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Solid Cactus, Inc. has designed or redesigned more than 3,000 e-commerce sites. Solid Cactus is an Inc. 500 company and was named one of the "Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania" in 2006 and 2007.

All posts by ebiz Insider Staff | E-Mail the author

Most eCommerce store owners look at their websites all day, every day. When something is so familiar, it’s very easy to overlook potential problems. That’s the power of a fresh set of eyes.

As of press time, Solid Cactus had just wrapped up its seventh eCommerce Boot Camp. Day two of the semi-annual event kicked off with the ever-popular, interactive site deconstruction session, moderated by John Tomkoski, manager of sales engineering. Rounding out the panel was designer Marc Manfre, marketing analyst Kurt Illian, and senior director of account management, Lou Pagnotti.

Several clients had ahead of time volunteered their sites for a live deconstruction. One of these good sports was Terry Fluke, owner of NaturePavilion.com, an online store focusing on nature-themed educational toys and games.

“I knew it wouldn’t be just Solid Cactus employees evaluating it; it would be website owners like me, who have tried different things with their websites and have learned through trial and error what works,” she said on why she volunteered.

Tomkoski, who has been a driving force in this particular session at each Boot Camp, says the high level of interaction makes the session a hit.

“I like to keep the session like a town hall meeting, where everyone can chime in with their thoughts and suggestions. I have always felt when people are involved, they take more away from it,” he said. “We will usually work with three volunteer sites, but while we are reviewing one site, a member of our audience will be sitting there going, ‘Wow, I never thought about that. How could I implement something like that?’ It helps everyone spark some thoughts about their own sites.”

Fluke’s and two other eCommerce stores were reviewed during the 90-minute session. Here, we’ll share some key findings.

Design and Branding

Capturing a potential customer’s attention right away is crucial. All three sites did a nice job matching branding and design with their respective target audience. The audio book site was slick, clean, and simple. The site with gifts for horse lovers had a rustic, classy feel with a parchment paper background. NaturePavilion.com, which is geared toward kids (but also the grown-ups doing the buying), had a fitting design with fun images and inviting colors.

“You have awesome branding. That boy with the magnifying glass is great; this can be used in business cards and all your marketing. The vines, and the flowers…” said Manfre to Fluke during the session. “To this day when we have a client who wants a site with an illustrated feel, we always go back to yours for inspiration.”

That said, if a store has a fun logo or header design, think how you can take that further, incorporating those elements in add-to-cart buttons, section headers, and other on-site graphics. (See Page 22 for a related article on the design process.)

Homepage: Specials of the Day

One site used a larger area on the homepage to feature a daily special. Pagnotti asked the store owners if they actually changed the specials daily. With a chuckle, they responded, “no”. In the rush of eCommerce, it’s not always easy to change things daily; so, he suggested they use that same area, but split it into two halves.

“That’s prime real estate there. Use some of that area for text, as well as to promote specials. Better yet, a sequence banner would be perfect. Keep your site fresh all year round,” said Pagnotti.

Navigation: Getting there in less clicks

Several volunteer sites had lengthy navigation or section pages. NaturePavilion.com had this issue on one section page in particular: Toy Snakes & Lizards. Tomkoski clicked through to that section page and began to scroll, joking that he ran out of room on the podium to scroll further. While this prompted a chuckle from the crowd, it illustrated how scroll becomes an issue when there are hundreds of items on one section page. The solution? Adding dynamic paging. This hit home for Fluke. She explained to panelists and attendees that over the years her product line grew from 12 items to over 2,000,

“[Toy snakes] are our number one seller. We sell the most toy snakes on the Internet,” said Fluke during the session. “We’re at a point now where we do need paging.”

Tomkoski pointed out that items on the very bottom of the lengthy section page may not be seen unless searched for. Illian suggested splitting up the toy snakes into subcategories, such as length, color, or type.

Lengthy left-hand navigation was also an issue. Getting users to the right section page with less clicks often means restructuring the navigation to include subcategory headings or utilizing cascading or expanding navigation. For example, the site selling wildlife gifts uses a simple segmented navigation with just a few main categories, such as “Shop by Animal” or “Shop by Product.” Then, that works in tandem with the new Solid Cactus Mega Drop Down, which displays the deeper levels.

On-Site SEO

Illian spent some time showing store owners how some product names were using pretty broad search terms, for example, “bears.” A more specific product title, such as “grizzly bear gifts”, would help customers find items both on the internal site search and in search engines. Otherwise, bears could mean Chicago Bears or information on bears for a school science project. He encouraged store owners to keep SEO in mind when naming items and writing descriptions.

