Website Magazine April 2015

SEO Troubleshooting for Google Newbs

10 CELEBRATING

YEARS

THE MAGAZINE FOR WEBSITE SUCCESS APRIL 2015

DIGITAL

DESIGN FOR OPTIMAL INTERACTION INSIDE THIS ISSUE...

Create Value Propositions That Work Common Project Management Pitfalls Is CRM Failing the Digital Enterprise?

PLUS: Top 50 Monetization Networks for Web Publishers

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The Authenticated Testimonials seal lets people know we can be trusted.

And trust has its advantages such as increased website conversions & sales.

’’

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How AutHenticAted testimoniAls work: We contact your customers to verify each statement.

Authenticated testimonials provides a verification seal to display on your website.

Prospects are more inclined to trust and purchase your products or services!

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WEB DESIGN FOR OPTIMAL INTERACTION

Knowing users’ interests enables enterprises (and the digital marketers and designers they employ) to understand the optimal approach for securing a genuine user interaction. Designing an end-to-end customer experience on the Web - one that facilitates engagement and ultimately conversions - is no easy feat however. Find out how today’s savviest companies are providing digital experiences that introduce prospects to their brand in ways which accelerate their own ‘Net success.

THIS MONTH IN WEBSITE MAGAZINE

Explore Website Magazine’s

DEPARTMENTS

CRMs Failing Business

Stat Watch:

Today’s customers are in control of the e-commerce experience, deciding how and when they interact with a business.

Enterprise Ready:

Technology Spending in Focus Business Intelligence for the Real-World

Small Business Lab:

Creating Value Propositions that Work There is a reason why value propositions should form the cornerstone of a website’s conversation rate optimization (CRO) initiative – they are what make people buy.

Leverage the ‘Right’ Data in Email Marketing

Quiz Time: Staying Ahead of Affiliate Marketing

Top 50: Monetization Networks for Web Publishers

Mastering Search:

Project Management Pitfalls With proper planning and the right mindset, Web professionals can avoid the most common implementation mistakes with project management solutions.

Unlock Ad Efficiency with Social Data It’s old news that social media provides significant reach and spend value for advertisers, so why aren’t more brands flocking to it?

Cohort Analysis in Action Learn how to reduce sign-up friction, increase loyalty and encourage repeat visits by getting started with cohort analysis.

SEO Troubleshooting for Google Newbs

E-Commerce Express: Live Chat Tips for Online Retailers

Design & Development: A Modern Approach to Responsive Web Design

Web Commentary: Hiring Designers & Devs in 2015

GET THE DIGITAL SCOOP Check out Website Magazine’s email newsletters covering search, e-commerce, social, design and more at wsm.co/webscoop.

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From the

EDITOR In Pursuit of the Optimal Interaction The practice of Web design today is far different than in years past.

Find Website Magazine at these Internet industry tradeshows.

Digital Travel Summit April 27-29 Henderson, NV NetFinance April 27-29 Miami, FL

No longer are enterprises focused on the aesthetics of their digital presence alone, but the functionality of every element on their websites and applications as well. They are in pursuit of genuine user interaction in each virtual session and they are rapidly discovering the best practices to do so.

Today’s consumer is more demanding of compelling and engaging experiences and less tolerant of websites that don’t meet these often lofty expectations. From the standpoint of the modern enterprise, that can be a double-edged digital sword. While it certainly requires a greater investment of time, talents, energy and resources for enterprises to create a digital presence that truly connects with an audience, end-users (website visitors) are also more accessible and available to target than ever before – and in many ways, easier to convert – when the conditions are right.

In the feature story of this month’s Website Magazine, readers will discover several practical approaches to Web design when the aim (as it always should have been) is on generating interaction. From experience mapping, to the use of affordances, Website Magazine readers will discover several methods to help any digital brand move beyond the visual alone and toward creating a more immersive experience.

Web design is the primary focus of this edition of Website Magazine, but readers will also find many other useful articles to help accelerate their ‘Net success. This issue, for example, includes guidance on business intelligence solutions, tips for using big data in email marketing, advice on crafting unique value propositions, and a whole lot more.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of Website Magazine and invite you to join us on the Web, where our editors and CELEBRATING contributors explore the topics that matter most to your digital success.

Best Web Wishes,

eTail Canada May 11-14 Toronto, ON

Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

10 YEARS

The Magazine for Website Success Reaching the largest audience of Web professionals of any Internet industry publication

999 E. Touhy Ave. Des Plaines, IL 60018 Toll Free: 1.800.817.1518 International: 1.773.628.2779 Fax: 1.773.272.0920

GENERAL MANAGER:

David Ruiz druiz@websitemagazine.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

Peter Prestipino peter@websitemagazine.com MANAGING EDITOR:

Amberly Dressler adressler@websitemagazine.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS:

Allison Howen ahowen@websitemagazine.com Derek Schou dschou@websitemagazine.com *CONTRIBUTORS:

E.J. McGowan Marcus Howling David Trice Milad Oskouie Reda Sedrati Yosha Ulrich-Sturmat GRAPHIC DESIGNER:

Shannon Rickson shannon@websitemagazine.com ADVERTISING:

Kelly Springer kspringer@websitemagazine.com Brian Wallace brian@websitemagazine.com Barry Cohen bcohen@websitemagazine.com SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Sandra Woods sandra@websitemagazine.com

If You Knew It Was Going to Be THAT kind of party…

Continuing our year-long celebration of Website Magazine’s 10-year anniversary, join this month’s digital mission! Find the phrase “last-touch attribution” (hint: it’s in orange and bold and in the second half of the magazine), open up the digital edition of Website Magazine (wsm.co/digitalwm15), and click that phrase. Participants will then be directed to a special landing page where they can enter to win a $500 prize.

Website Magazine will be sending readers on these special missions through 2015, so keep a digital eye on this space in the months to come!

MARKETING:

Abdul Umer a.umer@websitemagazine.com Website Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 4, April 2015, (ISSN# 1942-0633) is published 12 times a year, January through December by Website Services, Inc., 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Periodicals Postage Paid at Des Plaines, IL and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Website Magazine, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018.

Canada Post: Please send undeliverable items to: 2835 Kew Drive, Windsor ON, N8T 3B7 Copyright 2014 by Website Magazine. All rights reserved. Materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. For reprints of any article, contact the editor. *The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of Website Magazine.

www.WebsiteMagazine.com

10 YEARS

Resource Center FINELY FOCUSED INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY SPONSORS Scan to visit our Resource Center at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources

Website Magazine’s Resource Center presents whitepapers from our sponsors that provide information, specifics and metrics to help you make decisions for website success. Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

2015 Trends & Strategies for the Commerce Marketer

How To Increase Sales and Customer Satisfaction

What will e-commerce shoppers be expecting in 2015 and what trends should marketers really focus on? Will retailers be ready for things like beacon technologies or the rise of the Millennial? Are you ready to streamline mobile experiences and to implement cross-channel personalization?

The Marketing Strategists from Bronto’s Professional Services team discuss these topics and many more.

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User-Generated Content’s Impact On Brand Building

The Definitive Guide To Lead Generation

Designed to Engage

5 Sales and Use Tax Tips (2015)

Today’s perpetually-connected consumers have taken control of the marketers’ message. They use social to widely share their experiences—good, bad, and in-between—on the products they use and the brands they love. We all know consumer reviews and other social sharing can help drive sales, but there’s a much larger implication: the impact on building the brand.

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Lead generation has become an important strategy for modern marketers, as they strive to create demand and get their messages heard by increasingly sophisticated, multi-channel buyers. In this comprehensive, 160 page guide, Marketo covers topics ranging from content marketing and website SEO to telesales and content syndication - all through the lens of lead generation.

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Sales tax isn’t a high priority for many fast-growing businesses these days; yet just beyond their field of vision lay compliance challenges that can start small and become serious and expensive.

These five tips provide a roadmap for sales tax compliance in 2015.

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Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources

Net

BRIEFS GOOGLE INCREASES MOBILE’S IMPORTANCE Google announced that “mobile-friendliness” will now be used a ranking signal. The update will go into effect on April 21 according to an early March ’15 announcement and will impact mobile searches in all languages worldwide. In addition, Google announced it is beginning to use information from indexed apps as a ranking factor for users who are logged-in and have the app installed; a change that will likely result in Google displaying content from indexed apps more prominently (and more often) in the SERPs.

The Power of Product Reviews New data from PowerReviews reveals that 70 percent of mobile shoppers are more likely to purchase a product if the mobile site or app they’re purchasing from offers reviews. The data, which comes from the company’s “Power of Reviews” study, also shows that most consumers read between 1 and 10 reviews, and prefer information in an easy-to-read format. Surprisingly, the study found that 82 percent of consumers actually seek out negative reviews to validate the authenticity of the product’s overall reviews and trustworthiness of the website they are shopping.

Bing Makes Bidding Less Tricky Knowing who your competitors are and how their impressions are faring compared to your own can be tricky, but Bing is looking to solve this problem with a new tool called Auction Insights. The solution will enable U.S. advertisers to better gauge their performance in comparison to advertisers that are competing against them in the same keyword auctions.

While this tool will not reveal the actual amount that competitors are bidding or the exact keywords being used in their campaigns, it will provide advertisers with some useful competitive intelligence.

