Paying attention to design & usability
A strong visual design is critical to making online shoppers close a deal, reports ClickZ, quoting a recent study by interactive marketing solutions firm Questus.
I quote excerpts from the ClickZ article:
"Critical to making a decision to purchase goods on a website are site navigation (37 percent); the checkout process (32 percent); and product descriptions (38 percent). Perspective buyers left e-commerce sites without purchasing for a few key reasons. Twenty-nine percent didn't want to register with the site; 22 percent of online shoppers found it difficult to locate products; and 17 percent left to find other e-tailers because they didn't believe the site they were on was trustworthy or secure."
This is probably putting some statistics around something that we probably new instinctively, but often ignore in the quest to get more information in the face of the user.
Unfortunately, affiliates hardly have any say in the design and usability of the merchant sites where the transactions invariably happen. But they definitely have control over their own sites, and where they can help themselves to increase their conversions.
With good, usable design and excellent content, the aim of the affiliate should be to lead the user to making a decision to make the final transaction. If the affiliate can make the merchant site nothing more than a check-out counter, they would do very well.
There is an investment involved; but I believe it is worth it, particularly in the long run. Professional affiliates like us are in it for the long run, aren't we?
Until next time,
Ben Flux
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