Sandbags Provide Great Lessons For Site Owners

You're probably wondering if I'm the loopy juice or something. But when I was doing a pretty much mundane search for "sandbags" I came across some interesting sites that together provide some lessons for website owners.

Yes, I was looking for sandbags to protect my house just in case we got hit up here.

1. Branding and domain names:
   The first site I looked at had the domain "argoss.co.uk". Obviously there was the possibility of domain confusion. My first thought was that it was Argos and that I wasn't going to click because I didn't want to buy from them. Then I thought latterly. I've made a fair few quid out of miss-spells in my time and wonder how much traffic they get from the typos? But then I became concerned for the small company as they're the type of company that so often gets shafted by the huge, faceless companies like Argos.
   
   My thoughts - always look at your brand when you set up shop online. Will there be any conflict with established brands or with companies that could get litigious? Always have a back-up plan.
   
   
2. Utilise Interesting and Informative Sales Tools
   The site that came up top in the Adwords was Aqua-Sac. I've not finished the research and buying process yet, but this sales video worked fantastically at informing me about the product and am likely to buy from them because of it. The testimonials page and trial data all work to do one major thing - MINIMISE PURCHASE RISK. This is the risk that the product the consumer buys will not meet expectations. The video, data and testimonials all go towards informing me about what the product does.
   
   My thoughts - website owners, and even affiliates, should place themselves in the mind of the consumer and create ways to remove all the possible barriers to purchasing you can think of. I'm doing this with my clients. I'm recommending to the Spanish Properties site that they put videos of the properties, more detailed testimonials, better contact information and basically everything I can think of to reassure their target audience (who are in their 50's) to contact them. You should do the same for your website.
   
   
3. Huge Demand without negatives can cost you a fortune
   The people at JaneShilton.co.uk need to have words with their online marketing agency. They're either being really clever keeping their ads for "luxury leather bags" showing when people search for "sandbags" or they're being being lazy!
   
   I bet that people that are looking for "sandbags" don't have luxury spending at the forefront of their mind. They're probably thinking about all the damage that is, or could be, happening to their home or business.
   
   Their CTR would be appalling with the number of impressions that are probably going through Google with this term, it'll be hurting them on that front as well as irrelevant clicks. Not Good!
   
   My thoughts - monitor your traffic and if you're getting irrelevant clicks - turn them into negatives.

The question now is do I get 25 or 50 Aqau-Sacs or do I go to B & Q on and get them on the way home tomorrow?