Consumers ARE Loyal Brands are constantly searching for ways to increase consumer engagement and many are turning to loyalty programs to do so. According to data from COLLOQUY, U.S. consumer loyalty program memberships have reached historic levels, topping 3 billion for the first time. The data states that the average U.S. household belongs to 29 loyalty programs across various sectors of business, however, is only active in 12 of them. Interestingly, when compared to data from 2013, COLLOQUY found that restaurants saw the most growth in loyalty program members, growing 107 percent since 2013.

Don’t Be So Flashy Google is finally killing off Flash with a recent announcement that it will start automatically converting all eligible Adobe Flash ads to HTML5. This update will help digital advertisers better target consumers leveraging devices or browsers that do not support Flash. According to Google, the update will impact Flash campaigns that are both new and old, and all eligible campaigns will be automatically converted to HTML5 when uploaded through AdWords, AdWords Editor and other third party tools that work with its ad platform.

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The Optimal Email Message New Constant Contact research is shedding light on how different industries can optimize their email campaigns for better clickthrough rates (CTR). According to the data, email messages with three or fewer images and approximately 20 lines of text tend to have the highest CTR. Business product and service companies may want to include even more images in their campaigns, however, as the data found that messages with the highest-click through rate in these verticals have between 13 and 16 images. Conversely, the data shows that businesses in the restaurant and salon categories hit peak CTR when email messages have 15 images, while office supply companies tend to have better performing campaigns when their messages are more concise, with just 15 lines of text.

Consumers Looking for Recognition The importance of personalization keeps growing, with new data from MyBuys revealing that 53 percent of consumers say that it is important retailers recognize them as the same person across channels. The data also found 48 percent of consumers claim that they purchase more from retailers that leverage shopper interests and buying behavior to personalize the customer experience. In fact, 53 percent of shoppers indicated that they spend more with retailers that make product recommendations based on browsing or buying behavior – proving that retailers are wise to invest in personalization technology now and into the future.

MORE NEWS OF NOTE: Manage AdWords on the go: wsm.co/googadapp App Pins arrive at Pinterest: wsm.co/iosapppins Prepare to lose some Likes on Facebook: wsm.co/fbdecline

#WEBTECHWATCH See what has the ‘Net community all abuzz with Website Magazine’s #WebTechWatch series - a weekly roundup, available online, that profiles both emerging and established technologies and some of the most useful solutions for today’s Web workers. If you have a digital product or ‘Net service you think deserves a mention, tweet @WebsiteMagazine with the hashtag #WebTechWatch.

+ Webmate: Cloud-based service that compares how web pages appear in different browsers and highlights page elements that are missing, extra or in the wrong position. + Plum.io: Evaluate job applicants and internal team members with this cloud-based human resources/recruiting solution. + PixelSquid: Design-ready stock images in Photoshop with selecting masking, layered lighting, depth layers and more. + Casengo: Multi-channel customer service solution that bundles communication channels including email, live chat and social media. + LiftMetrix: Social media solution that provides personalized and actionable suggestions to increase lift. + Personable.io: A personalization-as-a-service API that provides recommendations to product users.

Stat

WATCH

22.6%

As the Web Grows

So Too Must

BUDGETS As the Internet continues to expand and consumers continue to leverage the Web for more and more tasks, companies will have no choice but to increase the amount they spend on technology.

For starters, with so much of a company’s daily

While spending on mobile ads accounted for just 9.8 percent in 2014, eMarketer forecasts that in 2017 spending on mobile ads will increase to 22.6 percent of all ad spend in the U.S.

23%

(eMarketer, July 2014)

Search marketing is one of the most popular channels for brands to leverage in order to reach more consumers.

According to a RKG report, paid search ad spend rose 23 percent year-over-year in Q2 2014 among the company's client base.

3 billion

(RKG, July 2014)

As companies look to improve their digital presence, many are turning to analytics to provide a deeper understanding of which aspects of their websites are connecting with consumers.

According to MarketsandMarkets, the increased interest in Web analytics will drive the market size from $1.33 billion in 2014 to $3.09 billion in 2019.

operations relying on the ‘Net and its availability to each and every employee, many companies have had to hire dedicated IT staff to facilitate the activity of their employees. In order to keep up with the increasing demands, the 2015 Computerworld Forecast Study found that IT decision-makers plan to increase their overall budget by 4.3 percent for 2015.

Not only do enterprises rely on the Web, but also their incoming and outgoing communication. With the number of daily emails sent and received forecasted to continue to grow through 2017 (Radicati), it should come as no surprise that spending on email platforms is expected to rise as well. According to the Radicati Group, spending on email platforms is expected to reach $12 billion by 2016.

The availability and security of both the ‘Net and email are certainly areas for justified spending, but so too is e-commerce. As more people are shopping online due to the convenience factor, a Forrester Consulting Study, “U.S. Commerce platform Tech-

76 billion

(MarketsandMarkets, June. 2014)

Within the last year a variety of companies have reported information breaches, ranging from JP Morgan to Target and Home Depot. With consumers demanding better protection it should come as no surprise that companies are looking to bolster their security. According to data from Gartner, total information security spending will grow 8.2 percent in 2015 to reach $76.9 billion.

14 billion

(Gartner, Aug. 2014)

nology and Services Forecast, 2014-2019,” indicates that spend on e-commerce technology is expected

Spend on social media ads will top $14 billion in 2018, up from $6.1 billion in 2013.

to nearly double from $1.2 billion in 2014 to $2.1 billion by the end of the decade in the U.S. What’s clear is that enterprises are understanding

(BI Intelligence, Dec. 2014)

it takes money to make the Web go around.

A P R I L 2015

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READY

REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

The buzz surrounding business intelligence has certainly died down in the last several years, replaced by excitement over big data and predictive analytics.

As one buzzword is exchanged for another, it’s important enterprises don’t lose sight of what all three implementations can mean to business operations.

Business intelligence (BI) answers the “what happened,” predictive analytics answers the “what could happen,” and big data often raises new questions – all of which help enterprises make more informed business decisions. Often used interchangeably, big data, predictive analytics and business intelligence have made their way into the core of many tech offerings today. Let’s explore real-world applications for using data to improve conversion and processes.

Treat Valuable Customers like MVPs

Unlocking Big Data Tune into the customer journey at

wsm.co/bigdatakey

Anyone who has visited an airport knows the difference between those that frequently fly with a specific airline and those who do not. These loyal flyers are rewarded with front-of-the-line privileges and exclusive lounges, as well as perks not seen by fellow flyers (like free flights or upgrades).

Airlines do what every business should do, which is see who their best customers are and measure what happens when they treat them differently. It’s nowhere near a new concept, but many companies,

particularly retailers, fail to find their VIPs and target them individually.

A variety of companies offer the data to locate these valuable customer segments and promote offers to them, but perhaps not with the ease in which Monetate offers.

The Monetate platform empowers enterprises with big data insights, personalization, merchandising, testing and analytics to anticipate and react to customer behavior. With Monetate, for example, a retailer could use email to drive existing customers to its site with a “VIP” message and promotion, then carry over that same messaging to the site on both the landing page and a promotional banner reminding the visitor of the VIP promotion on every page that person visits. This tactic proved to increase conversion rate for one Monetate retailer by nearly 7 percent over the holiday season.

Brands, however, need to be able to do this kind of personalization at scale. It’s easy for a merchant to find eight customers and treat them well, but large enterprises have different groups with different needs and targeting each with personalized landing pages, emails and banners can be a creative burden. According to Bruce Ernst, VP of product management, Monetate spent a lot of time in the last year being able to do this at scale, offering an easy-to-use content builder to reduce the creative burden for enterprises.

Monetate’s content builder lets marketers easily personalize marketing campaigns at scale.

Monetate’s content builder works very similar to how one layers different photos, text and other elements in Adobe Photoshop. When building their creatives, Monetate users can add, remove and edit “layers” to create different campaigns for different groups. For example, a retailer could send a promotion to its most valuable customers where it is currently raining and another to its most valuable customers where it is snowing. The content builder lets the marketer add layers so that the images and text are relevant to that promotion (e.g. rainy day hero image versus snowy day hero image). The creative is then used for the email and corresponding landing pages and website banners.

Finally, a company can add a snippet of HTML to its emails (containing dynamic content - rainy day, snowy day, etc.) so that the images and copy change if the weather changes in that person’s area at the time of opening, it’s called Open-Time Personalization from Monetate. It’s truly a marriage of knowing what happened (customers’ past shopping behavior) and questioning what could happen (personalizing campaigns based on location and customer segment) to drive conversion.

Inform Content Creation Perhaps no digital initiative is as hot as content marketing is in 2015. Brands are creating content at a rapid clip under the guise it will improve brand loyalty, awareness and, eventually, conversion. Only 35 percent of business-to-business marketers, however, have a documented content marketing strategy, according to a recent study by the Content Marketing Institute. Further, less than half (48 percent) say they have a content marketing strategy, but it is not documented. Fortunately for data-driven enterprises, the tide is turning.

BI and analytics software provider Tableau named social intelligence as the second biggest trend in business intelligence, writing, “Tracking conversations at scale via social will let companies find out when a topic is starting to trend and what their customers are talking about.”

Brands are monitoring social conversations (through Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Brandwatch and more) to inform content creation decisions by understanding what has happened (what customers are talking about) and what could happen (if they create content based on existing social conversations).