Beefing Up Product Reviews

Illian pointed out that one of the sites offered product reviews, but had many products without reviews. He suggested offering a contest or promotion to solicit reviews via e-mail marketing. An example would be everyone who submits a review gets a coupon or entered to win a shopping spree.

Professional E-mail Address & Phone Number and Offering Live Chat

It was suggested the displayed contact e-mail address matches the domain name of the eCommerce site instead of using an e-mail from a local ISP or web-based provider. Also, panelists encouraged store owners to use a toll-free rather than local number. (Related article by Greg Kosicki on page 18) Finally, when utilizing a live chat service this should not just be featured in the shell, but should also appear upon check out.

Highlighting Best Sellers or Top Categories

Going back to Fluke’s toy snakes, it was suggested if any particular item or product is something a store is known for, it should be promoted. This could also be temporary; for instance, if something you sell is being advertised, whether by you or the manufacturer. Make these stand out on your homepage and easier to find rather than being buried within navigation. Use graphics, banners, or a sequence banner.

Putting it Together

Tomkoski and the other panelists agree the site deconstruction session is very rewarding.

“I come away from this session feeling accomplished because I was able to help our visitors find areas to improve their websites on all fronts,” said Tomkoski.

Clients also leave inspired. The Monday morning following Boot Camp, we contacted Fluke for this article. When asked what she had learned and what she was planning to implement, she laughed and said, “Oh. You mean the stuff I am working on this morning?”

Fluke immediately jumped on making changes to her site by purchasing several features from Solid Cactus while at Boot Camp. Dynamic Paging was a no-brainer. She’s also updating Mini-Cart to add Free Shipping Countdown, moving Holiday Countdown into her shell rather than her homepage, and is adding drop down menus to her left navigation so customers can shop by deeper categories, such as by price. And there’s more.

“Solid Cactus is also designing us a blog with Nature Pavilion’s branding and links to our soon-to-be Twitter and Facebook pages,” she explained. “We also are adding Scratch & Save and having a shipping policy pop-up feature added so our customers don’t have to leave the shopping cart to search for that info.”

Fluke is also making improvements on her own including consolidating her left navigation and adding more text to her homepage.

Since not every website owner has the chance to get a live site evaluation from such a large panel of experts, including a room full of eCommerce store owners, it’s always beneficial to have a professional site evaluation performed as well as ask for feedback from colleagues whether it be in an industry forum or just asking a peer for help. Fluke agrees wholeheartedly.

“Every website should have a professional evaluation. You need to know what is good and what is bad about the back end of your website,” she said. “But, I also think asking other website owners to take a look at your website design, layout, and what features you are using is important too. You then have information from two different perspectives.”

Solid Cactus offers professional site evaluations. Tomkoski, explains his evals are a comprehensive comparison of an eCommerce site against two to three competing websites. (See ad on this page)

“[The deliverable] is a summary of recommendations on what they are doing well and what they can improve upon,”
he said.

NaturePavilion.com has been online since 2001, but in 2007, Fluke moved onto the Yahoo! Store platform and hired Solid Cactus for the new store design.

“That truly was the best decision for my company that I have made. We became a more professional site that has much better ranking. This was my first Boot Camp. But, I will be back,” she said.

With instant, professional feedback from eCommerce professionals – Solid Cactus staff and store owners- it’s no doubt why the Site Deconstruction session is always a hit– and a wonderful learning experience for everyone.

Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus

All posts by Donna Talarico | E-Mail the author

Be all you can be to capture sales this holiday season

In one forum I frequent, a new store owner asked, “What do we need to do to get ready for the fourth quarter, holiday time?”

I was shocked by the reply from a fellow e-commerce store owner: “Stop spending money. Fourth quarter will be worse than last year.”

While unemployment is high and consumer spending remains low, there isn’t anyone out there who can definitively tell us if the 2009 holiday season is going to be good or bad. And that’s the truth. To tell a business owner to “stop spending money” is just plain foolish. This is the type of advice your competitor wants you to take!

When the economy started failing,
I saw businesses immediately pull their pay-per-click advertising and I started shaking my head. You can cut back on campaigns that aren’t providing a good return, but to simply shut off your advertising is like turning off the lights, going home, and retreating under the bed. Making hasty judgments out of fear or despair is no way to run a business — in a good economy or bad. Making informed decisions that are backed by analytics and best practices is.

Here are my recommendations for making the best out of an uncertain upcoming holiday season:

Don’t Sacrifice Service – provide clear policies and contact info and provide phone support (Need help? See page 18)

Be Descriptive – use unique, detailed product descriptions

Keep it Simple – avoid clutter. Marc Manfre has more about that on page 10

Invest in Features that Convert- Donna Talarico gives ideas on page 14

Embrace Social Media – spread messages and build a following. It’s hot and free.

