I became one of the hoards of shoppers who needed to do everything online. It’s almost cliché to point out that mobile shopping, or m-commerce, is becoming larger and larger. The research site eMarkerter has a great graph that shows exactly HOW large m-commerce is getting, projecting $11.6 billion in spend for 2012, up 73.1% over 2011.

So as I sat there eagerly ready to contribute my portion of those billions I ran into the same problem over and over again— subpar website experiences.

They were creative, they were good, but they were not optimal for viewing on a mobile device.

Since SEM is well, my job, I saw a great opportunity to dig in further to something that is already affecting search.

Google announced late last year that mobile site optimization would become a factor in quality scores for campaigns that were targeting mobile devices. It makes sense!  If a consumer is just going to get frustrated by your website anyway, why would Google reward you with a top spot in the paid search results?

Google put together the site www.howtogomo.com which has a lot of ways you can test your website for mobile usability, design tips, and even build your own. For now, I zeroed in on five of their ten mobile top practices!

1. 1.       Keep It Quick

This is for the impatient among us – which is all of us. Personally, if my little status bar takes more than three seconds I’m already hitting the back button and going to another site.

The Tip to Implement: compress images, use bullet points, and make it easy for your page to load

1. 2.       Simplify Navigation

Your mobile site is the place for your most succinct writing. Only put on the page what you really feel is important because here people will get lost in the details.

The Tip to Implement: Google’s recommendation is 7 links or fewer so make them count! Adding a search box for a complex site is ideal!

1. 3.       Be Thumb Friendly

Two words: Fat fingers. High on the list of annoying things about mobile sites is clicking a too small link and ending up somewhere I didn’t want to go because my fingers were too large!

Tip to Implement: Use large centered buttons and pad them!

1. 4.       Design for Visibility

SEER doesn’t give design tips. We won’t tell you what colors to use or which general images work best, but we can let you know that how you use your space is important for conversions. Do make use of size and color for the button that leads to your call to action. Don’t ask people to fill out long forms, mobile is not the place to get their entire consumer profile, and Do make sure that they are not having to surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it (Technologic!) in order to read your page. They may leave first!

Tip to Implement: Make it easy for your customers to read and eliminate the need to pinch and zoom to view content.

1. 5.       Make it Easy to Convert

This is important for all websites but where could it be more important than PPC? If someone comes to your site through a PPC ad tell them what you need them to do and allow them to complete this step in as few actions as possible. You can make it even easier on your customer by trying a function like click to call!

Tip to Implement: Make it as easy as possible for consumers to complete your desired call to action.

Now that you have some of our tips here is a great example from Einstein Healthcare Network in Philadelphia that has all of these tips in action:

• In just three lines of text you know the benefits of FastCare.
• There is a clear call to action (Call now for Hours Directions or services!)
• There is only one large button to press, and you know exactly where it will take you!

This page was created in less than 30 minutes using Google’s Mobile Landing Page site templates (http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/mobile-landing-pages/mlpb.html) and has seen a 30% call rate since implementation.

With so many tips and tools it doesn’t have to be time intensive to revamp your mobile site for success. When you are all done fixing it up, learn about Creating a Mobile Profile in Google Analytics.

But there is one problem. They don’t see the value of the return on their investment.

Too often we get caught up in winning the rankings race, but not explaining to a client how it will directly impact their business.  We are all on the same page that increased rankings means increased visits means increased conversions means increased revenue.  But how much money are we talking here?

That’s why providing data to your clients that speaks in dollars and cents is critical.  In this particular example, I’m going to show how to get approval for that linkbuilding budget by showing wins in the revenue column.  Note: this strategy works particularly well with ecommerce clients that have transactions set up in Google Analytics.

Identify Keywords with High Average Values & Strong Conversion Rates

For larger e-commerce sites, it’s virtually impossible to track every keyword that builds revenue.  As SEO’s we often talk about “low hanging fruit” as part of a long-tailed keyword strategy to identify opportunities that we’re not always tracking/pushing to optimize.  Looking at a site’s past performance based on average values is just another way to attack the quick wins.

In this analysis I looked at one of our clients in the motorcycle apparel space.  For this particular industry, six months of data made sense because “hot products” tend to change relatively quickly.  In most cases the more data, the better.   But if your client sells products that have a quick turn over or are seasonal, set your data accordingly.

