1. Shipping and Billing Address – It seems so simple, yet many sites still require you to type in both your shipping and billing address. How difficult is it to add one of those little checkboxes that says “my billing address is my shipping address”? It saves time and frustration.
2. Saving Account Information – How many times have you filled out what seems like pages of online forms only to have missed the one little drop down that says “how did you hear about us?” only to have that annoying red line of text say “ooops, you missed something”? What’s even worse is how 90% of the time your information isn’t saved.  Yes, even I make mistakes but please don’t compound my embarrassment by making me enter my info twice.
   

   Say what???

3. Captcha – Ugh, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to filling out forms online or submitting personal information. I get why we have to do it but is it possible to make it just slightly easier to understand? Is that a “b” or an “l” and an “o”? Is that a “6″ or is it a “b”? And whats with all of the grid lines? As if deciphering this text wasn’t hard enough, you had to go and make it like one of those 3D posters popular in the mid nineties. Figure out a better system that protects my info but also doesn’t frustrate me to no end.

One of that many hats I wear is that of a social media strategist. I am not going to call myself a social media expert because I think it takes more than 2 years to become an expert at something. I do, however, commonly hear discussions around what it takes for a business to succeed in the social media space. Is it “listening”? Is it “joining the conversation”? These annoying marketing buzzwords do come in to play when developing a strategy, but there are some very basic things that you have to understand while playing in the social space. I’ve listed below, in no particular order, five nuggets to consider.

1. Don’t make awkward conversation – If you don’t feel confident saying it, if it feels a bit awkward or forced, don’t say it. Just like having a real conversation with someone, nobody wants to be stuck hearing you stumble and fumble through something that isn’t all that exciting (like my neighbor Brian). It sucks for the person talking and it sucks for the person listening. Save that awkward conversation for the urinals.

2. Don’t be a robot – Don’t speak to your audience like a robot. Your interactions with your fans or followers should be natural, fun, and often spontaneous. Social media isn’t meant to be planned. Loose structure is fine, but don’t become too predictable or people will lose interest. Think about what keeps you engaged in conversation with someone and apply that to your social media strategy.

3. Don’t wast time – Who really has time to do anything these days, let alone listen to what us marketers have to say? So if you are going to attempt to engage with your audience, make sure what you are saying is valuable. If you are writing or posting just for the sake of doing it, you’ve missed the point. Worse yet, you’ve wasted your own time and your audience’s time.

4. Be funny! – People are more likely to share things online if they are funny. I mean really, who doesn’t like to laugh? When you are deciding what to say online to your fans or followers, make sure it’s fun or humorous. Don’t always joke but let the people you engage with feel as though they are connecting with a real person. I guarantee if you make a commitment to being funny, you’ll get a deeper commitment from your audience.

5. Let them talk – Let’s be honest here, people only want to talk about themselves. While it seems easy, opening up the lines of communication and actually “listening” can be harder than it seems. It’s imperative to to allow your audience to praise you, criticize you, share their concerns, and more importantly, share their experiences with your company or brand with their social circle. I mean, that’s really what social media is all about – talking, listening, sharing, caring.  Ask questions, respond to comments, and make it the whole experience for the user as easy as possible. If it’s too difficult to engage and interact, people simply won’t do it.

SITE: http://rayfreyautocenter.com/

Look up here, okay, say "cheese"

Upon landing on the site, you are greeted with an image that really doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the auto center.  An aerial shot of Ray Frey’s Auto Center with a handful of employees posing awkwardly isn’t necessarily the first thing I’d like to see when browsing for a new mechanic. When someone lands on your site, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds to understand what the site is about.  When I land on Ray’s site, I am not sure if they are a classic car repair shop because of the logo featuring cars from the 1920s or a lube shop.  To clear up any confusion that may arise when first entering the site, I suggest replacing that main graphic with one featuring a collage of the cars they repair (or even move those logos at the bottom to the top) with some of the core services offered (also tucked away at the bottom, unfortunately out of sight).  Maybe even make that “free car wash with every service” special a little more…well, special.  It is a nice bonus for those deal seeking shoppers like myself.

Beyond not being able to easily browse the services offered and prices charged, I notice there is only one review under the review page. Not to make an overly generalized statement but people are influenced by others. Look at Yelp for example. How often do you go to once restaurant over another based on recommendations from people you don’t even know? My guess is every time. Reviews are powerful. If you only have one positive review on your site, it either shows nobody likes your shop or you aren’t popular enough to warrant a review, neither of which is good for your reputation. Spend some time gathering reviews from your current customers and post them on your site. You’d be surprised how much this impacts a consumer’s decision.

