Much like location is to real estate, product information is king when it comes to websites.  Whether you create your own information or gather it from other websites, it’s become abundantly clear in this post-Panda environment that original and thorough information has a new premium.  Understanding that this is where the market is heading and that it would be a great supplement to our other product offerings, we are proud to offer blosm.

Blosm works by on-boarding product information from only the most reputable sources.  The technology goes out to manufacturers, resellers and even competitor’s, gathers all relevant information and then populates your product detail pages.  By populating your pages with as much information as possible, your website will be seen as an expert source through not only the eyes of your customers, but search engines as well.  Available in various models (Snaphot and Harvest), we can meet any demand you have.

Looking at a customer’s product detail page, here’s a great way to see what the information looked like before the technology was run and what it looked like after:

BEFORE

AFTER

If you would like more information on how the blosm technology can improve your website, we invite you to attend an exclusive webinar we will be hosting on Tuesday August 2 at Noon CST (REGISTRATION LINK https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/221558482).

Or, check out our site.

In order for a website to survive and get ahead of its competition, many things have to be in place, but arguably, the most important is search engine optimization or SEO.  Why is SEO so critical?  Simply put, because traffic to your site is the most critical aspect of operating a successful website.  Studies have shown that the vast majority of people looking for a particular item will start their search by simply typing that request into any one of the search engines and then browse through the results and various websites returned, find the exact match at the right price and make the purchase.

Now, I’ve previously taken you through the ‘F’ Graph and some ways to get higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs), but what if your site was demoted multiple pages or taken off all together?  How could this happen?  Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. use proprietary algorithms to crawl sites and determine who has the best, most worthy data to satisfy the searcher.  If you don’t abide by their rules, your site will be adversely affected in the results returned.  What are these algorithms?  Search engines hold their search algorithm as close as national secrets and in order to be the best (which to them means, return the most valid and worthy results, while eliminating spam or ‘content farm’ sites from the results pages) they need to constantly stay ahead by changing or tweaking their algorithm before unworthy sites catch on and manipulate their data to jump ahead of more worthy sites.

If this sounds like something that may pose problems for honest, good-natured websites, it can be.  One example that’s currently happening and we’re hearing a lot about, is the latest Google algorithm update, known as Panda.  Usually when a search engine comes out with a new algorithm it flies under the radar and doesn’t get much publicity because, it’s usually just a minor tweak on their backend that doesn’t really have much of an impact on results.  However, when Google drew-up and conceived Panda, they wanted to dramatically change the way results were returned, and in their mind, reward those sites offering the best data.  Since I know a lot of people have been negatively criticizing Google for their new algorithm, I’ll say that again, they were looking to reward websites for having unique data, results on every page (no 404 redirects that lead to dead ends) and overall appear to be an expert within their industry.

It’s only my assumption, but in my opinion Google wasn’t looking to punish anyone with Panda, but they determined that moving forward, the best way to promote valid, honest websites, was by pushing down those sites farming their data through duplication of content.  Although thousands of companies have been affected as a result, Google has put their stake in the ground and shown that if you want to be seen as an expert, through their eyes, you need to pay attention to your data.

If your website has significantly dropped in ranking, or even just dropped to the next page, we can help.  Our proprietary blosm technology will go through your data and make it unique to your site, enabling you to be seen as an expert and more importantly, returning you to your rightful spot as a top returned result.  If you would like some more information on blosm, please visit our Information Extraction page.  After looking through the information, please contact us to set up discussion around your data.

Or, for more information on Google’s Panda update please visit:

Webmaster Tools Help –by Google

Panda Cleanup: Maximizing Content Quality (According to Google) –by ITBusinessEdge

Enhance Unique Data to Increase Visibility –by HubSpot

Been away from the blog for a couple weeks, but I think you’ll find it worth your while.  Over the last year or so Thanx Media has been diligently working on a proprietary technology that we can call our own; a technology that would not only be ‘neat and shiny’, but also something that would have a profound effect on business metrics.

After much hard work and due diligence from our great technical staff, we believe we’ve found it, Site Social.  What is Site Social?  Simply put, it allows online companies to market their business operations across multiple channels and mediums.  Specifically, we heard our customers saying that they needed the ability to get their full product catalog in front of their social media fans.  Their problem was, they had lots of traffic and unique visitors coming to their website, plus thousands of followers on Facebook, but weren’t able to capture a dollar value from one to the other.  So we created a technology, Site Social, that accomplishes this in a very easy to implement and ‘neat and shiny’ way.  It works by putting your entire product catalog on your Facebook page so your followers, who may not be regular site visitors, can see your offerings, as well as ‘hot’ or popular items selling over on your site.  After they see what fellow friends are buying, they’re able to make the purchase themselves.

