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Today's online shoppers may be more cautious than they were two years ago. Some are waiting up to 35 hours before completing a shopping cart transaction. A study of consumers' Internet buying habits suggests that online merchants face stiffer competition and new hurdles in closing sales over the Web. A Web site security auditing firm revisited its initial online buyers' survey, completed in 2005, to compare consumer shopping behavior. The company's results, released this month, show that consumers' concern over information security and buying comfort takes precedence over selling prices. "The credibility issue clearly is the big factor. Price today is not the be-all in deciding to buy online. Trust trumps price."

One of the main revelations in the new study is that consumers are taking longer to click the Buy button. This is known as sale conversion. In 2005, the average time delay between a consumer's first visit to a Web site and the time of purchase was just over 19 hours. The aggregate sales generated by potential buyers produced an average site conversion of just 2.07 percent according to the study. In the more recent survey, however, the delay between the first visit and the purchase rose to 34 hours and 19 minutes, more than a half-day longer than in 2005. Fully 57 percent of the shoppers studied took more than one hour, with 37 percent (a slight 5 percent increase over 2005) taking more than 12 hours, the study showed.

2007 research concludes that online comparison shopping is an unavoidable fact of life for online retailers. Using dial-up Internet access is ludicrously slow for viewing product images on Web sites, but as more surfers take up broadband, they're able to shop around more efficiently. "Broadband makes it easy for consumers to hopscotch to many Web sites," the study said, noting that the added competition for customers often becomes very frustrating for online merchants.

The report also found that shopping cart abandonment -- or examining products on a Web site and leaving without buying them -- is a habitual part of many consumers' shopping behavior prior to purchasing. As a result, online retailers must re-evaluate their pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, using a much longer time frame to calculate their return on investment (ROI).

The research also shows that consumers who spend the longest time shopping are also the most concerned about the safety of the sites where they shop and are the most influenced by an online comfort zone. One reality that Web merchants can glean from the survey results is that trust placement really counts. Old-school thinking about placing a security statement on the order page may not work as well today.

"Many merchants think that the place for the trust mark is on the order page. Many shoppers never get that far into the Web site," observed the report. "Online merchants still need to do the basics, but lots of merchants fail to do this."
For instance, a Web site's landing page is the key to showing the trust and legitimacy that encourages the potential buyer to stay on the site and complete the purchase, concluded the report.

Some of the survey results may be a bit ahead of the curve, other experts caution. Take, for instance, the president of the Rimm-Kaufman Group, Alan Rimm-Kaufman, which also studies online buying trends. His analysis of consumers online does not show the significant slowdown in buying time or sales conversion that the 2007 study revealed.

Still, Rimm-Kaufman does not disagree with the report's conclusions about consumers' need for a secure buying environment with a strong comfort zone. However, he thinks that the study may reflect a bias caused by the report author's bigger clients included since the previous study. "We don't see significant changes in the time consumers take to make a purchase. Higher priced items can take longer to close, up to five days. So merchants do need to look at the sales curve," Rimm-Kaufman said. "Seasonality gives merchants high and fast conversions."

The online stakes for merchants have definitely risen since last year, noted Rimm-Kaufman, who concurs with the report's appraisal of increased competition driven by the rapid growth of broadband. Both competition for buyers' attention and their expectations are much greater than in previous years.

Still, Rimm-Kaufman does not see better consumer research deterring them from buying. Online shopping is very mainstream now, and consumers are much more sophisticated in searching, he said. "Site credibility is crucical, and online retail is damn hard [for online merchants]."

From his view in working with online merchants to improve their sales conversation rates, Bryan Eisenberg agrees with the research's findings about consumers taking longer to make a purchase decision online. Eisenberg is chief persuasion officer and cofounder of Future Now, and is also chairman emeritus and founder of the Web Analytics Association. Competition and time constraints are having a slowing affect on buying, he acknowledged. "I think there are two levels to what we are seeing. Our own research shows shoppers resorting to a hunt-and-peck approach due to their time constraints. And most retailers are not doing enough to meet buyers' needs, forcing them to take more time," Eisenberg said.

