Three web­site must-haves you can tack­le today

Has each year since COVID been shit­ti­er than the one before, or is it just me?

We’re halfway through yet anoth­er year that began with the promise of being mem­o­rable for all the wrong rea­sons. I refuse to make a long, detailed, depress­ing list because I promised myself I’d avoid dis­cussing sen­si­tive top­ics at least until 2030. You prob­a­bly have your own list. Feel free to share it with me, and we can com­fort each other.

Because this, too, shall pass. Or, as we say in Spain, ​“no hay mal que dure cien años”. (No evil lasts a cen­tu­ry). While we wait and pray for the shit­show to wrap up, we can make a pact to help each oth­er be more focused on actu­al work, and less on the sur­re­al non­sense that sur­rounds us. 

The first step is to start plan­ning for 2025 today, instead of what most of us do, which is brain­storm half-mum­bled ideas and unar­tic­u­lat­ed post-it notes with action items on a wall the last week of Decem­ber, only to real­ize they’re still there in March and we’re impro­vis­ing bud­get and pri­or­i­ties as we go. Again.

When every­thing out of our con­trol is fucked up, we can at least make sure we have what’s with­in our reach actu­al­ly under con­trol, which is why I want to share some hum­ble tips about issues that reg­u­lar­ly sur­face on most of our eCom­merce audits.

With a lit­tle work, you can solve them before they become problems.

#1 Com­pli­ance. Those ugly cookies.

Yes, we’re wit­ness­ing the death of third-par­ty cook­ies. It’s already in progress. The rea­sons look great on paper because we all reject the idea of being tracked, even though we do track for our businesses.

How­ev­er, apply­ing some rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple sec­ond order think­ing can raise sus­pi­cions about what’s real­ly going on, and what’s in it for Google. In any case, that’s a big­ger, ugli­er top­ic, and one that is also beyond our con­trol. For the mat­ter at hand, here’s a poten­tial tasklist:

1. Under­stand your Cook­ies. What you have, what you need, what you can replace, what you use and what you can get rid of, what’s in tune with your poli­cies and ethics, etc. Make that list.
2. Choose the suit­able replace­ments. Fig­ure out what you can sup­ple­ment with a bet­ter first-par­ty data structure.
3. If you already have good soft­ware run­ning for first-par­ty data (CRM, CDXP, etc) make sure it’s trimmed, updat­ed, auto­mat­ed and adopt­ed well enough.
4. Catch up with your poli­cies. Clear and trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion with cus­tomers and part­ners can pre­vent mis­un­der­stand­ings that can eas­i­ly esca­late into legal dis­putes. Make sure your terms of ser­vice, pri­va­cy poli­cies, and con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions are eas­i­ly acces­si­ble and understandable. 
5. Don’t for­get your mar­kets. Make sure you’re cov­ered against CPRA, GDPR, UK’s Data Pro­tec­tion Act, etc. Dou­ble check with your legal advisors.
6. Remem­ber Con­tex­tu­al Ads? If you’re not using them, you should. They force you to real­ly under­stand your cat­e­go­ry entry points.
7. Fix the attri­bu­tion game. Or for­get about it.

What do you mean for­get about it? You nuts?

Attri­bu­tion has been a white whale for every­one in eCom­merce for the past 15 years. We bought the idea that the more accu­rate your data and sales attri­bu­tion, the more mon­ey you make. We’ve become data obsessed and got used to being able to track data in the most com­plex ways, build love­ly dash­boards with pre­dic­tive trends, and make the mar­ket­ing job seem absurd­ly sci­en­tif­ic. Spoil­er: it’s not.

The indus­try is chang­ing fast for all the wrong rea­sons. Reg­u­la­tions, gen­er­a­tive AI, end of cook­ies, extreme com­pe­ti­tion, mas­sive shifts in web­site and store­front design and build, Amazon’s de fac­to monop­oly — the list goes on. 

All of these changes con­verge into a sin­gle, mas­sive prob­lem: everyone’s doing the same thing. Bear with me, and see if it makes sense:

• We need Ama­zon, but every­thing there seems more like their brand and less like ours.
• We like AI but if we keep ask­ing it to come up with strate­gies, prod­uct descrip­tions or mar­ket­ing ideas, what are the odds that our prompts will be the orig­i­nal or inter­est­ing ones? Every one of your com­peti­tors is enter­ing the same basic ques­tions, and get­ting the same mid­dle ground plat­i­tudes for an answer. The mar­ket will be infest­ed with medi­oc­rity in the blink of an eye.
• Our obses­sion with data turns bud­gets towards tech­ni­cal mar­ket­ing, and away from strat­e­gy and brand build­ing.

A lot of peo­ple lin­gered on data to avoid get­ting fired. Frame cer­tain vari­ables the right way and the dimin­ish­ing brand pres­ence can actu­al­ly and seem­ing­ly grow your con­ver­sion rate. 

We need to let go, return to basics, and have more con­sis­tent and cohe­sive cam­paigns so we can sim­ply answer one ques­tion, which doesn’t need a com­put­er at all: Are we sell­ing more after the campaign?

#2 Acces­si­bil­i­ty. Spare your­self a stu­pid lawsuit.

95.9% of home­pages have detect­ed WCAG2 fail­ures.

As laws and reg­u­la­tions like California’s CDPA become more strict and evolved, with many oth­er States fol­low­ing close­ly with their own set of rules, acces­si­bil­i­ty is no longer a fea­ture. It’s a legal oblig­a­tion, and also the right thing to do.

If that’s not enough incen­tive, have a look at the big increase in law­suits in recent years. In our expe­ri­ence, some of these are real and well intend­ed. You should be wor­ried about ambu­lance chasers though, because those don’t want you to fix the prob­lem but just to drain your mon­ey on a nego­ti­a­tion based on extor­tion.

So, if, like 95.9% of com­pa­nies, you haven’t paid any atten­tion to this yet, begin by fix­ing the acces­si­bil­i­ty lev­el. It’s actu­al­ly eas­i­er than you would expect.

#3 Per­for­mance. There’s no future-proof, but…

The truth is absolute­ly nobody, not even the big shots at the big com­pa­nies, has fig­ured out what search engines are going to be three years from now. GenAI is a per­va­sive and imma­ture prod­uct but, because it’s gen­er­at­ing a shit­load of mon­ey, it’s being shoved down every­one’s throats. 

Are you annoyed with the AI-based results offered by your favorite mobile search engine already? 
Where do you think your eCom­merce site or online store is going to be found in the future, and how?
How will any­one find us, like us, and buy from us in the future?

While we fig­ure this out and adapt, one thing will remain impor­tant: hav­ing a web­site that’s fast, per­for­mant, easy to nav­i­gate, and well-built accord­ing to all the best prac­tices. When the dust set­tles and the New New Nor­mal takes reign, what­ev­er you invest­ed into doing things right will pay off and become one less prob­lem on your list.

Com­pli­ance, Acces­si­bil­i­ty and Performance. 

That’s it.

Those are three things you can fix to save time, mon­ey and prob­lems next year.
Now, some action items:

• Turn off the TV. 
• Plan a bril­liant 2025 ahead of schedule
• Pre­vent issues with­in your con­trol. It’s much hard­er to tack­le issues when run­ning against a deadline. 
• Book a com­pli­men­ta­ry strat­e­gy call if you think we can help.
• Keep your hopes high.

As busi­ness own­ers, we know how hard every­thing is. Let me say thank you for your hard work and for hang­ing in there through these uncer­tain times.

Stay strong and remem­ber that, in the wise words of the Chair­man of the Board,the best is yet to come.