New to the business intelligence scene, Uprise.io enables content marketers to discover and analyze the top performing content within their vertical, see which social network is responding best to content and view influencers and sharers across verticals, publishers or specific articles (see image).

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to get eyes on your content so having the ability to make decisions on your content that is backed by data is a huge advantage,” said Lee Fuller, co-founder of Uprise.io. “Enterprises can no longer use the ‘publish and pray’ technique. Content has to be crafted for the audience to maximize the potential ROI, whether you are looking to increase traffic, sales or social engagement, great content can deliver.”

A More Intelligent Future It’s anyone’s guess what next year’s buzzword will be, but enterprises looking for meaning in their data about what happened, what could happen or what they never thought to ask are creating a more intelligent future, full of conversions and data-driven processes.

Enterprises can use Uprise.io to quickly validate content ideas at the planning stage, accessing a wealth of data that can be used to shape and support ongoing content initiatives. The ability to analyze influencers sharing habits and build targeted lists of influencers to market to, means marketers can maximize the chances of getting experts to engage with their content.

Small

BUSINESS LAB

Leveraging the Right Data in Email Marketing

By E.J. McGowan, General Manager of Campaigner

In email marketing, too many companies rely on metrics that do not give them an optimal return – defaulting to open and click-through rates as their only practice of data analysis.

Though these are integral metrics to analyze throughout any email campaign, they are not the be-all, endall. When aptly leveraged, the right metrics will serve the purpose of improving an email marketing campaign, from encouraging users to engage with your brand to increasing the ultimate ROI. Here’s how:

1. Use Data to Cut the Fat Before executing a campaign, take the extra step of purging mailing lists of inactive recipients. Do this by concentrating on data that highlights previous and current user interaction to identify and tier contacts by level of engagement. Once that is complete, remove the non-engaged users and focus on the best performers, as those that show high levels of interaction will be the most likely to make a purchase and continue engaging with a brand.

2. Test, Test and Test Some More Savvy marketers know that subject lines can make or break an email campaign, but many small business owners are not testing this important variable.

By A/B testing subject lines, marketers can see which receives the highest opens and which fail to make the grade. If open rates reach double digits (ideally 20 percent-plus), it’s probably set for success. Results in the single digits, however, may mean it’s time to go back to the drawing board and conduct some more testing. Do be cautious though, as email read by mobile devices is often identified as an open, even if users are just skimming past it. Don’t be deceived by large amounts of data from mobile phones or tablets either – dig deeper into the data and find the source of opens to gain better insight.

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3. Mine for Multiple Interactions A key, but often-overlooked, metric is the measure of multiple interactions. Any indication a recipient conducts multiple interactions is a sign to engage with that user. A recipient that clicks through an email multiple times is much more valuable than several who only click once. For example, a recipient who opens an email on a mobile device and then again on a desktop computer has a high likelihood to engage and, ultimately, make a purchase. Once marketers identify these multiple openers, they should follow up with a message to incentivize purchase, such as with a limited-time offer.

4. Base Workflows on Data Use data to build a comprehensive workflow campaign triggered by multiple parameters of user interaction, not just one. Automate follow-up email messages for different types of engagement in order to gain the most benefits. For example, non-openers may need a subject line change to encourage engagement since the first email didn’t catch their eye. If they open but do not engage further, they may require a different or more persuasive call-to-action. And lastly, if they opened and clicked through, marketers should encourage them to increase interaction with added incentives.

5. Google Analytics for a Holistic Perspective Google Analytics is a great tool to integrate with email marketing initiatives (it’s also far and away the most popular but for a list of alternatives go to wsm.co/4altsga). With it, marketers can discover which contacts are actually becoming customers by tracking click-throughs from beginning to end.

Google Analytics can measure time spent on the site, links clicked, revenue generated and other behaviors from the path to purchase. But marketers should not limit themselves to measuring success and revenue.

It’s crucial to analyze where users stopped in the sales process to understand what can be changed in the future. If a contact opens an email, clicks through to the website, but doesn’t make a purchase, perhaps a more compelling offer is needed or a barrier to purchase needs to be fixed.

Marketers should avoid measuring ROI solely on opens and click-throughs, and instead take a proactive approach that puts data to work. Data is being generated by every user action, so get out there and use it.

Quiz

TIME

STAYING

AHEAD OF THE AFFILIATE MARKETING CURVE

The most successful affiliate marketers are those able to evolve in the face of digital industry developments – from search algorithm updates to shifts in social media network policies.

These affiliates realize that by staying ahead of the curve, they are better equipped to drive traffic (and conversions) to advertisers’ websites. It is not only important for affiliates to be well-versed in their industry, of course, but advertisers too. After all, advertisers are the ones turning to affiliates and affiliate networks for help marketing their brands’ products and services.

Staying up-to-date with this ever-evolving industry will also keep advertisers mindful of how their marketing dollars are being spent so they can better optimize their omnichannel strategies. Fortunately, advertisers and other digital professionals can easily keep up with the changes in the affiliate space by visiting Website Magazine’s Affiliate Insider channel regularly at wsm.co/affinsider.

In the meantime, find out how much you know about affiliate marketing by testing your knowledge in this month’s Quiz Time.

1. What is an attribution model? a. The promotional codes given to affiliates by advertisers b. A type of runway model exclusive to one brand c. A synonym for Affiliate Network d. A rule, or set of rules, that determine how credit for conversions is assigned to touchpoints in conversion paths

Cheat Sheet: Discover how tracking virtual events has changed at wsm.co/attrmodels 2. What does CPS stand for? a. Chicago Public Schools b. Cost per Sale c. Can’t Process Stuff d. Caller per Seller

Cheat Sheet: Brush up on affiliate marketing jargon at wsm.co/affgloss 3. Malicious bots account for what percentage of Internet traffic? a. 15 percent b. 90 percent c. 30 percent d. 65 percent

Cheat Sheet: Learn how much traffic is actually coming from malicious bots at wsm.co/traffbots 4. Which of the following is not a type of multi-touch attribution? a. Time Decay b. Historical c. U Shaped/Position d. Even

Cheat Sheet: Learn about the various types of multi-touch attribution at wsm.co/attrtypes 5. Google introduced two new large ad formats in 2014 to help affiliates reach more advertisers and enhance the user experience and engagement metrics on their sites.

See how well you did on this month’s quiz by visiting wsm.co/wmqtapr15 or by scanning the QR code.

TRUE

FALSE

Cheat Sheet: Find out if Google has super-sized its ad formats at wsm.co/adsizer

Top

50

Affiliate Marketing Networks to Know Affiliate marketing has changed for the better over the past few years – for both advertisers and publishers.

While there are plenty of issues still to be concerned with - and address - at this unique intersection of technology and marketing (e.g. viewability, attribution, etc.) the practice remains lucrative if you know what you’re doing. Affiliate marketers must be masters of all of the various fundamental practices and processes in Web success – from design and development to the many varieties of digital marketing including search, social and email – and so must the advertisers that require their support. Even with a highly active and engaged community, an incredibly useful application, or a highly functional digital presence, however, affiliates will still sit between advertisers and their audience – and that is making some brands very nervous.

Pinterest, for example, recently decided to prevent its users from appending affiliate links to the pins they submit, essentially banning affiliates from participating on that network altogether (in the hopes of giving its native advertising programs a boost no doubt). Pinterest’s choice not only stifles new voices from emerging on its network with its decision, but may also limit its own growth in the long run. By embracing affiliates (or at least not banning the practice outright) companies have time and time again generated far greater revenue and experienced far more success than those that did not. Google, for example, long embraced the practice of affiliate marketing, while Yahoo did not. Facebook didn’t prevent developers from creating applications through which they could profit from its traffic but Twitter dropped the hammer on the same type of ‘Net professional – arguably to their own detriment.

While today’s affiliates will likely continue to experience headaches (and heartaches) associated with the misinformed strategies of brands like Pinterest, it is still possible to excel in the practice of performance marketing and it starts with leveraging the right network – the solutions that serve as the middlemen between affiliates and the advertisers they want to promote. In this month’s edition of Website Magazine, readers will find fifty of the Web’s best affiliate marketing networks.

These solutions are the go to networks of choice for the most successful affiliates today – and it can be that way for anyone that keeps their eye on the digital prize and recognizes and employs performance marketing best practices.

Back to Affiliate Basics Check out Episode 7 (wsm.co/affbasics15) of the ‘Net Success video series, where Website Magazine Editor-in-Chief Pete Prestipino discusses affiliate marketing basics, common misconceptions of the practice, and offers useful and actionable guidance on how to get started.

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SEARCH

Step-By-Step

SEO TROUBLESHOOTING FOR GOOGLE NEWBS

By Marcus Howling, Web Talent Marketing

The ever-changing world of search engine optimization can be difficult to navigate, especially for businesses that have been satisfied to simply maintain the status quo.

In an effort to provide users with the best answers to their queries, search engine algorithms are constantly changing, and the digital marketing tactics that once helped sites rank may actually have a negative effect on rankings today.

Companies that do not adapt to updated “best practices” should expect to see their rankings drop, along with traffic volume and conversions. It is likely that these companies have already experienced such negative effects and are now looking for solutions. To evaluate the search health of a website and take action to reverse a downward trend in rankings and traffic volume, consider the following steps: To see if a site is indexed by Google, search for “site: www.yourwebsite.com”.

