The end of summer is near (where did it go already?!?) and the holiday is quickly approaching. Many online retailers are starting to think about what they’re doing for this all important retail season while others haven’t even given it a moment’s thought. Either way, what I want to do is provide you with some basic things to consider in your holiday planning sessions (if you’re already planning) or to get your wheels spinning (if you’re busy sipping frozen drinks on the beach…which isn’t a bad thing!!).
In the next few posts I'm going to discuss Merchandising, Shipping, Promotions, Online Marketing and Technology. To kick off this series, I'm going to suggest you have three things lined up:
Online Calendar
- Use this for scheduling and enter important dates
- Share this with people in your department
- Check out: Google Calendar, Apple’s Mobile Me (great for Mac and PC users) or Yahoo Calendar
Online file storage
- Eventually you have to leave the office, but, you or someone on your team will need access to a file. If your company doesn’t have VPN setup, consider signing up for online file storage
- Check out: Apple’s Mobile Me, SharePoint (look at hosted versions) or Box.net
Excel Spreadsheets
- You gotta love spreadsheets. When you have your plan set, create spreadsheets to track promotions, home page refreshes, etc.
- It helps you understand what’s working and not in relation to the other parts
The next post is on Merchandising.
- Julian
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Search Engine Optimization at the Beginning of a New Site Build
I was doing some SEO research and came across an article written by Chris Boggs that talks about the importance of SEO when building a site. Specifically, how search engine optimization needs to be part of the build plan and not an afterthought for when the site is launched.
If SEO is done after a site is launched, it can actually present more problems than if you were to do it at the front end of development. Reason being, you may have to make many tweaks to your site's code to handle the changes you want/need to make. This can also lead to an ugly looking site.
We've done search engine optimization on some sites where SEO was done post-launch. After auditing a particular site we proposed numerous changes to optimize the site which cost the client a decent sum. This cost could've been avoided in two ways:
1. SEO up front: if you don't have in-house SEO, hire a consultant or firm to be part of the site build team
2. Choose the right CMS or Ecommerce platform: Right off the bat, the client could've saved money by choosing the right content management system (CMS). There are numerous CMS options out there so you should carefully analyze each option before choosing one that best fits your needs.
Our site build process includes SEO on the front end and is a major component of the build plan. SEO presents the best ROI over the long term and if you're not ranking well for your business critical terms then what's the point of the site? Seriously! It's like a store without a sign...you exist, but, no one knows who you are or what you do.
When we do an ecommerce implementation, we use Magento and it is a great platform for SEO. Some of the things we like about it for SEO:
- Each page can be customized with unique meta data, page title and URL. Sounds simple, but, you'll be surprised how many sites don't have this
- Dynamic Sitemaps: the platform will create sitemaps for Google and the site itself. When you add/delete a page the sitemap is automatically updated
- Tags: a customer can organize their shopping experience with product tags. Sally might browse a selection of couches for her living room and might tag them as 'living room couches.' This creates a tag associated with those products and not only can she see that tag...you and the search engines can see it. The more that tag is used, the bigger it gets and eventually it'll get an H1 tag
- Popular Search: this simple, but, very useful feature aggregates all site searches onto one page for visitors and search engines alike to view. What does this mean for SEO? It means you get a page with a bunch of links and great anchor text leading to products. Again, the more often that term is searched the bigger it'll get. Here's an example from Bruges Home
- Add content to category/sub-category pages. To maximize this, develop unique and descriptive copy that targets a couple key terms
There are several other features that can be leveraged to maximize a site's search engine performance, but, the key thing is to make SEO a priority on the front end. If you do this, you'll have a better site, you'll save money and you'll get more organic traffic.
- Julian
If SEO is done after a site is launched, it can actually present more problems than if you were to do it at the front end of development. Reason being, you may have to make many tweaks to your site's code to handle the changes you want/need to make. This can also lead to an ugly looking site.
We've done search engine optimization on some sites where SEO was done post-launch. After auditing a particular site we proposed numerous changes to optimize the site which cost the client a decent sum. This cost could've been avoided in two ways:
1. SEO up front: if you don't have in-house SEO, hire a consultant or firm to be part of the site build team
2. Choose the right CMS or Ecommerce platform: Right off the bat, the client could've saved money by choosing the right content management system (CMS). There are numerous CMS options out there so you should carefully analyze each option before choosing one that best fits your needs.
Our site build process includes SEO on the front end and is a major component of the build plan. SEO presents the best ROI over the long term and if you're not ranking well for your business critical terms then what's the point of the site? Seriously! It's like a store without a sign...you exist, but, no one knows who you are or what you do.
