I was interviewed (in my home office) and featured in a news segment on KTVU-2 news last night; you can view the segment here (but you’ll need to wait through a 15-second commercial before seeing the 2-minute, 15 second segment).

I was also interviewed today (June 30) by KPIX-5 for broadcast on tonight’s news.

A week ago, I was concerned that my newest web site was drawing traffic, but not turning the traffic into a reasonable number of clicks on product advertisements at my site. I couldn’t see anything wrong, and I feared the worst: somehow, the project that I’d worked on for the past 10 weeks just wasn’t going to work — even though it was drawing decent traffic, the visitors were clicking on ads at about 10% the rate I’d expected, meaning I’d never earn much revenue.

Finally, dejected and deflated, I decided to do what I should have done all along: start working through a “web-site-launch checklist” that I’d started but never finished a few years ago. One of the first steps was to view the site using five different browsers. While I was fine-tuning the site, I had only viewed it using FireFox and Safari, and it looked fine.

When I viewed my new site using MS Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Opera, all of the link text was visible on my pages, but NOT as hyperlinks.

I quickly discovered a typographical error generated by the script I’d written to generate my HTML pages (an extraneous quotation mark inside the <a> tag, so the tag (simplified) read <a “href=”url”>). Somehow, my versions of Firefox and Safari “knew” how to interpret around this mistake, but the other browsers could not.

Of course, the error was replicated for tens of thousands of links that appeared on all 2,000+ static content pages on the site, all generated by my script (which took about 12 hours to generate all the pages).

I fixed the typo, generated some test pages, and verified that they worked with all 5 browsers, and then I started the process of re-generating the full set of files and uploading them to my web server.

Within a few hours (after I’d uploaded about 20% of the corrected pages), I saw a sharp increase in clicks from my site to my advertisers, and then I saw an advertising fee reported (thank goodness for ShareASale‘s real-time reporting). The next day, I saw that I’d also earned advertising fees from Amazon for the new site (which is now performing within the range I’d projected more than two months ago).

Test, test, test. This experience led me to take a fresh look at that preliminary “web-site-launch checklist” that I’d started working on a few years ago.  I “knew better” but still made the same mistake –  so it makes sense to spend some time now to refine that checklist, and then methodically use the checklist (which will likely save me much more time in the coming months).

A privacy policy is one of the most basic requirements for any professional web site. If a web site doesn’t have a conspicuous link to a privacy policy, it simply isn’t very professional, and is less trustworthy.

Consumers constantly evaluate the trustworthiness of web sites they visit, and they recognize that most professional, credible web sites include certain important links, including “privacy policy,” “about us,” and “contact us.” The presence of those links only provides a very subtle reassurance, but the absence of any of those links is a huge “red flag.”

Note that the actual content of the privacy policy isn’t nearly as significant as its presence. A web site could conceivably have a privacy policy that says, “we will track everything you do, and gather as much information as possible, and then sell your information to the worst people on the planet to use for any nefarious purpose.” While that would be quite unprofessional, very few consumers ever click to view a site’s privacy policy.

In March 2002, I posted information about the impact of privacy policies on visitors to an e-commerce merchant, in the I-Privacy Digest email discussion list. The most significant observation, drawn from a brief “slice” of one merchant’s log-file data:

“Of the 359 customers who actually placed orders, only 10 had reviewed the privacy/security policy during the same visit.” (Who Reads Privacy Policies?, in I-Privacy Digest #3, March 28, 2002.)

I was disappointed today by an online merchant whose web site made it impossible for me to identify which product to buy, because the web site didn’t organize products into meaningful sub-categories. The “search” function didn’t help, because the merchant didn’t include adequate information in product descriptions.

Improper categorization makes it difficult for consumers to find products and to confidently make purchase decisions. This results in lower conversion (purchase) rates, lower return-visit rates, lower repeat-purchase rates, and higher product-return rates.

Many e-commerce businesses would be improved by the addition of more pinpoint categories, intelligent application of overlapping categories and attributes, the selective addition of qualitative and quantitative scores for many attributes, and the addition of relationship information among products and attributes.

