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.
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