1. Check To Make Sure A Site Is Indexed To determine whether a site is indexed by Google, simply enter a site search query into Google for the domain in question (e.g. “site:www.yourwebsite.com”), see image on the left.

If the website is indexed, it will appear in the search results (of course). Companies whose sites appear for this search query can continue to step three, those who do not should continue to step two.

+ Check out a list of other essential Google search commands for ‘Net professionals at wsm.co/scommands

2. Discover Why the Site Is Not Indexed There are many reasons why a website would not appear in search engine result pages (SERPs) but one of the most common is a problem with the robots.txt file, which provides instructions to search engines on how to crawl (and index) a website. While it is easily corrected, disallowing bots from crawling pages is is one common reason for a website not to be indexed.

+ For a list of best practices related to the proper development of robots.txt files, visit wsm.co/crashcoursetxt 16

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3. Determine Which Penalty Hit the Site If the website in question is indexed but is underperforming, it is likely experiencing some type of penalty from Google. Before trying to solve the problem, it is necessary to determine the penalty type: a manual action or an algorithmic-based penalty. Manual actions are an easier penalty to identify as Google typically posts a message in Webmaster Tools alerting website owners that there is an issue (or several issues) with their domain.

Manual actions are typically levied as a result of “black hat” on-site or off-site practices, like cloaking (hiding text to appear more relevant) or hiding navigation (to force users to stay on a site), both of which deceive users and the search engine.

If a website has not been slammed by a manual action, then it was probably one of Google’s Penguin or Panda updates – an “algorithmic penalty.” These are automatically by the algorithms themselves, and not seen or individually selected by the Google Web spam team.

Companies providing low quality, thin or duplicated content or poor user experiences have Panda to thank for their SEO troubles. Similarly, businesses engaging in spammy backlink tactics and flooding their site with keyword-specific anchor text have Penguin algorithm to blame for decreased traffic and poor rankings.

4. Resolving Panda and Penguin Penalties After determining which penalty is impacting a site, webmasters and marketers can then make adjustments and get their rankings headed back in the right direction.

Penguin If it is determined that Penguin is to blame, use tools like LinkResearchTools.com’s Link Detox offering to run link diagnostics on websites and view their link toxicity levels. The tool provides an extensive report on all links and points out which ones are toxic to the target domain. Assemble all the low-quality links and go through Google’s link disavow process (which is addressed in more detail at wsm.co/penglinks). Once documented, webmasters should upload their spreadsheet to Google and cross their fingers. If the previous steps have been conducted properly, the penalty should be lifted. However, those spammy links that were once boosting rankings and traffic will be gone forever. As a result, new links will need to be built in order to help the site recover. This time around, it is vital to pursue valuable, relevant links.

Depending on how artificially inflated rankings were, it can take months or even years to recover from

Penguin. Often, penalties are not lifted due to inadequate information or insufficient effort from the site owner. When that occurs, a company will have to repeat Google’s reconsideration process.

Panda If the company has a strong backlink profile, the problem is likely Panda, an update that punished websites with low-quality content, poor grammar, horrible adto-content ratio, huge amounts of broken (404) links, missing or poor meta information, duplicate content and other site-quality problems.

To recover from Panda, site owners should focus their attention on enhancing content throughout the website.

If using scraped content, webmasters should remove it entirely or try to rewrite it. Any removed content should either be de-indexed or 301 redirected to save any link equity built to the given page. Next, clean up all 404s with proper 301s, rewrite meta descriptions and title tags and continue to add fresh content to the site.

It is never easy to bounce back from Panda, but it is possible. It requires a focus on improving and adding good, quality content for users. Utilizing the power of social media can also help businesses promote their high-quality content to target audiences.

Often, Panda penalties are the most difficult to get out from underneath. It can take years and be very frustrating for website owners. While using an agency to address on-site issues can be expensive, it is sometimes more cost effective than troubleshooting alone, as it is important that the site continues to produce quality content well after a penalty has been lifted.

5. Going Mobile Google officially announced that as of April 21, 2015 it will be expanding its use of mobile-friendly factors in its search algorithm. Webmaster need to focus on providing a relevant experience to mobile users to ensure they don’t miss out on valuable traffic.

Recovering from any penalty (be it Panda, Penguin or manual) is never easy but it is possible. Take the time to examine why a website’s SEO initiatives may be falling short and you will quickly find you are back on the fast track to ‘Net success.

Marcus Howling is a SEO specialist at Web Talent Marketing, where he excels at on-page optimization, natural link building, and keyword research and analysis.

Quick Check for a Spammed Site Discover several tools to run a quick diagnostic scan on your website at

wsm.co/spamsite

E-Commerce

EXPRESS Don’t Be #Basic

3 Live Chat Tips for Online Retailers

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

With myriad solutions available, live chat is not only a very accessible functionality for e-commerce businesses, but it’s also a feature savvy shoppers have come to expect when buying products on the Web. Despite live chat’s popularity, many merchants are only leveraging it at its most basic level – even though more can be done to increase conversion and average order values, as well as improve operations. To take your site’s customer service to the next level, check out the three live chat tips below.

1. Create strategic proactive chat triggers

Proactive chat engages a user at pre-determined times, like within the first few seconds of their visit, when they are spending a certain amount of time on a page or other critical moments in their customer journey.

Typically used as a prompt to engage with a live chat operator, proactive chat gives merchants the ability to initiate communication at critical moments in the buying process (see image).

The majority of digital consumers actually welcome proactive chats, with a 2014 Moxie Software study finding that 72 percent of respondents want brands to proactively engage with them online, especially when they are struggling on a website. Setting up the “right” triggers, however, is important, according to Jeff Mason, VP of marketing at Velaro.

“The real key is understanding when and where a proactive trigger should be used,” said Mason. “For instance, if you have a product page with a lot of products on it you could set a proactive chat trigger based on time spent on a page. If someone spends a lot of time on a specific page – maybe they can’t find what they are looking for or maybe the copy on that page is confusing – that is a great opportunity to launch a proactive chat.”

In addition to common proactive chat triggers (discover three instances to launch a proactive chat at wsm.co/triggerchat), merchants can set triggers based on specific visitor

personas, a feature that Velaro is releasing later this year.

Visitor personas collect customer data such as what pages the customer has visited previously or where the customer is located. Merchants can use this data to set proactive chat triggers and deliver a personalized customer service experience to their shoppers.

Aside from creating strategic proactive chat triggers, merchants should also focus on making it easier for their customer service agents to increase order values.

2. Help agents upsell Perhaps the best way merchants can increase upsell opportunities is by integrating their CRM systems with their live chat software.

“Without leaving the chat agent interface, (agents) can take a look at a site visitor’s record in the CRM system if the visitor has been to the site before,” said Mason. “Then, agents have the opportunity to have greater knowledge about that individual and offer them products or upsell opportunities that are specific and targeted to that (customer).”

In addition to CRM integration, merchants can leverage “canned” chats to instill performance consistency in the upsell process. Canned chats, which are pre-made responses for common customer inquiries, can continuously be improved upon so that when visitors match a specific profile, agents have the ability to choose from a set of chat messages proven to be the most effective.

To further improve upon live chat performance, however, merchants must also take time to analyze, evaluate and optimize the initiative.

3. Evaluate performance The initial implementation of live chat is never perfect according to Mason.

“It’s an ongoing assessment of what is working and what is not working and then determining strategically and thoughtfully how to make tweaks to your implementation in order to continuously improve,” said Mason.

When evaluating performance, merchants should look at everything from the placement of their live chat CTA to the impact of their proactive chat triggers. This is why it is important merchants choose live chat software that offers reporting and/or a support team, as these features make it easier for merchants to analyze the success and failures of live chat on their site.

Moving Beyond Basic By taking a strategic approach and analyzing performance, merchants can quickly move their live chat functionality beyond basic to a holistic approach to customer service.

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A P R I L 2015

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Design and

DEVELOPMENT

How One Design Shop Cooked Up a Modern Approach to

Responsive Web Design

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

Web designers and developers spend months and sometimes years redesigning a website to cater to clients’ lofty goals for their new site, which often includes meeting users’ evolving expectations.

Four Kitchens tasked its clients with prioritizing and streamlining content based on seven circles (or areas for content) on the homepage.

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Further, what clients want their sites to be – in regard to form and function – and what is possible – in relation to budget, time and capabilities – don’t always mesh. With proper planning, collaboration and even some disagreement, however, everyone involved in a design project can get a better version of what they originally anticipated.

This was the case when non-profit organization World Pulse hired Web design and development shop Four Kitchens to give it a new website that would not only support current and potential donors, but also its social network side, where users write, connect and discover new content online. The challenge was that much of World Pulse’s audience is in developing countries, where users don’t have access to desktop computers or high-speed Internet. What’s more, to offer the best experience, the site needed to be presented in a way that was familiar to World Pulse’s diverse audience, starting with native support for English and French, with plans to introduce additional languages, including Arabic (see sidebar).

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With these goals in mind, Four Kitchens leveraged responsive Web design, taking a mobile-first approach, which Aaron Stanush, creative director and partner at Four Kitchens, said wasn’t a “nice to have,” but rather a “must have.”

