I was getting all set to write a post that I’m still waiting for my first order, but then…I got one! Whoo Hoo Peru!

Not bad considering I’ve been really delinquent about getting incoming links. One thing I did do, however, is write and submit an article on baby slings.

Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to put Google Analytics on my store so I can tell where my sales are coming from. My "total access to the html" that they promised me means that I can put Javascript in the body tag, but I can’t can’t determine where it will go. It automatically puts it at the top of the body tag, and Google tells you to put their code right before the end body tag.

Someone from the forum suggested that I add a text element, put the code there, and move it to the bottom of my page. Unfortunately when I try to do that, I get "error on page" and it won’t let me save it.

Also, when you set up Google Analytics specifically for an ecommerce site so that it will analyze return on investment, etc., you have to add a call to a javascript function in the body tag itself,

body onLoad=”javascript:_utmSetTrans()”

But there’s definitely no way to add something to the body tag itself.

Sigh…

We’ll I’m still psyched about my first order. I’ll have to make a real effort to get incoming links and see what happens.

Posted by susb8383 under StoresOnline Review | 3 Comments »

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted!

This blog is a lot like my home improvement projects. I’m great at starting things, but not so great at finishing them. I’m embarrassed to tell you how many half-done moulding, torn-up floors, and walls with partial drywall you’d find in my house. The one home project I did finish was a cage for my pet rats made out of a bookcase.

But I’m digressing…

Since the last time I posted, I’ve gotten a few more orders. I still haven’t made much attempt at getting reciprocal links, although I did finally get up a links page. It has a single link on it, and I’m still waiting for that company to reciprocate.

One thing I did do is look at my Google Analytic results. I found that I had an enormous bounce rate: about 46% on the home page. A bounce is when someone goes to your site on one page and leave it again without visiting any other pages.

So, the question is, why are people leaving from the home page without going anywhere else?

I looked at one day for a sample of what’s happening. I found that I had 6 visitors, but 4 of them were bounces and showed an average time on the site of 0. I’m still not sure how this is possible. If the page loads enough for Google Analytics to register that there was a visitor, wouldn’t that mean the visitor would have spent some time on the page?

As an experiment, I assigned a different template to the site and change my images. I took out the few images of parents wearing the slings and added a banner image at the top that shows a few of these parents. That way there is only 1 image to load. I think this will make the page load faster.

Did it make a huge difference? Sadly, no. I still have over a 50% bounce rate. I’ve gotten one order this week, but I don’t think that was due to the page.

I also bought a Google Analytics 2.0 book. (Wel, actually, a friend asked what she could buy me for help with some Excel macros). I’ve only started it, but I’m hoping it will help me turn the Google Analytics data I’m seeing into changes I can make to my site that will result in more sales.

Posted by susb8383 under StoresOnline Review | 4 Comments »

Having worked with html pages for a few years, I know better than anybody the importance of testing the pages. However, I discovered that doesn’t mean I can’t be as careless as anybody.

I finished my homepage some time ago and checked it on IE and Firefox. It looked fine:

But then I got a blog comment from someone who said the page breaks. It looks like this:

It turns out that if the window is maximized, it looks fine. But once you resize the window so that it is not full size, it breaks.

So, the moral is to make sure you do some basic checking of your site, even if you think everything is fine.

• Check your site using Internet Explorer. Don’t just use the latest and greatest version. Try to check it using the version that most people have. Here’s a great resource for seeing what version the majority of people are using: Browser Version Stats.
• Also test your site using Firefox.
• If you want to test using Opera and Netscape, better. (I admit I’ll probably only do this if the stats show that a lot of people use these browsers).
• If you also want to test using Firefox and Safari on a Mac, even better (IE on a Mac is no longer supported).
• Make sure you click through all pages on your published site, both using a maximized browser window and a partially closed window.
• Make sure you put in a test order all the way through (create a test product for .01 and create an ordering rule that says if you buy the test product, shipping is free. Publish, test, then make sure you delete this test product and ordering rule as soon as your test is done. Note that I left my test ordering rule there because I figured that if I didn’t purchase the test product, the rule wouldn’t be used. But the test product shipping rule messed up my live product rule, so better to be safe and delete it).
• If you offer more than one payment method, test all of them. I noticed one person’s store was giving an error every time I tried to purchase with Paypal because there was something wrong in her Paypal account. She was losing a sale every time someone wanted to pay with Paypal and didn’t know it.
  
  For non Paypal payments, you can use the universal test credit card for Visa: 4111111111111111. This should go through as if it were a live card, but the charge will never be applied. Or you can just purchase your .01 item. Note that for Paypal, 4111 does not work; you must purchase your .01 item to test it.
• Make sure you send yourself a contact us email. I had someone mention that when she tried to send a contact us email, she got an error that she had to select a first-choice fabric. This is because I had put in a rule for a product order, not realizing this rule would also affect the contact us page.

I know it’s a lot of work to do all this testing (which is why I didn’t do it!) But you really don’t want to lose a single sale because your site breaks for someone. So test, test, test.

Posted by susb8383 under StoresOnline Review | 2 Comments »