| LED Digest 2276: What Shopping Cart and Why? |
|
|
|
================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. October 27, 2006 Issue no. 2276 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ===================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Partnerships (and Books) --== Poll: What Shopping Cart and Why? ==-- ~ R. Neilson "I want to hear all the pros and cons of the programs you have used." --== New Browsers - Firefox 2 and IE 7 ==-- ~ Roy Williams "What are fellow LED-ers thoughts on Firefox 2 and IE7? Any problems?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Cultivating the Human Touch ==-- ~ Nick Usborne "This is a shared environment in which trust, honesty and a human voice count for everything." ~ Jim Novo "How do you build trust? How do you engage the customer?" --== Usability and Search ==-- ~ Michael Motherwell "...SEO is just a porridge term that is a conversation starter, not a conversation ender." ========== NEW =================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, From my little comment about establishing partnerships in yesterday's LED (at the bottom, no less) came a flood of responses. Very encouraging! I'm busy now collecting information from potential partners and organizing the offerings. One of the long term goals I've always had is to offer a carefully selected suite of ebooks (and paper books) on Web topics. I'm exploring that now with a couple LEDers - if you're interested let me know. Stay tuned. Adam -------------------- From: R. Neilson Subject: What Shopping Cart do You use and Why? I know several users have posted the shopping carts they use, but I would really like to see what every one is using. I have been trying to decide if I want to change from Miva Merchant (provided by my ISP) and would like to get some more information from those that are using different programs and even ones you used but dropped and why. I value the opinions of the members of this list and hope all will reply even if others use the same shopping cart. I want to hear all the pros and cons of the programs you have used. I am sure there are others on the list that will also benefit from your knowledge and experiences. R. Neilson H. L. Supply www.hansons.net -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Roy Williams Subject: New Topic - Firefox 2? IE 7? What are fellow LED-ers thoughts on Firefox 2 and IE7? Any problems? Real gone, Roy Williams Nervous Records www.nervous.co.uk <Moderator Comment> I haven't installed it yet, but in IE 7 RSS is now native. Also the MSN search box is interesting. Comments appreciated. Here's a starter: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1077/172/ ======== CONTINUING =============================== [as promised, here are the follow-up comments to yesterday's re-post by Paul Magee on "Cultivating the Human Touch." -ed.] From: Nick Usborne Subject: Human touch > Does anyone remember the Cluetrain Manifesto? ... What > do you think? Is the time right to start re-focusing on these > issues or is the market still recovering and dealing with > what it perceives to be 'the basics'? - Paul Magee, re-posted from LED Digest 1853 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1274/55/ Paul, I was interested to read your comments about the Cluetrain Manifesto, and ambition to promote a more personal voice on the web. In some small way, this has been my own journey as a writer and consultant online over the last few years. My point of view is probably best expressed in my book on the subject, Net Words. I do believe that the web is unique, particularly in so far as this medium, unlike all others, is shared by our 'audience'. They were online before commercial sites arrived. And tens of millions of regular people still create more content than we do, every day, with emails, chat, forums, blogs, newsletters, lists and more. This is a shared environment in which trust, honesty and a human voice count for everything. That said, don't count me in as a romantic on this subject. The Cluetrain Manifesto was written by four brilliant people who articulated some important points. But the book has almost nothing to do with marketing. Prior to my life and work on the web, I was a direct marketing copywriter. In other words, my view of marketing was this: results, results, results. What I do now is blend both approaches. My promise to clients is to improve conversion rates, loyalty, word of mouth etc. My approach is to use a more personal voice and tap into the natural desire of people online to interact. And I blend both the results-driven approach of direct marketing with the conversational, interactive approach of the web. All this is a long-winded way of saying that if you want to build a business around this, I wouldn't start waving the Cluetrain Manifesto around. Its lessons are important. It highlights some basic truths about the nature of communication on the web. But it's not about selling. Yes, today's market online has changed a lot. What companies want is not a lecture on the nature of the web, they want better results from their sites. Pitch with a promise of results. Deliver with an approach that taps into the fundamental nature of the web - as a place of interaction. Hmmm... Note to self: Really must stop saying all this stuff to my competitors. : ) All the best in your venture. Nick Usborne Speaking and Consulting: www.nickusborne.com Newsletter & Copywriter Resources: www.excessvoice.com ------- new post - same topic --------- From: Jim Novo Subject: Human touch > It wasn't long after the popularity of thinking like the > cluetrain manifesto started to take hold that everything > went pear shaped in the online world. The focus shifted > to survival, budgets were cut, you know what happened.... That happened because people ignored these concepts... which by the way, have been around a very long time in direct and database marketing. The ClueTrain people and Seth Godin (Permission Marketing) took a lot of those old