I’ve worked on taxonomy/ontology and categorization in several ecommerce projects in the past decade, including:

• Categorizing and tagging movies and posters for a movie poster e-tailer;
• Categorizing and tagging famous quotations for a startup print-on-demand poster merchant;
• Categorizing and prioritizing lesson-plan resources for a directory web site, monetized using performance-based advertising (affiliate programs).

In each example, I was responsible for assigning multiple categories, attributes, and attribute-values to each of tens of thousands of distinct works and products.

In my past categorization work, I’ve sought to create more useful overlapping “pinpoint” categories and sub-categories, and in each project I’ve also assigned qualitative and quantitative rankings within each category. I’ve also helped merchants to license taxonomies and ontologies (and additional content) from third parties, and to integrate this third-party data with the existing ontology and  in-house content.

My work has included the initial design (and periodic revision) to the ontology/ taxonomy (structure & content of categories & sub-categories and relationships), as well as thousands of hours spent assigning multiple categories and tags to individual products.

With the right information, customers could more quickly zoom in on the products that they find appealing, and could then find related products. These satisfied customers are more likely to purchase, to re-visit and to re-purchase; they would also be more likely to subscribe to receive notifications of new products that match their preferences.

It’s important to recognize that there are “multiple dimensions” for categorizing products in most businesses, which means that the merchant must either design a rigid database solution that includes separate fields for every product attribute, or else choose a ontological system that allows a single product to be tagged with multiple attributes, values, and relationships.

Properly designed, your taxonomy/ontology might also allow you to implement some relatively advanced marketing strategies (such as dynamic display advertising) which would otherwise require considerable manual effort.

A note on terminology: The words taxonomy and ontology have different meanings; put simply, a “taxonomy” is a hierarchical structure; “ontology” is a broader concept in which “objects” are defined with various classes, attributes, and relationships. Taxonomy is hierarchical; ontology is not. The term “taxonomy” was first used to describe the biological classifications of organisms; the term “ontology” originated in philosophy (metaphysics).

[The right-margin of this "blog" page contains two classification systems: a mostly-hierarchical "category/topic" system (in the pull-down menu at the top of the right column) plus a non-hierarchical "tag" or "tag" system. On this site, tags and categories are merged into a single "tag cloud" (reflected in the "tag cloud" at right). While the category system is arguably a taxonomy, the tag system is  merely a "classification system," which is neither a taxonomy nor an ontology.]

It takes considerable time and effort to create a meaningful, useful, and relevant taxonomy and/or ontology for a specific use. Wikipedia is (arguably) a taxonomy; Amazon.com is built on a collection of taxonomies and ontologies; Google Search is actually built on a collection of ontologies.

Many folks view product categorization as a “taxonomy” (and out of habit, that’s the term that I usually use), but when implementing a meaningful e-commerce system, a hierarchical taxonomy is far too limiting, and the best implementation is via an “ontology.”

AdWords strategy starts with your goal: you probably want to sell goods or services; you don’t want “visitors” or “traffic” or “leads” (though those are helpful intermediate measures to watch); you want sales dollars. I can help to optimize your campaign so that you achieve your goal — such as $5 of sales from every $1 spent on an AdWords keyword.

I will consider working on a pure “pay-for-performance” basis, for clients who can already track ROI, but most clients require a lot of setup work to establish accurate and reliable systems to track customers from an AdWords click through a completed transaction, and that work can be expensive. Invariably, my advice includes recommended changes to the client’s web site to improve conversion rates and average order size while reducing cart-abandonment rates.

If you’re not managing your AdWords campaigns based on ROI, with tracking that shows which keywords generate which sales transactions, then you’re wasting money.

