Make sure you don’t loose sales from these situations:

Personalised searches

In Dec 09 Google introduced personalised search which examines your search history and ‘adjusts’ your search results accordingly. Read more here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html

Are you really ranking that well ?

While the concept of personalised search sounds great, there are a couple of pitfalls you should be aware of.

To explain lets say you’ve been monitoring your website ranking by occasionally searching for it. Google’s personalised search will kick in and display your site  with a higher rank, but just for you. Meanwhile everyone else including your prospective clients will see (or may not see) the site in its real ranking position which may be way down the list and out of sight  :(

In your personalised search induced naivety you’ll believe your site is doing real well, but actually it might be doing really, really bad!

A suggested solution
If you do monitor your site’s ranking, (and I commend you for doing this!) then use your browsers ‘stealth mode’ to check rankings  and see what the rest of the internet sees.

Most browsers have a stealth mode but it can be a bit hard to find so here’s some clues:

• Internet Explorer 8 calls it ‘In private Filtering’ Ctrl Shift F
• FireFox calls it ‘Private Browsing’ Ctrl Shift P
• Chrome calls it ‘Incognito’ Ctrl Shift N
• Safari calls it ‘Private Browsing’

How much does Google know about you?
The other way that your search results might differ from what your clients see, is when you are signed into your Google ID.
Google may  skew results based on info stored  in your Google ID.

The solution here is to log out of your Google ID, or again use your browser’s stealth mode.

Invisible Flash

Apple iPhones and iPads are becoming increasingly popular internet devices. Sites I monitor have up to 6% of visitors arriving on their iPhones and I suspect iPad usage will explode soon to take this total number much higher.

Flash is used to provide visual interest in websites, and is important for emotional based sales i.e. selling products and services that make us feel good. Flash is also good at attracting attention.

As any iDevice devotee will tell you, iPhones & iPads don’t display Adobe Flash.

Any Flash in your website looks like a gapping black hole to these visitors. There’s no emotional sales value, it looks ugly; even defiled and predictably undermines your website’s ability to engage iDevice visitors .

Read what Apple has to say about Flash and why they are unlikely to ever support it.  http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

What does this mean for your business website?
David Radzikiewicz from A7 Designs suggests, split your web presence over two sites; your traditional site and then a mobile visitor site. Visitors are automatically sent to the best site for their internet device by coding in the site.

If your target market is likely to visit using an iDevice then take action soon.

Display Standards

The last and ongoing display anomaly relates to web design standards. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a set of technical standards for websites to ensure they all display OK, but many  sites don’t comply.

Display compatibility is complex as your website must be displayed faithfully in the plethora of browsers each with multiple software versions. As context; in the last 30 days, 52 different browsers/browser versions visited just one clients’ site.

This is has been further exacerbated by browsers that didn’t comply with the W3C standards (Microsoft being one of the worst offenders), and as a result W3C has lost relevance for some frustrated Web Developers.

Who cares about standards, I just want sales!
Fortunately there are typically few display issues for non-compliant websites, but occasionally the outcomes can be catastrophic sales-wise:

• Menus don’t work properly, so the visitor can’t access product information or sales pages.
• Product information is displayed completely off the screen and unable to be read.
• Search engine spiders are unable to navigate the site, so products don’t feature in search results.
• Text and/or images are displayed over the top of other content making it impossible to read

These are all excellent sales preventers and something I’m sure you dont want in your site.

Is my site W3C compliant ?
Fortunately W3C has an easy to use validation tool that you can check each page in your website for compliance. http://validator.w3.org/

I suggest you discuss any W3C errors your find with your Web Dev as some are trivial and might cost you a lot to achieve very little.

http://www.browsershots.org/ is also an excellent free resource to see how your site looks in a wide range of other browsers.  It also interesting just see see how many there are out there…

Where to from here

• Monitor the traffic in your site
  I strongly recommend Google Analytics. Its free and world class.
• Use Analytics to check your website’s visitor clickstreams to see if they are doing what you want them to do. If not, take action.
• Use Analytics to identify then check correct display for the more popular browsers used to access your site.
• Check the main pages in your site for W3C compliance

Summary

Dont assume that everyone sees the same as you online. Your Clients may have a very difference experience, and its their reality that determines your online sales success.