Web merchants need to take different angles than traditional store owners use in order to make buying on a Web site quicker and easier, he said. For instance, they should provide enough product information in one place so would-be buyers do not have to look around the Web for it.

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Revenue from search-related advertising on mobile phones will crack the US$2 billion mark in 2011, according to a report released last week by a market and trend analysis firm. Search-related advertising - which has made outfits like Google revenue powerhouses - will grow mightily worldwide during this decade, from $6.8 million in 2006 to $2.4 billion in 2011, forecasts the report from eMarketer.

During that period, the number of consumers searching for everything from the nearest pizza place to weather reports to sports scores will nearly quadruple from 220 million to 845 million, according to the report. "The cell phone screen is the next interactive screen that's coming into play," John du Pre Gauntt, author of the report and eMarketer's senior analyst for wireless, said.

Search has already proven itself in the PC world, not only as a way to meet users' needs, but as an effective way to turn those needs into money, he explained, so that thinking is being carried over into the mobile world.

"The search giants -- Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN -- have got to get into whatever screen people are gravitating to," he said. If you look at the number of handsets in the United States, it dwarfs the number of PCs out there, observed Markus Nordvik, vice president for business operations and strategy for 4Info, a mobile search service company. "Mobile search is an area of focus because of market penetration," he said.

The mobile ecosystem overall is about to take off, according to Lee Ott, director for product management for mobile search at Yahoo. "We look at 2007 as the tipping point for the mobile Internet and mobile Web usage overall," he said, "and search is the front door to Internet-type content." "It has been true on the PC," Ott added. "It will be true on mobile."

Search has also grabbed the attention of mobile carriers who are looking for ways to beef up revenues from their data offerings, he continued. "Unless they [the carriers] can find a better way of hooking up people to the content that they want, then they're stuck with the screen real estate on their decks, and mobile Internet is going to be hitting a ceiling," Ott noted. "Even now," he said, "for every incremental dollar of revenue they're taking in, they're having to spend more and more and more on marketing. There's no easy money to be made any more."

The carriers are caught in a dilemma, he contends. "Unless people can find the stuff that they want quickly," Ott said, "then all you can do is offer them the top 10. That cuts off a lot of your market because not everyone wants the most popular stuff."

"Search and discovery is a giant hole in the mobile Internet," he declared. "All sides -- global telcoms, Silicon Valley, Yellow Pages and directory services -- know they've got to get in there and they've go to get something moving in the next couple of years."

Carriers and search engine boffins aren't the only parties intensely interested in mobile search, Gauntt continued. Marketers are looking as well. "The mobile channel connects people who have declared a clear intent to transact," he explained. "It's one of the reasons marketers prize mobile very highly and it's reflected in the high prices they're willing to pay for advertising."

That intent to transact can be seen in an anecdote recalled by Sumit Agarwal, Google's product manager for mobile. During a recent trip to Japan, a mobile user told Agarwal how Google had been an anxiety breaker for him. The man was about to leave on vacation with his family when he realized he had forgotten to purchase travel insurance. He went to Google, searched for travel insurance and found a sponsored link for his existing financial services provider. "He clicked through and less than two minutes later, he had purchased a $50 travel insurance plan from the provider," Agarwal said.

Currently, marketers are caught in a tug-of-war between carriers, who have been able to manage their networks like gated communities, and search players trying to snatch the attention of mobile users when they venture outside those communities into the mobile Web. "What's going to be interesting is when we get into 2008, 2009, where we have fast networks and smartphones are selling for $99, because they're running native HTML," he said.

"Then all bets are off," Agarwal continued. "You won't care. It will all be the same Internet and you'll be able to reach mobile subscribers without necessarily having to pass through the carrier's gate." The key to that scenario, though, is widespread use of smartphones, a development that has its skeptics.

Smartphones represent 2 percent of the market now and it's not growing tremendously, observed Michael "Luni" Libes, chief architect and cofounder of Medio Systems. Moreover, he asserted, the mobile search habits of today will be the search habits of tomorrow because mobile search, even on a smartphone, is limited by display size.
"These phones have screens that are quite small," Libes said, "so you can't get a full Web experience on these phones." "Even though some claim you can," he added, "you can't actually do it."

