Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

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From: John Taylor

Subject: Customer perception

[Mark Roberts asked about shipping & handling and customer

perception.]

Mark,

The only people who can accurately answer your question are your

customers. And, the only way you can get those answers is by testing

and tracking the alternatives.

Set up a split run test with separate pages for each of your pricing

options and measure the results. You will need to run the test until

you have enough purchases to make it statistically valid... the rule

of thumb is 40-50 completed purchases per option.

I could express an opinion that the "Free Shipping" option would get

the highest response... but it would be just that - an opinion!

Facts and data in the form of test results will get you the answer

that you need and when you have than answer you will know how to

improve your sales conversion rate and increase your bottom line

profits

Good luck

John Taylor

http://www.test-and-track.com

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From: Kenny Lau

Subject: Customer perception

There are two types of customers - those who look for (a) quality

products / services AND reasonable pricing, and (b) those who look

for "whatever" products / services AND cheapest pricing.

I aim to serve Group (a), and find that they do not mind what the

shipping / handling cost is as long as they find it reasonable.  I

try my best to provide excellent pre- and post-sale consultation

service, and add on one or more years of extended warranty (on top

of the manufacturers' warranty) for some of the products I sell.  I

think Group (a) likes the product price and shipping/handling

charges to be listed separately and clearly.

There are those from Group (b) who may email me to quote another

vendor's price and asking me to match that price.  I tell them: Buy

from that other vendor (Don't waste my time!).

Kenny Lau

www.ecopurewater.com

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Lee Roberts

Subject: Customer perception

My old friend Mark Roberts, whom I know from credit union days,

asked about shipping issues in LED 2155.

I did some research a few years back, it might be still relevant.

1.  People aren't afraid of shipping costs if they are fair.

2.  People perceive handling fees as a cost of your doing business.

So, you should either hide it in your product cost, shipping cost or

don't charge it at all.

3.  Many people perceive "free shipping" as a marketing gimmick and

actually feel the cost of the product includes shipping.  Free

shipping, as a rule, has qualification points that must be met

before it is granted.  Typically, you're not going to give free

shipping to a foreign country and in the United States it's only

free if it's within the 48 contiguous states.

Why aren't you using USPS flat-rate packaging and getting free

supplies?  Flat-rate costs $8.10 and ships to any location in the

United States for that rate, even Alaska and Hawaii.  I don't know

the measurements of your birdhouses, but if they can fit in this box

you've got it made.  Size: 11" X 8.5" X 5.5"

Sincerely,

Lee Roberts

http://www.merchantmetrix.com

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Bob Cavanagh

Subject: Net neutrality

> Cable and telephone companies that provide

> Internet service are talking about creating a two-tiered

> Internet, in which Web sites that pay them large

> fees would get priority over everything else.

        - From a quoted article, LED 2154

I have really mixed emotions about the net-neutrality issue.

On one hand, I don't want to see the Internet that we fought so hard

to create become tiered on the basis of who can afford to pay the

highest price for the service.  This is not why the Internet was

created and would have an even more detrimental effect than the lack

of high speed support in some areas.

On the other hand, I want / need to run applications over the

Internet that cannot be effectively run today due to the lack of

control over latency and jitter.  Specifically I want to run high

quality audio and video multi-point with teams of students and

instructors.  For this to work I need to have a maximum of 150ms

latency and minimal variation in this latency (jitter).  And I need

to have this latency guaranteed, not susceptible to whatever else

might be flowing along with my traffic.  Today my only option is a

special assembly virtual private network that is both costly and

inflexible.  Would I pay a modest premium to get my traffic

prioritized to meet (i.e. guarantee) my latency requirements?  You

better believe it!

This is just one example of many new applications for the Internet

where the current infrastructure is simply falling short of

requirements.  Does it make sense to have everyone pay their share

to build out the network to support such new uses?  If it added a

few dollars a month to everyone's bill then I would say "yes".  But

if it gets to be a significant increase, which I suspect will be the

case, then we might all be better off accepting some form of tiering.

Bob Cavanagh, Director of Technology

Queen's School of Business

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: John Barendrecht

Subject: Net neutrality

> I find the idea of tiering Web site accessibility dependent

> upon financial stipends potentially unethical and highly

> complicated...

        - Moderator Comment, LED 2154

Do we have net neutrality now? Do you believe the person hosting on

a $19.95 per year plan is getting the same speed as someone paying

$1,000 per month?

When I first started looking for hosting services, I was told it is

not only the amount of bandwidth you want but what average speed and

what burstable speed do you want? For the same bandwidth, I was

quoted different prices. If you have 60 visitors per hour but they

all come in 1 minute, you need a bigger pipe than if they came 1 per

minute.

An eight lane highway cost more than a 2 lane. Toll roads are a fact

of life and people use them rather than take the (free) longer way.

Why should the net be any different?

Even as an end user, I can pay for dial-up, broadband light,

broadband medium or broadband high speed.

