eCommerce and

The big new thing in technology right now is the Motorola Droid with Verizon Wireless. With Google's Android 2.0, Verizon's coverage, and some nice hardware, it's set up to rival Apple's eight-hundred-pound gorilla, the iPhone. Ushering in a new set of smartphones based on smart user interfaces and open development, it's definitely a great phone for technophiles and power users. But how does it handle in a business environment? We got our hands on one, so let's see how it works.

The first impression of the Droid is that it's solid. Weighing in at 6oz (169g) and sporting a minimalistic metal case, it looks and feels like a brick. That may be a turn-off if you prefer your phones to be light, but it's reassuring if you prize durability. It takes up surprisingly little space given its screen and keyboard. Its edges look sharp, but feel comfortable in the hand. You may have heard reserverations about the keyboard, but it's actually quite responsive and easy to use. The plain layout helps when looking for symbols.

The user interface, of course, is extremely responsive. All the little touches that we've come to expect from a top-end modern smartphone are there. The high-resolution screen really shows its stuff, with beautifully sharp and clear displays on maps, websites, and other image-intensive applications. The display is bright and visible, indoors and out.

So, how does the Droid do in a business environment? The most important aspect is probably connectivity. The Droid natively supports Gmail, standard IMAP & POP3 email, Web browsing, SMS messaging, Google Talk, and of course phone conversations. The interfaces for each are well-designed and easy to use. Verizon's coverage is a definite plus here, giving fast, consistent connection to all of these services in most metropolitan areas. Android provides smart switching to wireless hotspots to help keep costs down. Visual Voice mail is a free upgrade, but incurs a small monthly fee from Verizon. Other syncing features include Exchange and Google calendars. Contacts do not automatically sync with Outlook (they do with Gmail and Exchange), but you can import them into your Gmail account relatively easily. This is a general principle with the Droid: Google apps are definitely given preferential treatment in terms of native capabilities. However, it's likely there will be an app available in the Android Market for any major third-party software. Internet browsing is quick and straightforward; it's probably the closest experience to browsing on a computer that's available in a smartphone. It doesn't come with Flash support, but Google promises an update to provide that capability in 2010.

The Droid appears to be best suited for a small business environment. If your business already embraces the Google Apps platform, the Droid should fit in neatly. If you are using other proprietary software, it might be a bit more of a hassle; you'll have to weigh its capabilities against that discrepancy. The Droid prizes user empowerment above other considerations, so it may not be the best choice for large organizations where security is an issue. However, it shines at speed and flexibility, two important attributes for small businesses. Another consideration is that many of its capabilites are overpowered for the typical user's needs; this phone would be best suited for your IT department and mobile professionals, while many employees would be better served with a more basic phone that supplements their desktop solutions. In some cases it might serve as a low-end laptop replacement, but consider your users needs carefully before taking that step. Compared to the iPhone, the Droid probably provides superior business capability, primarily because of Verizon's availability over AT&T, so if you're trying to decide which to upgrade to, the Droid is a good bet. However, if iPhones are already integrated into your business, it's probably a good idea to hold off on switching until the Droid shows a clear advantage.

The Droid's professional style and stunning display ensure it fits in any business setting.

The Droid's 5MP camera has good resolution, but is fairly fuzzy in low light. Expect picture quality similar to that of a digital camera half its size.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

A couple of months ago our awesome Adwords team was able to hook us up with five free hours of assistance from a third party to help train and setup Google Website Optimizer tests. We had mentioned to them that we were interested in trying some tests but did not have much experience in doing so and through that conversation they were able to help get us resources to get started. Looking back (as we are collecting the final data from our first test) having that help was invaluable. With that in mind I wanted to share the steps we took with the third party to get things going before our first test kicked off.

First, get familiarized with Google Website Optimizer (GWO). There are several resources available in video and written forms which explain how it works and what needs to be done.

Second, review the website for tests which might be a good jumping off point. Typically, good first tests are variations of an add-to-cart or checkout button, text location or color, banner / promotion variations, etc. For the first test you want something which is easy to setup and has many creatable variations as to get some experience before moving onto more complex tests.

Third, open up your GWO account and start to setup the test. This will include tasks like, telling GWO what kind of test you want to run, and installing the tracking codes on the test and order complete pages.

Fourth, the variations of what is going to be tested need to be created, reviewed and loaded to GWO. At least for multivariate tests GWO handles what code gets swapped out, be it an image or text. Once the codes are in place for the test, developers don't need to be the ones setting up all of the variations as they are created inside the GWO console. All of the buttons, badges, text, etc. will need to be created though (get your designer on the horn ahead of time) and setup inside of the GWO interface. Depending on where your developer setup the test codes it may require a little HTML or CSS knowledge but nothing too crazy.