Along with date range, using the right filters will help with your analysis. Again, this all depends on the industry and your client’s product offerings.  You know their business, so set filters that are going to give you insight on real opportunities.

Next, sort by Average Value, determine the amount of rows you’d like to include and export your results to a CSV. Rather than explain how to quickly put this data together, I’ll refer you to Mark Lavoritano’s post on Striking Distance Keywords. It’s a great read and it shows you how to use RankChecker to quickly find where all of your potential opportunities are ranking on Google.

Let’s fast forward to the results.  Here I have a spreadsheet that shows keywords (sorry, had to block those out) with high average values, along with their respective ranking and conversion rate.  This additional data gives you even more insight on what will gain the quickest win. Off the bat I immediately identified three keywords that were long-tailed, had high average values with strong conversion rates and ranking within striking distance (Note: run a quick spot check on the keywords to make sure their positioning is accurate.  RankChecker is a great tool for proximity, but you may find slight discrepancies when doing a Google Chrome Incognito, Location USA search).

I Have My Data. I Have My Target Keywords. Now What?

Slingshot SEO’s recent Organic CTR Study has provided updated information that you should use to your advantage. While the AdWords Keyword Tool is also great measuring stick, using these CTR rates combined with actual data may provide a stronger analysis when pitching your client.

Let’s look at Keyword 1 and what we already know about it based on six months of data:

- It’s ranked 7 (let’s assume this as constant over the last 6 months)

- It has an average value of $490.32 (this can be skewed by outliers, so go back into GA to find out)

- It has an average 306 visits a month

- It has earned $2,043 a month

- Using Slingshot SEO’s CTR data, we can conclude that with a 1.88% CTR for keywords ranking 7^th, Keyword 1 has been searched 16,114 a month (Note: AdWords Keyword Tool estimates 14,800 exact match, global searches).

Now that we know the amount of searches a month, we can project what it’s worth to move up in the rankings.  If Keyword 1 ranked 3^rd, here is what we could expect:

- With a ranking of 3, Keyword 1 can assume a 7.22% CTR on 16,114 searches a month = 1,160 projected monthly visits

- Using Keyword 1’s conversion rate, ranking number 3 would bring 14.5 conversions a month

- Using Keyword 1’s Average Value, ranking number 3 would earn $7,122 a month

- Therefore, ranking number 3 for Keyword 1 would bring an additional $5K each month and an additional $60K a year

Drawbacks

Because everyone looks at data differently, it’s easy to see some of the drawbacks by using the data outlined above.

We’re looking at a fairly small sample size; what if one transaction skewed the data for the average value?  Go back and look to make sure it’s been relatively consistent. If not, find another keyword.

What if Slingshot SEO’s data isn’t accurate? Chances are, it’s not 100% and varies depending on the industry and the type of results. So play with the numbers and maybe use past data to form your own conclusions on CTR.

What if the keyword’s ranking fluctuated throughout the six months, further skewing the data? You’re probably right that it did have some movement.  But even if you were half off, you’d still see an additional $30K a year in revenue.

Keep in mind that SEO is not the only industry that uses data based on market research to make dollar-value projections. The underlying point is simple: Money talks. Speaking to your clients about rankings combined with revenue will help get you what you need to succeed.  Use keywords that have historically performed well, and show them a quick win where you can point out what it means to their bottom line by improving rankings.  Don’t just tell them you’re going to build 20 links.  Tell your client that building 20 links means moving a valuable keyword from 7 to 3 on Google, and increasing revenue by $60K a year.

The rest is up to you. You’ve shown the numbers, now you’ve got to show the win.

And, as the late great Al Davis once said, “Just win, baby.”

USE THE TOOL YOURSELF:

Special thanks to Mark Lavoritano for building an easy to use spreadsheet to share with everyone. As I was putting together this data, Mark was kind enough to put his excel chops to work and build a tool that involves very little work for the user and provides a quick snapshot of the impact on revenue based on keyword positioning. 

Download the tool here, add some data and let us know what you think.  Have a suggestion for improvement? Drop us a line in the comments and share your feedback!

