By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive

Since 2002, we’ve been evangelists of marketing efficiency but not too many people wanted to listen.  Why would they when there was so much low-hanging fruit?  Every year an increasing number of people, flush with cash and credit, went online to shop.  But those days are over and it really is time for companies to become more fully focused on efficient marketing.

My team of expert web designers and analysts have reached out to over 800 companies regarding providing a report that would include detailed, page by page analysis, of their site for the purpose of identifying anxiety inducing friction points, and other impediments, that cause abandonment of the shopping process. 

Recommendations for site and conversion rate improvements were to be included in the report. To our surprise only two companies took us up on our offer (although several did attempt to learn as much as they could for free).  Each of the companies we provided reports for have seen their conversion rates double.  

Here is what Internet Retailer has to say about the importance of web site design based on good e-tail principles, and if you’d like, they’ve built a three day conference around it for you to attend: Web Design ’09 Conference

You may think your web store looks just great and you have a right to be proud of it. But did you ever sit with a focus group to see what problems they had with it? Did you ever have top web site designers analyze it to find flaws? And have you listened to e-retailers tell you how they’ve vastly improved online sales and conversion rates just by making basic design changes that eliminated the most common web site design faux pas?

Here are just 10 commonly known but often overlooked design mistakes referred to by Internet Retailer (we know of many more): 

1. The Home Page Syndrome
You put most of your design resources on the home page and treat product pages as mere information pages—not marketing opportunities. In the session Designing Landing Pages that Sell, you’ll learn that the sale is really made on the product page.

2. A Design Pet That Bites.
You fall in love with one design function, using all the cool graphics you can, at the expense of meeting other key objectives, such as simplifying site navigation.

3. Beware the Overbearing Geek.
You let your IT professional run wild and dictate design parameters that ignore marketing or merchandising needs.

4. Conventional Wisdom Can Be Stupid
You adopt generally accepted design standards but fail to adapt them to how your own customers use your web site.

5. Do It Now—Ask Questions Later.
You make a relatively minor change to your design without rigorously testing it. The next thing you know, your online sales are dropping.

6. The Don’t Fix What Ain’t Broke Mentality.
Your site is working so well you don’t think about redesigning it until it blows up on you.

7. Who Are You Anyway.
You choose an outside designer to work on your site without checking his/her retail web qualifications or success record.

8. The Anything Goes Attitude.
You assume that with broadband web access everywhere, you can load up your site with all kinds of images.

9. It’s Just A Store.
You think web sites are just like stores and need only products neatly arranged. You forget that non-product content is often what attracts people to a site.

10. What Are You—Anti-Social?
If your site doesn’t use forums, blogs and reviews, it fails to connect to the community it serves. Retailers in particular miss this.