Penguins.

This was kind of a big deal because my wife and I have been Penguin fans for years. So, I thought it might be cool to get a set of sheets and pillowcases for our home, but …

… although the pillowcase was prominently featured on the cover — no page number was given. This is one of the most pervasive problems I’ve found in the world of catalogs, and it’s just a plain bad user experience (UX).

What is the reasoning behind not making it super easy for a potential customer to find what what you’ve presented to them on the cover? Maybe it’s so they’ll peruse the entire catalog and buy more, or maybe it’s just an oversight. Who knows

What I do know is, regardless of the reasoning, it’s still a bad UX. In my case I went from being excited to make a purchase (the reason for the catalog’s existence in the first place) to being mildly annoyed that this company was providing a bad experience.

So, instead of spending money, I decided to write this blog post about it.

What this has to do with web design …

Whether it’s a catalog, or a website, it’s got to be easy for people to find what they want! They should never have to dig around searching, hoping they stumble upon what they’re looking for. This is true whether you have a handful of products/services, or thousands of products like J. Crew does.

J. Crew has taken an immense amount of product and made it easy to drill down to exactly what you want.

Here’s J. Crew’s mega navigation: lots to choose from, yet precisely organized for ease of use …

And here’s what it looks like once you choose a category to peruse. The left-hand navigation on this page makes it easy to make choices that further sharpen results — all at a glance.

Now, imagine if J. Crew had taken the standpoint of the catalog cover with no page numbers. You’d have to scroll through ALL 341 items of their Shirt category to find what you’re looking for.

When it comes do web design, remember to make the user experience customer centric!

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

The post User Experience Tips: Make Finding Things Easy! appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

It can help you help others, express yourself, enjoy a sense of accomplishment, and be perceived as a thought-leader in your industry — to name just a few of the perks.

But none of this is possible without patience.

Why?

Because writing a book is hard work, and can take years, before your work is ready for the public. And once the book is written, there’s a lot more that needs to be accomplished, including:

• Having your book edited
• Attaining reviews from people or professionals in your niche
• Formatting the book so it looks good and is easy to read/understand
• Book cover design
• Getting your ebook set up on Amazon, Ingram, and Apple
• If you’re publishing an actual printed book, getting it set up with Amazon and Ingram print-on-demand if you’re self publishing, or for general sale if you are working with a book publisher
• Website design and content for your author’s website
• Website art that is in alignment with your book cover
• Creating short, engaging videos to promote your book on your website and social media channels
• Setting up your author’s page on Facebook, and deciding how you want to handle your brand (which is essentially YOU first, your book second) on other social channels
• Deciding, other than book sales, if you want your book to help you professionally or personally
  • Do you want to do keynote speaking at conferences and businesses?
  • Do you want to be a consultant?
  • Do you want to appear on relevant podcasts and blogs, or do you want to facilitate your own?
• And don’t forget about the rest of your life! That’s going to need attention, too, and can slow the book publishing process down or grind it to a halt.

As many of you already know, I have a book coming out soon called, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing. I’ve procured the help of professionals to help the process along — including an editor, formatter, graphic artist, and coach — and the process still seems to take FOREVER to get the book published.

The thing is, this is all normal — if you’re looking to publish a quality book. It simply takes time, and your patience will be tested over, and over, and over again.

At the end of the day, we can only control what we can control. Acceptance of what is (no matter what the delay) is always the path of least resistance (literally), and therefore the path to less stress.

So remember, if you’re writing a book, or planning to write a book, it’s important to keep reminding yourself to be patient!

In our next installment of our How to Write a Book Series, we’ll talk about how to get started writing your book (no matter what the genre or topic) in an easy, manageable way.

Until then, be well … and be patient!

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

Related Posts:

• How to Write a Book, Part 2: Start by Blogging
• How to Write a Book, Part 3: Organize Your Images
• How to Write a book, Part 4: The Proof is in the Proof

The post How to Write a Book, Part 1: Patience, Patience, Patience … appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

The Cuppa SEO space is a fantastic place to meet with clients, colleagues and friends — and drink some piping hot coffee brewed fresh in our Braun coffee maker (pictured below)!

I am truly grateful.

If you’d like to stop by for a cup of coffee, just let us know!