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Two months into the SEO sphere, and I’ve come to learn a lot about the value of links, best practices for outreach and search queries that make any previous Google search by me look like chopped liver. My latest SEO exploration is of Pinterest.com (Pin + Interest, get it?) and the potential value the site might have for SEO geeks like myself. I’ve been a fan of this “virtual social pinboard” since the summer, as it allowed me and millions of users to “pin” images off the web into different, organized “boards” that I can easily share with everyone. From there, users can re-pin images that they feel inspired by onto their own boards, causing a domino effect for millions of random graphics off of the internet.

As an average consumer, I’ve been using Pinterest for my own personal blog by finding fashion/pop culture images, interesting infographics and random phrases of inspiration to post on a weekly basis. Recently though, I’m (with the much appreciated help from Wil Reynolds) starting to see a new side and use for this popular social media platform from both a client and an SEO side. No drumroll necessary, but read on to find out more!

The Art of Tagging
Pinning an image requires users to tag their image with an applicable description, allowing the site’s search box to easily categorize every upload. As you can see from the image below of Wil, links from the image source and the comment area are all followed links. Creating your own company account and pushing out infographics or images from a client’s site, as well as making relevant comments with a link back to a client’s site on other Pinterest user’s images, may be an idea worth delving into because of the potential link juice coming from that Pinterest page. With the correct descriptions and keywords, your images will get re-pined by a number of users and thus increase the reach of your original link.

Easy to add a pin, URL and description!

Highlighted in Green are the followed links!

Content, Content, Content
Pinterest is a hub of content, just waiting to be found and used for the right client. A simple search term in the top, left hand box will produce ideas and images that could all be easily created into content for a client’s guest post or giveaway. I searched the term “DIY” and got 182,079 pins of images and 109,575 boards that users have created dealing with do-it-yourself projects and crafts. For any client looking for a great blog post to create on their own site, inspiration from current Pins may just be what the SEO doctor ordered. Make sure to take a look at the images with the most comments and re-pins to create an accurate judgment on just how “hot” the image or idea may be for your own site. The highlighted chalkboard frame below had over 1,500 re-pins by users and 7 comments from users on that one image—imagine how many more comments from interested users you’ll find on the rest of the re-pined chalkboard frames!?

"DIY" search results

E-Commerce
Clients that may already have a following on Pinterest or would like to create a following of fans interested in their industry can easily add a “Pin It” button to their website or blog. Similar to any social media button for users to share content with, the “Pin It” button can be added to any product page or (blog) posts for Pinterest addicts to quickly share their favorite image AND your website URL. Take one step ahead of your competitors and add this button next to your Facebook and Twitter icons for an increase in brand awareness.

Blogger Outreach
Contacting bloggers is something I do on a daily basis for clients. Disseminating a client’s brand, message or product is a key factor in any company’s marketing strategy. Now, add Pinterest into that mix and you’ve found a creative, new way to find and contact bloggers interested in your client’s product or brand. For example, we have a client here at SEER in the wine industry that occasionally partakes in giveaways and competitions for products on their site. Pinterest came to mind as a great way to reach out to people interested in the wine industry, and more importantly, interested in winning wine accessories and prizes. One simple search of “wine” and 36,528 pinned images with the tag of wine and 2,712 boards from users showed up in the results. Bingo!

"Wine" search results

Other than linking to a user’s individual blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts, Pinterest also allows other users to send messages to one another. The next step would be sending the right outreach method for this wine giveaway–something along the lines of “Hey Melissa, I saw you that you had a really great Wine board on here and would love to invite you to WineEnthusiast.com‘s upcoming giveaway for free wine accessories!” Now, your client’s promotional message is targeted to the correct, and socially active, party!

In Summary
Think of Pinterest as the ocean for your client’s link bait. You have the hook, man power, and incentive as an SEO. With Pinterest, you now have a new and relevant platform for outreach and a resource for building and sharing quality content. Try out some of the above methods and let me know how it works out for you and your clients!

Here’s an example of Nearby Stores in Universal Search:

I thought, “Hmmm, this is interesting!” Then I clicked on the nearby stores:

Wow, that’s really great! The Vitamin Shoppe’s listings from Google Products in Universal Search are showing local stores where you can purchase this product – really great for sites that have physical locations.