Are you making the best use of AdWords features like:

• Negative Keywords (common examples: “free,” “pictures,” “online”)
• Differential bid rates for each keyword variation, based on performance
• Time-of-Day and Day-of-Week Bid Management and Pausing
• Geographic targeting and bid variations
• Demographic targeting and bid variations
• Exact match, phrase match, and broad match
• Differential bid rates (or exclusion) for “Google,” the “Search Network,” and the “Display Network” (formerly called the Content Network).
• Improving Quality Score to reduce minimum-bid rates significantly
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion (Echoing actual search terms in your text ads)
• Echoing actual search terms on your landing page
• Text-ad variations (case, sequence, message)
• Keyword expansion (long-tail )
• Pay-Per-Call

Another strategy that can be incredibly effective is to design your text ads with the specific goal of “disqualifying” people, or discouraging clicks from consumers who will never buy. Properly managed, “disqualifying language” can allow you to double or triple your bid amounts while improving your ROI.

The articles originally appeared under my MarkWelch.com web site, but in May 2010 I moved them to my blog (MarkWelchBlog.com).  I’d recommend reading the articles in true chronological order.  (You’d see the articles in reverse chronological order if you select the “Advice for Merchants” category, or the archive for November 2007.)

Note that this series was adapted from earlier reports written for clients, and is thus written for an audience of merchants who already understand what an affiliate program is and how it might benefit their company.

1. Issues That Might Lead a Merchant to NOT Offer a Public Affiliate Program (Negatives)
2. Public vs. Private Affiliate Programs
3. What Factors Do Publishers (Affiliates) Consider When Selecting Advertisers (Merchants)?
4. Affiliate Technology & Network Choice
5. My Usual Recommendations (for Merchants planning an affiliate program)
6. Affiliate Recruitment Strategies and Practices
7. Captive and Stealth Affiliates
8. Affiliate Program Policies
9. Outsourced Program Management (OPM) for Affiliate Programs
10. Selling the Affiliate Program
11. Types of Affiliates (Web Publishers)

One reason I’m moving the articles into the blog is to enable others to post comments.  While I don’t intend to re-write the series, I do expect to use comments to clarify topics, and to link to relevant discussion threads elsewhere.

ConversionCritic poses an excellent series of questions. However, the implication of the questionnaire is that a “yes” answer is better than a “no” answer, which is not always true. If you visit the site at ConversionCritic.com and complete the questionnaire, you’ll be given a detailed report that includes additional explanations for each question.

Here are the questions asked by ConversionCritic.com:

Marketing Effectiveness

1. Have you prominently displayed all available ways the visitor can contact you?
2. Is the company’s unique selling proposition (USP) clearly communicated?
3. Does the copy focus more on selling the benefits versus the features of the product or service?
4. Does the copy focus on the visitor (“you”), and not company (“we”)?
5. Are you comfortable that your usage of any attention-attracting features such as animations, video and audio do not distract the visitor from your main selling points?
6. Do you have an image that either shows your product/service in use, or depicts what the visitor will receive or how they’ll feel?
7. Does the image help draw the visitor’s eyes onto the key selling part of the page?
8. Is the page focused around one clear objective?
9. Are guarantee, privacy policy, and/or return policy prominently displayed?
10. Is the company’s logo placed in the upper left hand corner of the page and not overbearing?

Offer Clarity

1. Is there a strong, compelling incentive for the prospect to take action?
2. Is the offer clearly explained?
3. Is the main call-to-action above the fold?
4. If there is copy below the fold, do you repeat the call-to-action in a prominent place below the fold?
5. Is there a sense of urgency in the offer compelling the prospect to act now?
6. Is there only one product or service featured on the page?

Readability of Copy

1. Is the information displayed in a summary format using short paragraphs or bulleted text for quick absorption?
2. Does the prospect have the ability to easily drill down to gather more detailed information without leaving the page?
3. Is there a moderate use of white space to aid in the readability of the page?
4. Are the lengths of your lines of copy narrow to promote easier reading?
5. Are you using black text on plain white or high contrast backgrounds and easy-to-read web fonts in your copy?
6. Are you using bold text, exclamation points & colors sparingly, for emphasis only?
7. Are you using underlined text for links only?
8. Are you using no more than 3 columns on the page?
9. Is your copy left justified?

