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RIGHT FIT SHOES

EBUSINESS PROPOSAL/PLAN

Right Fit Shoes is an online shoe retailer specializing in the sale of a variety of different shoes. What separates Right Fit Shoes from its competition is the use of an augmented reality app that scans your foot so that you have the perfect measurements. This scan then allows Right Fit to create a personalized profile for you so that whenever you order shoes online, they come to your house at the perfect size every time.

USERS AND NEEDS

Because the business uses an app, deals exclusively with online transactions, and utilizes an online marketplace, our audience is a more tech-suavy audience that has disposable income. So, they will be aged around 18-39 and will be both men and women.

To get a better idea of our users, you may want to check up these user personas (essentially made up potential users) here.

Because the business uses an app and is an online marketplace, our site and app must be accessible on all devices. An app will be readily available on smartphones and tablets, and a desktop site is absolutely necessary. A mobile version of the desktop site should still be made despite the presence of a mobile application.

Since the app and site center around an online marketplace/retailer, reliable hosting is needed. This means dedicated hosting. This ensures faster loading times for users, a personal IP address, and most importantly, easier integration of our app. Amazon Web Services is the most popular hosting service for good reason, so I definitely suggest that. Addtionally, transactions will be handled through out site, so good sercurity is needed. This means the business almost requires an SSL certificate from a certificate authority to make our website secure and also a way to take direct credit card payments. Both will help ensure user information stays safe.

DESIGN

The goal of designing the site is to keep it simple and web standard. Essentially, don't stray too far from what other online marketplaces do when it comes to design. Have search functionality with lots of filters to help users find what they're looking for as well as navigation with dropdown menus that allows users to browse all the shoes available. I would use a mix of white and cool colors, such as blue, to give the site a sleek and relaxing feel.

Below I've included links to a navigation map, a flow chart of sorts that helps show how users can navigate around the site, and some basic wireframes. These are bare-bones designs of what I believe some of the most important pages on the site should look like for the desktop site. The mobile site and app would differ slightly with less content being displayed on the screen at the same time while browsing.

Navigation Map

Wireframes

Homepage

Search Results Page

Product Page

MARKETING

The goal of our marketing is to distinguish ourselves from the competition by offering a service that they don't, in our case the augmented reality app, in addition to our online store. So, we will utilize this angle through online advertistements and search engine optimization.

Our Competition

First, it's a good idea to see what the competition does that makes them successful. Utilizing similarweb.com, I looked at the analytics for other successful shoe retailers to get ideas for our own marketing. As I researched, I noticed that no other shoe retailer offers an app like ours. They do provide some tools to get your foot size, but it usually involves a print out (which assumes their users have a personal printer).

#17 in traffic amongst clothing sites
Most traffic is from organic search
- Utilizes their brand as keywords (Zappos, zappos womens shoes, etc.)
Biggest referral was yahoo.com

#49 in traffic amongst clothing sites
40% of traffic is from search
- Utilizes their brand as keywords (DSW, DSW shoes, etc.)
94% of users from the US
Also has physical store locations

#157 in traffic amongst clothing sites
About 40% of traffic is from search
- Utilizes "shoes" and specific brands of shoes (such as Skechers and Clarks) as keywords
94% of users from the US
Biggest referral was branddeals.com

These are some of the most popular sites for buying shoes online, as indicated by the traffic rankings that indicate how many visitors they have to their sites. Where their traffic comes from is similar across the board, it's search. Almost all utilize their own brand as keywords (essentially content embedded on the page that relates to what someone types into their search bar), so users are specifically looking for these sites when they are searching for shoes online. Yet, each has different referrals (external sites that link to their sites) with the biggest being branddeals.com, a coupon and sale resource online.

Search Engine Optimization Plan

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a series of techniques and strategies used to make a site rank higher in a search engine results page (SERP). Essentially, using these techniques will place Right Fit Shoes closer to the top of the a SERP when a user is searching a online shoe retailer. There are a lot of techniques used to influence this ranking, but one of the simplest is utilizing keywords.

Keywords

The goal of our keyword analysis process will be to find fat-tailed keyphrases, or niche phrases that happen to be popular. The goal of keyword analysis is to find keywords or keyphrases that a lot of people use (volume), are relevant to your content, and that other businesses don't use as much (competition). Fat-tailed keyphrases have high volume and low competition, which is great for an online shoe retailer that has to compete against established businesses. Again, the focus should be on distinguishing Right Fit Shoes from the other online shoe retailers through our unique app, so the keyphrases we use should focus on this aspect of the business.

I plugged some phrases into a keyword analysis planner to see what phrases would be perfect for Right Fit Shoes unique selling-point. Some of the returns were very fruitful with the best being:

How can I find my shoe size

Find my shoe size

My shoe size in mens

How can I find my shoe size was the best return with very high volume and low competition. Find my shoe size had very high volume, too, but had very high compeition. Nonetheless, it doesn't hurt to utilize it on the site. My shoe size in mens had high volume and low competition and can be easily modified by replacing men with women to include the other half of the population. More detailed analysis and other possible keywords/keyphrases can be found here.