When we do an ecommerce implementation, we use Magento and it is a great platform for SEO. Some of the things we like about it for SEO:
- Each page can be customized with unique meta data, page title and URL. Sounds simple, but, you'll be surprised how many sites don't have this
- Dynamic Sitemaps: the platform will create sitemaps for Google and the site itself. When you add/delete a page the sitemap is automatically updated
- Tags: a customer can organize their shopping experience with product tags. Sally might browse a selection of couches for her living room and might tag them as 'living room couches.' This creates a tag associated with those products and not only can she see that tag...you and the search engines can see it. The more that tag is used, the bigger it gets and eventually it'll get an H1 tag
- Popular Search: this simple, but, very useful feature aggregates all site searches onto one page for visitors and search engines alike to view. What does this mean for SEO? It means you get a page with a bunch of links and great anchor text leading to products. Again, the more often that term is searched the bigger it'll get. Here's an example from Bruges Home
- Add content to category/sub-category pages. To maximize this, develop unique and descriptive copy that targets a couple key terms
There are several other features that can be leveraged to maximize a site's search engine performance, but, the key thing is to make SEO a priority on the front end. If you do this, you'll have a better site, you'll save money and you'll get more organic traffic.
- Julian
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Our New Website
We just launched our new website! Consider it version 2 with an update coming later in July.
Visit the newMJM Ecommerce site
Visit the newMJM Ecommerce site
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Developing Ad Copy for Your SEM Campaign
I'm in process of optimizing a campaign for a client and thought it would be a useful post to provide some guidelines on how to write ad copy. I'm going to approach this at a high level for now.
1. Make sure your ad copy is relevant to your ad group and landing page. The more relevant your ad is to the search query and landing page content, the better your Quality Score will be and you will experience some cost savings.
2. Using AdWords as the specific example, you've got three lines to work with for a total of 95 characters. Break down each line into three distinct sections:
a. The Headline (25 characters): like headlines in newspapers, you've got to attract the searchers attention. Keep in mind
you're vying for the attention of a searcher who is looking at organic results and your competitors ads.
b. First Description Line (35 characters): you'll find yourself getting creative to convey your message within the character
limitations. State the product/service you're offering in this first line. Its the set-up for line two....
c. Second Description Line (35 characters): here you want to trigger an action. "Buy now" is a call to action and tells people
what to expect when they click on your ad.
I recommend you develop ad copy in excel, create multiple versions and use the LEN formula to calculate character count. Don't implement your ad copy right away no matter how compelling it is. Sleep on it and approach it later to make sure the ads make sense as a whole and clearly state the value a searcher will experience by going to your site. Implement 3 versions of ad copy and see which one performs better (be sure to allow the ads to be displayed evenly).
1. Make sure your ad copy is relevant to your ad group and landing page. The more relevant your ad is to the search query and landing page content, the better your Quality Score will be and you will experience some cost savings.
2. Using AdWords as the specific example, you've got three lines to work with for a total of 95 characters. Break down each line into three distinct sections:
a. The Headline (25 characters): like headlines in newspapers, you've got to attract the searchers attention. Keep in mind
you're vying for the attention of a searcher who is looking at organic results and your competitors ads.
b. First Description Line (35 characters): you'll find yourself getting creative to convey your message within the character
limitations. State the product/service you're offering in this first line. Its the set-up for line two....
c. Second Description Line (35 characters): here you want to trigger an action. "Buy now" is a call to action and tells people
what to expect when they click on your ad.
I recommend you develop ad copy in excel, create multiple versions and use the LEN formula to calculate character count. Don't implement your ad copy right away no matter how compelling it is. Sleep on it and approach it later to make sure the ads make sense as a whole and clearly state the value a searcher will experience by going to your site. Implement 3 versions of ad copy and see which one performs better (be sure to allow the ads to be displayed evenly).
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Successful Paid Search Optimization
Its only been four days since we optimized this account, but, we're really excited about the results so far. When we calculated daily averages before and after the optimization we saw some incredible improvements in such a short time:
- Average CPC decreased 33%
- Clicks increased 63%
- CTR increased 42%
- Conversions increased 58%
- Cost/Conv. decreased 36%
- Cost rose just 8%
- Average CPC decreased 33%
- Clicks increased 63%
- CTR increased 42%
- Conversions increased 58%
- Cost/Conv. decreased 36%
- Cost rose just 8%
Friends Getting Props
Check out our friends from Klick Studios recent mention in this article about the best examples of light and space effects in web design.
Great Cause
A friend's son and wife came up with a great idea to help people who lost their job in this tough economy. Imagine if you lost your job today. Visit Gift Cards for Dinner and donate your unspent restaurant gift cards to those less fortunate.
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