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Navigate Mobile Shoppers Toward Sales

Posted by Christina StublerNovember 5, 2015eCommerce, Mobile/Tablets, Navigation

More than half of all time spent shopping online is done via smartphones and tablets, propelling mobile commerce to grow three times faster than overall e-commerce. In addition to site search, site navigation is one of the most important aspects of the mobile experience.

Here are some tips to help make sure your site navigation is ready for the mobile-and-tablet holiday rush.

Mobile Navigation

The limited space on smartphones and tablets magnifies the importance of intuitive navigation.

To best orient users and guide them through a mobile site (without cluttering the screen), use a simple design. Here are some main best practices:

Use drop-down menus with buttons or simple text so you can offer as many drill-down levels as needed while freeing up valuable real estate.
Use subpages to expand using familiar icons such as +, – and >. This allows shoppers to easily navigate through categories to exactly the products they are looking for.
Give category pages a look and feel similar to search results pages. This gives users a consistent experience across search and navigation.
Include a thumbnail image, product title, brief description, price and additional information such as ratings and discounts.

Include Refinements

Just as on your desktop site, refinements make navigation easier for mobile visitors. Since mobile devices have a lot less space for navigation, using a drop-down menu can be a good design choice. Presenting refinements this way saves screen space by hiding them when they are not in use. This helps reduce visual clutter on the mobile site and allows visitors to view more products and content without needing to scroll down.

Offer Infinite Scrolling

You may find that shoppers spend more time on your mobile site if you provide infinite scrolling.

Instead of requiring shoppers to click to the next page, infinite scrolling automatically loads more search results as the user nears the bottom of the page.

Make Links and Buttons Touch-friendly

When designing for touch-enabled devices, keep in mind the size of the human finger and thumb. The touch target for an index finger is 57 pixels and for a thumb it is 72 pixels. Making touch targets smaller than that can lead to user frustration and incorrect clicks. Moreover, don’t require users to pinch and zoom in order to navigate pages as these actions also lead to a negative user experience.

Direct Mobile Users to Mobile Pages

If you have a separate mobile site with a different URL, make sure to automatically send your mobile users to the correct site. You also need to direct search engines to this alternate site in order for your mobile pages to rank well in mobile search results. If you’re using responsive design, this shouldn’t be an issue.

Don’t Assume Desktop Features Will Work on Mobile Devices

A common mistake in mobile development is attempting to port desktop features directly to a mobile device. With a touch-enabled device, the user is not navigating the page with a mouse cursor so functions like hover don’t translate into a positive customer experience. At best, the user will attempt to click the item multiple times to activate the link; at worst, the user will be unable to click through at all and may abandon the site in frustration. Instead, optimize your development for the unique features and uses of each device type. Smartphone users and tablet users may use your site differently so consider both types of users.

For more tips on how to improve your site navigation, download our Big Book of Navigation Tips.

Top Costumes for Halloween 2015: Ready to Feel The Force?

Posted by Aparna GrayOctober 29, 2015eCommerce, Press, Site Search

Don’t be surprised if you have Princess Leia, Darth Vader or Yoda knocking at your door this Saturday, looking for treats. Star Wars mania is in full swing and is dominating the 2015 Halloween costume craze, as Hollywood blockbusters are again leading the costume trend this year.

Data from SLI Systems found Star Wars is an unmatched force with nearly 37% greater interest than Minions – the next closest film. In fact, this Halloween season, consumers conducted twice as many costume searches for Star Wars characters than Frozen characters, which were the most-searched costumes in 2014. Anticipation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is clearly attracting new generations, adding to decades of loyal fan numbers.

The top 5 most-searched movie-themed costumes of 2015 were:

Star Wars (combines searches for Leia, Darth Vader and other characters)
Minions (includes searches for Despicable Me)
Frozen (includes searches for Elsa, Olaf and other characters)
Marvel Universe (includes Hulk, Thor, Ironman, Spiderman and other characters)
Maleficent

As noted in a recent Multichannel Merchant article, SLI studied site search activity across e-commerce costume retailer websites based in the U.S., Canada and Australia, analysing a total of more than 10 million consumer searches taking place between Sept 1 and Oct 20, 2015.

The SLI data team compared the most popular site search terms across costume retailer websites using our Learning Search® service and found interest in current events as well. For instance, searches for ‘Trump’ increased significantly, with 33x more searches than the same timeframe in 2014. The data also revealed, the search term “Trump” was 38% more popular than “Ironman”!

