As well as training to be an eBay education specialist I have secured consultancy and web development in the last few weeks of December to take me though to January.

In pure on-line entrepreneurial fashion I have been building up my web business ( practising what I preach) to its highest level yet and it continues to grow. Over the Christmas period I am going to be organising an eBay January Sale. I plan to make £900 with excess materials and stock hoarded over the years!

I shall also spend the time re-designing my ebay shop!

1. Make the average sentence length 15 to 20 words.

2. Use words your customers are likely to understand. Try not to abbreviate or use extensive jargon.

3. Use only as many words as you need.

4. Prefer the active voice, unless there is a good reason for using the passive.

5. Use the clearest verbs to express your thoughts.

6. Use vertical lists to break up complicated text.

7. Reduce cross-references to the minimum.

8. Avoid sexist usage.

9. Put your points positively when you can.

10. Put accurate punctuation at the heart of your writing.

11. Plan before you write.

12. Organise your content in a way that helps readers to grasp the important information early and to navigate though the document easily.

In the case of terms and conditions, which most on-line sellers draft their own…..

Where there is doubt about the meaning of a term, the interpretation most favourable to the consumer shall prevail.

They also have a blog : Future Now’s Marketing Optimization Blog

If you are tired of text book internet marketing reads, this plays out like a compelling novel. I can’t put it down, suddenly it all makes sense!

So what effect does page rank have?

One simple one really in my eyes….how high your site is indexed on Google. It has little to do with your keyword optimisation and relies heavily on back links. So if your search engine optimisation sold you on creating a profile of back links then you will have noticed a drop in page rank, and also a drop in position. A lot of websites will also find their traffic diminishes as they are not as far up the search listings.

Do not fear my SEO buddies, optimisation is an ever changing and growing animal and your SEO should not be a static being. Change and adapt when Google ‘Master of the Universe’ changes its ever fickle mind.

Kidsontalks now has a page rank of three, so its not all bad. Technorati says I have 16 back links.

Keep up to date with the latest page rank theories: ‘Digg Favourites Slapped By Google’ its seems this story is more complex than it first seemed. Google said it was penalising paid links ’selling’ page rank, but the only paid links I use are well Google Adwords for Hairfreax anyway!

This is a nifty script for you to manage your own affiliate program. I have started ‘Toxic Girl Alternative Affiliates‘ on toxicgirl.co.uk to manage a small affiliate program for my Hairfreax site. With the JROX affiliate management software you can use the software for up to 50 affiliates free but then the cost of the software is $250 or approx £122 at the time of publishing.

I am going to enlist a small set of friends with related websites to test the system and its offerings, but its well worth a look.

Its features include:

Affiliate Management
Commission and sales management
Ability to create various advertising types
Multiple programs
Integration with Cubecart…..which I happen to run!

The full details are here : http://www.jrox.com/affiliate_software/

You could find at least 6 different types of online shopper within your own set of friends and family. A small sized start-up online business may not be able to afford professional customer modelling, but these techniques are still important, even to the smaller player.

New to the Net:

These buyers are still getting used to the internet and the idea of e-commerce. They use the web for research purchases and start will smaller value items in safer environments. A common start off point for these shoppers is eBay, where all the sellers are rated and they can proceed with caution. At this early stage this shopper can either become addicted to the life of e-commerce or be put off by a bad or fraudulent purchase.

This buyer needs a simple interface, and a way to verify the e-commerce site. Make sure you have clear precise pictures, a simple stream line jargon free checkout and display your returns policy clearly outlining your responsibility as an online retailer. You can invest in an eBay type feedback system such as FeeFo.com which is an independent customer feedback system and also feature customer testimonials. Make sure you use well known and simple payment processing for example Paypal, Lloyds Cardnet or HSBC.

Bargain Hunters

These shoppers rely heavily on marketplaces such as eBay and shopping comparison engines. They have no real brand loyalty and are just shopping for the lowest price. You need to convince these shoppers they are getting the best deal. Make sure you products are included in shopping comparison engines and have an RRP shown so they can see the great deal they are getting. Within this group you have the impulsive bargain hunter who wants to purchase now and a competitive bargain hunter willing to bid against other shoppers for the deal. EBay is a bargain hunter’s paradise; you can almost use eBay to cater primarily for these customers, letting them battle it out for bargains and also have fixed price items for your impulsive bargain hunters.

Precise Shoppers

These shoppers have a surgical approach to online shopping. They know exactly what they want and will research until they find the best fit to their criteria. These shoppers are hard to please as it is luck of the draw that you have the product they need. You need to make sure part numbers and the true name of your product is present in the product title to allow precise optimization. Product configuration tools like the ‘Build your Porsche’ cater for these types of shopper and are great for a multitude of shopper types.
These shoppers need customer opinions to make sure the product will fit it intended purpose and also great customer support so they can seek verification for the seller about the item.