The next obstacle to overcome was how to streamline World Pulse’s complex site, which includes donor support, news stories, training resources, online communities and events. Content prioritization quickly proved to be the (which plays quite nicely with responsive design).

Show & Tell After working through early drafts of the information architecture (IA) and user flows, according to Four Kitchen Designer and Frontend Engineer Taylor Smith, Four Kitchens established three primary categories for the site: editorial, community and static “about” content, and continued to prioritize content, work on wireframes and test their design theories (for a list of popular wireframe tools, check out, “Getting Wild With Wireframes, 2015 Edition” at wsm.co/2015wf ).

Part of the testing was to see (and hear) how global participants interacted with the site. Four Kitchens used video chat to see how someone would sign up for a newsletter, for example. They quickly realized some of the early friction on the site centered

Four Kitchens challenged its client to rethink decade-old verbiage and what the number one homepage takeaway should be.

around labeling. One decision that came out of this user testing was the choice to use the word “menu” in its main navigation bar rather than a hamburger icon (three stacked lines indicating a collapsed menu on a mobile device) because the word “menu” proved to have the most global appeal.

The team continued to face tough decisions, especially regarding what to include and exclude on the World Pulse homepage.

The 7-Circle Exercise To start the conversation with an eye toward focus and reduction, Four Kitchens gave World Pulse a very simple chart with seven circles (see image). Each of the seven circles represented homepage content and how the content was to be prioritized based on how high the circle is on the chart, establishing hierarchy/importance.

The “big circle” needed to be the site’s main takeaway. Four Kitchens strongly recommended that takeaway be the answer to, “What is World Pulse,” in easy-to-understand vocabulary. The verbiage was especially important in this project because as an organization that has been around for 10-plus years, World Pulse needed to be challenged to rethink words and phrases they have used since the early 2000s if it meant improving conversion/engagement.

The result was, “World Pulse is a global movement,” with a call to join (see image).

Moving down the chart, the two smaller circles needed to answer, “What should a user be presented with that gets into the site’s purpose?” World Pulse chose to highlight the best of its recent editorial content and an ever-refreshing display of highly active community members.

Finally, the four small circles in the chart needed to cater to users still exploring the homepage, show-

ing them, in brevity, what further actions they could take on the website. World Pulse and Four Kitchens decided on: ‘What We Do’, ‘Our Impact’ and ‘Donate’.

Even though there was room for four “circles” (representations of content they could include toward the bottom of the homepage), they were able to drop a “circle” because the three sections were so concise.

“Although this exercise was definitely helpful to the project – we still aren’t sure whether it sent the whole committee into a horrifically long meeting, a boxing ring or a bar!” said Smith. “It successfully allowed the homepage to be a strong starting point for these three disparate divisions, and produced a piece we were all proud of.”

With its seven-circle exercise, Four Kitchens helped its clients rethink the initial grab to cram the homepage with content, resulting in these concise sections.

Modern RWD At the end of the digital day, Four Kitchens and World Pulse created a website that accomplished its many goals. And despite some technical conundrums (like supporting legacy browsers and organizing CSS, see sidebar), Four Kitchens elevated what perhaps they even thought responsive Web design could do.

Geek Out: Right-to-Left Support, Legacy Browsers & Organizing CSS Four Kitchens faced a plethora of technical challenges when designing for a global audience. Lean how its developers prepared WorldPulse.com for supporting right-to-left languages like Arabic, catered to users still using IE 8 and how it organized the CSS of this large site at wsm.co/desgeek.

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WEB DESIGN

FOR OPTIMAL INTERACTION Defining & Developing the Modern Customer Experience

By Pete Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

If it is becoming increasingly apparent that those leading their respective verticals have an unwavering focus on the quality and usefulness of design, you’re not alone.

WM’s Responsive Design Pack In the increasingly device and screen size fragmented world designers design in, the trend toward “responsive” will continue to be important. Many companies, however, are still behind the virtual curve in terms of implementing a responsive approach.

Check out Website Magazine’s Responsive Design Pack at wsm.co/wmrdp15, a collection of useful tools and resources, to help accelerate ‘Net design success for those designing a digital presence for optimal interaction.

Today’s consumer is more demanding of compelling and engaging experiences and less tolerant of websites that don’t meet their often lofty expectations. From the standpoint of the modern enterprise, that can be a doubleedged digital sword. While it certainly requires a greater investment of time, talents, energy and resources for enterprises to create a digital presence that truly connects with an audience, end-users (website visitors) are also more accessible and available to target than ever before – and in many ways, easier to convert. And that’s the reason you’ll find Vince Vaughn on the cover.

Website Magazine’s website analytics data shows that behind “technophiles,” the affinity category seen most often in its monthly reports is that of “Movie Lovers.”

Website Magazine also knows that nearly 80 percent of its audience is between the ages of 25 and 54 and that 68 percent are male. Showing Vince Vaughn on the cover speaks to the majority (by a wide margin) of our audience who 1) know of the person on the cover (and can likely relate to him) and 2) realize the occasional absurContinued on pg. 28

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Web Design

FEEDBACK IN FOCUS As consumers continue to shift more and more of their focus to the online world, companies must make sure that their websites can not only handle the extra traffic, but also that their sites are engaging consumers.

For many brands, their website has become the medium through which consumers engage with the most.

In order to make sure that consumers are having not only a pleasing experience but also an exemplary one, they must vigorously test their website. However, before rushing off and hastily selecting a testing service, brands must be careful to select a solution that meets their business’s needs.

There are a variety of solutions available for brands to leverage in order to check on the health of their website. Below are five of the most interesting and useful tools that brands can leverage; see an extended list at wsm.co/desfeedback15.

+ UsabilityHub: When creating a website there are often features that the designer believes will connect with consumers, whether it be a creative navigation menu or overall page layout. Unfortunately, not all end up connecting.

UsabilityHub lets designers test their creations on real people before they make their sites live. The design testing service has three tests that users can select from: a Five Second Test, Click Test and Nav Flow test.

Through these tests enterprises can discover consumers’ initial impressions of websites, where they are most likely to click and how easy the site is to navigate. + Usabilla: Websites today are a source of rich information that, if utilized properly, can earn businesses a lifetime customer. To make sure that their websites are performing to their maximum capacity, brands must vigorously test for a variety of metrics. Usabilla enables brands to do live tests with a variety of features including targeted feedback forms that enable brands to ask visitors direct questions about their website as well as visual analysis tools like an intuitive dashboard so brands can quickly and easily understand their results. + UserTesting: While seeing the reports of user testing is highly valuable to brands, it does not equate to the value that comes from being able to see and hear testers’ reactions when using their site through video. Just as dashboards help brands to understand analytic 26

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metrics through visual representations, video helps brands to better visualize how visitors move through their website. Through tester videos brands are able to see first-hand how users navigate their websites as well as hear reactions to the features of the site as the tester moves through it. + Loop11: When deciding upon a service to leverage for usability testing it’s important that brands understand what each service tests specifically and the results it delivers. While allowing companies to test for predetermined metrics, Loop11 also enables brands to set up and run completely customized tests to see how their website performs. Through these tests brands can see data based on actions they specifically ask consumers to take. One noteworthy feature of Loop11’s testing features is that it enables brands to recruit users with disabilities to test how accessible their website is. + WhatUsersDo: Similar to UserTesting, WhatUsersDo enables brands to see testers’ journey through videos. Interestingly, WhatUsersDo also enables brands to pinpoint the audience they want to test their websites.

Brands are able to restrict their testers based on a variety of factors including age, sex and socio-economic status. This feature is helpful for brands which naturally lend themselves toward niche demographics like male or female specific apparel brands or baby supply providers akin to Babies “R” Us.

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10 CELEBRATING

YEARS

THE MAGAZINE FOR WEBSITE SUCCESS

©2014 Website Magazine

WEBSITEMAGAZINE.COM

dity of the stock images Vaughn and his Unfinished Business movie cast mates are openly mocking (which only a true technophile would really be able to do). What does this have to do with digital design? In a word, everything.

Knowing users and their interests in this manner enables companies to develop the types of content and kinds of experiences necessary to secure genuine user engagement. Designing an end-to-end customer experience on the Web – one that facilitates interaction and ultimately conversion – is no easy feat however. Today’s savviest companies are providing digital experiences that introduce prospects to the brand in practical ways - both tactile and cerebral – in an effort to accelerate their ‘Net success.

It’s necessary for today’s companies to let people know about their business and brand, to establish presence and encourage involvement and design is perhaps the most powerful means by which a business can do that.

There are more digital touch points today than ever before, and more opportunities to engage in the customer experience. Today’s Web designers are responsible for more than just defining and developing a digital presence, but helping to secure the success of an enterprise.

If brands want to be knowledgeable and personable, as well as likable and trustworthy (not to mention compelling), it will become clear that designers and developers play a pivotal role.

In this month’s Website Magazine feature, we’ll address the digital design processes, approaches and characteristics that brands’ websites must employ and possess if the aim is better reputation, greater influence, and increased conversions. Readers will also be

Experience Mapping lays out a likely course users might take. Here is a sample Experience Map (via Adaptive Path) for Rail Europe, which outlines the various stages of the customer journey.

introduced to some practical tactics that can be used by a designers to deepen the engagement necessary to accelerate ‘Net success.