My biggest issue with the site isn’t necessarily the user experience or the quality of the content; it’s the site’s absence in any search results for highly relevant keywords.  Why does Ray Frey not show up for searches like “san diego auto repair” or “san diego auto service”? There are a number of contributing factors but below are three main reasons why the site isn’t ranking and a quick ways to help fix the issue.

1. Title Tags – The title tag currently reads “Family owned and operated, Ray Frey Auto Center services the surrounding area.  Kearny Mesa, Clairemont Mesa, MCAS Miramar, Miramar, Pacific Beach, Mission Valley, Mission Beach, University City”. Phew!!! That was a long one. The title tag is the most important on page element when it comes to a search engine optimized page and this one just plain sucks. It is long and doesn’t describe what the page is about.  Pick 3 keywords that are: (1) extremely relevant to your business but are somewhat specific, and (2) have a decent amount of search volume. Check out Google’s new keyword tool for some help picking keywords. If I were to write the title tag for this, I might choose something like “Best San Diego Auto Repair and Mechanics | Ray Frey Auto Center”. Write new title tags for every page on your site, each with 2-3 keywords that best represent that page.
2. Keyword Usage in Body Copy - Many home pages have zero or little text for the search engines to read and decide what the page is actually about. Ray’s site actually has a nice body of copy but has no real keyword density. In order for the search engines to help decide what the page is about, it’s important to take the keywords used in the title tag and repeat them in the body of the page. There are no hard and fast rules but a good practice would be to use each keyword 2-3 times for shorter pages and 4-6 for longer ones. Get those keywords in that first paragraph and Google will start to see your site as an authority for whatever keywords you select.
3. Linking - This site lacks quality internal and external linking, but since internal linking is much easier to fix, we’ll focus on that.  Boiled down, the more links that point to a specific page, the more important it is to the search engines. One would argue Ray’s auto repair services would be the most important content on the site and therefor should be the page with the most inbound links. The best place to put a link to these interior pages is in the top navigation. Links in footers and within the content are good too but navigation links hold the most weight. Currently there are no links to the “Services” page. Actually, there isn’t even a page listing all the services with descriptions. If someone is looking for brake repair, it would be in the site’s best interest to have a page dedicated to brake repair, or at the very least a page with some of the core services. Once this page is established, links from other pages should direct to this page. If you have a huge site with lots of pages, you’ll want to link pages with similar content to create a tightly themed linking strategy. The home page has the most authority and it can pass that authority to other pages via links (sometimes called “links juice”).  For Ray, he needs to link to the most important pages on his site from your home page using keyword rich anchor text.  This will help both the readers and the search engines in understanding the important pages on the site.

SEO is not something you implement and instantly see results. SEO takes careful planning, execution, and time. The three tactics listed above are just a few of many ways to optimize your site for search engines. If done properly, you can expect an increase in site traffic and hopefully customers. On the other hand, bad SEO can drastically impact your website in a negative way so it is important to consult with an expert before attempting to do the work yourself. Wow, I sound like a mechanic don’t I?

KEYWORD: “Beer brewing kits”, Page 1 in Google’s Results Page (#3 )

WEBSITE:  http://morebeer.com

For this review I decided to enlist the help of tool that I’ve been toying around with for a few months. It is certainly not the greatest heatmapping  or eye tracking software out there but it does help demonstrate where people would be looking on your site within the first few seconds. The tool is called Attention Wizard and was created by the folks at SiteTuners here in San Diego. What I found after uploading a screenshot of the home page was not at all shocking.

More Beer Please!

I'm Looking Where?

Above are two images, the first being the home page of www.morebeer.com and the second being the “heatmapped” version. What you’ll notice from the mapped version is how a significant portion of the eyeballs are settling on the “Free MoreSaver Shipping” section of the page. Free shipping is fine and dandy and a lot of people are interested in saving money, but is it the first thing you want people to see when you land on your page? I suppose the image of the boxes is more compelling than the hop pellets which resemble the aforementioned dog’s poop, but there has to be something more appropriate to display on the home page. Maybe some of the best sellers right smack on top of the page. I do like the Deal of the Day concept but its just not presented well. Remember, when users are browsing for particular products or are in an active buying mode, it doesn’t take much for them to leave your page if they don’t find what they want within the first few seconds. Now, that is not to say there isn’t a portion of the population that takes the time to conduct research thoroughly, but we’re playing the numbers game here. There are a lot more lazy people in the world and we must present the most relevant information in an easily to understand manner so an action can be made.