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While looking for information about writing for Web pages, you simply cannot avoid the topic "keyword density." Let's start with a definition: Keyword density measures the percentage of keywords and key phrases compared to the total number of words in your Web page body.

There are many opinions about what percentage is the so-called "magic number." I have seen recommendations ranging from 2 to 20 percent. This disparity can be confusing. Keyword density can make a huge difference in the quality of the text on the page and have a big impact on your conversion rate.

The mistake that many people make when writing content is adhering too closely to a particular keyword density. When you are too attached to hitting a percentage, you may be focusing more on the search engines than you are on your site's human audience. Doing this can detract from the original goal of the page, which is to convert visitors into paying clients.

The key concept to remember is "targeted content." While it is important to know the keywords that suit your product or service and use them within the content of your page, insisting that those phrases be repeated a particular number of times can make what you're writing dull and unreadable. So what is a writer to do? First and foremost, when writing content for a Web page, there are several questions that need to be answered:

What do you want to accomplish with this content?

Are you trying to sell a product or get someone to sign up for a service?

Do you want your visitors to subscribe to a blog or newsletter ?

Do you want them to visit a physical location or does your Web site cater only to cyberspace?

Are you trying to persuade people to see a certain point of view?

Every page should have a unique purpose. Once you've figured out your goals, the next question you'll want to ask yourself is...

Who is your audience?

Knowing whom you are writing for can make all the difference in how effective the copy is for that page. One of the things I like to do once I've figured out my demographic, is to look at a picture of someone I know who fits that image. For example, if I am writing a page that sells gifts for young children, I look at a picture of my mom sitting with my niece and nephew and I write the things that I know will convince her to buy that present for them (complete with calls to action).

Now that you've figured out what you want to accomplish with your writing and who you are writing for, it's time to ask another vital question... How is your target audience going to find you? (This is where those pesky little keywords come back into play.)

We live in an extremely diverse culture. Different segments of the population have many different names for the same things depending on where you live and how you were brought up. For example, you may call it a hot dog, but someone else might call it a frankfurter, frank, wiener, wiener dog, red hot or foot long. You simply should not assume that everyone refers to products and services the same way and it is vital to know the terms that searchers are using when they go to the engines.

There are several keyword research tools that can show you which terms people are looking for and help you decide which keywords you should target with your copy.

Once you've identified your keywords, your audience and your purpose, it's time to get down to writing. So what should your keyword density be? The important thing is to keep the content on the page about your topic or "on target."

Four percent density is best, but that's a guideline. Oftentimes people take that guideline too seriously. Don't worry about it if you only hit 3.5 percent for a particular key phrase. Writing content for a Web page is a delicate balance of using your keywords enough so that the search engine spiders can find and index your page, and not so much as to make the copy unbearable for your human readers. The golden rule: Do not sacrifice the user experience in the hope that the search engines will raise your rankings.

The primary mission of the search engines is to help people easily find what they are looking for. The primary mission of your Web page should be to convert visitors into paying clients, and the primary mission of the copywriter is to create original, relevant content that can accomplish both of those objectives.

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If you must live on a diet of Lean Cuisine, try the Swedish meatballs. So advises Wayne Crosby, a 29-year-old computer programmer who recently spent three months subsisting on the frozen dinners. He also slept on an air mattress, used a box as a coffee table, and worked about 14 hours a day. He gave up a good job at Amazon.com to do it. Crosby participated in a unique program for aspiring tech entrepreneurs called "Y Combinator." Founded by Paul Graham, a computer programmer who struck it rich during the dot-com boom, Y Combinator combines mentoring with venture capital in hopes of getting the next Google off the ground. (The name comes from a mathematical term.)

Graham and his team gather a small group of startups in Cambridge, Mass., each summer and California's Silicon Valley each winter. Fledgling companies get a bit of money -- usually no more than US$20,000 -- and access to Graham's extensive network of tech executives, venture capitalists, lawyers and other industry insiders. In exchange, Y Combinator takes a share of the companies' equity, usually about 6 percent.

After three months, the startups show off their work in hopes of getting acquired or attracting other investors. The 2 1/2-year-old program's biggest hit so far has been Reddit, a social news site acquired by magazine giant Conde Nast for an undisclosed amount.

