Cameron Olthuis

For those of you in the San Diego area there’s a refresh meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday, April 11th. If you’re in or just looking to get in the web industry you should try to make it out. Basically it’s going to be a group of people in the industry that get together, toss ideas around, and learn from each other. We want to refresh the web and bring it out of the 90’s.

If you’re not in San Diego then check the other refreshing cities. If there’s one in your area you should go, there fun. If there’s not one in your area then you should start one.

How do you increase the conversion rate on your website?

Neil Patel says

The key is to create your pages with a spectrum of detail and features so you have something for each type of visitor. The Mac Mini page on the Apple.com website serves as a perfect example of this concept.

I would like to add a little to that. Not only is the key making your website appeal to everyone, you also need to make it as easy as possible for these people to take the necessary actions on your website. It’s one thing to serve them up the information they’re looking for but you also need to close the deal and make it as painless as possible for the customer. Think simplicity. Don’t make your customers give you two phone numbers when one will do.

If you have a shopping cart on your site that takes 5 pages to checkout you risk losing a lot of customers. Every time a user has to take an extra step to complete the appropriate goals on your site is a chance for them to abandon your site. In fact, I bet if you have the analytic data to see what pages people are abonding your cart you will notice at each step your are losing customers. Each time a user want to take an action and they can’t easily do so is a chance of losing them.

Apple’s website does a great job because it’s very simple to use. All the information is displayed right there for you at your fingertips. They also do a great job of creating a feeling that they’re something special. It’s simple and beautiful, and like Neil says, no matter where you are on there site you can easily get to the next place you want to go, whether that’s making the purchase or learning more about the products.

You need to be careful though. There’s definitely a fine line you don’t want to cross. When you’re trying to offer something for everyone remember to only try and do so to your target market. If you selling home furnishings don’t try and offer something for people looking for a mortgage. I think you get my point.

Instead of trying to reach out to a broader market focus on serving all of your current audience first. For example, add the information that the tire kickers are looking for, but don’t make me read if it I just want to make a purchase and get out.

Make it as easy as possible for every person that comes to your site to complete the goals they had in mind when they came.

Conversion rates, User Interface, Design

Friday marked my first ever homepage Digg. Interestingly enough it was from an entry that I posted back in January. Better late than never I guess.

First of all I’d like to give some props to Godaddy. I know they’ve got a lot of bad press lately in the blogsphere and they probably deserve it. However, my blog’s hosted on the GoDaddy economy plan and it never once went down from the Digg effect that I know of, and I watched it closely. I pay $4 a month for the plan, not bad. I’ve still got plenty of bandwidth to burn.

So what does the traffic breakdown from the Digg effect look like.

All these numbers are from a weekend Digg, from what I understand the traffic is much higher if you get Dugg during the week. Before the Digg the average uniques per day on this blog was about 100.

Read the rest of this entry »

I came across this site tonight and just had to share it with everyone. This guy is flippin hillarious! Basically, he dances to a new song everyday.

Daily Dancer

Funny Stuff.