Where to put the keywords, also known as keyword distribution, falls on the first two keyphrases. How can I find my shoe size should be put on the home page and the app page since we want those to be landing pages (the first page a user sees when they enter our site) since the app is our biggest selling point. For both pages, it should also be put somewhere in the header and meta description (describes the web page to search engines) of the page. Find my shoe size should included in the title (text that appears on the tabs at the top of the web browser) of the app page and should be included on product pages if a user is interacting with the site without a profile.

My shoe size in mens/womens should be included in the gender specific sections of the site. If users use that keyphrase in the search engine and happen on those sections, there should be links back to app. The same should be done for specific brands. For example, a keyphrase linking to the Nike section of the site should be my shoe size in nike.

As the brand becomes more recognizable, taking the approach our competition may be a great idea. Essentially, add keywords and keyphrases with our brand such as "Right Fit Shoes nike," "Right Fit Shoes men," or a simple "Right Fit Shoes." Exploiting our brand as it rises out of obscurity will only help the SERP ranking.

Other SEO Strategies

Keywords/keyphrases are not the only factors ensuring the site's rise in SERPs. How many trustworthy external sites linking to the site, use of well-described visual content throughout the site, and even if the site is coded nicely all play a role in a site's SERP ranking. So, here are other strategies outside keywords that can help Right Fit Shoes rise in the search rankings.

Use of a ton of visual content throughout the site, including pictures of shoes from multiple angles on the product pages
- Need to include lots of pictures anyways since it's an online marketplace
- Keywords and brand names should be used in the image file and the "alt" tags (describes the image)
- Product description that accompanies the image should also include keywords
Sitemap.xml file included in root of domain
- Includes additional information about the site, including importance of site and when it was last updated
- Submitted to search engines
Use web standards in search and navigation
- Easy to understand since it's standardized across the web
- Use of lots of filter in search
Use of social media sharing to create incoming links to the site
- Facebook advertisements
- Own social media accounts posting about the site with content and links
- Use of social media influencers posting about the site and creating content about our brand
Establish our brand in communities and blogs that have an interest in footwear
- Will write blog posts that will link back to the site
Faster loading caused by dedicated hosting

Online Marketing and Advertising

SEO is a free way of marketing Right Fit Shoes, but I highly suggest also paying for some advertising. Using Google AdWords will influence SERP ranking by paying for placement. I think this would be most effective on keywords with very high competition, such as shoes, so the site will be higher ranked than notable competitors. Targeted social media advertising through Facebook and other social media sites would also help spread our brand.

Both approaches should always come back to our app since that is what separates us from the competition. Our uniqueness is our selling point.

ANALYTICS AND TESTING

TESTING AND ANALYTICS

I highly suggest uses an Agile approach to development. This approach has a ton of testing, which is going to be needed to make sure the app of functional upon release, the online store is easy to navigate for users, and that transactions through the site work and are secure. This approach involves multiple stages called "sprints," each sprint has planning, development, testing, and review stages within. This allows constant positive change throughout the development process.

Testing

When it comes to testing the site and app, there are two main testing methods I would use. For the app, I would do normal usability testing. This involves letting users try out the app themselves to see if measuring their own feet is not only easy but that it actually works. This lets us pinpoint issues through actual use. It might be a good idea to guide the testing users through specific tasks. These tasks will be the desired use of the app and site upon release, and most likely, they will be the main features of both. So, it's important that users go through these tasks to make sure there are no issues.

For the marketplace and online site, usability testing with guided tasks could also be used and I definitely suggest that. Specific tasks such as making purchase are integral to the site and need to work upon release. Another test that could be used is click maps. These heat charts of sorts show how users on average interact with the site. This allows extraneous content that has little interaction on the click maps to be removed. In turn, attention can then be focused on the content that matters on the site since the click maps show their high level of interaction.

Analytics

Analytics allows Right Fit Shoes to see how effective our site is doing in SERP and through design. I suggest using Google Analytics since it has the most robust offering of analytics when it comes to looking at the site. Although it offers a lot, there are a few pieces of information that should definitely be focused on more than others:

Impressions - how many users have viewed our site through SERPs, online advertisements
- shows how effective the marketing has been
Bounce rate - percentage of sessions (group of interactions by a user on our site) that were single page visits
- As an online marketplace, you want this low
- Want users to browse the site (more likely to make a purchase if browsing)
Return users - session marked as second time or more
- Means first interaction with site is positive
- Either returning to browse more or made a purchase before and are making another one
Unique users - session marked as first time
- Shows reach of our marketing efforts
- Want to constantly be increasing
Conversion rate - percentage of "goal completion" to total sessions on site
- "Goal completion" on our site means purchases or in the case of the app, making a profile on the site
- Want high conversion rate on the site because it means users are buying shoes through the site
- Browsing on the site is great, but purchases need to be made for Right Fit Shoes to make money

Google Analytics also offers "user flows." These show how users on average navigate through out site in a single session. It also shows where users leave the site, which can indicate problems in the navigation. The ideal user flow would end in a user making a purchase although some browsing would show the navigation on the site is easy to understand for the average user. Essentially, user flows can show the potential pitfalls of the navigation of the site.