Following the gaze path, we see a jump to the upper left hand corner of the page towards the logo. At this time visitors are probably asking themselves, “where the hell am I again and what did I click on?” When you first land on this page, it is not easily distinguishable what the site is about. I mean sure I’d love to get to know Darren Schleth, the squirrly looking dude in the middle of the page, just as much as the next guy, but perhaps some nice clean images of actual brewed beer would wet our appetites a bit more. Notice how the Products navigation is completely passed over. The lack of any real organization or structure would makes me glance right over this as well. The site would be better served by grouping similar products instead of a mass list. The New and Featured Products section gets a little attention which is nice to see though I’d rather see this section swapped with the one above it which clearly gets viewed more but lacks anything of real importance. Oh and speaking of importance, keeping the number of font styles on a page to less than 4. Any more than this and things just looked to disconnected, confusing and amateurish.

My final critique about MoreBeer.com is on the actual presentation of the products. Take the Mr. Beer website (currently ranked #2 for the same search term) for example; all of the products have been shot professionally and actually give you confidence you are buying a quality product. Their stuff could be crap for all I know but they’ve spent the time and money to make them look good. I realize it can be expensive to take professional photos but I guarantee it would be worth the investment.

Despite several design shortcomings, the site is optimized pretty well for search engines and does feature a lot of beer making supplies for the most avid brewers. With some of the changes and suggestions I mentioned above, it might just become my go to place for all my beer making needs. Cheers to that!

WEBSITE: http://www.springofknowledge.com/

Holy text Batman! Within 5 seconds of viewing this page I had to look away because my eyes hurt. Actually, I had something in my eye at the time but still, I would have looked away anyway. It was hard for me to make it through the first paragraph without being distracted by the extremely unpleasant look of the yellow highlighted copy, “visual learning method”. Is that the most relevant text to highlight and is it truly the thing you want your readers to draw their attention to? Probably not. From there I just jumped around in no real order, chuckling along the way, as I thought of many ways to be overly cynical in my analysis. (The image of the 3 dudes in blue jeans, each with a lower cut shirt than the next, was too easy to make fun of so I won’t go there). But you know what? I’m a changed man – well at least for today. Instead of just overly criticizing everything, I’ll try to be as constructive as possible and offer just a few easy solutions to turn this site around.

These Guys Wail!

The main problem with the site is it’s near impossible to scan the text and digest why this software (it’s software right?) is so great. I have no desire learn about the software, let alone purchase it, because there is simply too much information. The intro paragraph is decent actually, but center aligned text is a design no-no (and I’m no designer). It is too difficult to read. On top of that, I had to take a deep breath to get through that entire first sentence (try it, you’ll see…can’t be done!). That first paragraph or top portion of the page needs to sell the product. Right now, it just looks like a Word document. Without having to do a major overhaul, you can drastically improve the top part of the home page by just picking 3 to 4 key features of the product and list them as bullets under a revised and shortened intro. This would immediately reduce the amount of time visitors have to take to understand what they are looking at and provide some sense of flow for the rest of the website.

The copy on the right side of the page that covers the entire length of the page is overkill. There may be some great information in there but it’s too much to spell out on a home page that is already chock full with text. A good idea would be to move this content to another area of the site, perhaps under a navigation labeled “Music University”. This would allow more room on the home page to feature the product and even include a call to action so people can actually purchase the software.

Come on Spring of Knowledge, make better use of the navigation (what the hell does Spring of Knowledge mean anyway?). People instinctively look to navigation to, well, navigate. There is no sense in cramming tons of information onto the home page if your content is laid out in an understandable and intuitive manner. Perhaps try adding a few navigation items like “Software Features” or “FAQ” so people can easily locate information or find answers to any questions.

I made mention of a call to action earlier but wanted to stress how important it is for users to not have to think about what to do next. Without a nice, strategically placed button that is easily found and shows visitors how to make a purchase, you’re reducing your chances of actually getting someone to open up their wallet, purse, or murse.  You can lead a horse to water (your product)  but you can’t make it drink (purchase), so you should do everything possible to make it easy for a consumer, or horse, to convert. Clicking on the “order” link in the navigation brings me here:

Uh oh!

This is preventing your horse to drink. Now, not everyone would be frightened by this warning sign, but I’m sure a great deal would be and would most likely leave your site. Potential customers – GONE! Update that security certificate and let your horsey drink!