However, Y Combinator has had enough smaller successes to be marginally profitable --and to generate tons of Web 2.0 buzz. They include:

Loopt, a cellphone mapping service (which recently struck a deal with Sprint to use its service). It raised $5 million in funding from other venture capitalists.
Scribd, a Web site that lets you publish documents online. It raised $3.5 million after graduating.

Justin.tv, a much talked-about Internet television company. For more than 100 days, founder Justin Kan has been broadcasting his life around the clock from a camera mounted on his head.

Y Combinator is a big change from the way business is usually done in tech circles. Startups are typically funded by wealthy individuals known as "angel investors," who dole out money though a complicated, clubby system of who-knows-whom.

Breaking in is nearly impossible for a young, unconnected programmer, says Robby Walker, Crosby's 23-year-old business partner. The two friends had kicked around several ideas for companies, but had no idea how to start until Walker stumbled on Y Combinator's Web site. They applied and got in. Crosby quit his job. (Walker had completed his Ph.D. in computer science.)

Crosby and Walker used their time at Y Combinator to start Zenter, a service allowing people to create PowerPoint-like presentations online. Last month, after only half a year in business, Zenter was acquired by Google for an undisclosed amount.

However, the path wasn't easy. Walker and Crosby had to pack their belongings into a Honda Civic and move halfway across the country on a meager budget. Walker left a girlfriend behind in Chicago; Crosby's pregnant wife stayed in Phoenix. "It was the scariest thing I've ever done in my whole life," Crosby says.

They settled into their sparsely furnished apartment and began frantically writing computer code. Once a week, they attended a weekly Y Combinator dinner with other members of the program. Graham hosted and cooked. (Chicken stew is his specialty, even though he's a vegetarian.) At each meal, tech insiders would come and speak with the young entrepreneurs. One of these speakers, JotSpot CEO Joe Kraus, talked about having his company bought by Google. Introductions were made, and soon he was helping broker the Zenter deal.

That kind of connection is what Graham had hoped for when he founded Y Combinator. He came up with the idea after giving a speech at Harvard University about his own e-commerce startup, Viaweb, which he sold to Yahoo for $49 million in 1998. He was telling students they needed to find successful entrepreneurs to fund their startup ideas. "I realized that all these people were staring at me expectantly," Graham says. "I had this vision of getting a thousand business plans in the mail, so I suddenly added 'but not me!'" "And then I felt sort of guilty," he says. Y Combinator was born. The program started small. However, it's growing fast. More than 400 companies applied for the 19 spots in this summer's program.

However, the limits of Y Combinator's model remain unclear. A typical young tech company should be spending a little less than $40,000 a month, says Seth Levine, a venture capitalist at Foundry Group. Y Combinator gives companies a fraction of that, leaving entrepreneurs "eating ramen and not paying themselves," he says. Six percent is a huge amount of equity to give up for such little money, he says.

Although Levine has shared his expertise with TechStars, a new Colorado program that's similar to Y Combinator, he says it's rare to find a business with serious long-term prospects in such a program. Most startups would be better off taking money from friends and family, or seeking it from a business that would benefit from their product, he says. Once a company bootstraps for a little while, it can then approach traditional venture capitalists and seek investment, he says. "I like to hear about businesses early," he says.

One thing Levine and Graham do agree on: It costs a lot less to start a company than it used to. Computers are cheaper, and free open source software is widely available on the Internet, Graham says. Software improvements have also made coding easier, he says.

David Zhao and Kevin West are two fledgling entrepreneurs who hope it pays off for them. The two 24-year-olds just quit their jobs at Amazon.com and Microsoft to join Y Combinator's current program. They're developing a Web site called "Versionate" that lets work groups collaborate on a single document. "The advice and the connections [Y Combinator] provides are invaluable... and the equity stake they take is totally fair," says West, who is subletting an apartment with Zhao for the summer.

"It's been a very good experience so far," Zhao says.

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Microsoft executives like to say we're still in the early stages of the lucrative business of Internet search. They contend that as wide as Google's lead may seem now, it's not insurmountable. However, for all of Microsoft's protestations, and the money it has pumped into building a better way to seek out information online, the world's largest software company continues to come up short in search. In May, for example, only 8.4 percent of all searches among U.S. Web surfers went through Microsoft's MSN or Windows Live engines, compared with Google's 56.3 percent share, according to research firm Nielsen//NetRatings.