Engagement with Visitor

1. Does the headline on the page follow the same theme as the keyword phrase and ad creative?
2. Does the headline sell a benefit and make the reader want to continue reading the copy?
3. If you have a form, is it requiring only the absolute minimum amount of information?
4. If you have optional fields, have you clearly identified required versus optional data entry fields on all forms?
5. Are all data entry fields clearly labeled with examples if necessary (555-123-4567) and contain format validation with appropriate feedback?
6. Does it take 2 or fewer clicks to complete the desired action?
7. Are all images optimally compressed and does the page load quickly?
8. Have you limited navigation away from this page other than a privacy link and a link to your home page on your logo?
9. Are credibility/trust indicators apparent above the fold or near the submit button?
10. Does your action button convey the benefit, e.g., Download Whitepaper, or Get Quote Now, instead of Submit?
11. Does the action button stand out and call attention to itself?
12. Do you have a short compelling message immediately above your call-to-action?

If you visit the site at ConversionCritic.com and complete the questionnaire, you’ll be given a detailed report that includes additional explanations for each question.

I’ve mentioned shopping at local bookstores in two book reviews I posted in my blog.  Way back in January 2002, I wrote a review of Republic.com, in which I observed how browsing at a physical bookstore creates so many more “opportunities for discovery” than shopping online. In my review of Joomla 1.5: A User’s Guide posted today, I observed that the shelves at my local Borders stores carried many old (obsolete) computer books, and very few new titles.

It appears that Borders and Barnes & Noble (the two big-box bookstores in my area) have both “downsized” their computer-book sections, and they’ve mostly accomplished this by simply not offering any newer titles. Pick any major software program or technology, and look for books on that topic in a “big box” bookstore. You’ll find more books about obsolete versions than current ones; and for some reason, the obsolete titles aren’t even discounted.

A second problem is the organization of computer books on the shelf.  When I went shopping for books on PHP and MySQL, I found them scattered in many different locations on the shelves. It’s pretty clear that the staff in these stores don’t understand enough about these topics to understand where to re-shelve books. Of course, most customers also re-shelve books in random locations. When I complained to a Borders store manager this week, he said that many customers in the computer section just read what they need and don’t buy the book.

Of course, computer books are just one small section in “big-box” bookstores, and most smaller bookstores don’t offer computer books at all. The reason is simple: computer books have a very short “shelf life,” since a book about verison 2.x is obsolete as soon as version 3.0 is released.  The travel section seems to share the same fate, with relatively short “shelf lives” (and often sporting the year as part of the title). The magazine sections are also poorly-maintained, probably due in part to their typical proximity to the coffee area.

That’s not the case for many other types of books: a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 printed in 1948 contains the exact same text as a copy printed in 2009 (although the new edition might add an introduction or commentary article to try to persuade readers to select the newer edition).

But in many categories, including “timeless” genres like poetry, the selection in “big box” bookstores is also shrinking. I assume that this is partly due to demand: if people don’t buy many poetry books, the stores will shrink that section and allocate more space to categories which people demand more.  But it’s also impacted by paid promotions: publishers pay huge fees to have their books displayed prominently (and ideally in great excess, to create the appearance of strong demand.  In many sections, “slotting fees” may result in an increased number of shelves allocated to fewer unique titles.)

Where does this end?  I find it much less appealing to “browse a bookstore” today than I did 10 or 20 years ago.  That includes both “big box” bookstores and small local bookstores where I used to find eclectic titles, books of local interest, and often surprisingly large selections in some genres.  In past decades, when I traveled I often took time to browse in local bookshops.  I also made a conscious effort to buy books from small local bookstores, even paying a slight premium, to support local businesses.

Today, unfortunately, many of the bookstores — where I spent many hours and many dollars — carry a smaller selection of books, often shrinking the specialty sections that drew me in. Quite a few have closed.

Of course, most of the small bookstore owners blame the “big box” bookstores and Amazon.com for their shrinking sales. (The independent bookstores’ lobbyists have even persuaded legislators in several states to enact unconstitutional laws to try to force Amazon to collect sales tax.) It is certainly difficult to profit from a small local bookshop when consumers are presented with the appearance of broader choice and more convenience through “big box” bookstores and e-tailers.