Best regards,

John Barendrecht

Centralhome.com Company Inc.

http://www.centralhome.com

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: Rita Bertoncini

Subject: Re-designs

> Anyone else been penalized by Google

> for re-design?

        - Mary Lee, LED 2154

I had a similar experience last June, when I did a major re-design

of my web site. Somehow I knew I would be penalized by SE's but the

improvement for the end users would be so relevant that I decided my

prospect were a lot more important for my business than Google:

prospects may become customers and buy, Google will never become my

customer and never bring me money.

My site dropped on all major SE for about a month, but then it went

up again to positions I could never dream to achieve with my

previous site.

Just one example: for a very generic search phrase "prezzi siti", I

was on top 5 on over 64,000,000 findings. Most important, since now

my website looks very "sober" and professional, I get contacted by

much more targeted companies. My profits have been increasing

steadily since last November. That's about four months after the

"site re-launch".

So, IMHO, if you do things honestly for your prospect, and forget

about SE for a moment, eventually you'll be rewarded.

Regards

Rita Bertoncini

Soluzioni Internet Efficaci

http://www.cyberbizia.com/

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Tom Anson

Subject: Re-designs

I feel for Mary Lee and her problems with Google after her site

re-design (LED 2154), but I suspect this is a very temporary thing

for her site.

I just finished a major re-design of my site -- removing tables and

adding CSS, adding html product category pages and lots of

individual product pages.  I just finished getting the 301 redirects

added just a couple of weeks ago.  For my efforts, I've seen my home

page jump from un-findable for the term "Young Living Essential

Oils" (very highly competitive) to somewhere on the second page of

search results in Google.  Many other terms come up on the first

page.  I was actually very surprised to see how quickly the update

affected search results.

So, in answer to Mary's question, I'd have to say that the re-design

was a good thing for my site.

Tom Anson

Anson Aromatic Essentials

http://www.therapeutic-grade.com

-------- new post - same topic --------

From: Beth Ann Earle

Subject: Re-designs

Hi, guys.

Is there a possibility that Dinner and A Murder isn't technically

being penalized for a redesign? Mary -- are all of your redesigned

page URLs the same as the old ones?

If they changed as part of the redesign, it could just be that

Google is having a hard time recognizing that the redesign (which

probably looks like a "new" site to them) is really a site that

they've known and rewarded for a long time.

You didn't mention if you've taken advantage of the Google sitemaps

feature -- it could be helpful in letting Google easily find all of

the great content you've provided them.

Overall, we've never experienced a penalty for redesigning a site

and keeping the page URLs the same, but anything's possible, eh?

Regards,

Beth Earle

www.pilotfishseo.com

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From: Nancy Cardinali

Subject: Just a beef of mine...

This doesn't really relate to anything in particular, but everything

in general.

Please, when you speak of RESULTS in search engines, they are

exactly that, results! Not PAGES! I have all the search engines set

to give me 50 or 100 RESULTS on one PAGE because very rarely do the

first 10 RESULTS give me what I want.

I am continually astounded by web designers and SEOers using PAGE

instead of RESULTS!! Am I the only person who recognizes the very

big difference??

Like I said, just a beef of mine...

Nancy Cardinali

-------- new post - new topic --------

From: John Smart

Subject: Operation Google update

Hello all,

Well, we are moving nowhere quickly at the moment, so I really need

more of you to pitch in - I would hate for this to stall before it

gets going. Here, in a nutshell, is the issue: We need a subject for

the site! We have been talking in the message board

(http://seo.internetdesign.com/phpBB2/) a lot about domain names,

and what we should or shouldn't (and could or couldn't) do. Other

than getting frilly undies for Adam, we are not coming to any

decisions! (You had to be there - or not, if you don't want to see

Adam in fillies!)

So what we need is a good idea - something that can be a focus, that

won't hurt anyone, or cause too much confusion. I suggested a

tribute site to 'The Geoff Show' (www.virginradio.co.uk/geoff), This

has tie in to high traffic words (like MP3) and, as those who enjoy

the show will know, no matter how 'out there' the site gets, it

won't upset people in search of the real deal. We can supply 'link

tos' to test there, and could even open a café press store to

examine some e-commerce possibilities.

I understand that there are many flaws in this plan (some I am aware

of, I am sure there are others I have no idea about) but in the

interests of progressing this experiment, I would ask that all

responses encourage this course, or offer an alternative!

And now a hard choice. I don't want to 'Hitler' this plan, but I

don't want it to stall and fail before it starts. Therefore, to give

all of you time to join and share your views, I am proposing that,

by Friday of next week, domain names and direction are selected.

This will make sure we don't just stop. So please, don't let me do

whatever I want! Step in, speak up, let's try things! The whole

point of this is that nothing is wrong - whatever we do will educate

all of us, and benefit our clients. Everybody wins! If you are a

lurker here, now is the time, grab the mic, and share your views -

you may have the thought that we all need to progress with. Please,

join in the 1st ever (to my knowledge) Google brain storm (Hey! Who

said that if I am involved it's a storm in a tea cup??).

Kindest regards,

John Smart, Technical Director

InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World™

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