Microsoft isn't going to give up the fight any time soon. However, the software giant is savvy enough to know that it may need to shift the battle to a different front. In recent months, Microsoft has been spending money to boost its efforts in what's known as vertical search, those niche markets where Netizens go when they're looking for specialized information. Think Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com for job seekers or Technorati or Feedster for blog info.


Microsoft's vertical search acquisitions aren't that well known. They certainly don't have the same kind of traffic as the Monsters and Technoratis of the Web. However, they may form the foundation of a different way to keep Google in check.
In February, Microsoft bought MotionBridge, a Paris-based provider of search technology for mobile phones. A few weeks later, Microsoft picked up Medstory, a small Foster City (Calif.) startup focused on dishing up health-care information. In March, Microsoft announced plans to buy voice-recognition leader Tellme Networks, whose technology could help Microsoft bake voice recognition into its mobile search efforts.

The acquisitions -- along with Microsoft's efforts to build its own niche search engines to find images, classified ads and other content -- are aimed at finding a chink in Google's seemingly impenetrable armor. 'There's a lot of opportunity in domain-specific areas,' said Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie at a February investment conference highlighting the Medstory purchase. 'That search technology is first being woven into MSN Health & Fitness, and ultimately it will be woven into the mainline search.'

It's clear that Microsoft will look for more opportunities to refine search in hopes of convincing searchers to click on its Web sites instead of Google's. Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online services group, refers to the tactics as 'flanking maneuvers' in the ongoing search competition. 'Getting the vertical expertise down is a hugely important effort for us,' Sohn says.

Google is hardly standing still. It too has built or bought a stable of niche Web search engines -- everything from product pricing information to news to blog posts. It spent a whopping US$1.65 billion to acquire the king of Web video search, YouTube . However, while Google rules the core search business, there are plenty of niches where surfers go elsewhere to seek information. That's why analysts think that if Google is vulnerable it may be in those specialized areas where there isn't an established leader. Despite Microsoft's best efforts to compete in generic search, vertical search may prove more strategic. 'You've got to find a way to change the rules of the game,' says Eric Enge, founder of Stone Temple Consulting, a search engine optimization business in Southborough, Mass.

There are plenty of other niches for Microsoft to mine. With its deep pockets, Microsoft could buy the search engine leaders in such vertical markets as job openings, comparison shopping , classified advertising , travel information and more. 'They are going to nibble around certain areas where they think they can make inroads and establish leadership,' says Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, an Oakland, Calif., consultancy.

With the recent acquisitions and its May 18 announcement of plans to spend $6 billion to acquire Web advertising giant aQuantive, Microsoft seems willing to shell out whatever it takes to compete with Google. That's bound to amount to a lot more money and won't happen overnight. However, with proven staying power and a cash pile of $28 billion, Microsoft is one of the few companies that can afford this fight.


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Ever get the feeling that somebody is watching over your shoulder while you browse the Web? Yahoo's new SmartAds program promises to bring to your monitor display ads based on your behavior, location and demographics. The new platform is being touted by Yahoo as a way to give advertisers 'the ability to deliver customized marketing messages to consumers, and still engage very large audiences with their brand.' To some people browsing the Web, it might feel like a ghost in the machine.

The personalized, on-the-fly targeting of advertising is the Holy Grail of Internet marketers. Search-based ads, such as those served up by Google's AdSense program, present come-ons that are based on keywords people enter while searching the Web. Yahoo's SmartAds system is designed to act similarly, but it will serve display ads founded on Yahoo's knowledge of its users interests, locale and other information, said the company.

The system will present ads to people accessing Yahoo-branded products and services, an audience that exceeds 500 million, according to the search engine. SmartAds will compile and present display ads that are relevant to the subject matter being viewed by a consumer, and the ads will have the ability to show localized information, such as the addresses of stores or dealerships and current pricing. 'This provides a relevant experience to the user and allows the marketer to reach a user who is likely to become a customer,' said Yahoo.

