Solid Cactus - your partner in e-commerce success.

Kurt, Marc & Lou, ready to rock and roll.

by Donna Talarico, Interactive Marketing Specialist

Day two of Solid Cactus Boot Camp kicked off with the ever-popular site deconstruction session. This morning, four Solid Cactus staff members dissected three sites. (Thanks to our clients you volunteered and for being so open to suggestion. We also had more clients volunteer than we had time for, so thanks to all!) Moderated by John Tomkoski, manager of sales engineering, the panel also included designer Marc Manfre, our marketing analyst Kurt Illian and senior director of sales, Lou Pagnotti. Each panelist is well-seasoned in all areas of e-commerce, but today they each specialized in their own areas. John looked at things overall. Marc considered the design elements and usability. Kurt looked at on-site SEO strategies. Lou commented on general usability and conversions. Some key points discussed today were:

Kurt points out some SEO tips

–If you are going to have a special of the day, make sure it changes daily. Otherwise, don’t put so much emphasis on it. Perhaps, while still keeping that special area, have that homepage area features other things too, such as with a rotating graphic or sequence banner.

–Get users to items with less clicks. This could mean restructuring your navigation to include more subcategories, or utilizing cascading or expanding navigation, or even something like the new Mega Drop Down that Solid Cactus offers.
If you have products, such as a book or something that would be searched by a part number, that your customers are going to buy anyway and do not need info, you may want to consider putting an add-to-cart  button on the section page, too.

–Branding is important, and can be fun. One of the sites we looked at this morning had an illustrated design which was carried from the header throughout much of the site. This particular site did this very well, but as an idea to other store owners, it was suggested to take elements from the logo or header and use them in add-to-cart- buttons, headers, and more.

–Over the years, best practices in design can change. eCommerce sites today are made a little wider (not full screen, though). This can add more room to add in right navigation or just have more space to work with for featured items.
We say this all the time. Phone number in the header! Also, live chat in header can be effective, especially upon check-out. Some store, it was noted by John, utilize live chat only on the check-out.

John moderates this highly informative session.

–One site we looked at, John joked that he ran out of room on the podium to scroll down. While it got a chuckle from the crowd, it does become an issue when there are hundreds and hundreds of item on one page. Consider dynamic paging if you have this issue, even if it is only on one category. That was the case with this store; most categories were fine and it was just one that was this extensive.

–Consider a segmented navigation. This is not so much functionality, but design. Include some separation in the left navigation bar to distinguish some major categories. One of the sites we dissected did something like this with a “Shop by Brand,” “Shop by Animal,” etc.

–If you have a product reviews feature but do not have a lot of items that have reviews, you may want to consider doing a contest or something to generate reviews through your e-mail marketing.

–About Us page- put a picture of yourself! If you specialize in something, show that in your picture.

–Beef up product descriptions

–Use more targeted keywords with your category and/or item names. This will help with SEO, but also help with browsing.

There’s a lot more, and this will be covered in the next issue of the eBiz Insider!

Directly after the Site Deconstruction session, Greg Paone and I presented on the new features we’re releasing for Yahoo! Store. What are they? You will find out soon! That’s one of the best parts about coming to Boot Camp: Attendees are that first to hear about the latest innovations from the Solid Cactus Development Laboratory.