use the site. (By the way, I highly recommend Inside 1to1; you can subscribe at www.1to1.com.)
One of the best known examples of a site designed to make users’ lives easier is Amazon.com, and I emphasize the word design. From the Welcome Screen that remembers your name and offers to show you an astonishingly accurate list of recommendations for what you might want to buy, to one-click purchasing options, to the placement of navigational elements on the screen, it’s clear that someone at Amazon sat down with users and tested and tested until the site’s design matched the way the users wanted to use it.
You can, and should, do the same kind of testing on your site. You have a number of options. Both Microsoft and Netscape offer services, LinkExchange and WebSiteGarage respectively, that will help you tune up your site. Or there are companies, such as WebCriteria of Portland, Oregon, which use automated evaluation systems modeled on how users usually move through a site.
People are often quite willing to let you know how they feel especially, and here’s another page from the Inside 1to1 playbook, if you offer a premium for the time they take to tell you what they think. Whichever method you choose, and I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to choose a method, I guarantee you’ll learn things that will help make your site better, which will help improve your business, and that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
David Stein is president of Automatic On-Line System, a full service web design, marketing and maintenance company. He can be reached at (718) 361-3091 or by e-mail at internetdoctor@aols.com or visit their website www.aols.com.