You see, I included too many variables and the wrong type of measurement.

I separated the participants into groups of 12 and provided them real life jury trials from around the country. Cases included murder, burglary, assault, auto theft, and an auto accident.

My variables included age, ethnicity, number of children, education, type of job, marital status, suffered from a crime, know someone who suffered from a crime, and religion.

Then instead of “guilty” or “not guilty,” I had the participants indicate the level of guilt.

The two factors that caught me ill prepared were ethnicity and level of guilt.

I left ethnicity open to interpretation and came away with people identifying themselves as W.A.S.P., Latino, White, African-American, Cherokee and many others. I certainly learned why the government limits responses to Caucasian, Hispanic, Eskimo, Native American, African-American, and Asian.

I thought the level of guilt would provide an interesting insight into personal dynamics and points of view. Unfortunately, this turned into a mess. The responses were not simple black and white responses. I had results on a 0 to 10 scale of 3.12, 3.45, 6.789, and other wacky numbers.

From this fiasco I learned that scientific studies use tests with limited variables. Adding to many variables causes confusion and becomes too hard to track.

Now, I use the lessons I learned from that experiment to plan and implement conversion optimization studies. These studies require that I develop a hypothesis before we test which aids in limiting the number of variables we use in the conversion optimization testing process.

A recent study by Internet Retailer shows that 2/3 of Ecommerce retail shops have plans to redesign their shop’s sites at some point this year. The number one reason for doing so would seem to be to increase their optimization.

Search engine optimization it the key to success in the Ecommerce world. With so much competition out there, if you’re not on page one and maybe two you are not likely to see much traffic from the search engines.

Most of these Ecommerce business owners said that completing a website redesign would generate a higher sales conversion and attract new customers. While a redesign will usually attract more customers to staying on your site once they have reached it, search engine optimization is not guaranteed to increase sales because the goal of SEO is to increase traffic. I’ve seen sites with website traffic at 300+ visitors per day and zero sales.

When considering a website redesign, make sure that you’re also getting someone to look at conversion optimization as well as search engine optimization. Your redesign should make your site attractive, but it should also streamline the sales process, funneling visitors through their shopping cart to checkout.

Shopping Cart of the Week: Merchant Metrix

We preformed a survey of our current clients recently and we asked them what was most important to them when considering an E-Commerce Shopping Cart. They had this to say;

• Personal / Quality Customer Service
• Reliability and Cart Quality
• Ease of Use
• SEO Friendly
• Security
• Knowledge of SEO and expertise in the field
• Still growing and added features

What They Said About Merchant Metrix

“The best solution for an SEO friendly shopping cart”

“Gives customer more independence in running their business”

“Genuinely interested in helping its customers succeed”

“Peace of mind knowing my site is online 24-7”

“Has all the main ingredients for success like tools and features to do marketing”

To learn more about our Search Engine Friendly Shopping Cart or to schedule a live demo of our software please contact us through our Web site at www.merchantmetrix.com.

Recent surveys have shown that people are still making a lot of their purchases online. In fact, people have been online more than ever looking for bargains. In many cases you can find things much cheaper online than you can in the store, simply because the store owner has minimal to no overhead costs.

You actually have the advantage! Current online retailers are stuck in the same product position they were in before our economic downfall (as far as the type of product they’re selling). Those recent surveys I was talking about, they say that the top selling online retail categories are;

1. Video Games, Consoles & Accessories
2. Home, Garden & Furniture
3. Sports & Fitness
4. Event Tickets
5. Consumer Electronics

Things such as movies, music, books, and games are on the downfall because many people have started just buying and downloading them online. No shipping costs or gas for your vehicle, it’s a time saver too.

You have the opportunity to jump in now while the selling is hot (so to speak), and with a good business strategy, some planning, and most importantly Good Website SEO or an excellent Search Engine Friendly Shopping Cart, you could be back on your feet in no time.

Remember: Building a business takes time, hard work and doesn’t happen overnight.

Penny, like many start-up business owners, had found something she enjoyed doing and decided to turn it into a business. She enlisted the aid of Sheldon to help her with several aspects of getting the business up and producing her merchandise. A bit later the other guys came in and volunteered to help.

Leonard decided he would develop the Web site.

The episode was great and delivered several messages about starting a business and using the Internet as a marketing channel. You need a…

1. Business plan
2. Marketing plan
3. Product development processes
4. Employees
5. Storefront
6. Order fulfillment processes

Remembering the show is a comedy it addressed all the points from a comedic view. Penny’s business failed because she didn’t have all the right pieces.

The episode addressed the “build it and they will come” belief. People that have online stores can honestly say that it’s impossible to have sales within minutes of launching one’s Web site without using a service like Google Adwords.

Google Adwords can help get visitors to a Web site, but it can be costly if not used properly. If you do decide to use Google Adwords or any other pay-per-click (PPC) advertising service, you should consider using a PPC management service.

Shopping cart software can be developed to work well with the search engines, but search engines must first find the Web site before it can index the site’s pages. Submitting a Web site to Google can be quick, but even Google says it may take weeks before it visits and indexes the Web site.

To more easily appear in the free, organic search results, one should use a search engine friendly shopping cart.

Small online retail businesses are suffering more than ever because of this. If it’s not hard enough to make a buck, probably their biggest hurdle is how they rank in the search engines next to big companies like Amazon. Don’t be fooled by most companies that promise their SEO services will get you to the #1 spot on Google. Most of these companies charge big bucks and you get little results; you’re left with a website that will reach, maybe, the top 5 pages.

There is a solution! Merchant Metrix has an award winning Search Engine Friendly Shopping Cart that takes the guessing out of creating a website for those who don’t know HTML or CSS. By strategically locating certain aspects of your website we can optimally position it for search engine spiders, and bump it to the top of the results. Our patent pending software is continuously being tested and has held its ground to this point.