In an example offered by the company, a person looking at hybrid cars on Yahoo Autos, and who chose San Francisco as his home in Yahoo Weather, will be presented ads for hybrids from San Francisco area dealerships. The pricing and vehicle availability will be up-to-the-minute accurate, Yahoo said, since SmartAds derives inventory and pricing data directly from the advertisers' databases.

Targeting is one thing, but Yahoo said the SmartAds platform will also help eliminate the biggest roadblocks to display ads on the Web: the need to scale and change in real time. Yahoo said the system will allow advertisers and agencies to 'design a single set of individual creative components, provide Yahoo with that artwork and a feed to their entire database of offers,' and then sit back while the technology cranks out hundreds or thousands of 'unique ad combinations based on those components.'

Yahoo has applied for a patent for SmartAds, the company said. Yahoo hasn't revealed too many details about how the system will work, noted Kevin Lee, a veteran Internet marketer who cofounded Did-it Search Marketing. Nevertheless, he said, it seems to hold promise. 'The thing I like most about the new technology is that it improves the relevance of the ads that consumers see by combining ad elements together based on what is best targeted toward each specific consumer,' he said.

Tests of the system showed SmartAds resulted in click-through rates that were two or three times higher than those produced by non-customized display ads using the same targeting and placement, according to Yahoo. The customization by Yahoo of display ads for Web sites might help the company compete for ad revenue with Google, which leads the search advertising segment. Most Web site display ads have not been personalized and, therefore, are more along the lines of brand awareness campaigns.

SmartAds is a 'breakthrough marriage of brand and direct marketing that advertisers have been waiting for,' said Digitas and Publicis Groupe Digital Chairman David Kenny. The platform will be of particular benefit to companies that have many offers to present to many differing audiences, he said. The system could bring some much-needed ingenuity to marketing departments, added Lee.

'I hope that it breaks the online advertising world out of thinking about all consumers as the same,' he said. 'Marketers generally don't create more than just a couple of creative options for their advertising.'

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Navigation planning has hit critical mass. Today's markets are more competitive than ever. With that in mind, it is paramount that you attract visitors to your Web site. When developing a Web site, you need a strategy, as there are crucial elements which need to be planned in order for you to succeed. The worst scenario is to have visitors come to your Web site only to become confused and frustrated at the fact that they can't find what they are looking for. This ultimately leads to them exiting and finding a Web site which can deliver what they need.

How are users going to navigate throughout your Web site? It is vital that they understand your products and/or services. Before you start building out your Web site, invest time in determining what the top-level pages are going to be, and how the content of these top-level pages is going to help categorize your products or services. Try to stay away from terminology such as 'About Us' or 'Our Services' as they do not describe what is being offered or give information on what the user will receive if they click that particular link. Try using key phrases as much as possible.

This will ensure that the search engines understand what the link is about and that weight will be given for the key phrase to the page it links to. For example, instead of using the terminology 'About Us' try featuring your actual company name, such as 'About Tommy's Bait Shack.' This allows the search engines and users to better understand the link.

We now know that the planning of the navigation structure is crucial to search engines and users navigating through your site. This, however, can all be in vain as certain technology can keep the search engines from crawling your Web site, or not allow users to fully access your navigation. For example, if your navigation was built in Java script and uses drop down menus to showcase particular sections, the search engines most likely will not be able to follow those links. This limitation can also be felt by visitors who currently have Java script disabled within their Web browsers. Also, if there are errors within the Java script code it will most likely crash the Web browser.

Un-crawlable technologies include:

Java script-based navigation
Flash-based navigation
Ajax-based navigation

Technology exists to aid in your navigation becoming fully crawlable and easy to navigate. One of these technologies uses cascading style sheets (CSS). You can achieve the same results with CSS as you could with other technologies; however the difference is that CSS is completely crawlable by the search engines and visitors to your Web site will have no problem viewing the navigation.

We previously discussed the importance of planning and building your primary navigation in the right structure, but there is more to Web site navigation than the primary navigation. There are three other types of navigation, which are important to ensuring the visitor has the best possible experience. These secondary navigations are listed and described below.

