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I’ve long advised clients that there are few good reasons for a splash screen of any type on any website that outweigh the problems they cause. They are widely hated and have sometimes strong impact on search result.   Well if there was any doubt that Google may treat these sites differently, this should put an end to the debate.  Google are again testing a  “skip intro” link on the search results.

Why would Google do this?  Well, most likely they are reading survey results like this.

Professional Flash designers should rejoice too.  Why?  Because the layperson user associates “Flash Web Design” with “Splash Screens” over and over again in my conversations.  By obliterating these ridiculous things you will also benefit from improved perceived value among potential clients.  I do not develop Flash sites but occasionally contract flash “components” out to developers. Flash should be used where its platform offers a unique advantage to the user of the site and, in turn, to the business running the site.  It should not be used to pad the portfolio of designers wanting more eye candy to show off.

The new Google Retail blog says that we’re already in the early parts of the retail shopping season. Many surveys show that people will spend more time researching their purchases and looking even harder for values.

Economists are predicting a very slow retail holiday, especially with autumn already in a slump. Online retailers stand to weather the storm a bit better, turning to search marketing, site redesign and refinement, and other ecommerce technologies to squeeze every dollar from their limited budgets.

Surveys and predictions for this retail season abound.

• 43% of consumers will spend more time shopping around.
• 95% of online shoppers report that free shipping influences their purchases, preferring to shop at retailers that usually offer free shipping, and 78% report that expensive shipping prevents them from shopping online.
• Nielson reports 35% plan to spend less, 6% more, and 50% the same this year
• 31% of consumers will start holiday shopping before Halloween and 57% will start before Thanksgiving.
• 66% will use coupons and take their time shopping if it means more savings. and spend more time shopping around for bargains.
• 59% will spend less due to economic hardships such as higher food and gasoline prices.
• 26% of consumers plan to spend less, 11% expect to spend more, and 63% about the same
• 60% say they will change where they shop to get the best price.
• 53% will drop brand loyalties to save money.
• Online discounts and sales will influence 83% of web shoppers.
• 52% plan to buy fewer gifts this year.

I think this year will also show that shoppers are becoming “better” at searching so that long-tail, brand specific search campaigns may show gains. Features such as Google suggest may alter the profile of the amateur searcher helping to drive branded searches to more accurate product page landings. People who have set up paid search to match these long-tail searches will be well positioned to reap increases in click through rates and quality score.

On the analytics side, while people are jumping around from comparison engine to website to review page, it may be a challenge to attribute sales to specific ads or search campaigns.

I hope all of you buck the trend and have a great holiday season.

Binoculars photo by raebrune used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

First let me say that I’m 100% against any form of spamming or overt promotion of products or services on Yahoo! answers or any other network. This article is about adding real value to those networks before anything else.

Goal: Connecting Your Expertise With Those Who Need It - Fast and Without Noise.

When an expert provides solid, authentic responses as answers in Q&A networks such as Yahoo! Answers, LinkedIN answers, Experts Exchange, Google Groups (which scours pretty much every forum on the web,) and similar sites, they can enhance their reputation, drive visitors a site or blog, produce content, build a brand and ultimately drive real sales.

A Little Bit About Q/A Social Sites

Being one of the first two answers to any relevant question can substantially improve the chances of being voted a “best answer” and being read by more interested people. So fast is good.

• If your answer is good (duh!) fewer will bother to answer the question, and you’ll have a better chance of being the “best” answer everyone reads.
• Few people read more than a couple of answers + the best answer. Being at the top means you’ll get the attention.
• People are more likely to vote you up because you’re above the fold, and plainly, the best answer :-)

For my example, I’ll use Yahoo! Answers - but any group search/forum search tool would work.

TIP: On Yahoo! Answers you can answer quickly, and then “edit” your answer to fill in the details. As of this writing that will secure your position in the answers.

Flipping The Funnel

Answering consumer questions is a solid investment of time, but there are ways to make technology work for you and reduce the amount of work it requires to monitor your particular niche. This post is about using such technology to isolate just those consumers who need you and eliminate the other noise.

