May 2009 Meeting: The Conversion Story – from Clicks to Cash

Join us on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 when Ayat Shukairy and Khalid Saleh of Invesp Consulting, discuss the “Conversion Story – from clicks to cash”.

Times are tough, and every visitor on your site counts. Too often, companies focus on driving more traffic to their website, and not enough time maximizing the visitors already there.

Increasing your conversion rate, even as little as 10%, can bring a significant increase to your sales, downloads, form completions, or whatever task it might be.

RSVP at Upcoming.org

Discussion Summary

Two customers come to your site, one buys and the other doesn’t, why? Why aren’t you able to generate more leads from your website? In this session we will present actionable items to consider on your site, through The Conversion Framework, in order to see significant increases in your conversion rates. We will also identify what role personas play in optimization from a lead gen to an ecommerce business via case studies.

Background

Ayat Shukairy is co-founder of Invesp Consulting, a landing page optimization company, and co-author of Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide. Ayat Shukairy focuses deeply on website usability and has led over 30 conversion optimization projects for companies including ReMAX, HowStuff Works and Discovery. Ayat  Shukairy’s work has helped generate an average 20% improvement in conversion rates for Invesp’s clients.

Khalid Saleh is co-founder of Invesp Consulting, a landing page optimization company and co-author of, Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide. Khalid Saleh has over 12 years of experience in e-commerce architecture, design and implementation, managing campaigns for companies including Motorola, AMEX, Levelor, Citrix, WWT, Nabors. Khalid’s work has helped generated an average 20% improvement in conversion rates for Invesp’s clients.

Company Bio

Since 1995, Invesp founders have architected, designed and deployed 22 of the largest e-commerce websites in North America.  On average, Invesp generates an average 35% ROI on conversion for its clients on optimization work. A values driven company, Invesp focuses on providing measureable ecommerce results through client focused delivery, openness and creativity.

Where: Wayne State University Law School, 471 W. Palmer Street, Detroit, MI 48202 (directions) Room 2103, The Distance Learning Room. (University map)

When: Tuesday, May 19th, 2009, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

RSVP at Upcoming.org

Writing for the Web Panel Discussion: April 21, 2009

How is writing for the web different from writing for other media? How can you craft your words to grab the attention of your readers? What do you need to know to create engaging content that people will want to read?

Join Refresh Detroit on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 for a panel discussion featuring local experts offering ideas to the many different writers who create content for the web. Learn:

  • best practices for writing for the web
  • how users interact with copy
  • copywriting for search engine optimization
  • writing for social media

Panelists

  • Shannon Paul, Social Media Specialist, PEAK6 Online
    A social media enthusiast, Shannon is well known for her recent work in the development and implementation of social media strategies for the Detroit Red Wings.
  • Dalila Akli, eMarketing Analyst, Cengage
    Dalila helps develop the eAnalytics culture at Cengage. Formerly webmaster at Gedas USA, she has also built websites for small businesses.
  • Chris Kochmanski, Partner, Marketing Strategist and Copywriter, Design Hub
    Chris has over 30 years of strategic marketing experience. Before joining Design Hub, he excelled in marketing communications, marketing management, and business development for ADP Network Services, Interface Systems, Cleo Communications, and Mechanical Dynamics.
  • Evan Deutsch, Senior Writer, Wunderman Team Detroit
    Evan currently works on Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury interactive media projects. In previous positions, he has been involved with interactive projects at Campbell-Ewald and Bowne Internet.

The panel will be moderated by Marie MacNee, an independent writer and web content manager. Marie works for clients including Cengage, Google and others. She wrote her first web copy and usability studies in the 1980s, and later worked at Campbell-Ewald and Doner, where she was an Associate Creative Director.

Where: Wayne State University Law School, 471 W. Palmer Street, Detroit, MI 48202 (directions) Room 2103, The Distance Learning Room. (University map)

When: Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

RSVP at Upcoming.org.

Book Review: The Principles of Beautiful Web Design

What I appreciate about Jason Beaird’s book The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is the simplicity with which he tackles each topic. He begins with the client interview, advising to focus on client needs and making them feel at ease.

It’s good advice to use a pad of paper instead of a laptop to record notes in a meeting, but the more important thing to derive is that body language is an important part of the trust-building process of a customer relationship.

Personally, I’m a big proponent of the Golden Ratio, so seeing a good basic explanation of it early in the work was a big plus. He then proceeded through all the basics of design in a very common-sense way.

The typography section appears the most information-packed, and seems obsessively-detailed compared to the rest of the sections. In fact, I could almost imagine the author talking about fonts like Bubba in Forrest Gump talked about shrimp!

Altogether, this book is a very good basic primer on design for the screen. It covers all the topics — though not comprehensively in any case — and presents them in a very understandable way.

The examples serve the text very well, and as you’d expect from a design book, everything looks good to fit its function. If I didn’t know all of this already, I’d be happy to have learned it from this guide.

I will recommend this book to any friends interested in the topic, as well as to patrons at the library I work at (which incidentally already has a copy!) who may happen to ask about the subject.