Bread Crumb Navigation. It can be defined as a horizontal navigation, which is a pathway the user has taken to arrive at the current page, relative to the home page of your Web site. We have found that it is crucial the user be only a maximum of two clicks away from any other page throughout your Web site.

Footer Navigation. This style navigation should mimic the primary navigation's top-level structure. The footer navigation typically appears at the very bottom of each page. This allows visitors navigate to other pages when at the bottom of a particular page.

Sitemap. The sitemap is an additional page on your Web site which showcases the structure of the Web site from a top-level point of view, all the way to deep pages within your site. This page will act as a directory and will allow the search engines as well as visitors to access any other page throughout the Web site.
Each of the areas will help to ensure the successful navigation of your Web site.

Poor navigation planning and build-out can impact your Web site. Using the wrong technology such as Java script or flash can have a negative impact on the crawlability of your Web site and the user experience as well. Take the time to plan out the structure of your Web site and decide on a technology that will not inhibit the search engines or visitors from viewing your pages.

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Social and community networks may be great hangouts for Web surfers who shop but not so great for retailers looking for virtual 'ka-chings.' That was one of the findings in a report released Saturday by JupiterResearch of New York, based on a survey conducted in March of more than 2,000 online consumers. 'The majority of online shoppers who have used social and community sites while researching and purchasing do not believe that such sites affected their purchase decisions, and few online shoppers said they spend incrementally more due to their use of social and community sites,' states the report.

'Thus,' the report continues, 'retailers should mitigate their expectations of influence and sales driven by exposure on social and community sites.' While advice from friends has great influence on a shopper's buying decisions, the report notes, a 'friend' is not necessarily any unknown person who happens to post on their MySpace page about some jeans they just bought. For that reason, it asserts, 'the incremental effect of those individuals who actively contribute to social and community sites may be more limited for direct retail sales than it is for overall branding and awareness building.'

Retailers need to avoid being sucked into the buzz surrounding sites like MySpace and YouTube, according to Patty Freeman Evans, the lead analyst for the report. 'Retailer should take a pause from all the hype they've heard about social networking and social media because those sites are not something that's going to immediately drive incremental sales for them.' 'The social and community Web sites that are out there are nice experiences, but not the main places where people are looking to make purchase decisions,' Evans added.

If retailers want to take advantage of the social aspects of the Web, they should do so at their own Internet outlets, she suggested. 'They should present user-generated content in the form of product reviews on their Web sites,' she observed. 'That's something that is of great value, but it's most valuable when it's right on that retailer's Web site.' Niche retailers stand to gain the most from social and community sites, she maintained. A site where gardeners congregate may present fruitful sales opportunities for a company like Burpee, she averred, but not for Macy's, Target or Wal-Mart.

'There's limited niche appeal, but within those small niches, good opportunity over time,' Evans said. 'We don't think this is going to be the new Google anytime soon in terms of driving retail traffic.' Traffic volumes from social and community sites may eventually reach the levels of comparison shopping sites, which account for about 3 percent of all traffic to retailers, she noted. By contrast, Google accounts for 15 percent of all traffic to retailers. Niche retailers benefit most from gab-and-gather sites, agreed David Galbraith, founder of Wists.com, a Web site that combines social networking with shopping. 'The sweet spot for social Web sites is the niche area' he said.

That's not to say that social sites lack potential for bigger things in the future, asserted Galbraith. 'You build communities and as you get bigger and bigger you can offer more to bigger and bigger brands,' he observed. 'But you have to start small and grow your site. It's not something that works by throwing money at it.'

Meanwhile, niche retailers have begun testing the social Web as a sales driver for their wares. For example, Ice.com, an online-only jeweler based in Montreal, Canada, has experimented with video promotions on YouTube. 'We are trying to use viral videos to expand our brand, Pinny Gniwisch, founder and executive vice president for marketing for Ice.com, said. The company had to be careful when pitching itself at the community site, he noted. 'We had to use a very soft pitch,' he said. 'People on YouTube don't appreciate it when brands get involved in their entertainment.' The company intends to do three or four more videos before assessing YouTube as a viable sales channel, Gniwisch said, but it's cheery with the results it has received so far from its efforts. 'When you talk about 70,000 people interacting with your brand, at this stage, we're happy with that,' he observed.

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