This could seriously benefit from a major overhaul on the design and SEO front but unfortunately not all people have the money or resources to take on such a task.  If you can only handle a few things, start with cutting your home page copy in half and at the very least, move some of it to another page on the site and link to it. Add a button for software purchasing, get rid of the highlighted text and you are on your way….FREEBIRD!

Not Surfable!

Before I start let me say that I am a bit biased because I believe websites should balance the functional and the fancy, not just be billboards for your brand. I hate splash pages that serve no purpose but to have you click to enter the site.  Hurley’s site makes you do that very thing. You have to click or touch the image to enter the website. Absent is any intuitiveness. You are greeted with Hurley’s big “H Jeans” logo and a surfer…..uh, jeans and surfing? That doesn’t make much sense. Anyway, what am I supposed to do now? Where do I go? What do I click? Does something happen here? The mobile version (at least on my iPhone) doesn’t offer any indication of what to do. The full site is just as confusing. My suggestion would be to make it clear and easy for people to perform an action, something I preach over and over again. If you must separate your site into “store” and “site”, then make it distinguisable – keep the text visible that reads “store” and ‘site”. Don’t make people think too much…we are lazy and want our surfing (pun intended) to be simple.

After making to the ”site” section, the first thing I see are a bunch of videos that don’t play.  This is a major problem regardless if its just an iPhone issue.  The focal point of your site is to demonstrate, through video and flash, how your clothing fits into this action sport lifestyle and mobile visitors can’t even view them. A simple fix would be to convert all videos to a format that is compatible on iPhones, Droids and all other popular smartphones. You might not think many people are accessing your mobile site to learn about your brand but read this – according to a Pew Research Study, 40% of adults use the mobile phones to access web. This number is up from 32% last year and is probably much higher for the younger, more “Hurley” ish crowd. You might not think it is a big deal now but you watch – in 3 years time the mobile web usage will be bigger than desktop usage.

Despite the awkward entrance, the site isn’t a horrible user experience on a smartphone. It isn’t all in flash so I am able to navigate relatively easily but it could be much easier. A company like Hurley (owned by Nike), should invest in developing a mobile experience. Many brands do it well – Zappos and Amazon to name a couple. A simple sniffer script placed on the home page can dictate what type of browser or device the visitor is using and can serve the appropriate version of the site – “mobile”  for mobile users and “full” for desktop users.  Perhaps just start with making the videos compatible on the “site” version and then move on to a simple shopping experience on the “store” version.  Whatever route you choose, step back and ask yourself, what is the most important information we want to share with our users and what do they want to get out of this experience? It might not be as complicated as you think.

WEBSITE: APCO Employees Credit Union (www.apcocu.org)

Show me those rates on the abacus please

Am I in a time warp? Did I really just see  what I think I saw? I know credit unions don’t have the reputation of being  financial institutions with tons of glitz and glamor but come on, this just looks ridiculous. Where do I even begin? Okay, I know where.

First off, where do I log in? They claim “PC Banking is now available” (who calls it “PC banking” anyway? What about “online banking”) but there is no indication of any entrance to their web banking portal.  Oh wait, there it is, directly under the image that says “Map” in yellow letters. How intuitive! Totally confused here – not a good sign. If you want people to actually use your online banking, make it easy for them to access. I can’t stress enough how websites need to be simple to navigate. If I am confused, there is a good chance there are many more just like me.

Second, I do like the fact that the navigation is very easy to see  but the accompanying images couldn’t possibly be any cheesier and low budget. Is that an abacus they are using for the rates navigation image? Oh that is definitely how I want to portray my bank – the modern look of an abacus. Seriously, this is not the type of impression you want to make on new or existing customers. First impressions of websites say a lot and what you’ve got does not help your cause. Please update those graphics and you’ll immediately update the look of your 1994 website.

Finally, what are all of these banners in the middle of your page? You already want people to leave your site? I just got here and I’m having such a good time I don’t want to go! Having all of these links to various sites tells me as a visitor that nothing on this page is worth sticking around for. There is absolutely zero valuable content on the home page and any valuable content you do have is buried in the links. What about brining some of the helpful information right to the home page, like perhaps some “About Us” information or even a listing of the products and services, maybe even some financial calculators. Whatever it is, it has to be something that you feel your visitors would find the most helpful.  So rather than making a user choose between some navigation links or banners that link to another destination, keep them on the site and show them what APCO CU is all about.

He beat out who?

