Jonothan Stribling

How do you know if the WordPress blog you have just launched and have been slaving over is going to be successful? You get picked up by the comment spammers.

I love WordPress. And I love that it needs to be upgraded quite often to prevent nasty code insertions in footer.php. It means that there is a real live community hacking the code. Some are wearing white-hats and others black-hats.

The comment spammers are such a nice collection of people I would like to tie them up and have a bunch of people poke them with sharp sticks before setting fire to them. I hate spammers generally, but with email spammers I can see a potential return. With comment spam I can see none. The comment will never be published.

So if you’re out there, HiptHombong get in touch and help me understand your numbers. Then I will get the rope.

Scientists in the US will soon be able to do the unthinkable and regenerate extinct species like Neanderthals and Mammoths. This is done by building a map of the DNA and then re-engineering the DNA in an embryo or egg.

Crazy stuff! Ethically I’m not sure where I stand so long as it doesn’t have anything to do with Jeff Goldblum wearing huge glasses and talking balony.

It made me think about regenerating websites. How exactly do you work out that your website is the equivalent of a Neanderthal, hard working but simple and notvery smart.

Bounce rates

If people come to your website or landing pages and exit then there’s a fair chance they don’t what you’re offering and why they should take up the offer.

Traffic sources

If you have a higher ratio of paid search traffic than organic search traffic then you need to focus on your organic ranking for the search terms that convert.

Visit length

If I come and stay at your house for a long time, it’s probably because I like you and enjoy it. It’s the same with your website, visit length is a nice indicator of visitor engagement. If you have a low average site visit your website may not be offering enough reasons to hang around. If you have a high conversion and low visit length, then you’re doing something right.

A busy homepage

Is you homepage like a busy cave? If you try and put everything on your homepage then you will very likely have a low conversion. Target your visitors and create scent trails. Don’t confuse them.

Forgetful

I suspect a neanderthal would have had trouble remembering names of clan members. A good website ‘knows’ its visitors either through good analytics and intelligence or hard work. If you sell shoes and a buyer arrives from a search engine having searched for mens shoes show them the mens shoes.

No testing

If you still choose layouts because you like the way it looks then you may be at risk of becoming extinct. All digital assets should be chosen based on evidence accumulated from tests you’ve run and customer research. If fuscia works best then use fuscia.

The homo sapiens species prospered because we adapted and learnt. In much the same way, having a successful website is about learning continually. Just because you’re successful today does not mean you will be successful tomorrow.

I have been watching the reports about ecommerce sales with a strange sense of foreboding and opportunistic delight.

The reports are mixed, but it seems that growth is softening – in some cases dramatically. Whilst Cyber Monday, the Monday after the US Thanksgiving holiday, recorded the second highest online sales ever at USD$846 million, growth is down by 2% for the season. In addition according to comscore the growth is being driven by heavy discounting which means narrower margins.

In the US only 7% of all retail sales are online. In Australia it is likely to be significantly less, due in no small part to dinosaurs like Gerry Harvey who think online doesn’t work.

Buyer concerns are being addressed through incentives, namely lower prices which is an understandable but knee jerk reaction.

As buyers become more cautious, sites have to address buyer concerns more carefully. Stuff like guarantees, shipping policies, payment methods, registration forms and call to actions will be even more critical to drive increased conversion.

This means etailers and B2B sites should be investing more in their online experiences and hiring analysts, architects, designers, developers and online marketers.

Last night I went to the first Melbourne Web Analytics Wednesday in the sweltering back room at Loop Bar.

The discussion was a little stilted at first but there was a strong turn out from Sensis, CoreMetric and other analytics and search folks.

There was some discussion alluding to the convergence between Customer Relationship Management tools and web analytics. This type of integration can not only tell you lots about customer behaviour but also dig deep into key attributes of the customer like age, sex, likes, dislikes, profession and so on.

The integration of web analytics and critical business tools is evolving quickly and I have to admit I’ve not been paying a great deal of attention. Perhaps because to do so requires a whole lot of applications talking with each other.

This convergence means that web analytics will no longer be something for the marketing wierdos but something the pin-heads sit up and look at.