But when I visit local bookstores (tiny or large), I’m not seeing a meaningful effort to create or maintain a competitive “edge.” Quite often, I see superficial efforts like the fake “handwritten staff recommendations” posted on some stores’ shelves, or a “local interest” section that contains few genuinely-local titles.  I’m certainly not seeing any price competition, except on a few best-sellers (which admittedly represent a huge portion of most stores’ revenue).

Sadder still, I often find a better selection of books in an airport newsstand than in much larger bookshops.

I’m saddened every time I find an empty storefront where a local bookshop used to be.  I’m disappointed when I find less reason to visit any bookshop because of reduced selection.

There are many other web-marketing checklists you might consider, including these four:

• “Evaluating Landing Page Quality“
• “240 Marketing Tips & Ideas Checklist” (ABestWeb)
• “The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period” (PDF)
• “eMarketing Sabotage: Top Ten Steps to Kill Your Search Engine Position” (ABestWeb)

____________________________

Here’s MY draft “web site checklist for merchants” (December 2007):

• Pet Peeves
  • Involuntary Audio – autoplay, virtual sales agent
    • Don’t play any audio message unless the user initiates it
  • Hyperlink tricks (style, functionality)
    • The default setting for links is “blue and underlined.” Consider very carefully why you’d want something different.
  • Unreadable fonts & font sizes
    • Avoid using “fixed size” fonts — let your visitors decide whether they want to view your text in a larger or smaller font (using Ctrl-Plus or Ctrl-Minus).
  • Typos (misspelling, grammar) – unprofessional = no sale
• Essential Links
  • Shipping Info – clearly explain, with no surprises
  • About Us – Identify the company’s name, street address, and more.
  • Contact Us – More options = more sales.
  • Privacy Policy
  • Security Policy (often combined with Privacy Policy but security issues must be addressed).
  • View Cart
  • Return Policy *
• Site Performance Issues
  • Site Load Times
  • Search Times
  • Image Load Times
  • Third-Party Server Issues
  • Monitoring Tools & Outage Notifications
• Site Design Issues
  • Consistent Navigation (header, left navbar, footer)
  • Changing & Disappearing Menus
  • Transition from Main Site to Shopping Cart – appearance
  • Transition from Main Site to Shopping Cart – URL/domain
  • Related Items (Upsell)
  • Search Functionality
  • Window Size Issues
  • Effect of User Choices
  • Excess White Space
  • Forced Viewing Options (font size, etc.)
  • Browser Variations
  • Javascript
  • Plug-Ins
  • Images, Alt-Tags, Text-Only Browser
• Disability Rights Issues
  • Visually Impaired Customers
  • Other Disabilities
  • Font size & style issues; relative font sizes
• Bookmarking and SEO Issues
  • Page Titles
  • Meta-Tags
  • Keyword-spamming
  • Over-Reaching
  • Jargon and Alternate Keywords (who is your customer? what do they know?)
• Branding and Marketing Issues
  • Consistent Branding
• Credibility Issues
  • Company’s address/location
  • Names of principals
  • Names (pictures) of key employees
  • Telephone number
  • Email address or contact form
  • Picture of office & staff
  • Return Policy
  • Endorsements/Testimonials
  • Typos (misspelling, grammar)
• Shopping Cart Process
  • Remove from Cart
  • Change quantity in cart
  • Compute shipping & sales tax – before requesting payment info
  • Number of steps/pages
  • Registration Requirement
  • Asking for unnecessary data
• Narrow Issues
  • Color Matching
  • Use of Color to Convey Info
  • Background Image & Colors
  • Consistent Use of Quotes, Italics, Underlining, Bold.

  Additional Issues for Affiliates:

  • Toll-free number
  • Call Now
  • Chat window
  • Chat pop-up
  • Call to order
  • Call for wholesale/volume pricing
  • External Advertising (AdSense, affiliate links)