ideas and repositioned them for a new communication channel, one where there was more active participation by the audience. Brilliant stuff. > I'm not into absolutes. Technology is important, aesthetics are > important, branding is important, but if there is an area that has > been neglected, I believe that it is compensating for the limits of > what is essentially a remote medium - the human touch. The > market isn't full of people any more. Again, direct and database marketing people have been dealing with the "remote issue" for decades. There is a core body of knowledge out there that catalogs use, for example, to increase the response rate of remote shoppers. How do you build trust? How do you engage the customer? All of these issues are dealt with every day offline in direct. For example, there are reasons why most infomercials have a very definite rhythm and pattern to them. > So, what is it that I want to do? In a sentence, I want to 'help > people give their website a human voice' because quite simply > it creates more trust and leads to more business. Or an animal voice. Or a cartoon voice. Or a robot voice. "Voice" is truly important, what kind of voice depends on what the mission of the site is, in my opinion. Most copy is truly awful on the web. > The team I'm looking to build is less likely to contain techies > and graphic designers but rather communications experts, > journalists and photographers. Agreed, and I would add "usability experts". There is nothing less trustworthy than a web site that is "clueless" and difficult to use, and these characteristics carry over right to the company - "clueless" and difficult to deal with. After all, **somebody** at the company is in fact responsible for the situation. > What do you think? Is the time right to start re-focusing > on these issues or is the market still recovering and > dealing with what it perceives to be 'the basics'? "The market" (at least in the US) is already dealing with it, the more progressive companies have been planning it for some time. They know their web sites suck. This year there has been a lot of activity around re-design, usually based on this formula: 1. Setting specific goals for the web site 2. Measuring how the site is currently achieving those goals 3. Rebuilding the site based on this analysis 4. Measuring goal attainment again 5. Striving for continuous improvement Design, copy, usability, marketing are finally all on the table **at the same time** rather than approached as individual silos. That is the only way to make it work, in my opinion. Tradeoffs between the disciplines have to be made relative to achieving the goals of the web site. No firm goals, and it's just another disaster waiting to happen. Jim Novo, Author Turning Customer Data into Profits http://www.jimnovo.com -------- new post - new topic --------- From: Michael Motherwell Subject: SEO and Usability > So you see? Not really Shari, no. I don't understand how a term can mean something to everyone, and its common usage be rather specific, and yet you claim that isn't what the definition is. For a word to have any meaning, or any usefulness in conversation, we have to define what we all agree it means. Longwinded, overly anal philosophical arguments aside, although we all pretty muich agree on what most words mean, it is the small differences that cause problems. Define "democracy" for me. Is Apartheit democracy? Some ppl vote. What about communist countries that allowed voting, but only for candidates of one party? What makes something a democracy and someting else not? English and Chinese differ here. In English, the language with the most words, we either invent new words for stuff (SEO, SSE, hip hop, electronica) or just steal words we like from another language (Sushi, karaoke, debut, pasta, spaghetti). In chinese, they reuse old words and redefine them. I think Shari is doing the latter, and I really think that is troublesome. SEO, as most people understand it, for better or worse, does means ranking well on Google, and the stuff done to achieve that. If one wants to offer archiving, site search optimisation, web design, link baiting, trapezoidal linking matrifluxes or selling your soul to the devil for links, that is all fine and dandy, but is, IMHO, an add on, not really what SEO is. (Self promo: the last two ideas are mine: http://www.insearchofstuff.com/2006/01/27/press... Even then, SEO is just a porridge term that is a conversation starter, not a conversation ender. When someone asks me about SEO, that is the starting point in a discussion that can go in multiple directions, and the definition I want to reach for what they mean by "I need SEO" is the set of services that best match their specific and particular needs. IMHO, arguing about what SEO is or should be, and what falls under its rather broad pervue is about as insane as a topic can get. In philosophy, they call it "essentialism", that words can have a specific definition. Pronblem is, it is really hard to do that, as most definitions come with multiple ammendments and conditional exceptions. I can live with anyone's defintion of SEO, anyone's way of doing SEO, as long as they don't start lecturing me on what it should be, because it should be whatever it needs to be, with boundaries defined by a specific client's needs. Whether those be a full solution of design, hosting, PPC management, banner management and offline marketing, or purely phone consulting once in a blue moon as the need arises, they are all SEO or, as The Bard said, "a rose by any other name would still be over priced on Valentine's Day". IMHO, SEO will most likely always be a term whose definition is contextual, and therefore not something any of us really need to get our nickers in a knot over defining. Unless, of course, one finds knotty knickers knice ;) Michael Motherwell ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2006 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Shake and bake!" - Ricky Bobby, "Talladega Nights" |