Fifth, once everything is setup and ready to roll you’ll want to make sure to test that all of the codes are setup (especially the conversion tracking), and then use the preview tool in GWO to preview how all of the variations will look. Test! Test! Test! You don't want to turn on a multi variant test which does not work, has broken variations or takes your site down.

Finally, kick off the test and let the data roll in! Remember that depending on site traffic and how many variations are being tested it could take days or weeks to get enough data for GWO to show recommendations about which variations are the best.

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.

• Optimalogica blog recommends a reconciliation system for making financial decisions and experimental sales decisions.


• Gross National Happiness has been measured, and Facebook’s Prototype confirms that we are in fact less happy on Monday’s.


• Can’t keep up with all of the social media, internet and search options available at any given moment?  Mike Moran can help you figure out what to ignore in Internet Marketing.


• Google Reader adds Magic to your settings.

My personal favorite this week, courtesy of SEOmoz:

Sam Niccolls, SEOmoz blogger, writes "This e-mail from a hopelessly confused webmaster to a competitor is worth its weight in gold."

The possibilities are endless with a bathroom remodel. Discover your classic side with a clawfoot tub, experiment with fresh bathroom vanities and coordinate it all with matching faucets. Shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for all of your bathroom needs.

So as most of you know BOTH Google and Bing have announced partnerships with Twitter to add tweets to search results in real time (as well as Bing stating they will add Facebook status updates). While Google’s integration of this is still a while off, Bing has created a beta page for it, but has yet to directly integrate. Bing’s exact description is below:

• “A real-time index of the Tweets that match your search queries in results. This feature makes it easier to follow what’s going on by reducing the amount of duplicates, spam, and adult content.
• Giving you the option to rank tweets either by most recent or by “best match,” where we consider a Tweeter’s popularity, interestingness of the tweet, and other indicators of quality and trustworthiness.
• Providing the top links shared on Twitter around your specific search query by showcasing a few of the most relevant tweets. Additionally, Bing automatically expands those small URLs (like bit.ly) to enable you to understand what people are tweeting about. Instead of showing standard search result captions, we select 2 top tweets to give users a glimpse of the sentiment around the shared link."

Below is an example of the Bing implementation of Twitter. You can see the search for faucets shows my most recent tweet about faucets as well as a shared link posted to the article that is from @SWNeilPlumbing as well.

This is really a cool idea as it somewhat implements a recent “comment” system for websites. Theoretically you can see social trends associated to the keyword you are searching for.  Then below the link you can see what people have been saying about the website that was socializing on the topic or keyword searched, on Twitter.  Google’s implementation of this will likely be integrated into universal search results and will likely feature the keyword searched in regular SERPs as well as any recent tweets with information on the websites.

Reinventing the Way We Search

So what does this mean for the SEO’s out there? Well in the short term, not much, but in the long run it could mean a complete redefinition of the way we do our jobs. As an example, right now having dedicated content that has garnered a lot of links and been well indexed by Google, directly improves the search results. But what happens if Google and Bing start to integrate Twitter posts in the universal search? Twitter posts are news as it is happening, and typically do not carry a long life span. So technically if they are integrated into Google and Bing they could theoretically out rank or draw attention away from websites that have been fighting for the main page for months, when they have only been posted for an hour and received five to ten retweets.

This change will directly affect SEO as you will battle for placement through the continuous posts of content that people deem “retweetable”, thus theoretically allowing your twitter post to be bumped higher on the universal search results. Now my ideas are guesses as to the actual implementation, but one way or another, this is the future. As people start to rely more on Twitter and Facebook (which Bing has confirmed they are adding) for their news, friend connections, and link sharing, we will have to adapt the way we do SEO to accompany that.

What do you think? Will these twitter posts make it into Google’s universal search results, or will they just be a stand alone search such as images and shopping?

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Amazon offers same day delivery.  Columns like the Consumerist ask questions like “Will you ever leave the house again?”


• You don’t have to love the Dallas Mavericks to appreciate Mark Cuban’s humor every once in a while.  For instance he mocks the FTC’s recent disclosure requirements placed on bloggers when he visits his local IHOP and posts about it, quite comical but point proven.


• When performing MVT or A/B tests it’s easy to make simple mistakes that can really skew the data, this article does a good job of outlining those areas so tests can be designed properly from the start.


• First they come out with these weird commercials that no one I have talked to has been able to relate to and then they hire lap dancers for Hack Day?  Is Yahoo! struggling to find their identity?
  

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Does your website need a television series?  Some have figured out how to do it right, meaning profitably, but it’s not easy.