Hobby Shoppers

Shopping for these buyers is a past time. I fall straight into this category myself. It’s an addiction and I almost need to find something to buy online if I have a penny to spare. I often have to quell the urge. These shoppers purchase frequently and enthusiastically. These are the most adventurous shoppers and you need to grab their attentions by offering engaging tools to view the merchandise as well as product recommendations and incorporating social media into their purchase. These shoppers love community applications such as forums, bulletin boards and social shopping sites.

Direct Shoppers

These shoppers buy out of necessity. They do not shop around or waste time. They want the information now and to find the product within the 3 click recommended navigation. Excellent navigation and product organization is needed to cater for these shoppers. These shoppers need all the information at their finger tips in close proximity to the items, as well as quick access to customer support. Live chat appeals to these kind of shoppers, as they want answers quickly. These shoppers respond well to expert and customers opinions and testimonials.

Nervous Shoppers

My mother very much falls in this category, afraid to ‘put her credit card’ online or that she will be subject to fraud. Identity theft has risen to 1 in 4 in the UK so this is a valid concern. These shoppers start off by only using the internet to research products they mainly buy offline. To make these customers feel secure you need to clearly state your security /privacy policies and use a SSL certificate at checkout. These shoppers watch out for the little padlock at the bottom of the browser so make sure you have no non-secure items on your secure pages. Non-secure Google analytics tracking code is famous for this, they have a https version. You need to state that their information is secure and not sold or distributed. These customers also need customer support, with most of these shoppers wanting to hear from a human before they make their purchase. You need to make sure you include a phone number contact for these shoppers, and also an option that they can pay over the phone for their purchase. You might find these shoppers are only leads for your bricks and mortar or catalogue operations. These are still valid customers as most types of customers have a little bit of the nervous shopper in them.

You can not please or cater for every shopper that will land on your e-commerce site, but you do need to consider the information you need to give your customers and the shopping experience as a whole. Always consider your product type and match it with your typical customer profile. These are generalisations on shoppers, but as with the colour symbolism and psychology, every product type attracts a different set of customer profiles! You can even go as far as moulding your search engine optimisation to match what each shopper type is looking for. Intelligent search engines will deliver your products and message directly to these shopper types, Google personalised search will make this easier for you.

Grey – Grey is often used as a subtle complimentary colour to your main colour. It reflects stability, neutrality, elegance and balance. A pink and grey combination is very feminine, suitable for specifically female products and seen quite often for example : http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hair-Angels/

White – White is seen to represent purity, peace, innocence, cleanliness and simplicity. This colour is widely used in western cultures for spa or health related designs. When white is combined with either green or blue gives a clean relaxed feel. If you are marketing to eastern cultures though, white can also mean death.

Black – Black symbolizes power, modernism, sophistication as well as mystery. Black combines will with all colours and used quite often to compliment most themes that maybe need a stronger approach. The combination of yellow and black is often used for power tool designs or very male orientated style product design such as http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Bling-Bling-Online/

In western cultures black is also synonymous with death and sorrow so should be cleverly combined with other colours to prevent this association.

Red – Red says passion, strength, energy, fire and love. On its own can induce feelings of anger or danger but combined with neutral and calming colours like white and grey can project a very corporate image and can be a very safe combination. Red is a lucky colour in China, but too much red should be avoided.

Blue – You can see blue on designs that promote peace, unity, harmony, tranquillity, calmness and coolness. Blue is a very popular colour in designs relating to water or heath like bathroom products like http://stores.ebay.co.uk/BATHTEK and http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Bathrooms-and-Taps-Direct. Bathtek have used a darker blue and also black to create a more modern and technological feel to their design whereas Better bathrooms have opted for a softer approach. Both of these combinations work well and will appeal to different types of buyer.

Light blue is associated with baby boys and great for nursery and baby related designs.

Green – Greens make you think firstly of your garden, the environment, growth, nature but also money and envy. Money related site often use green to scream their purpose at you. Green means money more so in the USA due to the US dollar being green. Green is a lucky colour in Ireland. Green is used a lot in for golfing products for example http://stores.ebay.co.uk/ElectraGolf and also gardening and plant related products.

Yellow – Sunshine, joy, optimism, intelligence, and idealism can all be associated with the colour yellow. Yellow is difficult colour to manage for designs so it is usually combined with more than one other colour or shade: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Garage-Equipment-Group

Purple – Purple is the colour of flamboyance, sensuality, spirituality, creativity and nobility. Purple is a popular female colour and is used in the Gothic culture quite extensively.