The Role of Experience Mapping in Modern Digital Interaction Design At this point, it is important to realize that good design is driven in great part by end-users feeling a connection (with the product or brand). As designers, how can you reach that often elusive state? Is it possible to effectively translate common and popular design principles into a digital interface? If so, it will likely depend on the execution of some often forgotten fundamentals.

First and Foremost, Know What Should Be Accomplished Designers should never work alone, meaning they need support from every corner of the enterprise – particularly as it relates to understanding goals and objectives of prospective users and customers. Establishing personas and user scenarios based on those personas is a great start as they force designers to more fully explore the elements in which product interaction occurs. What we’re after here is a better and more complete picture of the entire experience: the user, the scenario, and the entire emotional journey that is taking place – and the best way to do that is to actually map out the experience.

Experience mapping is a strategic, collaborative, iterative process of capturing and communicating (as well as synthesizing and visualizing) complex customer interactions and experiences. The activity of mapping

provides useful insights, and the map itself can be used to chart new courses of action and build more seamless customer experiences over time.

+ Learn how to develop a more engaging and effective experience with Website Magazine’s Quick Guide to Experience Mapping, available at wsm.co/exmap15.

Knowing as much as possible about the customer and their “experience” journey is only half the battle however.

Brands must also know what the pain points are, the likely paths a user might take and what the barriers to conversion might ultimately be. There has to come a point when designers turn their attention to actually making the experience a customer has as valuable as possible – which means making them usable, obvious and useful.

The Basics of Usability and Types of Affordances Keep in mind that our aim here is really to discover ways that websites can optimize interaction through design. Ultimately, that will demand that the fundamentals of interaction design be addressed (with a special focus on usability) as a website that can’t be used as is required won’t inspire an end-user to visit or use with any regularity. It only makes sense that the less mental energy a user must expend figuring out the nuances of a system, the more they can spend accomplishing the task (and opportunity) presented to them.

How can today’s digital brand succeed in this regard?

One way is to consider what specific elements on a page

are conveying to users (and how they are doing that). In design parlance, this is referred to as affordance.

Affordances are simply clues about how objects should be used – and are often provided by the object itself or that object’s context. Affordances are essentially about setting up expectations and then delivering on them – and they are pretty much everywhere in the digital world. A good example is that of a ‘submit’ or ‘buy now’ button. If these buttons were only text, it would be difficult for a user to tell that it is interactive and performs a specific function. If the text were surrounded by a color background and was offset by a shadow, however, an end-user would be more likely to use it as they have the expectation that it will.

There are, in fact, many types of affordances, and if you’ve spent any time on the Web whatsoever, you’ll be familiar with many – if not all – of them.

Labels, for example, are a very direct type of affordance and are very useful in complex interfaces or those which include abstract concepts as they are meaningful ways to indicate function. Imagine if a Web form had no labels and you were expected to know what to type into each field. Every Web form is a little different, so there’s no pattern you could follow. You might still be able to rely on form validation and go through a process of trial and error, but it would be incredibly frustrating. Labels help people organize and understand the choices that are being presented to them. It may not always be the most aesthetically pleasing affordance, but it is the most clear and precise method of communicating functionality.

Iconography is another powerful means of affordance and one that is quite familiar to end-users and designers alike. Icons are often used as a replacement for actual words, and are used to convey meaning.

The problem with the use of icons alone, however, is that it is essential for users to understand the underlying meaning for it to communicate effectively. If you don’t know that a wrench represents tools, or that an envelope represents email (in the digital world), then these symbols are meaningless (rendering your site effectively unusable).

Ultimately, what designers must understand (in relation to affordances) is the point at which a design element goes from decorative to essential/functional. When the objective is to develop optimal interactions, functionality follows form. Consider for a moment what various design elements on your own website are conveying to users. Is there room for doubt or confusion? If so, it’s time to make adjustments and dive into the digital details.

The Digital Darling in the Design Details Although website design has come a long way, it has still not replaced direct communication. Users still need assurance that there is a human being on the other side. While many users may not notice one or two details in a UI, they can definitely feel the accumulation of those efforts.

Frank Chimero’s book “The Shape of Design” illustrates this quite well: The warmth and exuberance of communication and the accommodation to the audience necessitated by delightful design also makes it easier for the audience to spot the presence of the designer in the work. The work becomes more humanized in its tone and effect, so it becomes easy to see that there are people behind it.

The Speed of Design Every 100ms of loading time decreases revenue by 1% (source: Amazon). Load time performance is crucial when designing and developing for a great user experience - be it on mobile or desktop devices. Some ways to design for this include optimizing images sizes for responsive design, minifying CSS and Javascript and removing unnecessary page elements. Learn more about these techniques and discover others at wsm.co/designspeed.

So, to what details can a designer turn their focus?

There are, in fact, several approaches that can be used to move beyond the visual alone to a more immersive experience for the customer, including sound, movement and words themselves.

Sound, for example, can be used as recognition of the user’s success, reinforcing other visual cues of the same state. Sound affects end-users in many ways (physiologically, psychologically, cognitively and behaviorally) and can be applied to Web and application interfaces. Mastering the use of sound in order to provoke emotion will likely become an increasingly popular trend in the future. See (and hear) three sites that are effectively using sound in their digital presence at wsm.co/soundsites15.

Animation is another technique that can be leveraged in user interface (UI) design that can help brands stands out and improve the customer experience. The secret in animation is in replicating our personal experience so interactions feel realistic.

And, these principles are often best applied on a micro-level. Apple Maps’ pin drop feature, for example, feels quite authentic, as if you placed the pin there yourself. Falling slowly at first and then quickly dropping into place.

While a seemingly very obvious way to communicate, the use of copy is undervalued and often overlooked.

In our rush to replace popular actions with iconography, sometimes copy can be equally powerful.

Codecademy, for example, uses a text field to encourage users to immediately interact with the platform upon their arrival.This was a subtle but highly effective way to teach users how to use that interface and increase engagement with the design application.

By using sound, animation and copy, designers can provide website visitors with opportunities to establish attachment to the brand and its products. The future of design is about emotional awareness; connecting us with products the way we connect with each other. Design is no longer about how interfaces look, but rather understanding how people behave in relation to the technology presented.

Where to Begin When Optimizing for Interaction Developing a digital presence isn’t easy and it is not going to be for the foreseeable future. What today’s enterprises can and should do is turn their attention to users (and prospects); focusing on the totality of the experience, the usability of their digital product and never lose sight of the importance of detail when establishing a genuine connection.

Website Magazine Webinars Webinars are the best way to get together groups of potential customers and educate them about your product. The webinars also result in the most 1-to-1 conversations and produce the warmest of leads, because you have the opportunity to perform a live demonstration and answer questions.

Website Magazine’s webinars are professionally produced and put you in touch with a great, tech-minded audience that is interested in improving and growing their Web-based businesses.

Reach out to our representatives today at 1.800.817.1518 to talk ideas and find out more!

A Website Magazine Webinar Includes:

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Odds Are, Your CRM is Failing Your Business

By David Trice, Engage.CX

In today’s retail world, customers are firmly in control. They decide how to interact with a business; they decide when they interact with a business.

And when a customer engages with a brand, no matter the platform, he or she expects and demands a consistent experience. The company’s left hand must know what the right hand is doing. The fact is, customers could care less about departmental divisions, disparate software platforms or layers of man32

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agement. How well an organization manages these touchpoints in order to create one singular, positive experience for the consumer is what is driving brand loyalty today.

Largely responsible for orchestrating all of these touchpoints, customer relationship management (CRM) technology has greatly failed at this task. In fact, Forrester Research finds that only 10 percent of CRM implementations have been successful. The reason for the high level of failure is simple: The “relationship” has been missing from CRM.

Marketing now pivots on managing customers’ experiences each and every time they “touch” a brand.

CRM technology is finally trying to catch up, allowing companies to more effectively center activities around customer experience, but here are three steps brand can take today to refocus on putting the customer first:

Recognize Customers Across Every Channel of Your Business Today, most companies cannot say exactly how many times a customer touches their brand. To begin to understand how to satisfy the customer, an organization needs to know each and every time a customer engages with it.

Once a customer has engaged with a brand, its system should let it know exactly who the customer is and why they are engaging with its business. This process of identifying touchpoints is essential for survival.

Only by recognizing when and how customers engage with it, can a business begin to learn the customers’ wants and needs.

Understand that Customer Lifecyclesare the New Sales Pipeline The traditional sales funnel is outdated and antiquated. Today, understanding the customer lifecycle, or the journey customers take with a business, matters most in driving financial performance. Customer lifecycles fall into welldefined stages: interest, inquiry, consideration, engagement, purchase, using the product and maintaining the product. By knowing when and how a customer engages with a brand, marketers can learn more about the customer, such as her likes and dislikes. Accumulating this knowledge allows companies to build profiles about the preferences and habits of each customer. This activity is far more advanced than assigning the customer a “profile” and hoping they’re like everyone else in that “set.”

Once the process is orchestrated and data on each interaction is collected, brands can track the customer’s unique relationship using three vital pieces of engagement information:

“

“

In today’s world, customers engage with brands across a growing universe of touchpoints, often inhibiting great customer experience.

Frequency: How many times did a customer touch the business over the course of a period of time?

Value: What is the value and frequency of purchases a customer makes with a product?

Feeling: The company’s performance on each interaction as measured by a customer’s sentiment from each event.

