DarkAngel:
Thank you so very much for restoring my peace of mind. I have been trying to et that through the mindset of one of the owners...Google will never be happy and yet it drives me crazy that the owner will not listen to me.
But almost done upgrading the store and once that is accomplished I do not care about google...LOL
The thing to do with clients you are building a site for, is to come at it from ONE perspective - and ONE perspective only...
I always start with the question:
"What do you want this website to DO for you?"
If they don't answer (in one way or other) "We want the site to sell and to make a profit"... then I either nudge them towards that answer, or I suggest they go look for help elsewhere. I do not build sites for Google, nor do I try to show off with fancy home-page image carousels, or worry about the shade of blue in the background image, or how cute an embedded youtube video may look, or any of that nonsense. I will build a site that sells, and if my client is a good business person and knows the principles of financial management, then the site should contribute to profits.
If you are in business, then a website has ONE FUNCTION - to contribute to the PROFITS of the business.
The process starts by looking at the business objectives of the client, their market, their competition, their products and their intended audience and customer base. Long before we look at the "website", we look at how the business is to operate (or is operating) and we plot the journey of what it takes to attract an interested visitor to what it takes to turn them into a paying customer.
Today, we look at what we call the WIDER WEB PRESENCE - because the eComm site is just a facet of a much broader presence on the internet. The days of the "website" being the be-all and end-all of one's internet offerings are over. Today, one needs to leverage a whole host of faculties on the web, and to manipulate these to follow the customer flow.
My ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME articles outline this approach.
A few years ago, we also got bogged down in semantics. Our clients had usually done a bit of research and were often "tainted" by stuff like "SEO" and "Search Engine Friendliness" and all the rubbish that's ever been written about that. We have to wean them off all this junk, and bring them back to the simple reality that selling on the internet is pretty much the same as selling in a traditional shop... Attract interest, bring in visitors, offer them good propositions that solve a problem for them and get them to the point at which they pay as soon as possible.
Given how Google now "evaluates" the worth of any "web Presence", the first objective is to construct the framework on which their Wider Web Presence must function. This includes the building of appropriate social network sites, perhaps a blog, other micro-sites, membership of relevant forums, article publishing in relevant spaces, etc, etc...
In tandem with this, we build the eComm site - which should be little more than a "pay point", and here's why...
If you put yourself into the position of a modern web shopper, you will see that there is a relatively common "path" that people take when they are looking to buy something. In MOST cases, people have already made a decision to buy long before they reach your webshop, and they have probably done some research and investigating before they finally say: "Right... now where can I buy this thing..."
The Wider Web is the place that all that preliminary investigation happens, and if your wider web presence has featured in their quest, then you've accomplished much of what it takes to convert them into YOUR customer.
By the time they get you your eComm site, they are 99% of the time ready to buy, and their chief desire at that point is to buy what they are after as quickly and as easily as possible.
If you have ever been a "customer" browsing the web for something that you are ready to buy, you will know the feeling...
Sites like eBay and Amazon have this down to a fine art. It is possible to find a product using Google search, then click an amazon link directly to it, then add it to cart, then checkout and pay.
... That's the entire purchase process completed in THREE CLICKS !!! From finding the product to paying for it can take less than 15 seconds on eBay and Amazon...
So, we emulate these experts. We DO NOT have fancy distractions on the webshop - it's the PAY POINT ONLY, not a venue for entertainment, superfluous waffle or long histories of how great we are. We leverage the wider web to FUNNEL interested purchasers to OUR shop, and when they get there, they can checkout in a couple of clicks.
Now... as you will know... featuring in this Wider Web is the challenge, but one does it using a strategy that FOLLOWS THE COMMON BEHAVIOUR OF INTERNET SHOPPERS, and NOT how Google works.
Part of the behaviour of internet shoppers is what they LIKE to be able to do on any website, and whether doing it is easy, intuitive and FAST.
This is what Google is saying to us... just build sites that are NICE AND EASY to use, and which people find "pleasurable".
It requires technical proficiency, good, sensible content, and a high degree of intuitive logic in the path from turning a visitor into a customer...