Although I’d love to talk about it all day, I’d rather let you read about it from one of our happy customers who just went live.  And if you still have questions or want to discuss in more detail, I’d love to hear from you!

Aquinas and More Press Release

Site Social Landing Page

As someone who not only works in the industry, but also shops online regularly, I enjoy looking at a website’s layout and design and critiquing it.  Someone once told me, much like brick and mortar stores, the only limitation to setting up your store is your imagination.

Here is one of my favorite examples: The Children’s Place

The reason this is one of my favorites is how easy it is to find the right content and know that you’re getting exactly what you need.  Having two small children, I can honestly say it’s often challenging to take them out shopping and get anything close to productive accomplished.  With all the Dora the Explorer gear and let’s say, “unique” patterns available, we’re often left leaving the store with very little in the way of publicly presentable merchandise.  As a result of this, my wife and I have started buying their clothes online and have come to appreciate the ease with which The Children’s Place helps out.

One great example is the collection of landing pages they present

By making it easy to find the category you’re looking for (swim shop, dress shop, communion shop, …) it saves the visitor valuable time.

Another great feature included on their site, are the sizing charts.  As adults we’re very used to standard sizes and knowing how certain brands or articles of clothing fit us, but as any parent can tell you, this is most certainly not the case with growing children.

All sizing information is available right here in these charts, which makes it easy to find the perfect fit for any item with one click of the mouse.

The last thing I’ll point out are the obvious navigation capabilities.  Although we’ve all seen and utilized these on numerous sites across the web, I think they’re always worthy of a mention.

As you can see your first navigation option is by gender and age (0-12m, 6m-4t, 4-14).  This allows you to at least get started, before narrowing down to the article of clothing.  Once you’ve decided who you’re shopping for, you can decide what to buy, using their other helpful navigation tools.

Although these may seem simplistic or elementary, you should always remember the popular slogan: KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid.

The bottom line is that these little things save the visitor time and with this time the visitor can have more time to spend with the recipient of these gifts, their children.  And what parent doesn’t want to spend every available second with their children, as long as they’re not trying on a pink Dora shirt with royal blue horizontal checked pants?

REMINDER:

If you’d like our tech team to look over and analyze your website, sign up for our new 75 Point Health Check.  We’d be happy to take you through our evaluation process and show you where you may be losing visitors and sales.  Plus, IT’S FREE.  Here’s the link to sign-up!

As a car enthusiast who enjoys everything car related and lives in Chicago, spring time is always one of my favorite seasons.  Over the last couple of weekends it has finally been warm enough for me to get out and do a thorough spring cleaning of our family cars.  In preparation for this, I knew I had to pick up some supplies, so I visited a couple sites online to see what was new for the season, plus read some user feedback to determine which brands would work best for the vehicles we have.  After seeing all the great products available, I had the sudden urge to get started, so instead of waiting the 1-2 weeks for delivery, I decided to stop by my local auto supply store to pick up the necessities.

Once in the store, I couldn’t help but marvel and admire at how in-store and online experiences have merged over the last decade.  Once in the store, I was greeted by a cheerful sales person asking how they could help me.  Just as I would navigate on a website, I was able to tell the sales clerk that I needed soap, wax and tire cleaner and they brought me to each respected aisle where I was presented with maybe eight or ten different brands of each.  After picking up the soap and on my way to the wax, I walked by the soft-cloth washing mitts and realized my one from last season was probably in a frozen ball in my garage, so I picked one up and moved on.  Before I even reached the wax aisle, I realized that through the power of merchandising, I wouldn’t need to make a second trip.  I realize most websites do utilize some form of merchandising, whether it is complementary products or similar products, but some still do not.  The ones that we talk to that don’t offer it usually say that it’s either too hard to set up or too intrusive to the shopper.  To the first part, I would respond, it’s no harder then physically putting the appropriate items on a shelf just like a brick and mortar store, period.  To the second part, look no further than my new soft-cloth washing mitt, not only was I glad that I noticed it, but I was even thankful that the store and put it there for me to purchase!

Now on to the wax, I thought.  Walking down the aisle and seeing the eleven different brands it became clear that I should have done more research before I came in.  There were different brands, different compositions for different car paints, and different application methods.  Realizing I was over my head, I quickly pulled aside the friendly clerk from earlier.  He asked me what kind of cars I was looking to wax and the color of each.  Once he had this information he was able to direct me to a specific canister and followed it up with a testimonial of a recent customer that had purchased it, used it on the same car and loved the result.  Sold, I said!

