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funnels, mug warmers, and gallon drums of plastic ants; not only because they have a great mascot named Jarvis; and not only because their URL is a clever play on words ('sciplus,' sounds like Bugs Bunny saying 'surplus.' Surplus is their specialty, with an emphasis on science. In this short little url, they get both aspects in there--and turn it into a punchline to boot). I just dig the whole thing, all around. I visit them to see what nifty gadgets they're hawking this week, but their hilarious catalog descriptions keep me coming back just to read the content. 'So,' you may be asking, 'who are these guys, anyway?' Sciplus is actually the online incarnation of American Science and Surplus, which has been in existence (in some form or the other) for most of the 20th Century. In 1937, Mr. Al Leubbers was just hanging around Chicago, working for Western Electric. He happened to be an optics buff, so when he noticed that the warehouse next door was tossing out large numbers of reject lenses (Ping! Went the lightbulb over Al's head) he asked the company if he could buy the rejects. They told him he could have them if he'd please just *take* them away. Al and his wife Buddy spent the next several weeks polishing lenses at the kitchen table. They placed an ad in Popular Mechanics, and started unloading them at 10 for $1, and American Lens and Photo was born. The company expanded to embrace general surplus after World War II, and became the American Science Center. They officially became American Science and Surplus in the early 90s, and have been online since '95. Though they're not a strictly e-business (they have real stores in Chicago, Geneva, and Milwaukee) I think anyone who's serious about having an online presence (especially if you're selling stuff) should take a look at what these cats are up to-because a business dedicated to 'discovery and invention...[and] having fun along the way,' intuitively understands how to build an almost perfect site. Want to know what their secret formula is? Well, part of it is an inborn, twisted sense of humor, but they're also clever businessmen. Launch your browser, pull up the site, and let's take the ten-cent educational tour... 1. Navigation: Their first brilliant move? They created a template page, so that all their pages would have a consistent look and feel. When you're cataloging as much information as sciplus, you need to have a template, not only for practicality's sake, but for navigation's sake. They don't make their users re- orient themselves every time they click to a new page. But that's not to say that static is always good. Hit 'refresh.' Notice anything? That's right. Their featured products rotated. When you first brought up the page, you may have seen goo-goo-googly plastic eyes, hex keys and assorted plastic drums. Now you're looking at dino stencils, glass bowls and coffee grinders. They've programmed the page to rotate up different products...smart! They've also put their most important links at the top (ordering, sale items, what's new) and then listed everything else on the left-hand side of the page. Also notice that these side links are broken down into categories: the product listings are at the very top, and then broken off in a box, we get the fun (but less essential) stuff. We have 'Help for the stymied surpie,' 'Who is Jarvis?' and 'Items flying out the door.' Below this are links for email updates and a check for users to be sure that the site is secure. But go back to those product listings. Click on 'Containers.' In orange, you'll see a complete listing of pages for every product that falls under the header of 'containers.' That way, a user can immediately jump to the page they're looking for, but not get lost in infinite sub-pages, because that left-side nav bar is always there to help them get back out again. Sciplus has thousands of items, and this is an ingenious way to make their content 'transparent' no matter where a user is on the site. 2. Graphics: If you sell stuff online, chances are you've already developed an ulcer worrying about the virtues of quick downloads vs. product photos. Well, take a look at what the clever sciplus crew has done: they've used simple (but accurate!) line drawings to represent everything they sell. These little graphics take seconds to download, but the customer still knows what they're in for...and I'm sure you'll agree that you would want to know what a flagellation titration flask looks like before shelling out ten bucks for it. 3. Copy: It's short. It's snappy. It's funny as hell. Let me give you an example of a product description...for tape. You'd think that describing a roll of tape would be very boring, but look what they do with it: 'Very cool tape, whether you're shipping drugs, storing diamonds, or sealing boxes of confidential records. Seal a package with this 2' wide dark-blue tape that has Investigational Drug Services Venture printed on it in light blue. Any tampering will be evident, because the tape cannot be removed without leaving a dense blue stripe on the surface, boldly patterned with the word 'OPENED.' One roll on a 3' core is 250 ft long. Whoever woulda thought? Peace of mind from a piece of tape!' Now, I don't know about you, but that makes me want to buy this tape. No matter what you're selling, finding a unique voice will keep users in your site. Content DOES matter, no matter what anyone says. If this tape had been described in a cold, clinical way, it wouldn't be half as appealing. I want to buy this tape partly because the description made me laugh, partly due to the novelty of it, partly due to the fact that I can think of certain boxes I'd