0:00
So by now, we have put together all of the pieces that are needed in order to effectively evaluate your website. And so what I want to do now is take a few minutes and look at a specific site and help you understand how we would approach a assessment of a site. So we're going to take a look right now at juneshine.com. If you're unfamiliar with June Shine, then just know that it is a hard kombucha.
0:33
It means it's an alcoholic beverage, but it's also got a bit of a health kick to it. Now, what we always want to do is start at the very top of the page and work our way down to the footer. So what we're going to do is just load up the home page here and take a look at it. First thing for I see here is very quickly that the 10% pop-up comes up. And one thing that I always suggest saying is that we should never be immediately offering discount to new visitors.
1:06
This is a challenge, because what really happens here is three things. One, you are devaluing your brand. You're immediately telling people, my products aren't worth what we charge for them. Instead, it is worth 10% less than that price. Second is you will get a lot of people to fill this out just to get the discount.
1:29
They don't really want to be subscribers on your list. So what happens is you get a lot of devaluation of your owned email list as well. People will come on, they'll get this discount, and then instead of unsubscribing, they'll start marking you as spam. They'll start not opening your emails, which will both hurt your deliverability rates and you'll end up in that dreaded promotions tab and you'll live there forever.
1:57
So we're going to close this. But the third thing I want to point out here as well as you really need to help people understand what their expectations are. So how often are you going to email them? What are you going to do with their email address? And beyond that, what can they expect when they get your emails? So for here, it says you'll get 10% off, and they'll send over promos, sunny updates, and more.
2:21
Sounds to me like they're just going to send specials and discounts over that email, but who knows? Maybe there would be some additional value there. But it's not very clear that that's the case. So we're going to go ahead and close this pop-up, and then we're hit with an age wall is what we like to call this, which definitely makes sense. It's an alcoholic beverage, so I won't hold this against them. I'm going to say I'm over 21, because if not, it looks like I'm going to get sent to their Instagram instead.
2:49
So I'm going to go here. Now we're hit with another item, which is their cookies pop-up. Yes, we'll accept that and get that out of the way. First thing first here is, what you really want to do when a consumer first comes to your site is have a clear understanding of what the product is that they're selling. Now, they've done a pretty good job of doing that with the photography here, helping people understand that.
3:15
However, it doesn't clearly say what exactly June Shine is and what the different options are here. I also really prefer when brands start by clearly stating their value proposition here, as opposed to stating an individual product or feature product or something of that sort.
3:38
So what I would highly recommend doing in this case is for this brand to say what makes them a little different. Why is hard kombucha, and specifically June Shine, the product that is best for you? What is the value proposition that sets them apart? Right now, I just see that they have chili mango. It could be, instead of just saying one product and that it's shipping nationwide, the value proposition could be that they have the best flavors and flavors that you've never heard of before that are really interesting.
4:10
That would be something that would really make this site sing. Now, in addition to that, I always like to take a look at what they have in the top bar. And they have free shipping on orders over $50. I think that that makes sense. We have tested dozens and dozens of these over the years at The Good, and I can tell you in this top bar the only thing that really performs well is the free shipping notification.
4:34
Because what's happening is you're reducing that objection immediately and upfront. How many times have you gone to a website-- and it's happened to me several times, where I go in to add an item to the cart, and I'm hit inside the cart with an unsuspecting shipping fee. And it's really harsh because then I start thinking about, well, I could wait a couple of days and go to the store and get this.
4:59
Or what are my alternatives I could get would not have to pay shipping? Can I go to Amazon where I know I have Prime? So you're really introducing a lot of objections, so it's great to clear that hurdle right up front. Also, for heavy products, which I would assume that liquids like June Shine would be, it definitely makes sense to get that out of the way. Now, next thing I want to point out here is that they have a interesting cart icon.
5:25
I think they're taking a lot of liberties with the brand on this, but I think once consumers get in, they might understand what that is a little more. And then navigation is buried all the way down here in the bottom. Now, I don't mind this type of overlay navigation, but I do think that what's happening is you're making consumers think by moving the navigation away from a typical spot that it would normally be in.
