The study, done by Utpal Dholakia, a professor of management at Rice University found that fewer than half of companies that have used the service are unlikely to do so a second time. That alone speaks volumes to me.

He also found that 80% of coupon users are first-timers and that less than 20%of them become repeat customers that return for full purchases. Only 36% spent beyond the deal’s face value.

21.7% of consumers never redeem vouchers and 26.6% of businesses reported that they lost money on their deal.

Dholakia surveyed 324 businesses that offered deals from August 2009 to March 2011 from 5 coupon services including Groupon. Living Social, Open Table, BuywithMe and TravelZoo.

Click here to read more about the survey.

I know there are a couple of 2 Dogs Design clients that have tried Groupon and we hope to be able to post their results in a future blog post.

So first, if you have not heard of this update and you have a website, then you MUST start reading more internet related blogs and forums, hint hint. 

So what is the Panda/Farmer update exactly?

Well as always, the algorithm that Google uses is top secret so unless you are friends with the big guys at Google we may never know all of the details of the ranking factors, but here is what we do know.

The Panda update dislikes duplicate content – if you have a site filled with content you “borrowed” from another site, then you could be in trouble.

Say you have a retail website filled with wonderful products! You take the images from the manufacturer you are getting the products from and then you also take their product description and copy and paste that into your site as well. Well imagine that you do that, and then your competitor does that and their competitor does that and so on and son on…you get the point. We are now filled with websites that have the same images and same content for that product. So Google gets a search for this specific product, who do you think will show up first? That is right, the manufacturer. And what they are starting to do is push back the sites that have the same content as the manufacturers site, because it is considered “duplicate” content and that is a no no!

So what the heck am I supposed to do you ask?

Easy, write your OWN content! It is really not that hard – it will not only help you possibly rank HIGHER than the manufacturer site, but may also help you sell more product. Consumers do not want to read about the “specifications” of a product, they want to read a story and read information on how this product will help them in their day to day life.  Yes, this will take a while, but the payoff will be more than worth it.

Another great way to help “personalize” your product pages with content is to add user reviews!

So this is what the Panda is about. Although you may or may not have been hurt by it, the rewriting of your content is an effort worth doing either way!

OK, so you just shelled out a ton of money for a new website, you launched – and to your dismay you have nothing in terms of customers or sales. I have clients that I launched a year ago who are disappointed in their lack of sales and questioned whether it was the website design.

That is what made me write this in a newsletter! I work hard at creating designs that work with your niche, that are clean and easy to navigate for consumers and that contain the latest in terms of design aesthetics.

Can I say for certain that it is not design related – absolutely not, but based on my experience with the client I decided to lay it out clearly for them. (This client had no e-commerce experience and minimal computer experience in general, so this really gave them some insight.)

For those of you that cannot understand why sales are not being made, please reflect on the following:

1. Once the site launched – how did you promote it? (Actually, did you promote it?)
2. Have you had the site optimized for SEO?  (and remember this is an ONGOING necessity not a one time service)
3. Have you done Google Adwords to generate new traffic?
4. Have you reached out to any blogs for a review or write up?
5. Have you done link building to help bring traffic to your website?
6. Are you actively marketing on Facebook and Twitter?
7. Are you reading every ecommerce blog, website and magazine that is out there to learn about all of the above?
8. Are you analyzing your Google Analytics to see where your current traffic is coming from to see how relevant it is to your website
9. Are you monitoring what your competition is doing
10. Have you set up goals and filters in Google Analytics to see if people are getting to the cart and leaving?
11. What have YOU done to make people want to buy from you?

And I hate to say this, but this is a SHORT list of ideas!

These are just SOME of the things that need to be done to make sales. It is not about making a post on Facebook once in a while or sending out a promotional Tweet on Twitter. It is an ONGOING dedication to your website, to learn and absorb everything you can about e-commerce. The look/feel of the website is irreleveant to most customers….it is NOT the website that will hold you back from sales, it is the lack of constant promotion, optimization, relationship building and e-commerce education that will keep you from your long term goals.