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

The post Introducing Cuppa SEO Web Design’s New Space appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

In many ways, the goal of social media conversion is very similar to website conversion — to have visitors take the next step you want them to take.

This next step can be to take a visitor to a specific web page or blog post (that pays off the social media post), or it could be something different like buying a product right on Facebook, or following a company page on LinkedIn.

At Cuppa SEO, we mostly use social to encourage (convert) people to read our blog. This helps build trust, and offers relevant info to people who need it. Of course, it gets more visitors on my website, and if they like what they’ve read, then can now check out the rest of the site, or read more blog posts.

That said, social media can also be used to convert someone to a product or service. Nothing wrong with that, just be sure you’reoffering value and solutionson social media — making it all about the reader. What you offer won’t be for everybody, but if you strike a chord with those who do need what you offer, there’s a better chance they’ll click on your call-to-action.

Let’s take a quick look at how conversion works with imagery, text links and buttons within your social media efforts.

Imagery
Have you ever clicked an image on social media, expecting to be lead to more info, only to be presented with a BIGGER version of the image? Me, too. And this is the worst conversion (not to mention) UX payoff you could ask for.

Sometimes this simply can’t be helped. But, if your imagery is clickable AND leads to the content highlighted in your post, that’s perfect! Here’s an example from a LinkedIn post …

… the image you see here is pulled directly by LinkedIn into this post. In other words, the image lives on our Web Design web page, LinkedIn sees it, and automatically pulls it in. And if someone clicks on it, it takes them exactly where they expect to go (which, of course, is where we want them to go, too).

That said, it isn’t always possible to do this because sometimes an image looks great on your website but renders badly on social. Or something looks great on social, but awful on your site. When this is the case, I typically defer to ensuring things look good on the site, and then simply choose/create a different image on social. When this is the case, you wind up with a LinkedIn image that doesn’t link to anything (why LinkedIn doesn’t allow us to embed a destination link into imagery, I do not know …)

The ins and outs of how to ensure your image leads to the actual homepage, subpage or blog post you’re highlighting is discussed in step-by-step detail later in the book when we talk about how to actually applyconversion into your social media. For now, just know that the image in your social media post is a powerful way to convert.

Text Links
In the same LinkedIn example, you’ll find a text link at the end of the copy (above the picture). As with our photo, this text link leads directly to our web design page.

Now, if the viewer is interested in our web design services, we’ve given them TWO ways to visit our web design page for more info. This is important because we can’t predict the behavior of someone who sees our post. Some will click on the photo, some will click on the text link — but either way, we’re meeting their expectations by leading them to where they expect to go. This is good for conversion and UX!

CTA Buttons
Some social media platforms allow you to include a button when you publish a post. On platforms like Facebook, this is typically associated with paid services like Boost Post. Google has toyed with allowing businesses to use buttons for free on their not-so-useful “Post” option in Google My Business (no, really, it kinds of stinks for a lot of reasons we won’t go into here).

Here are the options Facebook offers when you boost a post …

Buttons won’t be right for every situation or organization, but they will be awesome for some — like if you are selling a product, like a book, on Facebook.

As with everything we’re discussing here, you’ve got to think it through to ensure you’re honoring the person who’s viewing your post. And if a button makes you say, “ewww,” it will probably make others say it too (hey, that rhymes), which means you need to get rid of it!

Want more tips and insights from Cuppa SEO?

The post Social Media and Conversion appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

In

MOBILE NAVIGATION

The post Website Navigation and the User Experience, Part 2: Mobile appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

In this installment of our Dark Side of Conversion series, here’s a list of conversion no-no’s that should be avoided.

