Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Great Search, Bad Functions Result in Wasted Effort

Imagine having a credit card in hand. You search Google, or Yahoo, or whatever, and several promising sites pop up above the fold. You go to the sites and discover a perfectly optimized page.

All the titles and keywords are there, strategically placed throughout the copy. Everything is as it should be for good placement in the search engines. And you are HOT TO BUY!

But you don't, because the site is not set up for easy shopping. Where are the prices? Where are the descriptions? Where are the pictures? Where is the easy check-out? Where is the intuitive organization? Why can't you find what you want?

It's clear the owner of the store spent time, effort, and funds to have the store appear toward the top of the search engines. It's too bad he or she didn't invest the same in how the store would be used. That's too bad. It leaves a bad mark for e-business, with the owner thinking "this online shopping thing just doesn't work."

Well it does. Just make sure your have all your ducks in order - with a well-designed Web site - that is convenient for shoppers to use. Then, combined with a good search effort and competitive pricing, a store has to succeed.

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