Why aren’t more websites designed with ordinary people in mind?

If you’ve ever tried to buy something online and have been asked to set up an account first, before you can make the purchase, you will appreciate this article by Jared Spool of www.uie.com.

The $300 Million Button: How Changing a Button Increased a Site’s Annual Revenues by $300 Million

It’s hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, to the tune of $300 million a year. What was even worse: the designers of the site had no clue there was even a problem.

The problem wasn’t as much about the form’s layout as it was where the form lived. Users would encounter it after they filled their shopping cart with products they wanted to purchase and pressed the Checkout button. It came before they could actually enter the information to pay for the product.

The team saw the form as enabling repeat customers to purchase faster. First-time purchasers wouldn’t mind the extra effort of registering because, after all, they will come back for more and they’ll appreciate the expediency in subsequent purchases. Everybody wins, right?

“I’m Not Here To Be In a Relationship”

We conducted usability tests with people who needed to buy products from the site. We asked them to bring their shopping lists and we gave them the money to make the purchases. All they needed to do was complete the purchase.

We were wrong about the first-time shoppers. They did mind registering. They resented having to register when they encountered the page. As one shopper told us, “I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.”

Some first-time shoppers couldn’t remember if it was their first time, becoming frustrated as each common email and password combination failed. We were surprised how much they resisted registering.

Without even knowing what was involved in registration, all the users that clicked on the button did so with a sense of despair. Many vocalized how the retailer only wanted their information to pester them with marketing messages they didn’t want. Some imagined other nefarious purposes of the obvious attempt to invade privacy. (In reality, the site asked nothing during registration that it didn’t need to complete the purchase: name, shipping address, billing address, and payment information.)

Not So Good For Repeat Customers Either

Repeat customers weren’t any happier. Except for a very few who remembered their login information, most stumbled on the form. They couldn’t remember the email address or password they used. Remembering which email address they registered with was problematic - many had multiple email addresses or had changed them over the years.

When a shopper couldn’t remember the email address and password, they’d attempt at guessing what it could be multiple times. These guesses rarely succeeded. Some would eventually ask the site to send the password to their email address, which is a problem if you can’t remember which email address you initially registered with.

(Later, we did an analysis of the retailer’s database, only to discover 45% of all customers had multiple registrations in the system, some as many as 10. We also analyzed how many people requested passwords, to find out it reached about 160,000 per day. 75% of these people never tried to complete the purchase once requested.)

The form, intended to make shopping easier, turned out to only help a small percentage of the customers who encountered it. (Even many of those customers weren’t helped, since it took just as much effort to update any incorrect information, such as changed addresses or new credit cards.) Instead, the form just prevented sales - a lot of sales.

The $300,000,000 Fix

The designers fixed the problem simply. They took away the Register button. In its place, they put a Continue button with a simple message: “You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”

The results: The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month. For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000,000.

On my answering machine is the message I received from the CEO of the $25 billion retailer, the first week they saw the new sales numbers from the redesigned form. It’s a simple message: “Spool! You’re the man!” It didn’t need to be a complex message. All we did was change a button.”

‘Winning Websites for Small Businesses’ - a new handbook for New Zealand businesses

I have just finished writing a brand-new handbook for New Zealand businesses, called “Winning Websites for Small Businesses”.

I don’t believe there’s any other publication in New Zealand quite like this handbook because it’s aimed specifically at the unique needs of the New Zealand marketplace.

If you have a website for your business and it’s not getting you the amount of visitors, leads, or sales that you wish it was - this handbook has been written for you!

I’ve basically tried to summarise everything I know about website design and selling on the Internet, in a user-friendly way that is easy for the ordinary business person to understand.

This handbook is not about website design in the ordinary sense. It is about how to build a website that SELLS - and there’s a big difference

If you are keen to find out more about this handbook (and if you’re a New Zealand business that has a website, then you should be) then go to www.winningwebsites.co.nz.

Win customers by giving away FREE information

By Harvey Segal

What is the best way to attract visitors to your website? Everyone agrees on this point - it is by providing Free Information.

Let’s see how to do this and why it works so well. Suppose you are a supplier of video recorders. Hopefully you will be the owner of a professional sounding domain name, such as VCRworld.com.

You write an informative article entitled “How to Choose a Video Recorder” which explains:
* the key features of video recorders
* a guide to prices
* handy tips for using video recorders
* useful accessories
* potential problems
* future developments

Put this article on your website or have it available by mail (on an autoresponder if you expect a big response). While your competitors are all posting similar ads which say “Buy, buy, buy our cheap video recorders” or sending unsolicited bulk email to thousands, you will be posting short ads which say:

Our Free Guide: “How to Choose a Video Recorder” explains the key features to look for, prices and handy tips. Visit www.VCRworld.com. And whenever you contribute to any group where there are potential customers you include your signature:

“How to Choose a Video Recorder”
FREE guide - www.VCRworld.com

Your visitors will be impressed by the quality of free information you are providing and your well chosen domain name: they will regard you as an authority on the subject.

They will be easily influenced to buy from your site while your competitors’ unoriginal ads are consigned to the email waste bin.

Free website assessment - special offer during May 2009

During May, I am offering a FREE website assessment to anyone who has a website but it’s not bring in the amount of leads or sales you were hoping for.

I will look at your website and give you a brief report about how I think it could be improved. I’ll be looking particularly at factors such as the headline on the site, the sales copy, the offer you are making to your prospective customers … dthe overall “selling power” of the site.

I’ll also look at some basic search engine optimisation factors, such the title tag and other meta tags, and the use of keywords throughout your site. If you have a website and it’s not working as well as you hoped to bring in new business, this is an opportunity for you to get your site assessed, at no cost.

This offer lasts until May 31. If you want to take advantage of it, click here to get a free website assessment.