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If all problems are opportunities, then error messages and error pages are generally missed opportunities. Marketing should be policing the errors reported on their website, messages that are usually written by a techie in IT. John Ekman give us five steps toward writing error messages that say "Yes!" instead of making the visitor feel like an idiot.

"Clothes have powers... over your mind."

If you've seen me present, you notice that I wear a lab coat during my presentations. The reason is that it gives me an unfair advantage. Studies have shown that, when I wear a lab coat, I will make about half the errors in cognitive tests as if I was wearing my street clothes. This video sums it up nicely.

I recently went to a website to buy a new keyboard for a laptop. I found the site with the right price and delivery and put the keyboard in my cart.

When I went to checkout, the first question on the billing form was Gender.

Gender?

Why does an electronics part manufacturer need to know if I'm a man or woman?

It introduced enough doubt in my process that I left -- I abandoned my order.

The unfortunate statistic is that 86% of visitors abandon forms of all kinds. It's doubly heartbreaking when they do so in thei cart, because that costs you ready buyers.

The eleven recommendations made here will set you on a path to reduce your abandonment rates. My favorites are: 5. Use a title that explains why the user needs to sign up 6. Show them their password (who said invisible passwords was a good idea?) 12. Put errors in an obvious place and make them visible. Happy Converting!

How tracking view-throughs of an invisible ad can tell you how much error there is in your view-through analytics.

I recommend a kind of social media strategy that we call "Content-oriented" social media. This strategy revolves around creating content and sharing it with your social networks. If it gets shared around, you generate more qualified prospects to your site to convert. Clicks are measureable, which we like at Conversion Sciences. Here are nine errors we make that limits the amount of sharing that goes on around our content. NOTE: In #8, the writer defines six sharing personas. Note that 7 of the 8 prefer email as a tool of their sharing. This is an article on social media. The insinuation is that email is a social media tool. You may know that I call email the largest social network on the planet. Just saying...

Why do business owners rely on the "expertise" of designers when designers repeatedly fail to improve websites? Because the errors in the system get lost in the blame game. This is the gift of complexity. "People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simplified ones." Let data provide some simplicity.