Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Staying Above the Fold
One of the biggest things I'm doing in THE BIG REVISION that I'm working on for a client is to manage what visitors see "above the fold" on each page. Each page has to have a clear and immediate direction that visitors can take toward the next step in finding what they want (and, of course, buying it).

Previously, I had let my love of the English language carry this information down the page a bit. Key stuff on many pages was "below the fold" as they call it.

In other words, the key stuff designed to move visitors to the next step in their search was down where the only way to see it was to scroll down. It was below the bottom of the visible screen that they see when they first access the page.

The result? Visitor arrives at page. Visitor sees nothing to guide them closer to their goal. Visitor wonders, "What the blazes am I supposed to do next?" Visitor goes bye-bye.

Sure, you know and I know that all that Visitor needs to do is scroll down a little to find everything explained. But Visitor many times is an impatient sort who wants to go, "click-click-click, I FOUND IT!"

People expect instant gratification on the Internet. Any site that makes them hunt—or, God forbid, even think—gets tossed aside. After all, there are plenty of other sites that don't make those kinds of demands on them.

I'm not saying this to complain that website visitors "aren't doing their part." If you want to have a customer-friendly website (and its higher sales ratios), it behooves you to build your site the way that best suits your visitors' needs.

In this case, it means going back and streamlining the pages. It means cutting the intros down to the bare minimum and getting right to the meat. And it means keeping the stuff that guides visitors closer to their goals in plain site the moment each page loads.

Take a look at your web pages once. What do you see above the fold? Does it take your visitors by the hand and lead them to the next step in your sales process? Or is just a nicely framed bunch of pictures and text? If the area above the fold doesn't immediately communicate to them where they need to go next, you're losing sales.
Jeff

Dealing With an Enormous Project
Sorry my posts have been a little irregular the last couple of weeks. I've been working on a complete site redesign and rework of a client's site that will eventually redo all 600 pages of the site and add about 1000 more. Most nights I've shut down the computer and then realized as I got ready for bed that I hadn't written a blog today.

But I'll share some of the lessons I'm putting into practice from this project. Tonight I'll look at how I keep (at least partially) sane while doing it.

I'll be honest with you. I get a little obsessive about my work and doing something that is this long-term can be pretty stressful for me. My tendency is to get frustrated at how far the end of a project like this is. So I need to break it down into bite-size chunks if I have any hope of avoiding feeling overwhelmed by it.

Now that I've gotten past the planning stage and into the actual grunt work, I'm setting up a detailed priority of what pages I revise in what order. That way I don't sink down and down and down as I see the end so distant in the future. Instead, I can look at it as a series of four-hour tasks and cross each one off, one at a time.

It gives me the feeling of accomplishment I need to keep going and it eliminates those moments where my mind starts jumping from one component of the job to another. It helps me avoid beating myself up because I've been so busy with component A of the project that I feel I've left component B dangling in the wind. Once the priorities are set, I don't have to worry about the ones farther out. I just have to focus on the one I'm doing right now.

Another important thing I do to keep sane during a long-term project is to allow myself to feel good about what I accomplish. I can't do everything at once. But instead of looking only ahead, at what remains undone, I remind myself to look back at the growing list of things that are completed. That's another important part of keeping sane.

And when the massive scope of things still feels overwhelming despite the safeguards on my peace of mind that I've set up, I've found it important to simply walk away and do something completely different for a while. There's nothing like doing a short project around the house or in the yard and GETTING IT DONE to recharge the batteries when I start feeling overwhelmed.

I've seen a lot of new business owners in the same position—trying to get everything done at once and beating themselves up when they don't. It doesn't have to be that way, though. You run your business; it shouldn't run you. If you're one of those who feels overwhelmed by getting started, hopefully, you can use some of these same techniques to keep your business (and yourself) moving forward.
Jeff

Uncovering a Faulty Question
My daughter Becca (a statistical analyst for the US Air Force) recently visited. During her visit, we discussed her work and she express frustration with how people often fail to find an answer to their problems because the questions they ask are faulty. And as we planned a joint project together, she demonstrated this truth during our planning.

She has been planning to use her statistical skills to help me do some market research on the niche of setting and achieving goals (a common cause of failure for many new online businesses). We talked for several hours about my reasons for choosing that niche.

As we talked, I repeatedly expressed my frustration at all the faulty approaches I saw people make when they start their businesses. I hate to see new business owners grow discouraged and give up. I was passionate in my desire to help them get past that first hump. And the more we talked, the more we found ourselves in areas much deeper than simple goal-setting.

We discussed people's expectations when starting a business, their preparedness, their attitudes. Eventually, Becca exclaimed, "So what you're passionate about is more about motivation than goal-setting, isn't it?"

She was right. The question I was asking was just the tip of the iceburg when it came to finding a way to help new business owners. Opening up the deeper questions turned our plans in an entirely different, and more exciting, direction.

Never settle for the surface questions, the questions that suggest the answer within them. Take the time to dig into your own passion for a subject and the emotions of your potential customers. It's harder, but it's also far more worthwhile to avoid the shortcuts and take the scenic route to your destination.
Jeff