This is also where it gets a little dicey. It seems like Google Products is moving away from listing the top three to five online feeds with a website or company name to listing grouped prices for a particular product. I searched for a few other products in the bodybuilding supplements space, and they all returned product images with prices, similar to above. So here’s an example of the older results format using snowboard boots:

These results show actual websites from the feeds, but also incorporate Nearby Stores. This seems a little fairer for brands that do the work to get their products in the top spots. If the website happens to have a local spot, you can see their location as well – it’s a win-win situation.

Taking it back to the example of Xtend, when I clicked in the product’s image from the above Universal Search Google Products results, this is the page I landed on:

Google Products is giving you a choice of purchasing the product online or at a nearby store. In this instance the online stores are listed first – a win for etailers, but the places are just below. The user won’t have to wait for the product to get shipped AND won’t have to pay shipping. Is this going to harm etailers if a user sees a local store right around the corner? And if Google is grouping products according to price now, how important do the number of reviews become? Should sites only go after a few quality reviews to ensure quality products and customer service?

As with many of Google’s changes, I’m usually hesitant to adopt a positive attitude in the beginning. Displaying prices in results as opposed to websites helps a user find the best price, so I understand Google’s reasoning. However, I’m concerned grouping by price will make it harder for sites with a physical location to compete.

What are your thoughts on this? Will this simply create price wars?

How Do You Appear for Nearby Stores?

1. Create a Google Places Account
2. Create a Google Merchant Account

I know, that was simple, but the sign up instructions are a little confusing. Essentially if you have a Google Merchant Account and a Google Places account, you’re in. One caveat, you need to use the same URL for both account listings. Here are Google’s words on how they link Nearby Stores and your Merchant Center account, “The linking between the Google Places account and the Merchant Center account is done based on the website that you provide. If you want to appear in the Nearby Stores feature, please ensure that the URL in both accounts is the same.”

To take it one step further for local businesses, you can create an account with Google Local Shopping, a service that lets users find and buy products that are in stock at nearby locations. This is an application process whereby Google accepts you into the program, and not everyone gets in! So make sure you submit complete and accurate data and feeds for your locations and products.

When & how do Seller Rating Extensions appear? The Seller Rating Extension will automatically append a store’s rating from Google Product Search if you meet the minimum requirements of a 4-star rating and 30+ reviews. There is no need to sync your account with Google Product Search, as the ratings are pulled based on the display URL.

If your ad has an extremely high quality score and shows in the top panel (above natural results), the extension will also display the number of qualified reviews next to the rating. Note: New reviews can take up to 10 days to appear in product search.

Currently, the ratings will only show to English speakers in the US. It is our understanding that the ads will NOT show with other extensions (i.e. product extensions or SiteLinks).

(Image no longer available)

Where do the ratings & reviews come from? Google Product Search ratings are compiled from a variety of sources including (but not restricted to) Epinions, Google Checkout, Reseller Ratings, Bizrate & PriceGrabber.

How much do they cost? There is no additional charge if a user clicks on an ad featuring a Seller Rating Extension, and there is no cost if a user clicks through just to read reviews.

How can I take advantage? Assuming you’re already registered for Google Product Search (it’s free!) the most important thing you can do is to keep serving your customers well and encouraging them to rate your store. The ratings will show automatically for all eligible queries unless you explicitly opt out here.

Are seller rating extensions a good thing? That’s for you to decide. There are a number of huge advantages to the new extensions, but you will never know if they are truly helping your business until you test. To help decide if the extensions will help or hurt you, SEER has outlined a few pro’s and con’s/potential pitfalls below.

Pros

• The extensions put a new emphasis on online customer service. We always knew that your reputation can have a huge influence on your store. Seller Rating Extensions only increases the influence by putting the ratings front and center.
• Assuming you have a great customer service rating, you can stand out from competitors who may have had a few issues from time to time.
• Having a 5-star rating show for a challenging non-brand term can enhance your visibility & help you stand out from the competition.