Here are some of the additional findings from SLI’s 2015 Halloween Costume Site Search study:

The top three most popular non-movie searches in order were: witch, pirate and zombie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-related searches remain popular but missed the Top Five movie-themed list, coming in 6^thplace
Supergirl (and Superwoman) was 3.5x more popular than Trump and nearly 5x more popular than Ironman, the least popular Marvel super hero this season
Spiderman was the most popular Marvel super hero
Maleficent saw 3x the searches compared with (Princess) Leia

So if you haven’t already bought your Halloween costume for Saturday, there is still time. You can either buck the trend or join the legion of fans who will pay homage to the Star Wars franchise.

May the force be with you!

Aim for Holiday Merchandising Perfection

Posted by Dawn MortensenOctober 23, 2015eCommerce, Merchandising, Mobile, Webinar

There’s a great deal of science behind online retail, especially this time of year. Holiday shopping projections and results are measured by every retail organization and publication from August through February. Smart retailers analyze these numbers to create merchandising strategies that maximize their conversions.

At SLI Connect last month, Jim Davidson, Head of Research at Bronto Software, shared his latest findings on what retailers believe shoppers want versus what consumers actually expect for the 2015 holiday season. Following are a few interesting points from his presentation, “Creating Holiday Perfection Online,” which he will share in an SLI webinar next week.

Highest Converting Holiday Promotions
Bronto surveyed retailers and shoppers to learn which holiday promotion messages work best for online buyers versus in-store buyers. One of the discoveries was that 38% of shoppers will not buy if free shipping isn’t offered.

Mobile Shoppers: Browsing or Buying?
We know there’s an increasing trend toward using smartphones or tablets to shop online. However, because some retailers are slow to make their sites mobile-friendly, many mobile shoppers still turn to their desktops or go to a store to make the purchase. Bronto found that 22% of shoppers plan to actually make a purchase on their smartphone this holiday.

Even with holiday merchandising in full swing, there are plenty of digital promotions yet to be executed and much fine tuning to be done in the next two months of 2015. Listening to the retail analysts, along with optimizing your site search and mobile search, can help you achieve perfection.

Learn more by registering for the webinar “Creating Holiday Perfection Online” on Tuesday, October 27, at 11:00 a.m. PDT.

Consider the Power of User-generated Content

Posted by Helmut BerieOctober 14, 2015eCommerce, Ratings and Reviews, SEO

User-generated content in the form of ratings and reviews can deliver powerful SEO benefits to your e-commerce site. Many e-commerce platforms, including Magento, now have built-in ratings and reviews. Other platforms offer extensions in their marketplaces to support user-generated content. Regarding the importance of user-generated content, Search Engine Journal offers the article, Why Should UGC be a Part of Your SEO Strategy?

Unique content for product detail pages: The language used by reviewers is different than the language used in product descriptions. When you include this unique “review language” in product detail pages, you create unique content. Your pages can no longer be considered duplicate to any other page on the internet.

Rankings boost from unique terms used in reviews: Internet search engines understand the language used by reviewers is not the same as the language provided by manufacturers. Search engines use review language to reinforce the topic of the product detail page. As a result, pages might rank better for phrases they already ranked for and they might rank additionally for phrases introduced via reviews.

Social proof: Favorable reviews and ratings act as social proof. Studies show that products are purchased more often when there is proof that other consumers liked those products as well.

Keep in mind that ratings and reviews only help your page rankings if they are part of the pages themselves. For maximum impact they must be visible as part of initial page loads, without use of iframes and without hiding the information behind tabbed or accordion-type controls.

We recommend showing rating and review information only after several reviews have been collected. Otherwise a low review count might negatively impact the perception of desirability for the products on your site.

Ratings & Reviews Partners of SLI include Feefo, Reevoo, Bazaarvoice, Power Reviews and TurnTo.

For more tips on improving your SEO, download our white paper “How to Get the SEO-Driven Revenue You’re Missing.”

The Next Innovation in E-commerce: Enhanced Rich Auto Complete

Posted by Tanmay BholaOctober 5, 2015eCommerce, Rich Auto Complete, Site Search

The world of e-commerce is constantly evolving. When site search was first introduced, the functionality was clumsy at best and completely frustrating at worst. Shoppers typed their entire search query before seeing if the site had what they were looking for. This involved a lot of guesswork and often led to no results or irrelevant results – even when the site had the product shoppers wanted.

In 2008, SLI Systems launched Auto Complete. As soon as users started typing their search query, a search box dropdown instantly displayed search suggestions. In 2011, we were the first site search provider to add images and product suggestions to this experience, which gave birth to SLI Rich Auto Complete^TM and allowed shoppers to find relevant products faster. Each improvement to our Auto Complete experience has increased conversions and customer engagement.

The E-commerce Evolution Continues

Today, we are excited to announce industry-leading enhancements to Rich Auto Complete^TM. Our new Rich Auto Complete experience has been designed from the ground up to speed the path to purchase and engage shoppers on any size device.

After considering a number of usability factors, best practices and client requests, we redesigned the entire experience to increase e-commerce sales, enhance product discovery and reduce the risk of returning “no results.”

