If you’re selling online, and you’re interested in Optimization, it simply makes sense to spend some time focusing on your shopping cart. It’s a key area of focus for a few reasons:

It’s often where “low-hanging fruit” grows. Conversion obstacles can often be removed quickly, leading to large gains in a short period of time. It’s an area where you’ve already succeeded in persuading the prospect. They are in the Late Stage of their buying process, so a relatively low investment can give you…

...continue to read "Shopping Cart Optimization: Canned vs. Custom"

Because I live in the optimization world, I sometimes assume that certain web site strategies are common sense and obvious. I sometimes forget that the only reason why they are common sense and obvious to me: Because I analyze and optimize web sites all day, every day. That’s a bit of an unfair advantage!

At FutureNow, we work with clients in a variety of industries and business models: e-commerce, lead generation and catalog. Lately, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some…

...continue to read "A Clicks-to-Bricks Site Optimization Checklist"

Generating targeted traffic and conducting website optimization are critical to increasing online sales. Ok, yeah, you already know that

But did you know that traffic generation and website optimization aren’t mutually exclusive? There are tactics that will help you accomplish both goals at the same time, and one FutureNow Partner recently spoke to me about a tactic that’s working well.

Our Partner is a software development firm that specializes in web-based applications and good old web development and design. They are currently gaining leads…

...continue to read "All Aces: Overlapping your Marketing Efforts for Better Results"

Lots of folks have been asking us lately about the connection between site traffic levels and online optimization strategies.  There are definitely some correlations, but there also seem to be some myths or mis-perceptions about those connections.

We often get asked:

How much traffic do I need before I start optimization?

Do I get enough traffic to my site to even consider optimization?

Will my tests take forever to run if I don’t have a lot of traffic?

How fast can I expect to see…

...continue to read "Myths About Site Traffic and Optimization"

I perused a recent survey conducted in the U.K. about how young adults, a.k.a. “Digital Natives,” feel about the Web.  Like all surveys of this age group and how they interact with technology, it was fascinating.

The survey involved nearly a thousand participants ages 16 to 24, and the good news for us as online marketers was that 75% of respondents said that they “couldn’t live without the Internet.” Wow, that’s a bold statement indicating that the Web will continue to be a…

...continue to read "How Would Sterling Cooper Deal with Digital Natives?"