This relationship index, referred to as the Customer Value Index (CVI), becomes the number one tool to understanding how an organization is performing with a customer, product category or in a region.

Employees Will Be Empowered For the Moment of Truth Once a CVI has been created for each customer, brands must enable its employees to utilize the information. It’s simply not enough to collect the customer data for the use of the CEO, founder or team of sales associates. The key is making the information available to employees so they can use it to delight and awe the customer at the moment of truth: right when the customer engages with the business.

This is the Holy Grail for today’s companies.

Undergoing this process of mapping the customer lifecycle will create new opportunities for a brand to improve how it executes by illuminating areas where a business may want to evolve to meet its customers’ needs. Better yet, focusing on the customer experience across the customer lifecycle helps brands understand how they are performing from the customer’s point of view.

In today’s world, customers engage with brands across a growing universe of touchpoints, often inhibiting great customer experience. It’s critical to create a consistent customer experience that builds brand loyalty. By recognizing the customer across the entire lifecycle, and transforming business practices so that they result in positive experiences every time a customer touches the brand, brands will create lasting value.

David Trice is co-founder and CEO of Engage.CX, the leading experience-driven CRM for enterprise. Prior to launching Engage.CX, Trice was VP of CRM at Oracle.

Meeting Omnichannel Expectations Discover what consumers expect and how retailers can make it happen in this infographic at

wsm.co/omniexp

Conversion

CORNER

Hook, Line & Sinker

How to Create Value Propositions That Work

By Milad Oskouie, Infinite Conversions

There is a reason why value propositions should form the cornerstone of a website’s conversion rate optimization initiative – they are what make people buy from a business.

The stronger the company’s value proposition, the greater the number of conversions that will result – so it’s not something to take lightly.

Even minor changes to a value proposition can diminish conversion rate, so it needs to be on-brand and grab people by the scruff of their necks to make them believe that what is being offered will be invaluable to them. So, how so does one create an effective value proposition? First, they need a working definition …

A value proposition is all about perception and motivation. The company’s product or service has a perceived benefit as well as a perceived cost. The amount of motivation created that is needed to make the conversion happen is the amount of perceived benefit, minus the amount of perceived cost. To put it in a formula:

+ Motivation = Perceived Benefit – Perceived Cost Notice how it is perceived benefit and perceived cost. Perceptions are much more important than cold, hard facts, which is where a compelling value proposition comes in.

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The benefits of the company’s product or service will be different for different people. In order to promote the product or service in the most effective way possible, it’s essential to find out which benefits are perceived to be the most important across the broader audience.

Say for example there’s an auto company launching a new, environmentally friendly model of one of their most popular cars. Some people might consider the environmental factor as being the key benefit while for others it will be the lower insurance costs, and still others the lower fuel consumption. For the company to create the best value proposition for its new model, it needs to determine which of the benefits is actually perceived to be the most beneficial to the greatest number of people as it will give that company the greatest chance of maximizing conversion rates and ultimately sales.

Finding the Best Value Proposition Every marketer understands the concept of “What’s in it for me?” Customers do not necessarily want to hear about all the bells and whistles of a product, but rather how a product or service will benefit them directly.

As explained above, the benefits of the company’s product will mean something different to different people, but it’s not suitable to emphasize everything as

the more that is emphasized, the less that will be said.

The company needs to work out which features are the most important to the greatest number of its customers.

So, how does this start? Always be testing…

The marketing experts of the pre-Internet days helped companies predict which features of a new product or service were likely to be the most appealing and may have validated their considerations by using customer surveys and focus groups. These days, there’s a much more accurate way to measure customer expectations - testing.

By using testing, a company can accurately gauge its customers’ reactions to the different value propositions it feels the company is able to offer. It is easily observable to realize what’s going to work best, with statistical information available to support its findings.

Value proposition testing works for all kinds of businesses, not just startups. Electronic Arts – a leading player in the video gaming industry since 1982 – used value proposition testing for the launch of the third installment of one of its most popular games, and one that had sold nearly 5 million copies already. By using value proposition testing, the company was still able to increase the conversion rate of players registering with their site by 128 percent. So, how does a company decide what to test? There are three questions to ask: [A] What do customers want from the product or service?

[B] What features does the product or service have?

[C] What features does a similar product or service from its competitors have?

The company can use the answers to understand how it can come up with a value proposition, or at least a range of value propositions that it can test. Three considerations for creating a value proposition include: 1. Parity This is where [A], [B] and [C] intersect. These are the features that the business offers that are important to its potential customers and that are also offered by its competitors. The company’s customers need to be made aware that they can at least get the same features from its product or service that they can from competitors. This is expected, however, so it is unlikely to make a significant impression.

2. Irrelevance This is where, in the list above, [B] does not have anything in common with [A] or [C]. These are features of the product or service that are not seen as a priority by its potential customers.

3. Difference This is where [A] intersects with [B], not including any intersections with [C]. These are the features of its product or service that are important to its potential customers, and are not already offered by competitors.

As the reader may have worked out, it’s “Difference” where he or she wants to concentrate their attention. It is the features not offered elsewhere and that are desired by its potential customers that will most likely cause customers to take the call-to-action and result in conversion.

Testing Value Propositions on Landing Pages The first experience with a company’s branding that customers typically receive is with its landing page.

This makes the landing page the ideal place to test value propositions. The company can use multiple landing pages, but the points at which it should test are always its website entry pages.

If it split-tests its range of value propositions with people landing on its site for the first time, it’ll reduce the exposure of its propositions to people who have already judged the company and have moved on to the consideration stage of the purchasing journey. They’ve already associated a value with the product or service, and therefore their inclusion will skew results. Using new visitors gives the company a blank canvas from which it can draw conclusions.

Once the company feels it has learned enough from the conversion rates gleaned from its different value propositions, it can validate these insights by moving to other audience target groups to see the value proposition’s effect.

There’s more to landing page testing than simply increasing landing page conversion rates. When it undertakes a strategic approach, doing so can provide plenty of useful marketing insights.

Offer What Competitors Can’t The company’s value proposition is the best way of selling itself. It’s no good just saying “please buy my product … it does X, Y and Z.” It’s essential to work out what the potential customers expect, what the product can offer that will interest them and what the product offers that its competitors can’t.

Milad Oskouie is a director at Infinite Conversions, focusing on improving website’s real-world financial metrics through conversion rate optimization.

Throw It Back!

Check out four value propositions worth re-thinking at

wsm.co/4vprops

Software

EVERYWHERE

10 PROJECT MANAGEMENT PITFALLS TO AVOID

By Reda Sedrati, CEO of Cloudswave

Many professionals allow their digital projects to fail before they even get off the ground, citing lack of executive buy-in, impossible expectations and more. With proper planning and the right mindset, however, they can easily avoid the 10 most-common project management pitfalls.

Everyone involved in the project should be able to critique work and apply what they’ve learned. If the team fails to learn from mistakes, they’re setting up the project for failure. “Fail fast” is a term commonly used in the technology industry, whose premise is not to waste too much time dwelling on failure, but rather acknowledging the failure and quickly correcting it.

Lack of Flexibility When unexpected things come up (and they will), it’s critical to the project’s success that the team is able to adapt to changes and still meet deadlines. The scope of the project shouldn’t be so rigid that one small change causes a rift in the entire venture.

Too Much Flexibility

Clearly defining a project’s objectives is key to finishing a project on-time, on-budget and on-target. Objectives should be actionable and the results easy to measure. If a project’s aim is to increase customer satisfaction, the stated objective could be “Increase overall customer satisfaction from 67 percent to 85 percent through the use of a new live chat feature on our website.”

On the flip side, too much flexibility can cause major setbacks and waste valuable time. It’s essential that project managers carefully weigh the options - not changing things for the sake of change, but not being afraid to fix what’s broken. This is where a strong project leader can be invaluable in keeping everyone moving in the right direction.

Lack of Executive Involvement

Inadequate Staffing

Boost the odds of successful project completion by getting executives on board and informed. When speaking with executives, discuss the project in terms that relate to their functional area. The chief financial officer (CFO), for example, will better understand the project’s progress in financial terms, whereas the chief marketing officer (CMO) will need to know how it will improve market position.

A team is only as strong as its weakest link. Team members should be selected based on their skillsets, not availability alone. Make the project appealing to the right people, and they’ll want to be involved.

Make regularly scheduled meetings a mandatory part of the process. Those serving as project managers should consider a daily scrum meeting (a 15-minute standing meeting) to make sure everything is progressing without roadblocks or delay. Also consider centralizing project management by taking conversations away from emails and chat to an aggregated platform such as Slack or Trello.

Unclear Project Processes Keep a close eye on project progress by encouraging team members to follow a clearly defined procedure

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Failure to Learn from Mistakes

Unclear Objectives

Lack of Communication

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for submitting changes for approval. With clearly defined processes, it is easy to keep track of what worked and what didn’t.

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Initiating Too Many Projects Multitasking will not save time or money. Instead, it will hurt the outcome of all projects involved and increase the odds of project failure. Enterprises shouldn’t shortchange a project by adding another task to the mix.

Failure to Budget Accordingly It can be tempting in the planning stage to underestimate the required budget. While a smaller budget may be appealing to executives, it will come back to bite a project manager at some point in the project’s timeline.

When the unexpected occurs, be sure that the budget allows some wiggle room.