Great for Shoppers

Our latest version of Rich Auto Complete provides better guidance to shoppers as soon as they engage with the search box. We added the ability to show search suggestions based on category, brand or department, which lets shoppers jump to the right section of results. For example, a search for jeans at a large department store might show options for jeans in Women, jeans in Men and jeans in Kids.

Our new dynamic content feature allows users to preview products of interest right within the Auto Complete box. We do this by updating products displayed when users hover over search suggestions, which gives them more choices and increases engagement.

In addition, the new Rich Auto Complete helps you capture more sales from your small-screen shoppers. We’ve created dedicated mobile and tablet designs that automatically display options correctly regardless of device size and orientation. As a result, shoppers can type less and buy more.

Powerful for Retailers

Rich Auto Complete uses patented SLI Learning Search® technology to continuously re-rank product suggestions based on user activity. This allows you to showcase the most relevant products to your shoppers, and you can tune the results to control the order in which products appear.

SLI Systems has always customized the look and feel of our solutions to match your e-commerce site. Our new Rich Auto Complete now includes a variety of design options so that you can choose an experience that fits your brand and delights your shoppers.

Our SaaS platform allows your site to evolve alongside our e-commerce solutions. Existing Rich Auto Complete customers will enjoy these new features at no additional cost. New customers can look forward to combining the power of Learning Search® with industry-leading Rich Auto Complete to create a premium search experience

Learn more about accelerating your e-commerce by reading our Rich Auto Complete product brief.

Navigation: The Art of Good Usability

Posted by Christina StublerOctober 1, 2015eCommerce, Navigation, User Experience

Well-designed site navigation leads shoppers straight to the items they want, much like a well-designed satellite navigation system directs drivers to their destinations.

Great site navigation helps visitors avoid wrong turns and dead ends, but poorly designed navigation has the opposite effect: Shoppers lose their way and their patience, causing them to abandon the path to purchase before the journey even begins.

As an e-commerce retailer, you don’t want your visitors to fall into even a second of frustration, or they could be lost. A staggering 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience (Econsultancy).

One challenge of creating intuitive site navigation is accounting for different shoppers’ preferences. Some visitors are familiar with your site and others are new. Some will start at your home page, while others enter your site through a product page or landing page. Certain users always start at the search box, while others strictly navigate or use a mix of search and navigation. No matter the path, all visitors want you to bring them to the exact products or information they are looking for as quickly as possible.

The design of great site navigation is both an art and a science. After more than 14 years of helping the world’s leading e-commerce retailers turn shoppers into buyers, experts at SLI Systems have gathered an array of best practices to speed the path to purchase for shoppers in every industry, which we share in our “Big Book” series.

Our newest release of “The Big Book of Navigation Tips” includes more than 50 site navigation tips to help you lead your shoppers straight to their desired destinations.

Topics include best practices for:

Overall site design
Integration with ratings and reviews
Refinement display
SEO
Merchandising
Smartphones and tablets

Download your copy today and stay tuned to this blog for more articles about site navigation in e-commerce.

Announcing Next-generation Learning Navigation

Posted by Lauri LarjoSeptember 24, 2015eCommerce, Merchandising, Navigation, SEO, User Experience

In the drive to turn your visitors into buyers, navigation is a critical part of the shopping journey. More than 70% of site visitors navigate their way to the products they have in mind. But if your navigation is clumsy or confusing, those shoppers are more likely to bounce than buy.

Site Navigation as a Tool for Merchandisers, Content Marketers and SEO Pros

Originally we launched SLI Learning Navigation® in 2006 to provide a consistent experience across a site that also uses SLI Learning Search®. Learning Navigation® has always leveraged our patented learning technology to continually re-rank products based on user activity. Over the years, our navigation solution evolved based on customer feedback.

Today we are excited to introduce the next generation of SLI Learning Navigation – completely rebuilt for improved SEO and better merchandising. The newest version of Learning Navigation is designed to give you more control over your SEO while creating a better user experience based on industry best practices.

Our revamped navigation solution dynamically generates clean, search engine-friendly URLs, making it easier for shoppers to find your products during an organic search. Our new interface allows you to quickly edit URLs, titles, headings, meta tags and page descriptions, giving merchandisers and content marketers more direct control over factors that affect their SEO.

Learning Navigation also helps you avoid SEO issues with duplicate content by controlling which pages search engines index. The navigation pages provide refinement and filtering options for the whole product catalog.

Bring Your E-commerce to the Next Level

Adapting to the evolving e-commerce experience and expectations of our customers is at the core of SLI – to continuously enhance our offering, accelerate your sales and provide these improvements seamlessly via our SaaS platform. We are excited to help you bring your e-commerce to the next level with this newest version of Learning Navigation.