• Spamming people with emails email after they’ve opted-in
• Adding people to your email list WITHOUT their permission (just because they gave you their business card doesn’t mean they’ve opted into your newsletter or offers)
• Videos that pretend you are my friend (you’re not my buddy!)
• Videos that bait instead of educate
• Overpromising, under deilvering, and then charging for the “actual insights”
• Slick, slimy used car salesman syndrome:
  When you see it enough times, you may think this is the “right way” to do a call-to-action/video. Just remember, everyone put asbestos in the walls until it became obvious that it was unhealthy. Doing something because you see it elsewhere is NOT a good reason. Doing it because you think it’s effective, or because you and your team respond well to it IS a good reason to try it — so TEST IT and see if your visitors like it, too.
• Avoid manipulation: The following quote is from a well-known conversion expert, and it is truly sickening:
  “We do not want to start sending traffic to our website until we have a well-oiled mouse trap with fresh cheese set.” — Chris Smith
  If you strart looking at your visitors and potential customers in this way, you’ve lost the whole point of online marketing — which is to develop relationships, not to deceive or twist someone’s arm to buy.
• Too many calls-to-action (CTAs) on a page:
  • They’re bad for conversion
  • They’re bad for UX
  • They’re just plain bad!
  • In the example below, there are 14 tabs in the navigation, at least 12 CTAs above the navigation, and a minimum of 8 CTAs on the page — before you scroll. That equals 34 items for a visitor to digest on the homepage. This is a conversion and UX nightmare …

Related articles:
Understanding Point of Conversion (POC) on Your Website
The Dark Side of Conversion: Treating People Like Fish
The Dark Side of Conversion: Desperation

The post The Dark Side of Conversion: A List of Strategies to Avoid appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

As you can see, Dollar Shave ensures that everything is clear in their navigation. “Our Blades,” “Our Products,” and “Gift,” all tell you exactly where you’ll land when you click on them. “How it Works,” “Reviews,” and “Account,” do the same. Crystal clear, right?

The only not-so-clear component of the Dollar Shave Club navigation is “Box.” This is actually what’s going to be contained in your next shipment, or box, but it’s not necessarily clear what this is until you’ve become a customer.

Dollar Shave Club also has what’s called a secondary navigation. You can see it on the left, where it says “Menu.”

When you click on “Menu,” the secondary navigation opens up …

As you can see, the hierarchy of the secondary nav is identical to the primary nav, which is good.

But here’s the question: why is this secondary nav here at all? What is the purpose of its existence? In terms of UX, it adds another element to the page. And from we’ve learned, the more elements a page has, the more a visitor has to think. The more they have to think, the better chance they will get distracted from what you want them to do.

On the one hand, when the secondary nav is collapsed, it’s is non-obtrusive. But, again, why is it there? The only difference between the secondary nav and the primary nav is the fact that the products are all laid out nice and neat in the secondary nav. But here’s the thing: this could EASILY be accomplished by simply creating a dropdown menu in the primary navigation under the “Products” tab.

When it comes to the user experience, if there’s a simpler way — do it. In this case, the simpler way is painfully simple AND OBVIOUS.

The only item in the secondary nav that doesn’t appear in the primary nav is “Original Content.” Essentially this is the Dollar Shave Club blog. This could easily be added to the primary nav as, “Blog,” rendering the secondary navigation useless in the process — which would make their user experience even better.

By the way, remember when I said that your navigation is no place to be cute or metaphorical? Dollar Shave Club forgot that when they decided to call their blog, “Original Content.” Now, since you’re on a shaving site, it’s implied that the content is going to be about shaving and men-related topics. But original content could be a lot of things — like a book, or the latest Netflix produced TV show — so why not just call it what it is, which is a blog?

Yes, this is a small point, and it may seem trivial. But how many ambiguous things does it take to make your visitor confused? Anything that is even remotely confusing needs to be made clear.

One Navigation

As you can see, whenever possible it’s always best to have ONE site navigation. For a large portion of websites, a single navigation with dropdown menus will suffice nicely. If you have a more complex hierarchy of subpages, it may be necessary to have a primary dropdown menu that drills down into a secondary dropdown menu.

For instance, on the Cuppa SEO website, the primary dropdown menu looks like this:

And the secondary dropdown menu appears when you hover over one of the primary dropdown choices. In this case, my cursor was hovering over “Web Design”:

 In this example, my cursor was hovering over “Search Engine Optimization (SEO)”:

To keep the UX clean, and easy for the user to digest, it’s important that the secondary dropdown be in alignment with whatever service or produce its expanding upon.

To further clarify what the secondary dropdown is associated with is to have the primary dropdown you’re hovering over change color. On the Cuppa SEO site this color change is very subtle, and does not translate well to print, so I’ve enhanced it here so you can see what I mean:

Other Types of Navigation

If you’re housing dozens — or even hundreds — of product pages, you can also use mega drop downs, like Williams-Sonoma …

Or if you simply must have a secondary navigation, make sure it’s consistent on every page of your site like Banana Republic does.

