It’s Never Too Late to Spring Clean Your Online Content
In the northern hemisphere, spring is already giving way to summer. However, that doesn't mean it's too late to do a little spring cleaning of your online content. Econsultancy has created a comprehensive guide to decluttering your online representation. Why should you audit your online content? Much like cleaning out your kitchen cupboards when locating the cinnamon becomes a herculean task, inventorying and reducing your available pages ensures...read more >>
Too Many Cooks: The Perils of Content by Committee
Over at Econsultancy today, Catherine Toole addresses one of the more lamented perils of creating effective, expertly written content: too-large groups of too-involved stakeholders. It's hard for stakeholders to step back from something as crucial as content, especially if they're acknowledged experts in the subject. However, if you're a content creator, you're an acknowledged expert in combining voice, tone, and accuracy--and possibly SEO, CTAs,...read more >>
F-Commerce Tries Different Bait for Elusive Customers
E-commerce on Facebook, usually IDed by the slightly tawdry term F-commerce, is a tricky beast. Gamestop, Nordstrom, and J.C. Penney, among other major brands, have all opened and closed Facebook storefronts over the last year after being disappointed by the number of Facebook-based conversions. Most failed Facebook proprietors make the mistake of trying to artlessly wedge their existing e-commerce approach into their pages without acknowledging...read more >>
Direct Sales Are Up, but Social Commerce Isn’t
Social commerce. The term tallies as many hits as "Super Tuesday" on Google--which is not surprising, since both are rife with the potential to change the public landscape as we know it over the next few years. As eMarketer reported today, consumer goods companies are moving away from the traditional selling model of going through a retailer and are selling directly to consumers via multiple channels, including social media. Whatever the causal relationship...read more >>
Site Design as a Cloaking Device for Calls to Action
The effect of slow load times on customer experience and conversion rates are of perpetual concern to anyone involved in e-commerce. Whether it's the consequences of slower load rates on mobile commerce or the 7 percent drop in conversion rates that comes with each extra second of load time, a simple matter of impatience quickly grows to an industry-wide problem in need of constant attention. Even Wal-Mart isn't immune. However, simpler matters can...read more >>
Pinterest is Proving the Power of Social Commerce
Pinterest is a fashionable topic these days--predictions about the new social site are gaining ground amid pronouncements about Facebook's Timeline feature/Newsfeed/IPO/negative effect on high school students' performance and gossip about the iPad 3. Though the site has no hint of commerce in its design, it has quickly become a hot spot for retailers, currently driving over twice as much referral traffic as Google+, YouTube, and Linkedin combined. The...read more >>
A Sea Change in Consumer Feedback
Even the most informative product page can't completely sideline the much-feared customer review. When waffling on decisions to buy, that extra slew of information from other shoppers--people like you and me--is an enticing resource to turn to for help. Whether or not I love everything about my personal collection of Cuisinart products, for example, I still like to take a look at the reviews from my fellow opinionated, argumentative shoppers to see...read more >>
The Smartphone: How Can We Use it Best?
While we U.S.-based folk may not be concerned about calling plans and smartphone addicts across the pond, we can certainly learn a lot from UK statistics. Econsultancy, thankfully, shared them with us. Today, they reported that 70 percent of surveyed companies had not optimized their websites for the mobile phone. While it seems like a strikingly high number at first glance, a second pass with the glasses on reveals that this figure includes companies...read more >>
The Style and Purpose of Written Content
What is the secret to great written content? Seth Godin gives us this advice: write naked (translate this as "be concise"). In a sentence, this means cutting out cliches, extra words, long words, passive words, and scientific or jargon-y words. It can be scary to go naked, but Seth suggests that fear is one of the primary causes of terrible writing. He directs this primarily at business writers, but these concepts apply to all writing. Don't be afraid...read more >>