Potential Pitfalls

• While you don’t pay for clicks to the review site (and Google claims the review links receive less clicks), these clicks take the user away from your AdWords landing pages and your planned conversion funnel.
• If you have a new or small business, you may be trumped by a store with more reviews or simply may not be eligible.
• The ratings extensions appear (based on preliminary testing) to be trumped by other extensions. If you have SiteLinks, Location Listings, or Product Listing Extensions, the Seller Ratings Extensions will not be shown.
• The Seller Ratings Extensions could punish those who aren’t registered for Google Product Search (or other Comparison Shopping Engines).
  • While Google Product Search is free, it does require a certain amount of maintenance to make sure your product feed is up to date.
  • Other CSE’s that provide Google with reviews (PriceGrabber, BizRate) aren’t cheap and may not be right for your business.

The Seller Rating Extension is certainly a very compelling new AdWords feature; perhaps even more compelling is that Google rolled it out automatically and with almost no notice. Whether or not you are eligible for ratings extensions they provide an always welcomed reminder as to how important customer service is, especially in the E-Commerce space.

SEER will always recommend that you test, test, test to find out what works for your business; Seller Ratings Extensions are no exception! So what do you think – are Seller Ratings Extensions a 5-star feature??

What was interesting is that for this client they had an automated SEO tool installed after we did regular SEO to the main e-commerce site with tens of thousands of pages. So I got to see just how these tools perform head to head.

For those of you who are going up against a competitor with an automated SEO tool here’s how to kick that things’ ass, we did it, and will share with you too:

1 – INVEST in re-developing your site to be SEO friendly, any good SEO company will be able to help here. Some basic things to consider in the re-programming of your e-commerce site from an SEO perspective:

The SEO company working on your e-commerce site needs to understand how to find the fine line between what terms need REAL day to day love and which ones can be done with the right template. This is done by evaluating the competitiveness of individual terms (short and long tail) to understand which can be hit with template-based, scalable SEO best practices. Developing the right site hierarchy is critical here!

Leave space for copy in your templates.

Give yourself control over page titles, meta descriptions, and section headers, so you can overwrite automated copy here if you need to because of competitiveness.

Create search engine friendly URLs (use Mod re-write or ASAPI).

BEWARE: This is the hardest part, I have seen re-developments run in the low 6 figures for highly customized old carts. If you can NOT do this, then call up an automated SEO company to help, but expect that your competitors will eventually make these investments and will likely beat your tail (and I do mean the long tail).

Do not fall for the “do you want to change you programming to keep up with the algorithms” sales pitch. Any good SEO company, with experience in e-commerce SEO, will help you develop a search engine friendly architecture that should stand the test of time.

If you have the resources to re-develop your site, or if it is already SEO friendly according to the few basic requirements above proceed to step 2.

2 – DEVELOP copy for your category pages (not product pages yet that could be a HUGE task). I know this is NOT ideal or fun, or easy, but guess what, if it was easy everyone would be doing it right? Right! If you want to do something fun, go play with the subservient chicken! Get a bang up company to develop your hundreds of category pages of copy, or if your SEO company can develop the copy, even better, either way get the copy through the eyes of your SEO firm.

I would recommend having the content delivered early, 6 months before your peak season would be ideal. For e-commerce sites, product pages should follow a “template” for where the keywords go in titles, descriptions, alt tags, header tags, etc. Remember, you should have flexibility to overwrite what is in these templates just in case you need to apply specific techniques to hot products quickly and easily.

Sample: Changing a few quick tags and internal linking helped a client sell out of the top searched for item (according to hitwise) in their peak season in about 3-4 days after the changes were picked up (and they went to #2 for the term). Can your automated tool do that? Probably not, that is where you create competitive advantages; get in get out, while the tool is just chugging along.

3 – OPTIMIZE your site in the traditional way, social media, link building, tweaking content over time, working on descriptions that get click throughs and sales.

Now you don’t have to believe me, but this is the process, and it is a process maybe called “Scalable SEO” or e-commerce SEO 4.0 (HA!) it works very well for large e-commerce sites with thousands, or tens of thousands of pages. Category and Product pages should be templatized, and that template should be tweaked and optimized several times leading up to your busy season. As soon as the season is over, get started again! Tweak the copy, add pages, remove pages, but if done right you will not need to change the programming, and each SKU you add will fit the template and be well optimized.

As for how we fared against the automated tool…well here’s the details:

1 – In the same niche industry we found that 4 other sites were pitched and BOUGHT the SAME automated tool from the SAME company, that really didn’t give a competitive advantage to our client as every one of their competitors was using the same tool to target the same terms too.