Use Comparison Shopping Engines – these are major (sometimes overlooked) sources of revenue

Negotiate! – get better rates with suppliers and other vendors

Spend Wisely – make smart advertising choices, don’t overbuy inventory, and watch your ROI

This rest of this issue is jam-packed with more tactics on how to boost your business this holiday season and beyond. Here’s to a good season!

Co-Founder, President & COO of Solid Cactus

All posts by Scott Sanfilippo | E-Mail the author

Search Engine Marketing Experts Tote Social Media

I packed my bags and headed out to learn about advanced Pay-Per-Click techniques at SES-NY. While the PPC skills I learned were certainly valuable, nearly every workshop ended with a comment about social media being the future of the industry. I quickly came to realize that there are many more marketing avenues for small businesses that don’t include paid search ads on Google, Yahoo! and MSN. In fact, Twitter and Facebook are now on the forefront of developing some of the strongest marketing channels on the Internet today.

With my curiosity piqued, I joined a session entitled, “Social Media Marketing for Brand Building,” that focused on new e-commerce stores and how to get people to know you exist. Brand building is one of the most important steps in developing a successful online marketing plan. With the Internet filled with people of all ages, ranging from children to senior citizens, expanding your marketing strategies to appeal to such a wide user-base can be very difficult and costly.

Many marketers see social media as being synonymous with socialization – and to help establish brand loyalty, you need to develop a social web. Social webs allow you to have direct insight on your market, products, and shopping experience by having the ability to look at exactly what people are saying about your business. Twitter and Facebook profiles allow you to develop and expand social webs by inviting friends and customers to follow your company in a fun and interactive way. These sites are great for expanding brand awareness by giving your business a personality of its own in even the most competitive markets.

The following strategies were highlighted as top Best Practices for SMO Brand Building:

• Determine your target audience and then incorporate a “tone” that will best influence your customers. Being more personable is the best approach for social networks. When interacting with people online, they don’t want to be subjected to excessive advertising or annoying ploys. People must identify with your brand – the first step to obtaining lifetime customers.

• Starting on the right path is essential. Even choosing a username can have far reaching impact. Always represent yourself and your company in a professional manner. One great approach is to utilize your name along with your brand in the same title for a more personal touch. For example, if you read our eBiz Forums, you may notice my username as Cactus_Brad, which closely associates my name with our company.

• Be sure to engage your audience daily and initiate discussions around your brand. If fans and followers have a question or suggestion, answer it promptly. Keep things interesting, and vary your style to gauge what reactions are sustainable with your customers.

• Most important of all, don’t bombard your customers with useless information. It takes a lot of time and effort to gain somebody’s trust and interest online, but that can disappear in an instant if you come off as pushy or irrelevant.

Bradley Hoppy
Bradleyhoppy@ebizinsider.com

Getting Back to SEO Basics at SES

This year’s Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City was back to basics. While SES-NY included technical workshops exploring advanced SEO tactics, such as understanding how search engines really view duplicate content and the importance of social media, there was a greater emphasis on ensuring site owners have the SEO basics down.

After all, if your foundation is weak, the house will crumble.

There were several sessions about the importance of site content and copy, one of the must-haves in a successful SEO campaign. The speakers at SES highlighted the need to make the content as engaging as possible. Gone are the days when a site owner could simply follow a formula for inserting keywords into copy. Copywriters now need to have the writing skills of a seasoned journalist, and the expertise of an SEO veteran.

Creative copy isn’t just great for search engines, but also for link building. A site will be much more inclined to link to that interesting content on your site rather than a site that lacks personality in its copy. We all know link building can be quite the daunting task, so taking the time to write creative SEO copy can give your site a jump-start on link building.

SEO content’s job doesn’t stop there -
it also can make or break your Social Media Optimization (SMO) campaign. Your SMO campaign needs to be full of personality and portray your brand, and it’s typically the content that does it.
Think of Twitter.com – if you accidentally sound abrasive in a post, you can lose followers and even interest in your brand. The same goes for your Facebook Business Pages; be sure your information is genuine and conveys how unique your brand is.

Search Engine Strategies covered a variety of interesting topics – some a refresher and a welcome update, with other topics providing a fresh perspective or angle to provide our clients with even more SEO success. As Internet Marketing professionals, Brad and I will be adapting to the always evolving digital advertising agency, and conferences like SES help shed light on emerging trends and new avenues to explore for our clients.

Solid Cactus, Inc. has designed or redesigned more than 3,000 e-commerce sites. Solid Cactus is an Inc. 500 company and was named one of the "Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania" in 2006 and 2007.