Orange – An energetic refreshing colour, suggesting balance, heat, fire, enthusiasm, flamboyance and playfulness. Orange is a difficult colour to use with design. Orange and brown is used for 1970’s retro designs, and should be used to compliment other colours rather than dominate them. Orange is symbolic of autumn and religion for example Buddhism.

Brown – Brown is an earthy colour, dependable and natural. Brown has richness, stability, depth and rustic feel to it. Combined with colours (rather than shades) it can stabilise a colour or provide a retro feel, popular in furniture and DIY housing products. The brown and cream combination is a staple contemporary home colour, used in a lot of living rooms in the UK.

Pink – Associated primarily with the female population in western culture it suggests gratitude, appreciation, admiration, sympathy, femininity, health, love. Used with black it has a very alternative punk feel: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Front-Clothing

Pink is used to represent delicate products with intricacy and detail. Pink is a very approachable colour.

This is not a definitive guide to colour psychology with respect to web and eBay design as different cultures have different representations for colour and colours have a multitude of emotional responses associated with them. It is best to research your product type and find out which colour combination fits your customer type and the buying experience you want.

This post has lots of links to Frooition created designs as I am currently developing articles for our company blog. This is the first draft of this post but would appreciate opinions on the theories and content so I can refine this article for posting on the company blog. You can ‘ping’ this post and I will allow comments for a short time (unless I get oodles of spamola). I am not a colour psychologist but I am a web buyer and these are my feelings as well as a little research throughout the web. I need some more colour combination examples relating to a specific product. This post is to help with the design decision process Froo customers have to make. In theory anyway!

A few colour combination no-no’s would be fun also!

The course material will include client and server side application development as well as open source. I hope this course will give me a good grounding so I can develop my skills to combine e-business sense and internet marketing with online application development.

Week 1

Gather Data – Make sure you have the necessary data from last year October to December including your pay per click campaign statistics from last year. This has to include your website statistics, ROI, traffic sources, best keywords Google Analytics’s can provide this basic data if installed correctly, including basically what made your revenue.

Review Product Launch Dates – Many companies schedule launch of products in time for the Christmas season, especially consumer electronics. Make sure you advertising picks up on these trends if your product is relevant.

Gather Competitive Intelligence – know your enemy in the battle for Christmas! What paid campaigns did they use last year? What keywords are they ‘buying’ now? Does your paid search campaign match up?

Prepare a calendar of events – make sure you and your advertising/website team know what’s going to happen and when.

Week 2

Prepare your website for the new season – evaluate the ease of navigation, can your item be found in 3 clicks? Is your shipping information clear and above the fold? (above the bottom of your browser window, on initial viewing of the page)

Determine your up-sell opportunities, you will have related products to your main Christmas sellers.

Have you tried setting up on eBay to increase your reach?

Test your seasonal landing pages.

Re organise your product inventory, make sure there is room for your seasonal items. Taking off your lower selling items during this period to squeeze in more popular items is OK. Most catalogue companies do this to make way for Christmas. Put keywords like ‘Christmas gifts’ and ‘gifts for her’ within the HTML and keywords of your site. Remember gifts is what its all about now.

Week 3

Prepare for launch! Once Halloween is over its time for Christmas so you need to make sure you can flick on your advertising methods, be it standard advertising, marketplaces or pay per click quickly. Test your campaigns intensively and monitor your competitors for change. Test your website, and remove any dead links or fix broken pages. Set budgets wisely. You supposed to be making more money at Christmas not loosing it on excessive advertising!
Week 4

Launch your campaign. You will need to make sure the search engines know what’s going on so have you updated your sitemaps? Once November hits is all about Christmas, you need to make sure your Christmas and gift keywords have been indexed. Once your campaign has been running for a week you will be able to fine tune it in the first week of November.

November Edition Posted

Text based domain names are just for us humans to read, your machine reads the IP address which is a set of numbers example 123.456.789.10

Every computer on the Internet has a numeric address called an IP Address, which is used to identify the location of the computer. An example of an IP address is 204.174.223.72. Each domain name replaces this string of numbers with a simple word or expression. Having a domain name means you don’t have to remember a cumbersome numeric address.

- dombay.com/glossary_faq.htm

When ever a company changes servers its IP address will change whereas the text based name will stay the same. Some domain hosts do not the CNAME function, such as FastHosts which can cause problems later down the line. So, just in case make sure you can CNAME with your domain host so you won’t have to switch further down the line.