If you launched the website and you have done nothing since launch other than tweet or do a Facebook post once in a while that is not enough! I guarantee this will lead to failure.  Unfortunately, just like with ANY business you start, it requires dedication and even additional money to achieve the goals you are looking for. You cannot do it all on your own – you will need professional help at some point, so add that into your marketing budget.  Hiring a good SEO person or Adwords manager can result in a great ROI if you find the right person.

Also keep in mind the nature of the business you are in. The economy is still rough and if you are an item that is a higher dollar amount or not a more “everyday” type of product you may feel the pinch more than others.

So what happened after I sent this? This particular client contacted me and THANKED ME! They admittedly had done nothing since launch last summer other than Facebook or Twitter. They also stated how they always get compliments on the site. This email opened their eyes about just how lacking they were in marketing their “baby” and they are now planning a strategy for future marketing…..

I love a happy ending and I wish them the best of luck!

Here is a link to our giveaway page on the site: http://anyluckyday.com/04-12-2011/outdoor-play-toys. You can see that our giveaway was pretty sweet! A 1948 Indian Electric Motorcycle for kids! Not too shabby right?

So here is what transpired!

2/9/11 I signed up on the website to procure my selected date of April 12, 2011. There were a lot of dates sold already for April, so I did not have a lot to choose from, but I was happy with the 12th so it was good! I noted in the comments of my order to let me know if I can ship them the bike to do a review and then they can ship it to the winner. (Typically you send in a product for them to do a video of it in action and then a separate one goes to the winner, but because of the dollar amount of this item I did not want to have to send one to AnyLuckyDay and then one to the winner.)

I did not get a response to my inquiry until the day before my promotion, 4/11/11. I found this to be extremely unprofessional. I was advised by the owner Giancarlo Massaro that they cannot ship out to the winner, so the answer was no.

It would have been nice to know this earlier as I may have actually shipped one to him so I can get the video made and the full experience. But I did not have that opportunity.

There was no other communication from them whatsoever. I would think I would at least get an email to ask if there were any additional things to note or at least just a HI! Nope, nothing. Disappointing.

4/12/11 As you can see on the entry page there were 315 entries (comments) left to win this item, which I was actually pretty happy about it showed a lot of interest in the product which was important to us. Out of 315 comments I gained 35 Facebook fans, that is just 1%, but yet it seems like a lot more people wrote that they became our fan – I did not actually count though.

It resulted in no sales (we were offering 10% off) and only 34 tweets.

The one benefit that we did receive which we had not anticipated was some feedback on the site itself in regards to navigation and pricing issues. That was a large help in reaching “non techie” people so to speak and the feedback was helpful!

One month later I have had no sales that are  directed from this promotion and I am pretty sure not one of these people who entered even remember who we are!

Would I do it again? Absolutely not.

Would I recommend it for someone else, possibly. My results may be different than what you get. Maybe the product is too expensive, maybe the target market I am looking for does not visit that type of site – I am not sure. But for us it was a failure.

Do I mind? No, it is part of growing and learning and expanding to see what works and what does not.

My biggest concern with AnyLuckyDay? That severe lack of communication and the fact that my question was not answered until the day before the promotion so I had no time to make alternate arrangement.

If anyone has had a personal experience with them or plans on trying it themselves we would love to hear YOUR thoughts! 

This week we are thrilled to launch London Landscape! London Landscape is a family owned Long Island Garden Center who also offers Long Island Landscaping.

Built on WordPress, it features a fun and bright look, integrated testimonials to accent their success in their local market, Google Maps for clients to easily find them and a portfolio to showcase their best work.

WORDPRESS IS SAFE!!!!! But of course like any website it takes care an maintenance to keep it safe. Remember hackers and spammers are relentless – you give them a new wall, they will try and knock it right back down.

Here are a few tips to keep your WordPress site in tip top shape:

1) Get a GOOD host. Some hosting companies are open to more vulnerabilities than others. Most of my clients who have been hacked host with GoDaddy. At one time GoDaddy admitted one of my clients hacks was their fault – the server wasn’t secure enough.  If you host with me you will know that if anything the hosting company I have my server with Liquid Web, is sometimes too secure resulting in 404 errors. Although this is a pain, it is good to know your files are safe!  There is an old saying – you get what you pay for, this is so true with hosting.