All posts by ebiz Insider Staff | E-Mail the author

Customer appreciation events such as the recent Continental event go a long way to distinguish Continental from its competition while at the same time providing a direct conduit for communication between customers and management, and providing instant feedback on new ideas and innovations being considered by the airline. Continental consistently reaches out to their customers for input, and most importantly, they truly listen to the customers. Such an event not only provides face to face contact with their customers to get this information, but shows customers that Continental values their opinions as well as their continued business.

—Art Pushkin, Chairman and Co-Founder of Frequent Flyers Organized and Concerned about Unacceptable Service (FFOCUS).

In the January/February issue of eBiz Insider, my column was called “Good Riddance 2008” and in it I discussed the new mantra on how we all have to do business moving forward in this “new economy”. I talked about how as small business owners we’re not going to get any government bailout, how we all need to keep a close eye on our balance sheet and expenses, and how we must keep one step ahead of our competition.

I ended the column by talking about the importance of good customer service, giving customers what they want and kissing your customers’ backside in order to earn the business. It is the absolute truth that the businesses that take care of their customers today will be around to service them tomorrow, so pucker up.

After that column ran, I was shocked to receive so many e-mails from business owners who chastised me for even suggesting that they should make things easier for their customers or make an attempt to bend over backwards to make them happy. I wish I could have taken these people to an event I attended in Houston, TX, so they can see how much one company values their customers and works hard to earn their business in an industry notorious for poor customer service.

The customer appreciation event was put on by Continental Airlines and was attended by well over 500 of their most frequent flyers. About 99% of them were also participants in various aviation forums such as FlyerTalk.com, FFOCUS.org and USAviation.com. As someone who frequents many forums, I can tell you, these are the people you want on your side, and Continental Airlines knows it.

With social media so prevalent in today’s world, good news spreads quickly and bad news spreads at MACH 2. The frequent flyers who participate in these social media outlets asked Continental four years ago to put on an event where they can come together, express their opinions and get feedback from management. Continental obliged and for the past four years they have taken a very active interest in hearing from their customers and developing products and services around them.

This year’s event kicked off with a cocktail reception Friday evening where company executives, including Chairman and CEO Larry Kellner, were on hand to meet and mingle with the attendees. The theme of the event was “Fun & Games” and Friday featured a couple rounds of “Deal or No Deal” where lucky contestants could earn up to one million frequent flyer miles. Throughout the evening, Mr. Kellner and company executives stood for photos, listened to attendees, answered questions and made themselves available for anyone who wanted to chat.

Saturday was a fun-filled day which included tours of the airline’s maintenance facility, baggage handling area, catering facility where 9,000 turkey sandwiches are made a day, and some lucky attendees got to test their skills in a flight simulator. From all accounts, the best tour was the one billed as the “Mystery Tour” which actually turned out to be a flight. About 150 people were welcomed aboard a Continental Boeing 757 complete with champagne and were given a scenic tour over Galveston Bay at only a few thousand feet.

Later in the day, the group broke-up for several break-out sessions which covered a variety of topics. The most anticipated session was the final presentation hosted by Mr. Kellner and Continental Airlines President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Smisek. The two top guys fielded questions from the audience for well over an hour and answered questions ranging from “Do you ever fly in coach?” to questions on the new Boeing 787 and Continental’s frequent flyer program, OnePass. They talked about new products and services the airline will be offering including LiveTV on their Next Generation Boeing 737’s and their new lie-flat seating being installed through BusinessFirst class on international routes. They also acknowledged their weaknesses and mistakes, which is what any customer would want to hear.

The event kicked off with a party at the airline’s newest hangar at the Houston airport where the theme of “Fun & Games” continued, along with plenty to eat and drink, and a new Boeing 737-900 on display to tour and photograph. Again, Mr. Kellner and Mr. Smisek were on hand to mingle with the guests and again lend an ear.

Continental Airlines did not have to put an event like this together, but they did. They know that their most important assets aren’t made of aluminum and carbon fiber; they’re made of flesh and bone. They know that the people who paid to fly to Houston and take part in this event are going to blog, Tweet, e-mail and Facebook about the fun they had. They know they are going to tell others who are going to say, “Wow, it’s amazing that a company would do that for their customers; I’m going to try them out next time I
fly.” Most importantly, they know these are the customers who deserve to have their behinds kissed.

I came back from this event with a renewed sense of what customer service really means. I’m already looking inside our own organization to see how we can put an event like this together to reward our customers for their loyalty and business. The wheels inside my head are turning! After reading this, yours should be too.

Co-Founder, President & COO of Solid Cactus

All posts by Scott Sanfilippo | E-Mail the author