Monthly Archives: February 2013

Lessons from the newly fallen snow

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As I sit looking out my window on a snowy Sunday afternoon, I thought how pretty the landscape looked.  It has been roughly 9 days since the blizzard of 2013 hit. When the blizzard first dumped a few feet of snow, it truly was a magnificent sight. It was beautiful, Mother Nature at her finest.

Fast forward a few days, the look was downright gross. The snow had turned a grimy dirty color, and the scene no longer held any signs of the beauty.  Then, along came this mini snowfall today and again the scenery was cheery and great to look at.

So what the heck does this have to do with web design or development you ask?

Good question.  Many times clients come to me with a site that is dated looking.   But, the funny thing is, sometimes they are doing quite well in Google searches. So what should they do?

Think snow I say!! Remember how that new layer made the scene look wonderful again? The same can happen with your website.

You never want to mess with great search results. But this is a perfect opportunity to put a fresh coat of paint so to speak.  Redesign the site but keep the content the same. You will still have great search results, but hopefully your conversion rate will improve as it no longer looks outdated.

Note: If you have a WordPress site, this is a great time to update your theme, with either a custom designed theme or purchasing a new one. As most of the new themes being produced are responsively designed, that alone makes it worth upgrading.

 

E-commerce, the Kiss Principle and Bruce Lee

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When dealing with eCommerce, one thing is crystal clear, use the KISS principle: Keep it simple stupid.

First off make it easy to find products. Seems so elementary but I can’t tell you how many times people go to an eCommerce site and can’t find what they need.

Second, if you have add ons, make it simple to add them, either have a dropdown menu or checkboxes on the same screen as the product. I was recently on a client’s website and after you add a product to your cart, you get a popup window (really). Then you can select one of the items. BUT you then have to again hit add to cart. At that point you get another popup and have to again pick an add on and again get a popup. The result is very few add ons.

Third, and the most important thing is the checkout process. People want easy and quick.

As Bruce Lee once said: “In building a statue, a sculptor doesn’t keep adding clay to his subject. Actually, he keeps chiseling away at the inessentials until the truth of its creation is revealed without obstructions. It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.”

So when working on your checkout make the process as easy as possible, either a simple step AJAX checkout or a one page checkout.

If you follow these 3 simple rules, you will have success, provided of course you are selling a product people want. You won’t have abandoned carts, and you will maximize your profits with increased add ons.

The beauty of eCommerce today is that there are many options to choice from. Because there are several which are open source, the cost is low and many times free. If you need help, contact me and I can walk you through some options.