2) Once your site is launched REMOVE the default login username of “admin” – make sure you set up a new user with your name and a great password – this doesn’t mean your birthday, your pets name etc…use capitals and numbers, lowercase and uppercase.  One of my clients got hacked because of this issue – she was using the default admin/admin combination. BIG NO NO!

3) Keep your WordPress version updated! Before you hit the update button though – drop in on the WordPress forums to see if the latest version has any issues…if so use caution.

4) Keep your plugins updates too! There is a reason updates are done – don’t ignore them!

5) File permissions are important! Depending who created your website will depend if it has been properly done. You will have to go into your hosting account or access your files via FTP to do this, or ask your web designer to ensure it has been done!  Basically your permissions should be set so that no one else can write to them. By giving your files permissions of 777 you are telling the world it is OK to come on in basically – so you should keep many of your files and directories at either 755 or 644 depending on the nature of the files.  You can get more detailed specifics about permissions at  http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions

These are a few things that will get you started with keeping your WordPress safe!

We launched the site in mid-November 2010 and had a successful holiday season despite being a relative unknown. As most of our clients know getting exposure for and growing a small ecommerce website can be costly and difficult. There are so many unique things that can be done – and we decided to test one out. Our marketing hours for our own website are minimal since we are busy building sites for our clients – so we decided to make a small investment to try and gain some exposure.

AnyLuckyDay.com is an innovative website that will profile your business for a day, prepare a marketing video, do social marketing on your  half and more. Our scheduled date that we selected is April 12, 2011. (We chose a Tuesday because statistics show that Tuesday and Wednesday are good days for email and online marketing, but please consider your specific niche, as your better days may differ!).

We will be sponsoring a great giveaway – and no we are not going to tell you what for!

AnyLuckyDay.com will announce the contest and their platform makes it so that any entrants must visit your website before entering the contest. Build your Facebook Fan Page, Twitter Followers, Youtube Followers and more.

The output financially is $150 to reserve the day and then whatever your costs are for the giveaway that you will be doing.

So, relatively speaking, we find this to be a fair price for some added exposure. Our goal is to gain exposure for our site – not necessarily gain immediate sales, although of course that will be great too!

We will report back when our day comes and let you know if AnyLuckyDay.com made us LUCKY!

Have you done anything like this? What has worked for you?

Here are a few things that I hope will clear it up!

What is PCI DSS or PCI compliance exactly?

PCI DSS is officially the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard.

It is a set of requirements for enhancing payment account data security by creating a strong, systematic way for merchants to secure cardholder data. It was developed by the founding payment brands of the PCI Security Standards Council, including American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc., to help facilitate the broad adoption of consistent data security measures on a global basis. This multifaceted security standard includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures to help organizations proactively protect customer account data.

Why does an ecommerce business need PCI compliance?

Since ecommerce companies mainly perform electronic transactions only credit card numbers are especially vulnerable to theft by cyber criminals.

If the credit card numbers are not encrypted or tokenized (a data security model whereby surrogate values or “tokens” are substituted for actual credit card numbers), they can be remotely “sniffed out” out as it is called in the industry.

“Sniffing” programs in short is a way that a hacker can analyze data that is not encrypted allowing the hacker to then steal the numbers .

Does every ecommerce website have to be PCI compliant?

The short answer is YES! If you process credit cards online you must comply with PCI DSS.

The compliance requirements may differ for various companies based on the amount of transactions they process.

So how do I know what my compliance standards are for my store?

Their are four classifications or Levels for business – and for Visa here are their requirements:

Level 1 merchants process over 6 million Visa transactions annually (all channels).
Level 2 merchants process 1 million to 6 million Visa transactions annually (all channels).
Level 3 merchants process 20,000 to 1 million Visa ecommerce transactions annually.
Level 4 merchants process less than 20,000 Visa ecommerce transactions annually. In addition, all other merchants processing up to 1 million Visa transactions annually are classified as Level 4 merchants.

So what do I need to do to be in compliance?

Well, this is where it gets tricky because each credit card has their own compliance requirements. You can see what Visa requires below, but MC, AMEX, Discover may have different requirements.