• A few more reasons why your website sucks debuted today.  One point that really caught my attention was the connection made between where site search filters are placed relative to the content that the filters affect.  The author, Jack Aaronson, makes an obvious point, but one that we need to keep in mind as we design for users.  He states, “Visual design does more to enforce the notion of "this thing goes with that thing" than anything else on the page. If there is a content block (like search results) and a box that shows filterable attributes for that content, make sure they're visually connected in some way. Otherwise, an incredibly useful feature won't be used or understood.”


• Want great employees?  Try the Zappos strategy and offer them $2,000.00 to quit.


• Predictions still say growth in 2010 for eCommerce.


• The holidays are coming.  It’s time to get prepared and lay out marketing strategies.  Search Engine Land posted a great article with five tips for doing so.  Five tips may not sound like a lot but they have packed a ton of information within each tip to help marketers get prepared.
  

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

Today Google rolled out more filters to their ever expanding Google Search Options category. While past roll outs have not had as much of an impact on eCommerce websites today’s new updates may change that greatly. Today they launched a past hour filter, search within a specific date range, websites visited filter and show more or less shopping websites filters.  Along with these filters Google also included refinements for search so that users can review results by only book, blog, and news.  Of the changes, websites visited and show more or less shopping websites, create the biggest potential impact from an internet retailer’s point of view. 

Filter by Visited or Not

Google now gives customers, potential customers and searchers the option to only view results from websites that they have visited previously, as well as websites they have never previously visited.  This can have varying affects on a merchant. First, if someone stumbles onto a website and decides to purchase something, Google remembers that the customer went to that website. What this means is that if the customer had an enjoyable experience and wants to buy the same product again or similar type of product (but doesn’t remember who they got it from) they can simply go to Google type the same or similar search and narrow results through only visited sites, and “Viola!” the website appears, the customer remembers and they get the repeat business. The same thing can also work in a negative way, if the customer has a bad experience, an item gets broken in transit out of your control, or some other problem happens they now have the option to filter you out of their Web search life.

View More or Less Shopping Websites

The second and one of the more important new feature’s for eCommerce websites is Google giving the customer the ability to filter based on whether they want to view more or less shopping websites. This could be really good for up and coming e-retailers who aren’t currently ranking on the first page in SERPs, because when someone filters with “more shopping sites” this can actually take other results out of the top ten and push other websites from the second page to the first page. The new search filters can also help e-retailers take over top placements from non shopping related websites such as Wikipedia and others information related websites. On the negative side however, if someone selects “less shopping sites”, the filtering can potentially remove valuable content retailers have created because it has been flagged as a shopping website.

Little Giant has been hard at work engineering pumps that their most loyal customers have been waiting for. PlumberSurplus.com is your destination for the new Little Giant TSW Sump Pump System and their NXTGen Condensate Pumps.

• With the $100 million in funds that Twitter is reported to be receiving in venture capital funds the company’s valuation has nearly quadrupled this year to an astonishing $1 billion.


• The Harvard Business Review has put together five rules that have decoded what it truly means to identify leadership.  Their research concluded that 60-70% of effective leaders share these common traits:

-Rule 1: Shape the future.

-Rule 2: Make things happen.

-Rule 3: Engage today's talent.

-Rule 4: Build the next generation.

-Rule 5: Invest in yourself.

• Interested in what’s going on with one of the most exclusive online shopping clubs?  Shop.org interviewed Susan Lyne, CEO of the Gilt Groupe, who reveals their 104 job openings, plans for the future and more.


• Getting Retweeted is scientific.


• Can your search share help your customers?


• Since this article came out Lisa Barone has had to defend her position, on Seth Godin’s Brands in Public release.  The crappy thing is I think most people agree with her it’s just no one has ever said anything bad about Seth Godin before.  Someone had to call him out on this and her points are all valid.  Yet when you are Seth you are going to have a faithful following regardless of what you do or how you do it.  If people didn’t call others out just because of previous reputations than where would we be giving former President Jimmy Carter the time of day?  Asking Milli Vanilli for singing lessons?

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

Remember how much easier it was to be a marketer before all this digital stuff got in the way? Just pay for a print ad and reach a ton of people through the publication’s readership. Was it successful? Who knows, I mean sure they could somewhat check by asking customers when they came in or by giving them a code for purchase; but they really didn’t have the resources or ability to actually check what percentage of people were moved to a conversion just by looking at their advertisement. Let’s call this phase of consumer engagement marketing 1.0. However, fast forward 15-20 years to the present and a lot has changed.

First off people don’t read as much print media anymore, at least people that are in the demographic defined by the age 30 years and younger (which happens to be quite large and spend a substantial amount of money). Now I am not putting down print media, I still subscribe to at least four different magazines and one newspaper, but it isn’t so much a place for me to find news as it is something to take with me on a long flight or during a time in my day when I have downtime.

