Subscribe to the EcommerceSpot.com Newsletter

Feb 08: Make your ecommerce site smelly

A site that smells is a site that sells

People don't mind how long it takes them to find the content they want, as long as they feel they are getting somewhere.

Let's state the obvious: people come to a site looking for something. They might know exactly what they want, or they might be browsing. Even when browsing, there's still certain triggers in their head, certain cues they will find interesting (they did come to your site after all - they must be a little interested). If they feel they are getting somewhere useful or interesting, they'll keep browsing. If they hit a dead end, they are likely to leave.

This is called a scent - people are like bloodhounds, following the trail they feel will get them closer. As long as that scent stays strong, they'll keep going.

Think of your own experience. The sites you remember as being bad aren't those that took you half a dozen clicks. It's the sites where you felt you were going around in circles, you didn't know where to go. You'd lost the scent.

Recently I did some customer testing on a client's site. Customers were asked to find a particular piece of content. That part of the test had a 90% failure rate. Oops. I spent some time talking to the client, going through user feedback, and recommended one word be changed on the menu leading to that section. In the next round of testing, there was an 80% success rate. The original wording had lost the scent, and so the customers didn't know where to go. We also learnt a valuable lesson about how customers thought about some key words.

You might say "well the words describe the content". That's probably true. The question is: do those words resonate with your customers? Accurate is not the goal. Politically correct is not the goal. Helping users get to where they want is the goal.

How do I know what words to use?

• Look at what they type in your site search
• Check which words are the most popular in Google (I've got a tutorial on how to find keywords using Google)
• Look at the words customers use to find your site (your web statistics package can help you with this)

Find the words your customers want. Make your site smell - your customers will thank you.