Overseeing a successful project from start to finish is never easy, but these tips will stack the odds in one’s favor.

WEBSITE MAGAZINE

IN YOUR INBOX Subscribe for our channel-focused weekly newsletters at wsm.co/email15 Sign up for one (or all) of our weekly newsletters, choose from e-commerce, search, social, design and dev, and our industry trends news. It’s as easy as entering your email address!

YEARS

Net

ADVERTISING

4 Ways Social Can Unlock Advertising Efficiency

By Yosha Ulrich-Sturmat, VP Product Marketing at Neustar

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It’s old news that social media provides significant reach and spend value for advertising buys, so why aren’t more brands flocking to it?

brands to now go beyond users’ desktop computers to retarget mobile users on their phones and tablets (discover four conversion-boosting retargeting examples at wsm.co/4retarget).

For many enterprises, social is used to improve reach through targeting and retargeting because a call-to-action on social isn’t to purchase, but rather to retweet, share, like, comment, etc., an extremely powerful tool for both branding and awareness. What marketers may not know is that social can also be used to improve advertising efficiency by providing an added layer of targeting data.

Through logins and other information, social provides extended customer identification data, and when used in conjunction with tools like Facebook Custom Audiences, Twitter Tailored Audiences and first-party data, it offers the ability to get even more granular information on top prospects. Further, when combined with in-house CRM data, social provides hyper-specific targeting capabilities to help marketers learn more, personalize a customer’s experience and gain off-the-chart conversion stats.

Mash up social and CRM data Combine CRM data with social data to not only build on existing profiles but also create new profiles of prospects that look like your best customers. By combining CRM and social data, marketers can map user IDs from offline to online, and close the reporting loop from advertising to action. This provides an opportunity to understand the channel’s relationship to buying and where customers are in the buying cycle and better tailor messages.

MEASURE CAMPAIGN CONVERSION

How can brands ensure they get the most out of their social spend? Here are four tips to get started:

Marketers can use analytics to fine-tune campaigns.

Advertisers should look at measures around location, device, date and time, demographics and history in combination and separately, and compare those against conversions. Now, they can also begin to correlate ads served to custom audiences through a single lens, which includes measurement and analytics tied to social influence and conversions, as well as reach and overlap compared to channels other than social.

Extend user profiles with social data

Look across the entire customer journey

Social logins provide rich data about consumers, such as interests, place of employment, social connections, education, etc., which can help brands enhance consumer profiles, more effectively target prospects and customers and drive more meaningful interactions.

Tools like Facebook Custom Audiences let advertisers employ consumers’ login and demographic information, which marketers can use to target specific attributes, such as females age 20 to 40, who like Jimmy Choo shoes and live on the West Coast.

These targeting improvements can net brands big upticks in conversions, but so too can the ability for

Advertisers that only manage their analytics using a last-touch attribution (LTA) model could be losing the benefit of social’s influence. For example, a shoe manufacturer might actually drive lower sales by focusing more on exchanges and spending less on social.

The real value of social is in its ability to go beyond the upper funnel and tie more extensive profiles to CRM data. In doing so, brands can learn more about their customers, target more effectively and increase conversions. By following these tips, brands are sure to unlock advertising efficiency through utilizing social media.

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Insights on

ANALYTICS

How Does Cohort Analysis Work?

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Cohort analysis is a way to understand how subscriptions evolve over a customer/client lifetime. For content marketers, at least those offering subscription-based products or services, cohort analysis reveals what is happening in the subscription lifecycle, enabling publishers to take action and avoid lost revenue by adjusting discounts, incentives or upgrades, or perhaps even by initiating an outreach program to minimize churn.

Don’t be frightened by the term “cohort.” It’s just another name for “group.” Instead of looking at aggregate numbers like or monthly recurring revenue however, a cohort analysis visualizes the way these metrics evolve over the lifetime of a group (cohort) of customers who converted in the same time period (usually a specific month).

Cohort analysis essentially reveals the point that customer churn is at its highest and when it stabilizes - powerful insights of which brands can take full advantage. Many enterprises focus solely on monthly recurring revenue (MRR), an important metric for subscription-based businesses but it should not be the only one.

For example, under a monthly subscription model the MRR is the price paid each month (or if paid up front for a year, the revenue would be amortized over 12 months). The problem with only tracking MRR as a success metric is that it does not reveal the point of break down (when subscriptions aren’t renewed). Knowing MRR is useful, particularly when calculating MRR churn, but cohort analysis makes it easy to visualize.

To make cohort analysis a useful practice, proper segmentation is critical. Clearly defined groups (e.g. geography, source) should be established early to acquire as much data in as short a time frame as possible. What this practice ultimately provides is an opportunity to see just how well a company is performing over time at keeping its users.

Those who don’t think they are cut out to use cohort analysis in their enterprise analytics might be right if they don’t provide a software-as-a-service (SaaS) based monthly subscription or are not a traditional publisher.

Fortunately, however, there are myriad ways to use co-

hort analysis outside of just understanding MRR, churn and lifetime value of customers. With some creative filtering and visualization, cohort analysis can be performed on any event or series of events.

Web analytics solutions including RJ Metrics, MixPanel and KissMetrics offer simple but powerful tools to engage in the practice of cohort analysis already. Google even recently introduced a (somewhat limited) “beta” cohort analysis feature within its own Analytics product. Some new and very interesting solutions are emerging, however, that are capturing the attention of brands recognizing the value that can be provided with cohort analysis.

ChartMogul, for example, provides a solution to calculate key subscription metrics from Stripe, Braintree, Chargify or Recurly accounts (all of which provide subscription billing of some nature). ChartMogul users can see their data in real-time and receive in-app and email notifications, which could make it useful beyond just the traditional month-over-month analysis engaged in

by SaaS companies or traditional publishers.

Take e-commerce retailers as an example. If they run short-term marketing efforts like single-day email campaigns, this report provides the chance to track the behavior of just the users they acquired during specific time frames. For example, if they’re running successive 30%-off, 25%-off and 20%-off campaigns as a holiday approaches, they can see how different metrics like Revenue per User and Transactions per User compare among the groups of users they acquired on the dates each campaign ran.

Cohort analysis provides a great deal of insight that enterprises must pay close attention to. By taking the time to engage in the practice, marketers will learn how to reduce sign-up friction, increase loyalty and encourage repeat purchases.

A traditional churn analysis of customers converting in a sixmonth time period.

Unique cohort visualization from ChartMogul showing the MRR growth from customers added in each month.

Web

COMMENTARY

HIRING DEVS & DESIGNERS One of The Most Important Digital Decisions You’ll Ever Make

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Web design and development is essential to the success of today’s enterprises - not only does the final product created illustrate a brands’ professionalism, it is also responsible (at least partly) for the engagement and conversion that result from consumer’s experience with it. As a result, hiring developers and designers is one of the most important digital decisions ‘Net businesses will ever make.

Despite claims otherwise, there are designers and developers everywhere (check out Website Magazine’s Master List of Job Boards for ‘Net professionals at wsm.co/MLJB15) and they are ready and willing to lend a hand in the virtual construction of digital assets.

Not just any designer or developer will do however – and that includes your cousin’s friend two towns over. Thanks to some rather innovative and sophisticated technology, everyone has the ability to be a designer and a developer today. Solutions like Wix, Weebly, Squarespace and the many other DIY design and development tools (including the upcoming AIfueled website builder The Grid – thegrid.io – which launches late Spring of 2015) provide a sense that anyone can create their own unique and effective digital experience. They can, of course, but only to a degree.

The harsh reality is not everyone can (or should) design and develop a digital presence using these tools – nor would they want to.

If you’re not going to go it alone with DIY solutions it is necessary to narrow the pool of candidates to those that can get the job done, that understand the enterprises’ vision and objective best, and with whom they are compatible in a working relationship. That’s not always easy, but consider the following suggestions and you’ll find more than just another worker, but a true partner to help accelerate ‘Net success.

An important part of hiring a creative and/or technical worker is seeing their work in action;

the applications they’ve built, the websites they’ve designed, the digital collateral they created. And we’re not talking about taking a quick glance at a few static screenshots but rather experiencing those digital products and understanding the processes used to design and develop them. Those that have a broader picture of their prospective worker in terms of the languages they work in, their methods of documentation, and in the context of the projects they work on, will be those satisfied ultimately with their selection.

It is no longer enough to have an impressive portfolio of work; if designers and developers are unable to share the brand and product vision, and are incapable of communicating in a productive and efficient manner, a design and development project can quickly get off track. Understand the tools these ‘Net professionals use for the sake of communicating, their approach to misunderstandings and confusion, and their level of flexibility when it comes to redefining project scope.

While a compelling portfolio and an effective communication style are important, enterprises still risk finding a designer or developer that, while easy to work with and a track record of success, may be stuck in their creative ways and locked in to a certain way of building products. For that reason, it proves useful to gauge these Web workers familiarity with emerging technologies, cutting-edge tools, and modern techniques in order to ensure they don’t have virtual blinders on and are capable of future-proofing a digital destination.

Hiring a new designer or developer isn’t going to be easy. You might make more than a few mistakes, but knowing what to look for, committing to finding the right fit for your enterprise and selecting an individual with an eye toward the future will be the best course of action and the optimal way to accelerate your ‘Net success.

“Do You See Me?” “I see you! and so do your customers!”

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