like to seal from potential tamperers. And lo and behold, right under this lovely description, I see the order number, the product name, the price, and an orange link that says BUY ME. I don't have to look for an order page; my impulse buy will not be dampened by lots of clicking. If I fall in love with this tape, I click right then and there and add it to my shopping cart. 4. Order Forms: Sciplus has placed all their ordering information along the top of the page. Very saavy. Nothing loses a customer more quickly than an obscure, buried-at-the-bottom order form link. They also offer customers ordering options, and have coded each option with a separate color. This becomes a non-text ordering 'language' for the entire site. When you see that orange BUY ME! link you know that it's option number three, because it's coded orange. This makes ordering fast 'n' easy, which means they probably get lots of sales for those googly eyes, among other things. 5. Other Miscellaneous Smart Moves: They created a newsletter to update users when new products have been added to the site; they distribute a printed catalog, and ordering it is a snap online; their contact info is easy to find, as are the addresses of their actual stores. And the entire tone of the site is full of whimsy, good humor, curiosity and generosity. Sure, they want to sell you stuff-but they don't push it in your face. What they do push in your face is the information you want at your fingertips. So go into the site. Play around with it, learn from it, and I'm sure you'll find other features that I haven't covered here. And while you're at it, be sure to pick up a stainless-steel pill splitter or some rechargeable sealed-lead calcium batteries.
Lets face it, when a visitor does arrive it only follows that we should do our best to help them see the value in our website, no? Welcome new visitor, here is our feed, blah blah... Can't we do better then that?I see a lot of variations on the Welcome new visitor, here is our feed type of thing when I arrive at blogs and such these days. Sometimes this gets customized if the site determines that I am a "Googler" (visiting from a search engine) and then offers me some piece of text to try and make me become a passionate user of their site. This strategy never makes me a passionate user. What does work is when I read the page in question and then navigate around the site and find more great content. So the trick should be to make great-content discovery the goal. Welcome Googler, let us help you outHere we present one solution that works for helping people discover your site. As a side effect it will increase your pageviews in a proper, natural way. (We have a whole pile of other solutions for this, however that
What we have done is created a custom, on-the-fly navigation system based on their search query! This little widget should work to keep them poking around your site. Placement etc.We've been using this on several sites now (along with some other ideas alluded to above) and it works. Pageviews per user go up. Bounce rate falls (more on that in the future too). We have had to play with the placement of this box: top of the page? Floated to the right/left of the main page content? Following them down the page (with js)? As they say, your mileage may vary, but chances are you will get more mileage out of more readers, and that is a good sticky thing. Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 |
More Articles:1. GET INTERACTIVE AND GAIN CUSTOMERS! According to a new survey carried out by Alliance & where ID_NUM=9270;Leicester, one in five small business owners view tax astheir greatest concern. The Chancellor has announced in hislast budget that companies with profits below œ10,000 willnot have to pay any corporation tax with effect from 1 April2002. The question to be asked is: does that announcementmake incorporation a more attractive option compared tobeing a sole trader?The answer is that from a tax point of view, it isadvantageo… 2. Using Graphic Design on Your Website By Andy Eaton Almost everything is available on the web… products, services, e-books, software, audios, videos, membership sites, or newsletters. Regardless of what you’re promoting, there’s a never-ending supply of prospects and customers on the world-wide-web. Your goal is to capture and turn those prospects into paying customers.Perhaps the best avenue is by the use of graphics. Three important sections of graphics that should be used for a compelling website are 1) header graphics 2) product cover an… 3. Choosing a Web Design Company for Your Business Website By James Anderson Now there are many different criteria to consider when choosing a Web Design Company. One of which is, what kind of website is it you need?Depending on whether you want to sell products, just advertise a bricks and mortar business or something radically different, will govern the skill set required of your chosen Web Design Company.Most Web Design Companies will be able to design a simple site advertising a business but may not be very good at constructing sites that use an eCommerce Solution … 4. 7 Tips to Organize Your Web Site Whether you are producing your own site or having someone do it for you, here are some basics you'll need to think about before getting started.1. Decide on the goal of your web site. Will it be informative only or will you sell services and/or products?2. List the topics you want to cover. These will be your main pages under your home page. Some ideas are: About Me or My Company, Products, Services,Contact Information.3. Think about your target audience. Design the site for them. Make your web … |
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