5:51
So I would highly recommend moving the cart icon over to the top right and the navigation icon here in the middle. I think that would perform a lot better. Next thing is let's talk a little bit about this navigation. Navigation should do two things. It should help people to get to where they want to go. Of course, it's in the name there.
6:14
But secondly, it really needs to help consumers understand very quickly, are they in the right spot to solve their pain or need? And so what you really want to look at here is, in terms of drinks, what is special about these drinks? Why would you just say drinks instead of having something that would go a little bit deeper there? Find Us is great.
6:39
You want to be able to make sure people can find you at retail. Merch I understand. That's a great category. But things like Rewards and About, not really great to have in a main navigation. Those are pretty self-serving. In terms of a navigation, Rewards should be something that is done maybe in your footer, but also would be great on a product detail page, somewhere where once a consumer completes that purchase, they have an understanding that's there, and then you can start marketing rewards to them.
7:09
I would not recommend doing at this stage of the buying funnel. In terms of About, the challenge here is that your navigation should never be used to talk about or your brand. It should really be focused on the products and helping the consumers solve their pain or need. So when you start saying things like About, et cetera, you really start getting into places that consumers aren't that interested in.
7:35
If they want to learn more about you, they'll go down to the footer and they'll find that information, or they want to see it as part of the journey as they continue through your site. So it would be best to put that content on a product detail page, category page, et cetera. Now, June Shine is doing something really interesting here.
7:57
First of all, they have some animated text, but I don't think it's that distracting, but it certainly does draw the eye. But if we did some eye tracking on this, you would see everybody looking at that, trying to read it pretty closely. I think that they've done a good job saying the value proposition, which is Better-for-you alcohol with low sugar and it also being refreshing. I think those are the things that should have been up here in the top of the page and for the initial value proposition.
8:23
Then you could get into individual products. I'm not a fan of having the fake window approach, especially things you can move around like this and potentially-- you supposedly should have been able to close it, but x doesn't do anything. I think this is a case of a designer just taking this site a little too far. It's really not as functional to have those types of things in there.
8:46
And really, I am much more, in terms of optimization for purchasing, don't want to inject anything that is going to get in the way of the consumer's actual purchase journey. Not saying a site has to be 100% utilitarian, but I am saying that function should be there over form. So next is the store locator.
9:10
That's great, helpful. I'm never a fan, I should say, of auto-rotating carousels like this. So we'll see this one go over to the next image here. And you can see it counting down and continuing on. The challenge I have with that is not only that it auto-rotates, but also that it is something that has an in-page navigation. Never a fan of in-page navigations because of the fact that consumers ignore them.
9:40
They typically won't click. So if you see accordion navigations, for instance, they very rarely get engaged with at the level of the importance of the information put in there. When you auto-rotate things like this, what happens is consumers are still engaging with that content, and then all of a sudden it's on to the next image. It becomes a challenge. Also, I'm never a fan of having, on the home page, an Add to Cart or Add to Bag CTA.
10:10
We should always be using a lower intent call to action, things like View Details, Learn More. The whole point of that is the goal of your home page is just to get people to that next step in the funnel. So really want to make sure that you are focusing on helping people get to that next step and viewing details.
10:32
It's very rare that somebody is going to want to buy something called Midnight Painkiller, which they don't really know what that is, what the benefits are, what it means. And so the challenge with that is you're trying to just have people understand the products from the can here instead of diving into the details, which is likely what they're looking to do from the home page.
10:56
Same thing with all of these. Am I buying-- I guess I'm buying 24 at $3 a can. But at the same time, what if I want to learn more about what's in it, et cetera? If I Add to Bag, I have a challenge. And then it says all the way down here, See More. So I would really just have something like See More instead of an Add to Bag in this case. And if you click that, of course, you can see what the ingredients are.
