Site Optimizations to Schedule Before The Holiday Code Freeze
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The document outlines optimization strategies for e-commerce sites before the holiday season, emphasizing the importance of addressing user experience and conversion rates. It features insights from experts Trevor Legwinski and Mike Kuehn, detailing high-risk projects, site speed enhancements, and the significance of optimizing product titles and site search functionality. The agenda includes various topics such as freezing projects, optimizing during high traffic, and planning for future improvements to maximize holiday sales.
Site Optimizations to Schedule Before The Holiday Code Freeze
- 1. eCommerce Site Optimizations to Schedule BEFORE the Holiday Code Freeze
- 2. About Your Experts Trevor Legwinski - Chief Retail Officer, SearchSpring Trevor has broad experience in retail and eCommerce, he has 10+ years of experience leading marketing, eCommerce, and omni-channel for retailers including Hallmark, Cycle Gear, Bambeco. He has grown brands from $0-$40M and from $500M+ in annual revenues. Trevor is a featured retail speaker and moderator in the marketing, conversion optimization and personalization space. Mike - Sr. CRO Advisor, Inflow With nearly ten years of digital marketing experience, Michael Kuehn combines analytics-based decision-making with a passion for user experience. Over the years, he has worked with well-known companies across the e-tail, airlines, insurance and finance verticals, consulting with clients such as Allstate, Delta, Metlife, Demand Media and Citi Bank. In addition to CRO, Kuehn is experienced in both project and product management, having previously managed five software units for a leading loyalty website.
- 3. About The Companies Inflow is a cross-channel eCommerce marketing agency based in Denver. We provide the technical and strategic marketing expertise CMOs and eCommerce Directors need by combining strong technical SEO, Conversion Optimization, PPC and inbound marketing. With our highly creative team, and innovative marketing technologies, we deliver a clearly measurable return on your investment. Since 2007 SearchSpring has been a trusted partner by over 600 B2B and B2C pure-play and omni-channel retailers across 12 retail categories. Their Relevancy Platform™ drives conversion, AOV and LTV across search, category, product and landing pages, while their merchandising and insight suites empower marketers and merchandisers with the tools to easily merchandise and take action to drive results.
- 4. Agenda 1.) High Risk / High Reward Projects 2.) To Freeze or Not to Freeze 3.) Optimizing During the Frost 4.) Maybe Next Year 5.) Close Webinar
- 5. Format ● 45 Min Webinar ● Recording will be emailed to you and available tomorrow ● Please submit questions, they will be answered at the end ● Stay until the end for a exclusive offer ● Share this webinar with your teammates
- 6. High Risk / High Reward Projects
- 7. Value Proposition Messaging ● Why do it? ○ Most important question to answer for prospective customers - What can you do for me? ● Where to focus? ○ Identify main value proposition first ○ If you are comfortable with value proposition, look for ways to improve or streamline
- 8. Site Speed Optimizations ● Why do it? ○ 40% of users will wait no longer than 3 seconds for a site to load ○ Holiday volume can exacerbate existing problems ● Where to focus? ○ Tools below will help you identify areas for improvement https://www.webpagetest.org/ https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
- 9. Additional Product Info in the Gallery ● Why do it? ○ Prevents “pogo-sticking” ● Where to focus? ○ Most important determining factor for users that can be cleanly displayed
- 10. Inventory Tied to Site ● Why do it? ○ No question whether item will be able to ship or not ○ Sense of urgency for low-stock items ● Where to focus? ○ Linking front and back ends may be difficult, especially for businesses with multiple storefronts ○ Test messaging and display before the holidays
- 11. Wish List and Abandonment Programs ● Why do it? ○ Encourages users to bring other people to your site ○ Grows email list at key time of the year ● Where to focus? ○ Wishlist without login ○ Create an account to save or share list ○ Follow up emails when lists are not shared or visited within a few days of creation
- 12. Checkout Flow ● Why do it? ○ Every order on your site is impacted ● Where to focus? ○ Remove unnecessary steps ○ Simplify form entry ○ Address verification to ensure on-time delivery
- 13. Gift Wrapping ● Why do it? ○ Convenience factor for your customers ○ Can immediately disqualify you if you don’t offer it ● Where to focus? ○ Changes required to checkout flow to include this option (and charge for it) ○ Need to hire staff?
