no entry without a house number and street

Another example to file under 'no big deal' - but if something is worth doing it is worth doing it right.

I was ordering a book from Oxford University Press [us lecturers get them free :-)]  and this was part of the 'checkout' process:

Note how the 'house number and street' has no asterisk, and so is not a 'must fill in field' -  and yet I was not allowed to proceed without something being in it. I appreciate that it is rare to have nothing to put in this box - but my work address is a campus with no numbers or streets. 

as safe as the Royal Bank of Scotland?

Like a lot of people [I suspect] I sometimes register with websites and then don't visit them again for quite a while  by which tine, of course, I've forgotten the username and password I set up for the account. That happened tome today when I went to the website of one of my credit cards. I typed in what I thought was my username, but got this...

After a couple of other tries I decided that it would seem I had not registered with the account, so went to the 'register' form - where I typed in my a username - the one that had been rejected on the 'sign in' form, and yet I got this ...

So how come RBS's system one form said the username did not exist - but on another that it did?

elephants and double glazing?

For reasons I won't go into, I was looking for a line from the film 'The Elephant Man' and came across this site. Let's ignore the fact that a website about quotes in films had no quotes from this film - take a look at the ads on the right.

Now ... AdSense is meant to serve up ads that are in sync with the content of the web page - but can you find a connection between anything on this page and windows or double glazing? And - in case you are wondering - no, I haven't been searching for, or looking at, double glazing websites in the recent past [Google tracks your web usage to deliver 'relevant' ads].

is it the un-seasonal weather?

OK, so as I type this towards the end of May [in the UK] it is raining, windy and a bit chilly outside - but it is still not winter. Which is what it would seem to be on this page of the Debenhams website which I looked at this morning.

A statutory lesson that website content management - like the seasons - is an ongoing thing.

this airline ad lands in the wrong place

I'm off to Athens [again] in the summer, so wanted to book a hotel - and as I knew the one I wanted to stay in, simply typed its name into Google - and this is the SERP, note the top ad [ie, the one that is the most expensive for the advertiser*]

So I clicked on that ad, and got this page:

Note that it is part of the 'holiday booking' page - and so I could only find the cost of the hotel if I put in flight details as well. That was no good to me as my flight was already booked on another airline, and anyway easyJet don't fly to Athens from my local airport.

So I clicked on the 'where to stay' link and got this page:

But I then had to search for the hotel I wanted. Guess what, I gave up and booked on the hotel's own website - which carried the claim 'guaranteed cheaper than any other website'. An ambitious claim and [obviously] part of  a wider strategy. Students of mine and readers of my book will recognise this issue in my Gilded Truffle Hotel case study.

* OK, I know there are other issues, but it does mean that easyJet are willing to pay to be the number one listing.

a not-so-clear call to action

This example has a double whammy  - a direct-marketing email without a call to action, and some invisible text. In chapter three of my book I raise what I think is the basic issue of putting dark text on a light background [as I do on all my sites] to make it easy to read. Indeed, I give my students a 'bad web page' exercise with an example of light text on a light background and they usually scoff at the idea of a commercial web developer making such an error - well, take a look at this:

Furthermore, the 'hidden' text is the call to action - arguably the most important words on the email. Ho hum. 

landing page[s] that land you on a different continent

Ironically, I came across this at the end of a week when I was delivering sessions on online advertising - which, of course, includes landing pages. I was looking for a small netbook, and came across this ad - note that I was searching on Google.co.uk:

Rather bizarrely, clicking on that ad took me to an American web page. I suspect it was a glitch somewhere along the line, but still one that shouldn't happen.

 

And then only a couple of days later I received an email from Amazon, promoting their new Kindle book reader

 ...and when I opened the email I got this - note the price

... and when I clicked on the link in the email I got this page

Ho hum. It seem that even one of the best in the business get it wrong sometimes.

football registration again grrrrrrr

Unlike a previous entry on this subject [see Register - just to check availability?] this time I was off to see my team, on this occasion playing at Middlesbrough. When I've been there before I just got there a bit early and stood in the queue at the ticket office before the match - but this time I was going straight from work, so thought pre-ordering the ticket would save time. Sadly, however, although I might never [ever, ever, ever] buy another ticket from them, Middlesborough Football Club decided that my credit card details were not enough and insisted I register to create an account.

In the event, just set off a bit earlier and stood in the line to buy a ticket. And guess what, they didn't insist that I create an account. 

Footnote, my team grabbed an undeserved equaliser in the 93rd minute to draw the match 1-1.

even for free - it's poor value

I was doing some research into integrated marketing and wanted to check the claim of offline ads against the advertiser's online offerings, and found myself on the website of whatsmycarworth.co.uk - so I decided to take up their offer of a free valuation of my car. But found myself stuck at this point:

You see, the system allowed me to select my car as being in a group made from '04 onwards, but then limited the exact year to '08 or '09 - mine was registered in 2004.

When I checked, there was another option before this page for my specific car, so in part is was my fault - but why did the system allow me to choose this option when it clearly isn't an option. As it was, I could choose the correct option because I knew the bhp of my car - I wonder how many other people would have been able to do so? [I suspect many don't even know bhp stands for 'brake horse power'].

hotel pricing small print

Over the years I have been a regular visitor to Athens - the one in Greece - and one of my favourite hotels is the Sol Melia [formerly the Hotel Georgio]. 

I am scheduled to go back this summer and I hope to stay there again - part of the reason why I signed up for their newsletter [it is actually a chain of hotels]. The newsletters are generally quite good, but in the one that came today, I noticed this in the small print:

Whilst the first four points are valid, why send out a newsletter which includes featured prices and yet says that the prices might not be valid? I can only assume that this is to cover the fact that some folk might take a while to open the email, but it does say on receipt, not when you read it. And if you are going to feature prices, why not fix those prices for a few days?  Just seems strange to me.