Keyword: “best golf balls” -Page 1 in GOOGLE SERPs

www.golfballsreview.com/best-golf-balls.php

Ugh, trying to make money from Google Adsense right off the bat huh? The huge ad 5 lines under the main paragraph on the home page is a sure fire way to upset any readers. Okay, I understand you want to monetize your site, but at what cost? Loss of readership? Frustrated visitors? I am fine with having paid ads on your site but keep them away from your key content – its distracting and annoying. If you make it a better experience for the user, people will return to your site or even better, link to it, which as we know will improve its authority and likely generate more traffic. Keep those ads to a minimum.

Now if you look beyond the fact that there are more advertisements than content, the site is actually laid out in a very simple and efficient manner. Overly simplistic and boring, yes but nonetheless navigable. The navigation elements are straightforward and easy to identify though I’m not a fan of the dark text on a dark background – lighten it up a bit and people will find it much easier to locate and click.

Now I can’t knock this site too much because it showed up #1 in Google when I searched “best golf balls”. That is right, #1. Ahead of Titleist the “Number one Ball in Golf“, Callaway, TaylorMade, Nike and dozens of others. In fact, the first ball manufacturer that shows up on Google for this keyword is Top Flite. Excuse me? Top Flite? That rock of a golf ball is showing up before Titleist, TaylorMade, Nike and Callaway? Time to step up your game a bit big players. I don’t care how big of a brand you are, there are 12,100 monthly searches (according to Google) for “best golf balls” and all of you are losing out to Mike Pederson, golf fitness instructor. Ahh, the power of SEO! Good work Mike!

This guy looks good

Hello Minneapolis!! Despite the name, Bryant Lake Bowling’s website completely exceeded my initial expectations. I was expecting some horrific graphics, uber-cheesy copy and blinking buttons. Instead I saw some interesting color choices, a cleandesign and a relatively easy to follow format. First impression – 5/10 (thats actually not bad considering the majority of sites are around a 2.

What nearly instantly changed my initial enjoyment was my inability to get back to the home page. I had to hunt for a button or link and only after a few seconds of searching did I see what appeared to be their official logo. Now since I am not a native to Bryant Lake, I didn’t pick up on this so please forgive me. But if you want the other 99.9% of the population to navigate your site with ease, at least make it somewhat apparent how to return to the home page. And while I’m complaining about navigation, whats up with your balls? Bowling balls I mean. It would be ten times easier to read and understand your navigation elements if they were just text without the bowling ball graphic. Keep your logo, lose the balls and pick either the top or the side, not both. Change the orientation of the text on your home page and you might get some more satisfied visitors AND prevent neck strain…way to go!

The menu pages is decent and even the party page has a a sweet 360 degree view of the joint. I’d reorganize the content on the right side of the page because its completely unnoticeable. People love happy hours, I love happy hours so give it more attention and you’ll be surprised how many more Byrant Lakers (?) stumble in. And as glad as I am that you’ve included pictures of the place, the first one paints an extremely boring picture of the bar. Could those gentlemen be having any less fun? Is that guy sleeping?? You get my point. ‘A’ for effort, ‘C ‘ for execution.

Thats it! All in all, Bryant Lake Bowl more than impressed me. I don’t have much of a point of comparison because I have NEVER been to another bowling site before but I could only hope they’d be as good as this. Next time you are in Minneapolis, be sure to stop by, roll a few games and have a beer. Hmm…where are my bowling shoes?

My background is all over the place – from bread baker to golf pro (in my past life) to account manager and ” optimizer” (not self proclaimed) – so I can’t say I’m a specialist in one specific thing. I enjoy thinking logically when it comes to websites. I prefer to dumb things down as much as possible and take the approach of  “what am i supposed to do now?” You’ll discover in my ramblings that much of marketing, especially in the interactive space, can be complicated to a fault. My strategy is to make it easy for people. This will be the backbone for the majority of my writings and analyses.

Each post I’ll pick a new website – big or small, tons of traffic or no traffic, power brands or mom and pop’s – and I’ll give my opinions – honest and unbiased. I am not saying I won’t come across as obnoxious but if I didn’t write anything remotely controversial, who would read it?

How will I choose a website to evaluate? Good question. I don’t plan on having a plan. I’m going with the no-plan plan. Whatever thought pops into my head, I will Google it (or Bing it) and select a random results page.

First Up:

Keyword: “buy stuff”, Page 9 in GOOGLE SERPs

http://www.bryantlakebowl.com (/merchandise is the actual result)

Check back in a few days for my complete website analysis