2 – Since the automated tool kind of mashes up your existing content (to avoid content duplication on you less than optimal pages) the pages weren’t as well themed as a site with handwritten copy developed by copywriters (my opinion).

3 – When pointing to successes the vendor picked out the most long tail (or should I saw WRONG tail terms). Now these did drive traffic and sales, NO DOUBT, but they were for so many very long tail terms that I think the client would have ranked well anyway.

4 – For any non-competitive product terms, we killed the automated results typically with top 10 & 20 results vs. theirs, I would think that automated SEO pages beat custom SEO pages in one out of every 15 to 20 terms targeted. The fewer words and the higher the search volume, the less likely they were to have fared well.

5 – For as long as the site stays on the existing platform (which was re-architected for SEO) they should maintain decent rankings without paying a dime to support the existing terms. Changes in platform only require the SEO company to GRILL the new platform provider to ensure smooth transition.

6 – For the short tail, we did well (I’m never 100% pleased), the automated SEO tools for e-commerce sites NEVER hit the head of the tail or really any 2 words phrases now that I think about it, and I think most of the companies that pitch automated SEO to e-commerce sites do a good job of setting that expectation.

So in closing, a quick synopsis:

If you can re-program your e-commerce platform for SEO according to the steps above, you should do your own SEO. If you can’t go with an automated system, our friends up the road (Commerce360) have launched such a tool. With varying opinions, but I like those guys, and wish them luck.

If you can invest in having real good, engaging copy developed for at least your category pages, you can do your SEO.

If you want a long term competitive advantage that won’t be sold to every one of your competitors, consider avoiding the automated route or seeking industry exclusivity for at least a year (good luck).

Lastly, each position on page 1 and 2 indicates value, there’s only one #1, one #2, one #10, etc. However you create a competitive advantage, is up to you, but anything that can be bought and installed by you that gets bought and installed by your competitor the next day may not be something to hang your long term hat on.

If you enjoyed, please sign up for our feed. If you think we’re right, wrong, or just plain old suck, say so below :)

It is helpful (which is somehow web 2.0 now) in assisting people in narrowing down or honing in on the right grill for their needs. It uses a very nice interface to make the process smooth and easy! It combines product information, videos, and more in a very digestible and tastefully done way. See our thoughts on the Nike golf ball selector, who has a similar tool, that at the time was tough to find. Looks like it was a success, not to mention Home Depot has some serious numbers to show the REAL value of this tool. In the article it states:

Customers who use the grill finder tool are more than 50% more likely to make a purchase than other visitors to HomeDepot.com, reported Tari Huddleston, senior manager of e-business, who spoke with Schueler. She noted that a majority of visitors to the Home Depot site are women who want information about the sometimes complex products the home improvement retailer sells. “Women are doing their homework online,” Huddleston said. “They want to be educated before they go into the store.”
Ok, “50% more likely to make a purchase” sounds like a great stat, resulting from a GREAT tool. With those numbers behind you, wouldn’t you want to get as many interested grillers to use this wonderful tool, since it helps so much in the conversion process?

A brief search on gas grills using Google suggest showed the following data: (Image no longer exists)
Notice some of the other terms that show up with the root term “gas grills”:

• Reviews
• Ratings
• For Sale
• Comparisons

Then there are other terms like grill reviews, charcoal grills, etc…but I think you get the point.

From what I think, this tool would help grillers find the right grill, but they aren’t going to find this tool, why?

1 – There doesn’t seem to be any concerted effort to drive traffic to this great tool. I didn’t see any PPC effort at the time. If the numbers weren’t so compelling on how well this is working I would say maybe there is a reason, and maybe there is, but I don’t see it.

2 – On the SEO front, certain best practices just were not followed. Basic things like title tags and description tags aren’t included. There’s also no copy relating to grills, or selecting a grill on this page, which doesn’t help either. The search engines don’t have much to “see” when coming to this tool, which is flash intensive. Maybe a non-flash alternative that would contain more easily spidered information could help too. If someone over there just read this SEO guide.