Keep in mind that answering questions does not just speak to the single person who asked the question, but also for the dozens or hundreds of people who will encounter the response sooner or later. You are using your answers as precision authentic content and offering it to people online.

Cutting Through The Noise

Yahoo! Answers is a horrribly “noisy” environment at times. You’ll see questions like these all the time: “Where can I get a free _______” and “I need a cheap or free ______” and they are often out-of-category. Manually monitoring Yahoo! answers is tedious and often makes one lose faith in the human race :-) - so we’ll filter that stuff out and lift you above your competition.

So we will use several services to slice, dice, and deliver only the Yahoo! answers you care about to the destination of your choice, 24×7, without your intervention. You can then skim this distilled list and answer the questions.

The Tools

In this example, I will utilize three services (and one optional add-on.)

• Yahoo! Answers to find the questions (this could be any Q/A site with RSS)
• ZapTXT and their awesome new version to send you notifications via SMS (text message) or email.
  (You can use other similar services if you choose, such as Google alerts, etc.)
• Vertical Response Email Marketing
• Twitter for ping marketing.
• Google Talk Instant Messaging (Any IM works)
• My mobile phone (to get SMS messages)

Let’s get Started!

1. Set up a Yahoo! Account (if you don’t already have one) - you’ll need it for Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! Pipes. Make sure to save your username and password - Yahoo! is hard to recover. I recommend you consider setting your business name as your yahoo account (and for other social profiles too) in this case.

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If you’re a web merchant using the Yahoo Merchant Solutions e-commerce engine, your secret weapon for succeeding online has just been revealed.

The much anticipated roll-out of Yahoo! Web Analytics (formerly IndexTools) has started and I am thrilled. As I have been involved in Yahoo! Store development for a long time, specifically search marketing, the tool hits the sweet spot in my business.

I will be taking some time to become familiar so that I can bring Yahoo merchant solutions and Yahoo Store marketing solutions to the table bolstered by a robust analytics tool with built in tagging and an excellent dashboard.

The tool has a really nice path analysis tool that blows “click trails” out of the water and will help Yahoo Store merchants better organize their stores to meet the needs of real customers. No more guessing what order your menu should be in!

Yahoo! Web Analytics includes a complete dashboard for managing your business. What I most like is the idea of watching for and working on cart abandonment, something that has been hard to measure on Yahoo stores in the past.

…Yahoo! Web Analytics is designed to make it easy for you to answer your specific business questions. With features like drag & drop data filters, custom report wizards, and our segmentation selector, you can easily apply or remove filters to view the performance or characteristics of specific types of products, visitors and web pages….

Some of the reports

* Sales, revenue, average order value
* Conversion rate trends
* Visits, sales, revenue and conversion rates for specific keywords
* Sources of site visits, including organic search, referrals, paid search and direct access
* Product performance metrics, including the number of times each product has been viewed, added to the cart, and purchased
* Top internal site searches to inform merchants of consumer’s mindset during shopping.
* Checkout page analysis to show where customers abandon their shopping carts

I will keep you informed on this important advance.

I preach it. Clients ignore it (well, sometimes)

I am posting this so I can refer people to this post when they call me… and I get around 7-10 calls daily for sites from people who want every bell and whistle they can think of on the site. From the start. Without any budget or forethought.

So this was a refreshing read about website simplicity and landing pages. Well worth the read. In the article they call out these six methods for web design that can drive away clutter and improve user experience.

1. Only what you need.
   The biggest aspect of simple web design is only showing what’s needed to make the sale, and nothing more.
2. Reduce clicks. The less clicks it takes for a customer to buy a product, the higher returns.
3. The “Grandma” rule. If your grandma (or any elderly person) can figure out how to buy a product for your site, odds are it’s put together pretty well.
4. Reduce the number of columns. Each time you add a column to a page, the content is pushed into a smaller and smaller space.
5. Give less options. There is an added stress put on web shoppers to make decisions.
6. Keep it clean. A clean design keeps visitors happy.

Examples are given that any smart retailer or merchant could follow for success.

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