When I had finished cleaning and waxing the cars, I decided the next thing I had to do was log on to the site’s I had previously been viewing and add some customer feedback of my own, knowing now how much they can help.  I shared as much as I could, knowing that someone else was probably going through the same experience I had a few hours earlier.

Having been in the technology sector for the past decade and a half the blurring of the in-store vs. online experiences has been very exciting.  When eCommerce first started, it was very elementary and the products being sold were very standard, but through time and technology, I can have exactly the same experience from the comfort of my home as I would if I physically walked through those automatically opening doors.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to read Marketing in the Age of Google, by Vanessa Fox.  This great book discusses Google and how it has not only changed the search engine game, but the marketing research game as well.  While there were too many great points and anecdotes to discuss every last one, there were two major take-a-way points for me that I’ll talk about here.

The first was this incredible chart produced from an eye tracking study performed by Enquiro.  I think the ‘F’ shaped pattern is fairly logical, but actually seeing it is quite remarkable.

Image: Google Images

What this graph shows is that 100% of people will see the top returned result.  This is a powerful static because if you can buy the proper search terms or get to the top of the results organically, you have a 100% chance of being in someone’s evoked set.  Now, that’s not to say they will purchase something from or site, or even click on your link and visit your site, but if everyone who was looking for a Nikon d7000 camera walked past your brick-and-mortar store front, you can surmise that you’d sell more cameras.  Probably, alot more cameras.

The second take-a-way I had is how to find out what keywords to focus on when trying to determine who you want to “walk by your storefront” when searching on Google.  Here’s a passage from the book that may educate you on how to go about buying and focusing on strategic words or phrases:

From Marketing in the Age of Google: Excerpts From Chapter 2 (How To Use Search Data To Improve Your Business and Product Strategy)

What I like most about this passage is this line: “… he describes the marketing revolution of the 1950s and 60s as a shift to understanding that a “company should produce what people desire, instead of trying to convince them to buy what the company happens to make.””  It really drives home the point that you shouldn’t try forcing your products or your website onto people who don’t need to see it, but those people who can benefit from it, shouldn’t have any problem finding it.

As an entrepreneurial company, we pride ourselves on our ability to be nimble and react to market needs.  By finding the most technologically advanced and consumer friendly companies and then partnering with them, we are able to provide our customers with the latest, cutting edge technologies.  This search has led us to many great partners, but there’s one in particular that I would like to discuss today.  Thanx Media learned about Baynote through business associates in the industry and had to find out more about their groundbreaking ability to predict visitor behaviors.  After doing some due-diligence, the parameters of the partnership were ironed out and we’ve both been hungry for business since.   Baynote, based in San Jose, CA provides personalization and digital marketing optimization solutions that power an adaptive web experience for users.  When coupled with the industry leading Endeca search software the results speak for themselves:

• 20% increase in Revenue
• 20% increase in Average Order Value
• 2x higher Conversion Rates

Although these results may seem superficial or extreme, it’s easy to see that the technology provided by Baynote WILL have a great impact on your site.  Here’s how:

When visitors land on your site and decide to search for a product, they have something in mind that they want to purchase.  If they can find what they’re looking for, they’ll be happy to give you their business, however, if they can’t find what they want, they’ll be happy to give your competitors their money.  In order to cut down on bounce rates, which usually lead to money in your competition’s bank account, it’s not only imperative to show the results they want, but it’s also important to deliver that content as close to the top of the results page as possible.  As you can see from the pictures above, 95% of visitors won’t get past the second page of results, which means that even if you have the exact product and your results algorithm has brought it up, unless it’s in the first two pages, you’ve most likely lost the sale.

Although it may be called magic by some people, Baynote calls it their ‘Affinity Engine’.  The engine operates by collecting data from every visitor to your site by remembering what they click on and whether they have a common path that can then be adapted to another ‘like-minded’ visitor.

To prove that their solution isn’t magic, but rather a repeatable, industry leading recommendations solution, the Baynote technology provides in-depth reporting so your team can understand the consumer needs and interests.  This allows you to identify new revenue opportunities through product gap reports and predict purchasing trends.

So, the question becomes, what’s the overall benefit of Baynote to your company?

As you can see from the circle on the above chart, product recommendations are quick and easy to install, results will be realized in a relatively short period of time and best of all, the technology is reasonably priced given the ROI.

With the exception of hiring great people and watching our ideas blossom, one of the best parts of owning a business is seeing other products and sharing visions with others in the industry.  When we met the Baynote team we realized immediately they were the perfect partner for Thanx Media!

I stumbled on this article and thought it was worth sharing and discussing: 27 Essentials for your eCommerce Homepage.

