An Internet Site Redesign

An Internet Site Redesign that Increased Traffic, Order Conversions & Revenue

United Ad Label (UAL) has been a leading provider of labels to the healthcare industry for over 50 years. Despite strong brand awareness they weren’t satisfied with their audience growth rates or the revenue they were achieving online. Their management team turned to InterEdge Marketing to develop a web strategy to help attract a broader audience, increase conversions and drive revenue.

Challenges

UAL had a strong web presence. Over the last five years their website had evolved from a very basic online ordering tool to a more content rich site. But despite initial increases in site visits, activity had plateaued. Plus, when visitors did enter the site UAL conversion rates were below average.

The problem was three fold:

After considering a variety of options, they chose to work with InterEdge Marketing to solve these issues and develop a plan for sustained growth.

Improving Navigation and Customer Experience to Expand Their Audience

UAL has over 4,000 stock label products that are sold primarily to the healthcare, veterinary and manufacturing/distribution markets. Their product focused site emphasized UAL’s health care heritage and used a vernacular consistent with that market segment. Despite this focus, the other segments were growing. With their business evolving, it was important to determine a better way to represent their online offering. We focused on these key objectives:

The first step focused on top level navigation. We identified three elements that ensure effective audience navigation, including:

1. Object Based - usually nouns that could be product or service names
2. Action Based - reserved more for ecommerce sites that describe a user action - think about a Financial Services site that has bank, borrow, invest as top level options
3. Audience Based - the industry or market segment the user belongs to - which makes it easy for them to self select the appropriate category

To formulate our plan we conducted research on the competition, industry players and companies in other industries that have highly rated websites. We compared these results to the UAL target audience. Given their evolving user base, we recommended the audience based option, segmenting their navigation into healthcare, veterinary and manufacturing/distribution markets that represent their most prominent target markets.

Second Level Categories and Product Names Must Reflect the Audience Vernacular

Once site navigation was defined, we turned our attention to department names and product names and phrases. It is vital that top level navigation makes it easy for the audience to work through the site effectively. Plus, second level categories and product names must reflect the audience vernacular.

UAL’s industry and customer knowledge had already helped them develop effective department and product naming conventions. However, our research uncovered a few product name modifications that helped further target their offering. For example, depending upon the item, users might refer to a product as a label, a sticker, a tag or a tape. Matching up the product type with the appropriate name helps the user to quickly identify the product they need, improving their experience. In addition, it helps elevate UAL’s position in search.

To better pinpoint their product line, we also recommended new second level categories. This made it easier for their audience to self select the appropriate product grouping and find the right item quickly.

Simplifying Product Pages and the Login and Shopping Cart Process Impacts Orders

When a user is on your site, it is essential to simplify information, making it easy for them to take their desired next step. We identified important features to implement on product pages, customer login in screens, contact forms and shopping cart pages including:

Survey Your Customers to Confirm Your Findings

Once the first and second level navigation categories were formulated, we mapped the appropriate products to those headings. Although we were confident in our findings we wanted to ensure that they were consistent with how users viewed them. We also wanted to confirm our product page, user login in and shopping cart recommendations were on target. So we took the navigation draft and surveyed users to get their feedback. Using both online and phone surveys, we interviewed nearly 50 people. These responses confirmed that our navigation and on page recommendations were on target. It also helped identify a few areas that required revisions.

After a few minor alterations, final changes were provided and programmed into the site.

Impact on Site Visits, Conversions and Revenue

The site went live on September 15. With only a few days of data the ultimate impact of the site design is still pending. However, the shopping cart abandonment rate has already seen a significant decline and the expectations are that revenue increases will follow.