This blog is based on the Succinct Update newsletter from July 2010.
You can subscribe directly to our newsletter here

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But with the growing realisation that online success starts with a quality sales-focussed website, these standards are not only relevant, but can provide a competitive edge for your website.

What is the W3C standard?

A web page is mainly software and when visiting a site, we see that software’s output on our browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Fire Fox, Safari etc.) Your website’s W3C declaration informs the browser how to interpret and present the website’s output.

Over the years there have been a few generations of W3C standards as website technology has evolved, so it’s very important to specify the correct W3C standard that matches your website for the optimal outcome.

It’s much like knowing which type of fuel to put into your car (leaded, unleaded, diesel etc) If you use the wrong fuel, then the car is unlikely to run optimally, and may even breakdown.

It’s the same with websites and browsers. If a site claims to be constructed using a particular W3C standard but contains standards related defects or doesn’t even have a standard; the site may not be displayed how it was intended or may fail to display completely.

Impacts of W3C non-compliance

Your website may look OK to you, but it may look completely different on other browsers or browser versions. This is a well known and very frustrating aspect that web developers have to continually deal with called cross-browser compatibility.

Avoiding browser compatibility issues is the under-lying objective of the W3C standards.

As an illustration of the extent of browser variations a website has to accommodate, the Succinct Ideas website had visits from 9 different browser types with 43 individual software versions in just 6 months!

Browser compatibly issues can prevent your website’s menu system from working properly; obscure important content, or even make the entire site impossible to view on particular browser versions.

The problem is you can’t even see those defects to make an assessment of its impact on your prospective client unless you use that specific version of that particular browser.

Sales prospects will not invest their valuable time if your offerings are displayed in an unusable or distorted arrangement. The visitor’s poor online experience also creates a negative impression of your organisation which further prejudices your sale opportunity.

A non-compliant website will not only undermine your business’ creditability, but it scares sales leads away that you didn’t even know you had! It’s a sales prevention website!

Testing for W3C compliance

W3C have made assessment easy by providing a free validation tool: http://validator.w3.org/

Enter the website address and the validator will test the web page using the W3C standard the site claims to comply with.

If the validator reports no doctype found then your site does not even declare a W3C standard.

The validator results include references information on how to resolve any issues encountered, although much of it is deep geek.

How to get W3C compliant

W3C compliance is something your web developer can do when building your site if they know it’s important to you, and of course it is!

Depending on your website’s technical sophistication, achieving W3C compliance may be as simple as setting options in the web development tool (i.e. Dreamweaver etc) before publishing the site; or it may involve an extended debugging session requiring deep technical knowledge on HTML and W3C standards.

Which W3C standard?

Speak to your web developer to determine which W3C standard best suits your site. Each W3C standard version comes in two forms ‘strict’ and ‘transitional’.

In my view it is better to fully comply with the less disciplined transitional standard than to not comply with the more onerous strict standard.

Technical folks may object to this, but we are focussing on complying with the W3C standard for a sales objective, not technical perfection.

Edits can lead to compliance issues.

W3C compliance issues can creep into your site through edits and additions so it is important to retest W3C compliance following these modifications.

No W3C standard at all?

Many sites I encounter have no W3C declaration at all. These sites unfortunately run a real and genuine risk of inconsistent display over a variety of browser types and so the opportunity for compromising potential sales and business reputations is real.

The W3C badge

If demonstrating W3C compliance is important for your business, the W3C validator provides details on how to display a W3C logo on your compliant web pages.

Where to go from here

1. Assess each page in your site for W3C compliance
   If there are issues, take them up with your web developer for resolution.
   Note that if your website brief did not specify W3C compliance then it is not reasonable to expect this to be a warrantable issue.
   
   
2. Re-test W3C compliance when web site edits or modifications are undertaken.
   
   
3. Have your website tested in the browser and version editions that visitors are using to ensure it displays fully and as intended to your target audience.
   Source the list of browsers and browser versions being used from your website activity statistics. NB Typically Internet Explorer represents around 80%, Firefox 15%, Safari and others the balance.
   
   
4. Specify W3C compliance for your next web site design specification to ensure you are maximising the sales opportunity for your website from the ground up.

If your business has a quality based culture, you will understand the value of operating a standards based website.

Even if you don’t, you will still draw comfort from the knowledge that visitors to your website will enjoy a consistent view of your online business no matter which browser they use.

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