For new customers, we recommend signing up for Learning Search together with Learning Navigation to gain the maximum benefits of SLI learning technology. For existing SLI Learning Navigation customers, our SaaS platform allows us to easily upgrade your Navigation for no cost at your discretion.

To learn more about Learning Navigation, click here.

Why In-Person Connections Can’t Be Beat

Posted by Tim CallanSeptember 21, 2015Conferences, eCommerce, Search Conferences

No matter how advanced conferencing technology becomes, there’s no substitute for meeting someone face-to-face. Shaking hands, sharing conversation over a nice meal, sitting together to brainstorm new strategies for online retail success – none of these experiences is replicated through meetings using Skype, WebEx or GoToMeeting.

The Wall Street Journal article “The New Face of Face-to-Face meetings” cites an Oxford Economics study showing that every dollar invested in business travel results in $12.50 in added revenue and $3.80 in new profits. Face-to-face meetings are necessary, and even profitable, for reasons both obvious and research-based:

A handshake tells a lot about a person, and you can’t shake hands with a monitor
Facial expressions and other body language can communicate more than the words we use
Non-verbal cues help us predict a person’s trustworthiness (Science Daily)
In-person meetings are usually more casual and more likely to be considered “off the record,” so it’s possible to get more done in less time
Sharing a common experience is a building block of a long-term relationship
In-person meetings are simply more memorable than digital conversations

Connecting with Customers

Knowing the importance of connecting in-person, we hold SLI Connect events each year in North America, Asia Pacific and the UK. It’s a unique opportunity to mingle with our customers, other retailers and industry leaders to discuss current e-commerce topics, explore future possibilities and learn from each other’s experiences.

Our SLI Connect event is Thursday, September 24, at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and there’s still a couple days to register. Our agenda, speaker list, venue details and sign up form are available at www.sli-connect.com.

If you’re already scheduled to attend, you can follow real-time updates on Twitter using the hashtag #sliconnect. We can’t wait to share some non-verbal cues and build some common experiences (i.e. shake hands and have some fun together).

Infographic: 6 Mobile Merchandising Tips for the Holidays

Posted by Dawn MortensenSeptember 16, 2015eCommerce, Infographic, Merchandising, Mobile, Mobile/Tablets, Press, Site Search Tips

This latest infographic by SLI Systems was also published in Multichannel Merchant on September 10.

For a Successful B2B Site, Take Advice from B2C

Posted by Christina StublerAugust 31, 2015eCommerce, Mobile/Tablets, Site Search

The business-to-business industry is rarely considered glamorous. But don’t let its reputation fool you. Think of the almost-invisible wallflower who shows up to prom transformed and looking like a knockout. That’s B2B, and based on the numbers, it should stand for Big and Beautiful.

With more B2B buyers expecting to find what they need online, a growing number of B2B companies are embracing e-commerce. According to a survey by TradeGecko Pte. Ltd., 41% of wholesalers said e-commerce would be their top sales channel in 2015, up from 31% in 2014. In addition, 24% said they will sell online for the first time in 2015 (TradeGecko).

B2B Shoppers Have Higher Expectations

Shoppers have come to expect a customer-centric online experience, and B2B sites would be wise to step up their game. The addition of Amazon Business to the e-commerce scene only increases the pressure to act more like B2C. Why should shopping for work be any less efficient (and fun) than shopping for yourself? B2B buyers want a seamless online experience – even though the B2B path to purchase is usually more cumbersome.

The B2B buying process often requires in-depth research, approval from multiple stakeholders and possibly price negotiation. This combination of complexity and great expectations means your site has more chances to hit (or miss) the mark.

Here are a few ways you can do this:

Showcase Your Expertise

Nothing against your sales team, but your corporate web site is the first choice among executives for learning about business products and services, according to the 2015

Sullivan survey “Executive Buying Behavior.” Make sure potential buyers can easily find the information they desire, whether it’s demo videos, case studies, consumer guides or blogs. A superior site search experience will deliver product results and non-product content, so your visitors find everything they are looking for and more.

Go Anywhere, Be Everywhere

Work-life balance often means blurring the lines between both – and getting tasks done when you can. Research is no longer constrained to the dual-screen desktop at the office. Your customers might be traveling for business or couch surfing from the comfort of their home. Either way, go with them via their smartphone or tablet. As a bonus, the more mobile friendly you are, the higher you will rank in Google’s search page results.

Be Supportive

Set a gold standard for customer service. While today’s B2B shoppers want to independently scope out what you’ve got, they also want to know you’re there when they need you. Make it easy to place orders, track orders, make payments, get answers to frequently asked questions, find technical documentation and talk to a real person.

For more tips on creating an exceptional online shopping experience that will win loyal customers, take a look at this B2B Industry Brief from SLI Systems.

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