- 14. To Freeze or Not to Freeze
- 15. Consider a code “frost” instead ● Main goal is to mitigate risk ● Previous projects are all risky during busy season, try to complete before November ● Plan ahead and begin work on initiatives you couldn’t get done in time for this holiday
- 17. Correct Misspellings In Your Product Data 1. Install a spelling or grammar checker and train data entry team to correct misspellings. Can cause findability issues - both on site and from a SEO / advertising perspective (misspellings are often corrected automatically and misspelled matches are either not found, or pushed to the bottom of results). Retailers misspell 35% of words on average
- 18. Optimize Product Titles 1. Move the Brand or Manufacturer's name into its own field, don't replicate it in the product name. (You can always piece it together in your site's templates so they display together.) 2. Less is more - put just enough information in the title for the customer to make an informed decision to click/explore, but no more. 3. If it's a Women's or Men's specific product, mention that in the title (think clothing, bicycles, supplements, etc) 4. Make it obvious - be sure the product name describes the product (if it’s a shoe, make sure it has shoe in the name)
- 19. Product Tile Optimization Examples Don't: Canada Goose 'Montebello' Slim Fit Down Parka with Genuine Coyote Fur Trim Do: Women's Montebello Down Parka Don't: Double Duty Beauty The Lip Sculptor Double Ended Lipstick & Gloss Do: 2-in-1 Lipstick & Gloss
- 20. Leverage UGC to Improve Product Ranking ● Leveraging review can increase results for long tail searches ● Ensure that your ratings & reviews are being indexed.
- 21. 21 “Breathable Jerseys for Long Rides” Product Reviews + Search: Longtail Example
- 22. Site Search Bar Placement + Sizing ● Prominence determined by current site search behavior ● Users expect this in the upper right (generally)
- 23. Focus on Usability: Icons vs. Bar Search bars receive nearly 3x as much usage from visitors vs. icons.
- 24. Focus on Usability: Button ● Use of a button more than doubles search usage. ● Using text such as “search” instead of an icon in the button further increases usage by 20%.
- 25. Focus on Usability: Placement ● Center search bar placement receives twice the usage of left placement nearly 20% great usage then right placement.
- 26. Facet Optimization ● Prioritize based on usage / popularity ● Limit number of sub-categories per category ● Always indicate what is already selected ● Design for the device
- 27. Optimize Optimize Facets to Reduce Bounce Rates 1.) Display a max of 5-7 facet groups 2.) Offering too many facets will confuse users and can lead to higher bounce rates 3.) Make sure facets are ordered by most used first
- 28. Watch out for facet creep 1.) Make sure your facets do not take up the whole page 2.) Show up to 10 attributes within a facet group 3.) If you have more than 10 attributes offer a scroll bar or “more options available (# of options)
- 29. Leverage Dynamic Faceting 1.) Manually Optimizing Facets can be tedious and time consuming 2.) Look to dynamic facets to automatically display the most relevant facets based on the category/subcategory
- 30. Leverage Color Swatches and Icons For Increased Conversion Rates 1.) Hard to understand faceting adds friction and reduces conversion 2.) Optimizing your layout and icons has shown between 5-12% conversion improvements from facets
- 31. Other Cosmetic Changes to Test ● Call to Action language and display ● Gallery layout / items per page ● Trust Elements ● Price Display, particularly for Sale items
- 33. What Projects Should Wait? ● Adding Product Reviews ● Adding 3rd party tools that need to “seed”
- 34. ● Plan major projects well ahead of holidays to mitigate risk ● Don’t overcommit! Pick the right project load based on team capacity ● Focus on pain points before new features ● Don’t be afraid to make changes during the holidays, just be smart about your projects ● Start planning now for next year Summary
- 35. Questions?
- 36. We’d love to hear from you to help maximize holiday conversions Name: Mike Kuehn Url: www.goinflow.com Email: kuehn@goinflow.com Trevor Legwinski: www.searchspring.com trevor@searchspring.com