1) Level 1 merchants must complete an Annual Report on Compliance (ROC) by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA); complete a quarterly network scan by an Approved Scan Vendor (ASV); and file an Attestation of Compliance Form.
2) Level 2 and Level 3 merchants must complete an Annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), complete a quarterly network scan by an ASV and file an Attestation of Compliance Form.
3) Level 4 merchants are encouraged to complete an annual SAQ and have an ASV perform a quarterly network scan, if applicable. Compliance validation requirements are set by the acquirer.

Visa will also escalate a merchant to a higher validation level if they have shown to have a breach that resulted in any kind of account data compromise.

The PCI Security Standards Council maintains links to each of the six credit card companies’ — American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, Visa Inc. and Visa Europe — requirements on its website.

What if I decide not to be compliant?

Well, we would hope if you are running an ecommerce website you would care about the safety and security of your customer data and want to make sure your site is compliant.

But if you decide not to comply with PCI DSS you can be charged some stiff penalties put forth by the credit card companies which can be fines or even termination of your ability to accept credit cards for your business. And if you do have a breach and credit card information is stolen from your site while you are not compliant you have no protection.

I have SSL installed, isn’t that the same thing?

No. SSL certificates do not offer protection against malicious attacks. SSL certificates are a first tier level of security so to speak as it verifies that the website operators are legitimate and that there is a secure connection between the browser and web server.

So what can I do to make my site PCI Compliant?

If you host with 2 Dogs Design, we use Liquid Web for our server and we offer PCI Compliant Hosting with Liquid Web. A scan is run as required by your merchant to keep your website PCI compliant. When we initially move a site to PCI compliant hosting they will run several tests and scans to determine if there are any PCI leaks – and then we work with the host to fix them.

If you do not host with us, then we highly recommend finding a hosting company that IS PCI compliant to ensure the safety of your site.

For more information visit the PCI Security Standards Council

But it is a new year – with a new agenda and just a touch more time!

Things are changing quickly in the internet world and it seems every day there is something to new to learn about! I promise to start trying a bit harder to keep you updated on these changes as they come across my desk!

But I do want to wish EVERYONE a great New Year and lets see if we can work together to make a it a successful New Year!

Jill

A good place to start is by seeing what your competitors are doing and by analyzing your own existing efforts. Here are some tools that will help you get started….

Google Alerts

Google alerts is a great tool that will deliver via email or RSS keyword updates directly to you. You can watch the exact terms you want and get a report that shows where that keyword has been mentioned online. By using the comprehensive choice you will receive data from blog comments to news articles to images of the keyword you choose.  You can access Google Alerts here:  http://www.google.com/alerts

I currently monitor approximately 60 specific keywords….every day I receive an email that shows me exactly where those keywords have been mentioned. It is a great way to help me write blog comments to help with my link building efforts, monitor what my competition is doing and keeping me aware of the general going on’s in the industry.

Twitter

If you are not using Twitter yet – you might want to! Twitter is one powerful resource and can really help a large variety of businesses. Twitter does require a bit of work and effort though. You need to be social on Twitter to get the best results – meaning you need to TALK to people. I can almost guarantee if you start a Twitter account and all you do is post sales and promotions you will fail miserably. You need to get out there and help people, share information and really create a community to achieve the required goals. And don’t forget to follow your competition – see who they are following learn about their promotions etc. http://www.twitter.com

Facebook

Facebook is definitely a  leader in the social media world and a must for any business! It is a great way to keep a community going of your best clients and customers – people who really want to hear your message. You can create great custom pages to announce events and contests, get a relatively inexpensive ad campaign going and really set your business apart from your competitors. http://www.facebook.com

SocialMention

SocialMention is a great competitive analysis tool! SocialMention tracks brand mentions but also delivers information about what people are saying about the brand (good, bad and ugly) – as well as the top keywords and users. Just enter your competitors brand name and it will give you some great information! http://www.socialmention.com/

Quarkbase

Another great intelligence based site – this is a great site to get a general analysis of your competition. It will show you their latest content, how well it is doing in the social media world, traffic estimates and more. http://quarkbase.com

Of course there are many more out there like http://domaintools.com, http://howsociable.com, http://twitturly.com and more to help you analyze your competition and build a stronger brand! Hope this will help get you in the right direction!