E-Commerce for All

One of the singular most important things you can do for your online store is define a clear easy to follow navigational structure. The benefits are really astounding. Today I will cover a few common mistakes, and some very easy and logical fixes. You will see that the results can come very quickly… So in a couple of days you will be able to tweak any obvious flow issues still existing or that you may have created.

First things first, if you are running a Flash or Java menu while they look cool, the search engine’s spiders cannot effectively follow the links out from them. You don’t necessarily have to get rid of them, just make some hard links with great anchor text somewhere, like in the footer.
The rule of thumb seems to be 3 clicks… Anything more than 3 clicks from your main page is going to have to have serious promotion and flow of it’s own to develop properly. People just don’t statistically click that far out without becoming sidetracked. So its just good practice to stay within 3 clicks when possible. I generally like to use a “landing” or “category” page type scenario from the main page, this helps your shoppers find the location in your store containing the most relevant information for what they are seeking. I would advise against tricking users in to clicking into areas, I really think if they click once and find what they thought they would…Then they are far more likely to click again.

Linking all of your products from your main page is not recommended. Google itself recommends less than 100 total URLs on any single page. Yes… Perhaps they should improve GoogleBot, but until then you want a good crawl. There is much navigational value in the “landing” page or “category” page setup, not to mention these types of pages will likely have higher Ad scores in your PPC (Pay per Click) campaigns as well. These “Category” pages which are likely linked from your main page navigational menu, act like little web stores all of their own. Give them rich textual content, unique Meta and title information and tight relevant content to reflect the category’s product line. You will start to see these pages ranking for their content without your main page and this is exactly what we want. A little on page attention and they will gather some organic backlinks for themselves too. If you really want to boost this process, submit these pages to some deep link directories for their page’s theme using concise yet keyword rich anchor text. Remember to vary the titles and descriptions a little to make your scope broader and more effective. Stay away from the reciprocals… Building links is hard work, why would you do the same work for less than full link value?

Another very serious consideration and issue with e-commerce platforms is the amount of products or listing in any given category. When you have too many products in a category and users are expected to click that next button 14 times you might as well just hang it up because they won’t!

I thought I would write a little color psychology post today. This may be terminology many of you are not familiar with, but it is in fact an increasingly strong marketing tool. I have had a small bit of training here, as it was relevant in my past life. =-) I have been known to make frequent references to colors and prime page real estate… These are in my estimation areas of huge behavior marketing advantage. So today we will investigate some color psychology and some quaint cultural differences to help you design your pages and stores to perform better.

What is color psychology? Very simply, certain colors invoke certain emotional and physical responses with shoppers due to culture and environment. For example, it is very effective to use bright green in your checkout buttons as it naturally says “Go” to the majority of the Western world.

In my former life I was a restaurant manager for many, many years. It’s no accident that food menus and brochures are generally styled in warm shades, while beverage menus cools shades and blues. They simply market better that way by creating the proper physical and emotional responses. Cooler shades make us think of those cool drinks and cooling ourselves off, while warmer shades lend to hot food and warm bellies. We will cover the emotional and physical responses for the normal American culture… This is a generalization of American’s common responses to different colors.

1. Grey - Can signify neutrality, humility, and respect, but be careful if your market includes older adults as this can bring thoughts and feelings of death, depression, and old age. I think personally that grey is best as a secondary or ancillary color and not a main color part in your design.
2. White - Is a clean color invoking feelings of pureness, spiritually and security. White is a very good non-color to use for an American audience. White has a deep association with mourning in some eastern parts of the world..
3. Black - Is your power color, it will send the message of elegance and prowess very loudly. Be very cautious not to overdo the “blackness” and appear to be sporting your arrogance. Black is also best used as a secondary color in your site design.
4. Blue - Blue is a very steadfast and dependable color to use, it brings about emotions like harmony, tranquility and has an overall calming effect on Americans. This is a great main color scheme base for your design. However, I found is that in Iran, blue is the color of mourning.
5. Red - Can actually make a person’s respirations and blood pressure rise according to some studies. It floods us with very strong emotions related to love, sex, passion and ambition. Depending on your store’s theme this can be a powerful effect.
6. Pink - Has by far the best overall calming response and is thought to be the truest color of love, relationships and femininity.