Some sites are selective about when the secondary nav appears or is hidden. This can cause confusion, leading the visitor to feel stranded or lost (bad UX).

In the case of Banana Republic, the information contained in the secondary navigation is also present in their primary navigation. But the reasoning behind this is different than the Dollar Shave Club (DSC) example we examined above. With DSC, there wasn’t an obvious reason for the secondary navigation’s existence.

But in the case of Banana Republic, the secondary navigation is used very wisely.

It’s used on EVERY landing page for every product category (Men, Women, Petites, etc.) for a very specific reason: to help clarify what my options are WITHIN that particular product category without having to use the primary navigation.

With Banana, there are so many product pages that once someone drills down to a section they want to be in, having the secondary nav available on the left-hand side of the page actually improves the user experience. This is because, once a visitor has drilled down to a particular product category, the secondary nav acts as an at-a-glance guide as to what other options they have within that product category. In other words, it’s clarifying the situation, and placing the visitor on solid ground.

As you can see, the secondary nav is NOT present on the homepage …

This is not an oversight. The secondary nav has been removed with good reason: the visitor has not yet provided any information as to what product category they’re interested in shopping yet. And since the secondary nav is meant to provide easy clarification as to where you might want to go next within a specific product category, there’s no use for it on the homepage. 

Typically, multiple navigation bars, or primary and secondary navigation bars can be tricky and difficult for the user to navigate — which means a bad user experience.

Let’s take a look at a site with multi-navigation hierarchies that can create a poor UX for a visitor …

Navigation #1 & #2
In the above example, #1 is the primary navigation. Then you’ve got a secondary nav above it.

Already, the user’s focus is split in two — at least for a few seconds, which can be enough to confuse or distract someone. Not the desired effect.

Navigation #3
But this website isn’t done yet. The third navigation (#3) sits above the secondary nav. This is the search box and social buttons. It’s typically a bad idea to place social buttons at the top of a web page like this for two reasons:

• Social buttons add another layer of navigation to the site. Now the user’s focus is split into three.
• What is the purpose of those social buttons? To bring someone to one of your social media platforms, right? As we’ll see in Part 4 of this book, social media — very often — is a tool that helps drive people TO YOUR WEBSITE.

When you place your social buttons right up at the top of your page, in addition to competing with your primary navigation — it also runs the risk of directing someone AWAY from your website.

When this happens, you’re directing traffic the wrong way! Once we’ve got someone on our website, the last thing we want to do is have them leave! More on this in Part 4, but I wanted to address, albeit briefly here, too.

Navigation #4
Nav #4 is an advertisement for Advil. And although it’s not technically part of the navigation (it’s a call-to-action), I’m counting it here because it is taking up prime real estate where your primary navigation should be!

Navigation #5
This navigation sits mid page, disjointed from the primary navigation. Nav #5 contains news-centric information. Something that could easily be communicated through adding “News” to the primary nav, along with a dropdown menu to accommodate each tab.

At this point, the visitor’s focus has potentially been split five times — and that’s not even counting the slider they use for multiple hero images (bad for UX) and the other links and call-to-actions on the page.

Whew! That’s all we’ve got for today regarding UX and desktop navigation. Next time, we’ll tackle mobile navigation.

Related Content:
User Experience & Website Navigation Video

The post Website Navigation and the User Experience, Part 1: Desktop appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

First off, this is not about keeping up with the Joneses for appearances sake. It’s about understanding what your goals are as a business, and being aware of what your competitors are up to make sure you’re providing a user experience (or product/service) that’s ahead of, or at least on-par, with theirs.

Whenever possible, it’s best to be the innovator. The business that rises above the rest — who puts other players in your market “behind,” in need to catch up.

Amazon is an excellent example of this. What they’re done with range of product, price and delivery has transformed retail, and many businesses have been left behind because of it.

For today’s blog post, let’s focus on delivery of goods, which is directly related to user experience (UX).

For this case study, let’s put Amazon up against Barnes & Noble.

I’m a Barnes & Noble member, which gives me privileges like in-store discounts, occasional member coupons — and super slow free shipping, which usually takes about a week. In fact, I just ordered two books (I love books) and one is scheduled to deliver 6 days after I placed the order, the other 7 days after.

