If you’d like to set something up, you can email Dane at dane.downer@brandlabs.us or Kevin at kevin.harman@brandlabs.us, or just look for these happy, smiling faces on the show floor (Dane’s on the left, Kevin on the right).  They’re prepared at all times to drop some eCommerce knowledge.

Word.

Until June 28th, Mayors of any Starbucks location will receive discounts at all Starbucks locations.  It’s the first national discount utilizing the app, but almost certainly won’t be the last.

(via Mashable)

MedNet Direct is one of our ongoing marketing clients and as part of their SEO program, we created and issued a press release for their brand new, washable puppy pads.  It was spotted by Distinctive Assets, an L.A. based promotions company that assembles gift baskets for celebrity events.  They contacted us and, long story short, MedNet’s washable puppy pads were included in the Hollywood Earth Day 2010 gift basket, which was distributed to eco-minded celebrities including, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pink, Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, Drew Barrymore, Orlando Bloom, Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand.  Subsequently, MedNet was included in dozens of other press releases and articles about the event.

That’s what professional SEO looks like.  It’s not just about aggressive calls-to-action and choosing “buy me” colors.  It’s about marketing.  It’s about creativity.  It’s about the big picture… and it’s about time you called us to see what we can do for your business.

… see what we did there?  Clever wordplay is just one of our many tools.

The new platform operates entirely within FaceBook, the ubiquitous social media network, offering merchants an exciting new opportunity to connect to their customers in new ways.

ShopFans isn’t simply a store within FaceBook.  Its features allow customers to interact with the store… sharing links, creating wishlists and allowing users to “Like” specific items.

(via TechCrunch)

He’ll be attending conferences, shamelessly networking and handing out business cards like there’s no tomorrow.  If you see him and you want to learn a heck of a lot about Volusion marketing services, please be sure to introduce yourself.

… the rest of us, on the other hand, will be back here in Michigan, holding down the fort.  We sure as heck won’t be sneaking out early just because the boss is out of town.  No way.  Not us.

There’s woefully little actual information available about how search engine algorithms work.  It’s important for them (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) to keep the process secretive in order to prevent anyone from gaming the system… also because knowing the details would severely undermine their ability to sell paid search (PPC).  So what do you do when you’re left entirely in the dark, without even being able to see the target, let alone aim for it?  Well, you start with what you know…

Stickiness – In addition to the obvious benefit of sticky content (content that keeps you reader on the page for some time) there are clear indications that web crawlers can actually spot the quality of a page’s content, which is why the ancient practice of keyword-stuffing is no longer as effective as it once was.  Make your content readable and enjoyable so that people who do find it will stay and read it, which will also help if the web crawlers have become as sophisticated as those in the know believe that they are.

For instance, the page at the top of this post is effective for a couple of reasons.  It mentions two very prominent schools.  Second, the schools in question have a very famous rivalry, making any page that mentions both of them an immediate draw to fans of either (or fans of drama).

You’ll see that the page is written and illustrated almost as if it were a magazine article, which increases stickiness simply because people are used to investigating articles about topics in which they’re interested.  If the whole page were just devoted to showing the line of shirts that Campus Den carries, it would be pretty easy to ignore.  Here, we see a playful take on the well-known rivalry, pitting U of M shirts against MSU shirts, as opposed to talking about the teams themselves.  So, the page relates to a known and relatable phenomenon (the rivalry) and to the merchant’s product (the shirts).

That’s an excellent point to bear in mind.  Any time you can capitalize (in a way that makes sense) with something as searchable as a long-standing sports rivalry, your chances of being discovered go up considerably.  Of course, this could backfire on you if you choose to exploit something that’s entirely unrelated to your product or industry.  Stick to drawing connections that aren’t too much of a stretch.

Now even though simple keyword stuffing has been proven to be largely useless (and occasionally detrimental – depending on how excessive you are) that’s no reason to avoid the topic at hand – in this case, t-shirts.  There’s quite a bit of talk about t-shirts on this page, as a matter of fact, but it’s all in context.  Writing “U of M t-shirts” over and over and over will be far less successful than writing a single, meaningful sentence about U of M t-shirts.  Be sure to talk about the thing for which you’d like to be searchable, but do it in a way that makes sense.

There are other tried and true formulas to increase stickiness and from time to time, we’ll touch on them here, but overall, there’s one rule that will never let you down:  Write to be read, not to be searched, and you’ll have greater success with both.

… or just hire us and you can stop thinking about it entirely.  Your call.

In other breaking news, bunnies are adorable and water is generally quite wet.

(Outsell via Fast Company)

One thing that may be overlooked in this process is the “goal”. Commonly used to track micro conversions or macro conversions that don’t result in direct revenue, goals can also be applied to e-commerce websites to give you more data about your sales process.

By defining your receipt page as a “goal” in Analytics, you can then leverage the funnel visualization tool to set up a series of steps you’d like to see customers take on your site, and track how they perform. For example, let’s say you have a simple website that sells one product: Michigan State-themed Snuggies. You then would define your receipt page as a “goal” and then you’d associate the following funnel to it: first, you’d want to look at customers who start at your homepage, then who proceed to the product detail page, then to the shopping cart page, then to the payment details page, then who finally end up at your goal of the receipt page. This way, you have set up your funnel to see how people react to every aspect of your web design: from your home page’s call to action, to your product details page’s product descriptions, to your cart design and checkout process.

The value comes in using this to see which part of the process is broken. Maybe there is a very high fall off from people who view the cart page to those who actually enter their payment information. This could mean that the call-to-action and design of your shopping cart page needs tweaking. At Brand Labs, we saw this happen with one of our clients, which led us to create a modified version of the Volusion shopping cart page that has less distractions and a clearer call to action.

There’s no limit to the insight you can get from this funnel. From home page redesign, to merchandising issues, to navigation issues, the combination of goals and funnel visualizations can help any e-commerce site owner improve their site and drive more conversions.

… a good message for anyone trying to reach a wide audience

… like eCommerce merchants, for instance.