11:22
But this still is not exactly what I would hope to see from a product detail page. So scrolling down again, you can see there's all these movable windows, et cetera. Oh, and there we go. It auto-rotated to the next one while I was engaging with it, trying to look at it. Again, that is just a horrible consumer experience and is something I would highly recommend not doing.
11:48
So this section, I do like all of the social proof here with the validation that it's been in PopSugar, on a Good Day or Today and Men's Health, et cetera, and Forbes. So I think that's helpful. One thing we really want to see here is when you click on that, that it does take you to the article. And that's great.
12:12
I notice here that these aren't really working, though. It says Read Article, but it just takes you back to the home page on that one. And this one, it takes me to Forbes, something that I really don't like to see, because once I'm at Forbes, the likelihood of me coming back to this site is very slim once I read that article and then they have related articles. The job of Forbes' website is to keep me on their website, not to send me back to where I came.
12:38
So that's inherently going to be a challenge. So I highly recommend that you put that on your own site in its own page that features the article. If it's in a magazine, something of that sort, you do the spread of the magazine and show a good photo of that. Now we're getting down into some more details about what are the real ingredients.
13:00
Again, we're going back to some pretty good photography here, really focusing on the ingredients. I like the style of this. I think that it's helpful. We're doing some merch. And then, again, I can build my own bundle, which is the first time we've seen this. It's not in the navigation or anything of that sort. So it's a whole bunch of new information kind of thrown in there at the end.
13:23
Now, in terms of the footer, always want to take a few minutes and look at a footer because it is one of the highest opportunity areas that often gets overlooked. So in this footer, I really think we're missing a few pieces of information here. If we were to do an eye-tracking study, you would clearly see the eye being attracted not only to the animated logo, which is a bit unnecessary, but also over here to where these images are coming in on this phone, and then also the big text here about dropping your web deets, which is interesting and gets the idea.
14:01
But again, I think that it's a bit of an issue. Now, let's talk about all of this for a second. The first thing is you should always have your product navigation on the footer. Why? Because if somebody scrolled all the way down to the bottom of your site, you don't want to dead-end them. You want to give them away to come back and purchase again. So I would really focus on having the categories or all of the flavors, because it seems to me like there's a handful of flavors that could easily fit in their own column here.
14:32
Then you want to have a column of links that are more miscellaneous links. Then have something that's a more help and getting some help there. Maybe if you're looking to be a retailer, the miscellaneous stuff should be having tasting rooms and locations, et cetera. The blog, the About Us, that's all great content for that. And then, finally, you really should have a column for contact.
14:58
Now, I often tell people this should be in the bottom right-hand corner of your footer. Why in the right-hand side of your footer? Well, consumers have been trained over the years to scroll all the way down and look in the bottom right-hand corner if they want to get a hold of a brand. So highly recommend that that's where you put your information. There's a great book called Don't Make Me Think by Steven Krug.
15:22
Look it up on Amazon. And it is all about how we have been trained over years to navigate the internet in a specific way because that's how it's always been done. And I'm not suggesting we can't try new things, but I am suggesting content should be in a place where consumers are going to look for that content. Now, what I would highly recommend doing here is maybe putting the contact information on top of the phone and then pushing the social icons a little further down.
15:53
That way, if people want to get a hold, you really should have the trust trifecta we talked about already, which is the email, phone number, as well as the physical address. Those three are really going to help somebody to trust your brand and a consumer to look at it and say, OK, they're a legitimate business. We hear this all the time in user testing.
16:17
If an address is not there, if there's no clear way to get a hold of a brand, then what happens is consumers will bounce, and they just lose trust. So you really need to have that trust trifecta there. I promise you, very few to no people are going to show up at your address that you list on there. Even if it has to be a PO box, that ranks way higher on the trust scale than nothing at all. So here we are all the way at the footer and down at the bottom of the page.
16:44
The last thing, the last-ditch effort for June Shine, is to get them on the email list. I always like to see that here, so great placement. The challenges-- again, they're missing the expectations setting and the privacy information. So making sure we get that in there should be really, really helpful. Well, there's our tear-down.
17:06
I hope you've enjoyed it.