I’m also an Amazon Prime member, and when I order a book I receive it in just two days (sometimes one).

On both BN.com and Amazon.com, the price is usually the same. The product is the same. My user experience in these two areas is the same …

… But to wait at least 3X longer for delivery of the same book? A horrible UX that’s so bad I am unlikely to ever order a book from Barnes & Noble online again. Even a coupon, which saves you a few bucks, isn’t enough to overcome this poor experience.

And it all could be avoided.

Barnes & Noble has been selling books for far longer than Amazon has been in business. They’ve got experience no other book seller I know of has. They’ve got a great selection of books (just like Amazon) and good online prices (just like Amazon), so somebody has been paying attention to the online market and adjusting nicely.

But what about that shipping? why isn’t it on par with Amazon, and HOW MUCH BUSINESS DOES BARNES & NOBLE LOSE on a daily basis because of it?

Years ago, when I worked for a major online clothing company, I found out that they paid a flat monthly fee for all of their UPS shipping. No matter how many garments, shoes an hats they shipped, they owed UPS the same amount. They are not the only large business that does this.

I’m going to make an assumption that Barnes & Noble has a similar deal with UPS. Amazon, too.

So why isn’t Barnes & Noble staying competitive with their shipping time?

One argument could be that Amazon Prime, the $100 service you need to buy in order to get two-day shipping, is considerably more expensive than Barnes & Noble’s $25 membership. But with Amazon Prime you also get Prime Movies, Prime Music and Prime Pantry (which makes them an innovator that offers incredible value for only $100 a year).

OK, so this is not an apples to apples comparison, but someone at Barnes & Noble should be figuring out what that membership fee needs to be so they can be competitive with Amazon’s shipping speed. And then they need to show the value of the increased price.

Maybe something like:
“Free two-day shipping on just about everything for only $49 a YEAR — along with no-hassle, free returns and special member-only coupons for all your favorite things.”

It’s the age old question of value, and in this day-and-age most of us value speed — on our phones, our computers and our shipping.

The user experience you provide has a direct relation to your company’s annual profit (or loss). The best choice is to be the leader in your industry that everyone else has to catch up to. If you’re not in this position, are you losing money because you can’t keep up?

The post User Experience 101: Staying Competitive (When it Counts) appeared first on Cuppa SEO.

Who Are You?

We develop and sell an emergency notification system called InformaCast. We are located in Madison, WI, and serve customers all over the world.

During the September 11th attacks, leaders from a US Federal agency tried — and failed — to evacuate people from their facility. They contacted us to develop a solution that would allow them to use their existing phones to reach everyone in a building with critical information. This is how InformaCast was born. That agency became our first client and is still a client today.

Over the years, Singlewire Software has grown and InformaCast has evolved into a powerful system for emergency mass notification, bi-directional mobile alerting, situational awareness, and workplace optimization.

What Do You Do?

We offer organizations across a myriad of industries, including education, business, government manufacturing and healthcare, an easy way to share a mass notification through our InformaCast software.  We help organizations protect their most important asset — their people — every day, with an advanced emergency notification system that enables them to reach every one of their devices. We provide peace of mind for our customers who know that their messages are being received by everyone, every time.

Why Do You Love Doing It?

Safety should be the number one priority for any organization, and we love that we get to develop and share the tools that help companies achieve this goal. We work every day to bring cutting-edge emergency notification technology to people who need it. Our mission is make mass notification easy so organizations can reach as many people as possible when an emergency happens.

When your focus is helping people and potentially saving lives, there is really no better reason to come into work each day.

How Does It Help People?

When an emergency occurs, every second counts. Our InformaCast emergency notification systems make it as easy as possible to create, manage and send a mass notification to reach everyone throughout an organization. With its ability to tie into existing systems such as Cisco IP phones, overhead paging and digital signage, as well as mobile devices, InformaCast helps provide cost effective solution for sending emergency messages.

Messages include information about what people should do and where they should go during an emergency, and it can be sent in multiple formats including audio, text and images to capture everyone’s attention. This helps ensure everyone receives a critical mass notification that can help them stay safe.

Want to learn more?
Visit the Singlewire website for more info about their InformaCast emergency notification systems, and their company.

The post Fresh-brewed Customer Spotlight: Singlewire Software appeared first on Cuppa SEO.