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Domain Gateway Pages
Many affiliate sites today create self-duplicating web pages for affiliates to use. The web site URL often looks something like http://www.company_site.com/xxxyyy/?your_name&zzz or one of hundreds of variations of this. This is not bad in itself,...
How and Why to RSS
Copyright 2005 Richard Keir RSS feeds and blogs (and blog and pinging) are part of the latest hyper-frenzy in internet marketing. Tools and services are mushrooming all over. But there seem to be some rather distorted ideas about all this. Unless...
How to Do Effective Email Marketing
Recently, there has been a lot written about email and its (impending) death. From what you read on forum boards and in newsletters from well-known internet marketers, email marketing is dead. Too many ISPs are taking it upon themselves to limit the...
How to Find the Best Products on the Internet
If you’ve ever embarked on a shopping expedition on the Internet, you know it’s easy to get lost in a sea of look-alike products and copycat offers. The Internet offers everything you could ever want. In fact, it offers about 50 different versions...
How To Sell Through Other Peoples' Articles
When you join a high quality affiliate program the affiliate program operator will provide you with many different promotional tools. As well as traditional banners, these might include text links, ezine ads, interactive banners, buttons, sig...
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How to Waste Money and Annoy Potential Customers
Why do some companies bid on keywords for products they don?t even sell? Or fail to provide the basic information people need to make the decision to buy? Here?s a cautionary tale-- with a happy ending.
Has this ever happened to you?
I?m looking online for lamp shades. I go to Google and click on the top Sponsored Link in the right column: Expo.com. I?m taken to their ?Lighting and Fans? page. There are 29 links in the left navigation, but no lamp shades. So I do a keyword search.
Products Found = 0.
All I can do is wonder why they wasted my time and their money, and move on to the next ad.
Close, but no cigar.
Clicking on the second ad takes me to a home page with a ?Shades? tab. I click on that and arrive on a page with
information about sizes and a link to the lamp shade collection.
I start browsing and find one I?m interested in. The text instructs me to ?Click on lamp image for detail.? I guess they mean lamp shade image. I click, and to my surprise, I see the
exact same thumbnail I was looking at, but now I have four color choices and an ?ad to cart? button.
OK, I?m a designer. I can appreciate subtlety. But what?s the difference between White, Off-White, Beige and Coffee? All this site shows me is a little grey photo-- but ?Dirty? isn?t one of the color choices.
I see the toll-free phone number at the top of the page. I call (during their normal business hours) and get voicemail. They say my call is very important to them, but I?m
not so sure...
Third time?s the charm?
Back to Google, click on another ad which takes me to a page with lamp shades (YAY!). I can sort by nine different criteria, but even so, I don?t see exactly what I want.
There?s a link to talk to a lighting consultant. I?m skeptical, but I call. Someone answers the phone! I explain what I want and I?m told I need a custom shade. This company doesn?t make them, but the consultant refers me to two
other sites where I can order custom-made shades.
Even though I didn?t find what I was searching for, I really appreciate this experience. I?d be happy to return to this site and do business with this company in the future.
The moral of this story.
Have some respect for your customers. Think about their needs and do everything you can to meet them. If you?re advertising a product for sale it should be available on your site. If you expect people to make a choice, provide
the information and pictures they need to feel comfortable making a decision.
And even if you can?t make the sale today, you can and should offer a good customer experience because there?s always tomorrow.
About the Author
Barry Harrison is the author of "REDiTIPS"
eMarketing Newsletter and a partner in Resolve Digital,
Web Strategy for the Real World.
Engaging Web design
Effective Internet Marketing
Essential Content Management Tools
Visit his site at http://www.resolvedigital.com or
mailto:barry@resolvedigital.com
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