If I want news I quickly head to my Google Reader, that organizes all of my favorite news sites and gives me a short synopsis of what it is I am interested in catching up on, all without ads (that is, until I go to the article). Another option is to log into my Twitter and/or Facebook accounts, where there is a good chance that if something news worthy has happened one of my “associates” will have informed me about this in 140 characters or less. I can read it in less than five seconds, and then move on with my day.  No ads have attacked me, no one has got me to come to their website to join a group or sign up for something, just 140 characters of updated status reports then on to the next thing.

So how do we connect with people that are experiencing this online social revolution and want their daily developments and potentially their advertisements or deals, in 140 characters or less? First off we have to meet them where they are. It is becoming easier than ever for the customer to get rid of a business’s onslaught of unwanted advertising messages.  However, businesses have opportunities like never before to connect with consumers that are already seeking out their products.  Buyers.   This is done through connections made on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets. Through these outlets we can search and connect with people that actually care about what we are offering and they in turn seek us out as well. An example of this can be seen on one of our websites Twitter account, OutdoorPros.com.  Its Twitter account has roughly 400 followers. Now you may say, 400 followers, that is not a lot. However, look at it this way, say I was doing a print ad and it went out to 400 people. Maybe 10% of those people actually care about what is being advertised and consider making a purchase (I would think that is probably a pretty high estimate). Now let’s look at it from a Marketing 2.0 perspective, we have 400 twitter followers, all of which are from our target demographic (hunters, fisherman, and people who generally like the outdoors), and we send out the same advertisement to these 400 people instead.  As marketers we now have a tool and access to them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and better yet they even signed up to follow what we have to say. Even though my 10% estimation was high for the print ad, chances dramatically increase with all of these other factors stacked in our favor.  Now think about the people that are utilizing these marketing tools to reach out to not 400 people, but millions…

They will receive your 140 character messages until they decide you are not worth following and move on, or they decide you are informative and provide worthwhile information, getting them to tell their friends, who could be interested in the same things, which leads to more people being interested about you, thus adding to your followers and your sphere of influence. Whew that was a lot to say. But just remember this, Marketing 2.0, or the social media revolution, or whatever you want to call it is here to stay, the best thing you can do is adapt and be ready for whatever new way of connecting comes next...

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

Recently, I have been seeing a disturbing trend, affiliates who join an advertisers program, grab their data feed and then, using networks of automated websites, cannibalize the advertisers organic search traffic. These tech savvy affiliates realize that by using the advertisers own data against them on their own websites, they can trick Google and other search engines into indexing a large amount of pages which are displayed in Google's and other search engines organic listings and therefore generate a lot of traffic and commissions for them via affiliate networks. I have seen this done a couple of different ways, some more shady than others.

Here is how it works...

A publisher/affiliate will sign up for a program that offers data feed access.

Once they are approved and have access to the data feed, they will set up an automated way (typically via FTP) to grab that data feed and insert it into their own database or content management system.

This database or CMS then feeds their multitudes of websites (I have seen affiliates operating this way with hundreds of websites) with this data.

The next step is done usually one of a few ways. To get indexed by Google they typically cloak (this basically means that they do one thing when Google comes knocking and another when normal users do) their multitudes of websites getting search engines to index basically the same information the advertiser has on their website.

Now that the affiliate has all of these websites with all of this product data getting indexed they either forward only the users, not the search engines, to the advertisers website or to another one of the affiliate websites which the user can use to click through to the advertiser.

This basically creates several listings in organic search results for the affiliate, each of which will drop a cookie if clicked by a user.  Additionally each will generate commissions if clicked on and a purchase was made by the user. Keep in mind that now the advertiser’s typically single website can be severely outnumbered by the affiliate’s army of websites.  The army of websites that are using the same data the merchant is using on their own website and then supplying via their affiliate account!

Here is an example... (Screen shot below)

The affiliate in question used to be a part of our program, however after trying to contact them to let them know we were not happy with the ways in which they where promoting our website, and not receiving a response we had to remove them. They then continued to sign up for our programs under different account names and we had to go through the same process and remove them again.

Not only are affiliates using these tactics to cannibalize their advertiser’s organic traffic but many of these tactics are against search engines and affiliate networks terms of use.

I recommend that you watch for affiliates using tactics like this especially if it’s something you don't want them doing. Also make sure you have language in your affiliate agreement which directly note tactics you don't want used when promoting your program.

In many cases contacting affiliates and explaining your position is a great way to deal with potential issues and many are happy to oblige. Most affiliates are there to work with you in promoting your program, but on occasion you’ll find those trying to game the system.

For the best prices, on the largest selection of faucets, from your favorite brands like Kohler, Danze, and American Standard shop PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.