There’s been a lot of chatter about web 2.0 and SEO but to me this has less to do with that and more to do with best practices for just trying to drive traffic to a web site. Home Depot obviously invested heavily in the following to create this tool which has a highly seasonal shelf life:

• web analytics
• video
• photography
• voice overs
• excellent flash development
• strategy
• development / QA

If they invested upwards of 100k to build it, why would they not take the 5 minutes to develop a paragraph of readable copy and a title and description tag (oh and maybe promoting it with social search tools, like stumbleupon (food section) or digg). This 5 minute investment could have gone a long way in maximizing the value of this wonderful conversion machine.
There must be something I am overlooking…have any answers?

Oh, and don’t tell me you didn’t receive the reservation form – like I don’t know how to operate a five-field form and press the submit button with my left click button. Let’s just come clean and admit that your form is broken.

But… I guess that’s what I get for submitting an online reservation for a service to a website that doesn’t even rank well for its own brand name. I had to get to the website by clicking on the 4^th result, which was a Citysearch page, and then clicking on the website link. Oy vey!

The site I had issues with today – and other reservation sites out there – can take some notes from my favorite reservation system out there: OpenTable. I can select restaurants by region & neighborhood and then by date, time and party size. I can find out what reservation times are available in 15 minute increments, and I get immediate email confirmations of my reservations. I also receive email reminders before my dining date. Additionally, I get reward points for booking reservations online and dining at the restaurant. My personal favorite – the OpenTable representatives are accessible and helpful. When I had a question about a restaurant’s participation in a special event after I had made the reservation, the OpenTable representative took care of contacting the restaurant (by phone), getting an answer, and emailing me back promptly.

The moral of the story: if you’re going to have an online reservation form, be ready for fulfillment. Potential customers may not follow up with a phone call when they don’t hear from you. In a competitive space, they might just go to the next result down.

Oh, and don’t tell me you didn’t receive the reservation form — like I don’t know how to operate a five-field form and press the submit button with my left click button. Let’s just come clean and admit that your form is broken.

But… I guess that’s what I get for submitting an online reservation for a service to a website that doesn’t even rank well for its own brand name. I had to get to the website by clicking on the 4^th result, which was a Citysearch page, and then clicking on the website link. Oy vey!

The site I had issues with today — and other reservation sites out there — can take some notes from my favorite reservation system out there: OpenTable. I can select restaurants by region & neighborhood and then by date, time and party size. I can find out what reservation times are available in 15 minute increments, and I get immediate email confirmations of my reservations. I also receive email reminders before my dining date. Additionally, I get reward points for booking reservations online and dining at the restaurant. My personal favorite — the OpenTable representatives are accessible and helpful. When I had a question about a restaurant’s participation in a special event after I had made the reservation, the OpenTable representative took care of contacting the restaurant (by phone), getting an answer, and emailing me back promptly.

The moral of the story: if you’re going to have an online reservation form, be ready for fulfillment. Potential customers may not follow up with a phone call when they don’t hear from you. In a competitive space, they might just go to the next result down.

After determining my want for goods was greater than my frustration with their marketing, I bought some things. However, while checking out a few more things raised my left eyebrow.

I was near the end of the checkout process when I left to change the color of a product. It was disappointing to find it was my duty to reenter all checkout information again. No one likes doing this. This would be the first thing that I would fix.

Next I noticed the most predominant number labeled total on the next-to-last checkout page was incorrect (as far as I see it)! This total didn’t have the coupon applied. To find out what you’re actually being charged, you’d need to know enough to subtract the grand total from the discounts listed below in a different colored & aligned area. How many support calls does this generate, or even worse, how many customers leave silently at this point?

Performance bike seems to always have a promotion; they offer free shipping or a percentage discount on all items. Personally it’s a little strange. I’m either used to better prices all the time, think Trader Joe’s, or sales on a few select items every week, think Whole Foods. Having discounts at all times that claim to be “limited time” reminds me of the boy who cried wolf. I feel less incentive to buy today knowing their “soon to run out sale” will be back again in two.

I don’t doubt that Performance Bike does tons of business online, they claim to be the #1 retailer of bikes. I only think that they can do much better if they were to straighten some of these issues out.

On a side note, I was going to link “Trader Joe’s” above to a page of theirs that had something about Philadelphia on it, but I defaulted to a home page link. They decided to hide their location listings in a PDF. :(