Lots of our clients and prospects are asking questions along the lines of: I want to optimize before the Holiday rush, but I don’t want to introduce too much change at such a critical time.

A valid question/concern, to be sure.  Our answer is, of course, “It depends.”  However, here are a few approaches that we’ve seen work:

Extreme Effort Until a Certain Date

Look at your previous year’s analytics and the upward trend of conversions closer to the holidays…

OK, Grok faithful, we all know that the Holiday Season is coming fast. Last year was “make or break” for a lot of eTailers, and this season will be critical for many more.

The ones who make it through will be those who are passionate about the customer experience, AND who are able to prioritize their work between now and the “Holiday Crunch” so that the hours expended actually impact the number of sales they make…

I saw something today that disturbed me a bit (see pic). What you see is a free icon set I found with the standard 30, 60 and 90-Day Money Back Guarantee emblazoned in gold. I’ve been seeing similar graphics on websites more and more lately.  We’re partly at fault because FutureNow helps businesses of all sizes by recommending design elements like these be put on their “to-do list…

Lots of talk about redesigning websites lately. Maybe it’s because summer is ending, and the Holidays are right around the corner (for e-Tailers, that is)?

First, there was Jeff Sexton’s post about asking the right Persuasion Architecture questions before redesigning, which was inspired by a Seth Godin post. Then, Jakob Nielson had some good thoughts from the Usability camp about redesigns and how radical they should be…

Today, Ralph Wilson’s internet marketing resource, Web Marketing Today, posted Part 1 in a two-part video interview with our Bryan about concrete ways to improve product pages for higher conversions.  In it, Bryan explains how FutureNow took on the product page design of eCommerce heavyweight Land’s End, and shows how you can use layout changes to test the buying path on your own product pages…

I have a bad habit, when I’m using my personal Gmail account, of clicking on the most ridiculous-sounding PPC ads Google decides to serve me.  I know, I need help

One such ad brought me to a very tall landing page with the expected “sales letter” style copy. What struck me, though, was the hilarious call to action button at the bottom of the page.

And so I give you (drum roll, please) the Call to Action of The Day!

Do you Grok readers have any good (bad) examples you’d like to nominate for a Call to Action of the Day?  Leave us a comment…

Many of our clients are in the business of being Experts. Some are consultants, some are advisors, some highly-skilled professionals within their field. The challenge with using the Web to market one’s expertise is that the online world is full of charlatans, and most people who’ve hired a few “experts” have had at least one of them not live up to their claims and produce poor results…

Bryan and I had the honor of attending and speaking at this year’s Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. The amount of blogging and tweeting going on during the conference was phenomenal, so we won’t attempt to “cover” what went on.

Instead, we’d like to present our brief “Best Of” List so you can get some quick highlights from our (somewhat biased) perspective:

Here we go…

• Best Presentation: “How to Turn Your Web Analytics into a Money Making Machine…

I’m not gonna lie…what you’re about to read was inspired by a real-life online shopping experience.  I won’t mention the guilty site, but I’ll say they sell clothing and jewelry to young urbanites.

As I relate the following three eCommerce mishaps, be thinking about whether you can eradicate all of them from your business by the time the “Holiday Rush” hits…

I know, I know, you think I’ve gone crazy with the heat.  But today, we’re talking about how web analytics can set you up for success, even if your tax status is a bit different.

Sarah from Seattle tweeted Bryan the other week, asking for some advice on how to use web analytics, and specifically “goals,” to help her with a nonprofit website supporting the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture…

I just read a somewhat surprising story about Zappos.com being acquired by Amazon.com. The details were posted to Zappos’s blog yesterday in a very Zappos-esque transparent style, including an 8-minute video of Jeff Bezos talking about the alliance, along with some good stories about Amazon’s early days and foibles.  The surprise comes from the fact that Amazon spent lots of money developing the competitive Endless…

The ecommerce shopping cart is a great place to run tests, as simple changes (layout, copy, color, etc.) often yield fantastic results.  There are unanswered questions in the minds of our customers that we think are obviously answered on the page, but they’re not.  If you’re not sure about what those unanswered questions are, you can back up a few steps and use personas or user testing to uncover them…

Since OnTarget debuted, we’ve been learning a lot about why certain clients succeed with optimization, and why others succeed “less.”  To use the exercise regimen metaphor we often refer to, many people start exercise programs with goals of losing weight or a better physique, but not everyone sticks with it and achieves their goals.

We thought we’d share some insights so that if you’re thinking about an optimization program, you can avoid the pitfalls and reap the rewards…

I was reviewing a usability test of a B2B site today, and I heard two very different reactions to the same video (I’ll paraphrase):

• That video was a waste of time.  They could’ve conveyed the same information in way less time.  My questions aren’t answered.
• That video was awesome!  I feel much more educated about their service now, and it was very professional-looking…

One of the great things about testing and optimization is that you can use it to challenge assumptions and keep your site design’s effectiveness up-to-date.  No website element, no matter how pretty and well-designed, should be excused from an occasional test to make sure it’s giving you ROI.

In our fast-moving industry, what gave ROI six months ago might not today.

Take, for example, the design pattern I like to call the “SEO Footer…

You could say I look at homepages for a living.  Not really, but they’re one of the pages I analyze and optimize for a living.  I saw one I enjoyed the other day, so I’ll talk about the design, what I like about it, and make a few suggestions for improvement.

One of the first things I noticed (and liked) was that the homepage was quite tall.  Many designers seem averse to tall homepage designs, thinking that everything simply has to be above the fold…

Every visitor comes to your site in their own personal “buying stage.”  The buying stage is a wide spectrum, but we generally break it into Early, Middle, and Late stages:

• Early means that the visitor has a problem, and is looking for a solution.  They may not know who you are, or that your product/service solves their problem.
• Middle means that they have an intention to buy a product or service that solves their problem, but not necessarily from you…

This post is for anyone who’s using some sort of “Wish List” feature to encourage visitors to save something for (hopefully) later purchase.

This feature has become ubiquitous, probably due in part to the “Let’s Copy Amazon.com Syndrome.” I encounter it on nearly every “first date” I go on with a website.

I agree with the concept of saving items pre-purchase…

In my tenure here on GrokDotCom, I’ve done a pretty good job avoiding the snarkiness and sarcasm that permeate my whole being.  I open with that so you’ll indulge me on this one

Recently, I went to MySpace.com to look up a semi-obscure band.  Why did I go there instead of my usual search engine query?  Because every band is on MySpace.  If you are a band, and live in the Milky Way solar system, you are on MySpace, and everyone knows it…