Chrystie

One of the first things we look at when conducting a free website analysis is what’s ‘under the hood’ , a website’s code. While we also look at on-page SEO, off page SEO and internet profile, the code of a website is usually our first stop. The website’s code is its foundation. If the foundation is fundamentally flawed then measures need to be taken before true search optimization can take place. Some of the biggest offenders we look for are javascript navigation, sites built entirely out of flash or a site set in frames, which can all severly limit searchability.

Want to know if you website code is up to par? Take a look at this great article “10 Coding Guidelines for Perfect Findability” over at SEO 2.0 for a quick checklist of things to look for when analyzing your website code.

While most of you were out enjoying the sun and cooking up some BBQ over the Memorial Day weekend, 3 million of us geek-y types were busy LOLing (laughing out loud) over Weezer’s new video, “Pork & Beans“. (Weezer is the band that sang the Buddy Holly song..forever ago. Now you are up to date)

So you are probably asking yourself, why would over 3 million people tune into a YouTube video instead of enjoying the first days of summer heat? Weezer, who have long been toted as a geek rock band, did the geekiest thing possible and created a new video featuring a montage of the biggest hits of YouTube of the year. Miss South Carolina, Chocolate Rain, and The Dramatic Gopher , plus many more, made their musical video debut.

The brilliance behind the silliness is that Weezer, knows its demographic: Geeky-types. Using YouTube they cleverly put themselves directly in front of their audience. And within a short period were able to amass over 3 million hits. To put things into perspective, let’s take a look at the ‘old days‘, when bands would debut their latest videos on MTV and hope that their audience would tune in to see them. Unfortunately, with television, there is no ’sharing element’ beyond, “Hey did you see that new Weezer video on MTV?”. Now, using video sharing sites, music videos are able to be viewed and shared with friends and embedded across websites in a matter of hours.

Just how nerdy are you? Watch the video and count the number of YouTube Hits you have seen.

My count was: 11 out of 22. So I”m 50% nerdy..that’s about right..

Internet Retailer.com recently revealed a list of the Top 10 online retailers with the highest conversion rates in March. The research was conducted amongst online retailers with at least 500,000 unique visitors. Office Depot, QVC, VistaPrint, Roamans & Lands End made the Top 5 with conversion rates over 15%.

Disclaimer: The user conversion on one of these sites is so compelling, it prompted me to purchase an item, as I was typing up this post. Read on to find out which retailer’s user conversion struck my fancy.

The full list includes:

Office Depot - 20.9% QVC - 19% VistaPrint - 18.3% Roamans - 18.1% Lands’ End - 16.2% eBay - 15.7% 1-800-Flowers.com - 15.5% eBags.com - 15.3% L.L. Bean - 14.6% Pottery Barn Kids - 14.2%

A quick visit to these sites reveals several common user conversion strategies:

Time sensitive Specials: (Examples: 10% Until 5/28 on Office Depot, 4 Hours Only Sale on QVC.Com)

Offering time sensitive specials to your visitors encourage them to buy..and buy quickly. If they feel they are getting a good deal for buying now, that may be all the incentive they need to click “Purchase”.

Give something away for free: (Example: Free Business Cards @ Vista Print.com)

Believe it or not, you CAN get 250 free business cards with Vista Print. While many shady online retailers use the “Free” catch phrase in a bait and switch move, Vista Print actually delivers on their promise, which builds trust in the company. Consumers who receive the free business cards are more likely to return to buy future office goods, because they already know what they are getting with VistaPrint.

Clear Navigation: (Example: 1800flowers.com and PotteryBarnkids.com)

1800flowers delivers a user-friendly text based navigation. Whether you are shopping by occasion or specific flower, it is all ready navigable from the home page, no need to navigate through dozens of categories. Pottery Barn Kids also does this well, their homepage is segmented by the types of rooms to be decorated: girl rooms, boy rooms, baby rooms and play rooms.

Engage the audience (Example: LLBean.com)

LL Bean features a compelling video of family and friends enjoying the outdoors in LL Bean gear. The video is soo cute, I just purchased the french sailor’s quarter zip pullover for my son, yes I really did!

User conversion theory is not an exact science, it is more of a consumer experiment. As a website owner, it is essential to continually try new methods of conversion, measure your return on those strategies and tweak as needed.

Morgan Stanley has just revealed last month’s Internet Trends Report which has some very intriguing statistics regarding Social Networking sites.

Here are some of the highlights from the 72 page document:

• 6 out of the TOP 10 Most visited sites on the Internet ARE Social Networking sites. YouTube, Facebook, Hi5, Live.com, MySpace and Wikipedia all made the list.
• 5 out of the 6 didn’t even make the list in 2005. Within 3 years our internet experience has been drastically changed by the introduction of social media, networking and sharing sites.
• in 2008 YouTube has surpassed Google and Yahoo in number of Page Views
• Facebook has grown by 305% - largely in part to it’s ’stickiness’, open application platform, and recent open invitation strategy.
• Top 5 Facebook Applications are: Superwall, Top Friends, FunWall, SuperPoke and Movies.
• Top 5 Searches according to Google Zeitegist: iPhone, Badoo, Facebook, Daily Motion & Webkinz.
• Amazon.com is still the Largest Online Retailer
• Internet Advertising spend is up 26% making it the biggest advertising mover.
• 80% of Internet Users deem the internet as an important source of information, where as radio and newspaper only received 63% importance.

View the full Morgan Stanley Internet Trend Report:

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