The reason I like this list so much, is the simple fact that it’s just that … simple!  When starting your eCommerce site or even if you want to do an audit of your site, you need to know where to start.  Some of the easier things, such as, ‘store finder’ and ‘promotional area’ may be over looked due to over thinking, but if a visitor is shopping for something that needs to be seen in person or tried on before making the final purchase, it’s not hard to believe that they’ll want to pop into the closest store.

Another reason I enjoy this simple checklist is the fact they mention things like, ‘social media links’ and ‘link to blog or community sections’.  This will either be a good reminder to close the loop on your marketing efforts by adding links and asking visitors to follow you or friend you for the latest company news, or it will entice you to start a twitter account or set up a Face Book page, which will lead to even more traffic and attention for your company.

Although I’ve mentioned several things I do like about this list, there is one thing that I would change.  Under the ‘Maybe…’ heading they mention ‘Trustmarks’, which, in my opinion, should not be a maybe, but rather a necessity.  I don’t see any downside to showing people that their credit card and other personal information is safe.  The shield or any other guarantee that my information will be safe is definitely one of the first things many people notice when shopping on a site.

If you have any questions about anything on the list or would like advice on how to better implement and create something you see on the check list, please feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you with a response.

It can happen on an e-commerce site or at a brick-and-mortar store – you may have a great product at the best price, but if customers can’t find what they’re looking for, you won’t make the sale. Buyers need to be able to quickly and easily find what they require from the site, and clearly defined and easy to use navigation and search tools are imperative to this goal.

But what exactly does this mean? We’ve recently talked about the importance of navigation and search to the overall site user interface, but let’s dive a little deeper. Search and navigation are powerful tools for keeping customers on your site and keeping them coming back again and again. Allowing users to easily search and navigate your site via an instinctive hierarchy of categories will help increase the customer’s satisfaction with the online purchasing experience as well as increase the likelihood of the sale.

When designing navigation and search for your site, one important question to ask is how granular does your navigation/search utility need to be in order to let your customers easily find the product they are looking for without over complicating the process and therefore frustrating customers? To answer this question, e-commerce companies need to decide if single-select or multi-select navigation tools are best suited for their customer base.

Single-select is often used due to it’s simple, clean way to help customers navigate the site and find the range of products they are looking for. For retailers with a smaller number of SKUs or without a lot of product differentiation, meaning little need to focus on the specifics of the product, single-select can be a very useful navigation tool.

However, larger retailers with many similar products from different brands, price ranges, colors, etc. will often choose multi-select navigation in order to help customers zoom in on exactly the product they are looking for without having to spend time combing through pages of search results.

Once you’ve decided what your overall parameters should be, the next step is determining what choices you want to include in the search and navigation tool. For single-select, do you allow customers to choose only by type of product or are they better served by being able to search by brand? For retailers using multi-select,  are customers better served, and more likely to stay of the site and buy, if they can choose the sub-product category, brand, price, color, material, etc. of a product. Or does this lead to confusion in search results and you actually see a higher retention rate when simply allowing for one or two search refinements?

The answer to that question will be different for every online retailer, so keeping a pulse on customer needs via A/B testing and/or ongoing feedback is important to maintaining the usability of the site.

Creating a superior user experience is not only a recurring theme throughout the blog, but also what we here at Thanx Media help our customers to do, and intuitive site browsing and search plays a large part in a site becoming a customers go-to spot for their purchasing needs.

It’s pretty well understood that people rely on things that are familiar – most go eat at restaurants that they know have good food and good service. And what makes a frequent patron feel more special than when the restaurant remembers who they are and what their favorite meal is. Not much, so why would this principle be any different when talking about online retailers?

It wouldn’t, which is why some retailers, such as Thanx Media customer Kirby Risk, have discovered the value and benefits to implementing custom catalogs for their customer base. This way, when recurring customers log in, they don’t have to sift through hundreds or thousands of products to find the specific products that they need. In fact, these customers won’t even have to sift through the many products they order on a regular basis, as they can create a custom catalog to meet just about any need.

Customers can create specific log-in generated customer shopping lists, which can let them automatically re-order their previous order as well as quickly allow them to order their regular monthly order or that cumbersome once a year order that has to be done but would be massively time consuming to add into the shopping cart one by one.

This ability to create custom catalogs saves the customer many things – not the least of which is the time and frustration it takes to go individually search out and select each of these items for purchase. Saving customers time and minimizing the work they have to do is central to maintaining the type of stellar customer experience that is needed in order to maintain and grow your online retail business.

This ability to create custom catalogs saves the customer many things – not the least of which is the time and frustration it takes to go individually search out and select each of these items for purchase. Saving customers time and minimizing the work they have to do is central to maintaining the type of stellar customer experience that is needed in order to maintain and grow your online retail business.