Posts tagged High
“Dream High 2″ Releases Last Official Poster of its Six Leads – Soompi
Jan 15th
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"Dream High 2" Releases Last Official Poster of its Six Leads
Soompi This last poster also features the six leads of the drama – Park Seo Joon, JB, T-ara's Park Ji Yeon, Kang So Ra, 2AM's Jung Jin Woon , and SISTAR's Hyorin – displaying their character's personalities through their expressions. Park Seo Joon, JB, … |
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SEO & On-Page Optimization: Aim Wide, Not High, Study Says – EContent (press release)
Jan 5th
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SEO & On-Page Optimization: Aim Wide, Not High, Study Says
EContent (press release) Conductor, the SEO technology provider, has come along with some solid new research demonstrating that you can get as much bang for your SEO buck without nabbing top billing on the highest-volume search terms. A study by Conductor's Senior Research … |
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The High Price of Add-on Online Fees
Dec 27th
New rules will go into effect in a month for US airline advertising that take the emphasis off the asterisk and adds transparency to their add-on ticketing fees. Ironically, some of the low-fare airlines such as Spirit are fighting the changes, claiming freedom of speech infringement by the government. I guess the right to deceive their customers should be part of the Constitution, or at least left to free enterprise to sort this all out.
The rules were supposed to go in effect earlier this fall, but were extended to January 24th to give the airlines time to legally outmaneuver them. I mean, to comply.
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It used to be that one went online to avoid add-on fees by travel agents, but as the airlines have made visits to bankruptcy courts more frequent (American is the most recent), they have come up with a variety of ways to squeeze more money out of the public without being so, well, obvious and clear. There are baggage fees, fees for using particular forms of payment, and fees for sitting in those extra-spacious exit row seats. Buying a ticket online is now akin to buying a computer from Dell: there are so many screens to click on to avoid various up-sells (rental cars? hotels? a new printer cartridge, maybe?), that the process is a user experience nightmare.
But the fee asterisk and its associated add-ons are onerous. Spirit, for example, charges all sorts of fees depending on the ticket. They claim the online booking fees are “optional” since you can avoid them by going to the airport and buying your tickets there. Right. As if we don’t spend enough time waiting in airport lines. You can read their fine print here and it will take you a while. Here is a screenshot showing you that a $164 round-trip ticket would cost you an additional $62 in fees.
Granted, they aren’t alone in charging high fees for online purchases. Many of these are local and other taxes that the hospitality industry has to bear. But the objection is how the consumer is informed of them during the online purchase process. Spirit doesn’t divulge all the fees until you have selected your flights and are getting ready to pay them, which is understandable given the many nuances of its complex fee structure. But that is still reprehensible, from an airline that advertises $9 fares that turn into something quite a bit more.
As another example, two tickets for Book of the Mormon, the popular Broadway show, can have almost as much in add-ons as Spirit does. The site Broadway.com is at least a bit more upfront about what they charge you, as you can see here at right.
Easyjet, the European low-fare airline, has different ticketing prices depending on the way you pay. “All bookings will incur a £8.00 booking fee except for bookings made by Visa electron (a debit card that isn’t available in the US and Canada) which is free.” Then you are presented at checkout with this somewhat confusing screen at left.
So the biggest number on the page is the fee that you would pay with a regular credit card, that includes the surcharge. Got it? This is a user experience nightmare.
Concert tickets for years have had high add-on fees, but at least the online concert ticket booking sites are more up-front about them. Still, two tickets for an upcoming show of George Strait for example that started out costing $80 a piece add $13 for various fees at Ticketmaster, more if you want them mailed quickly to you.
That is still less of a proportion than what the airlines add on.
Some thoughts for the future to improve the experience:
- Limit the upsells. I shouldn’t have to click through more screens to decline offers at checkout than it took to buy the original item.
- Disclose the fees at the beginning rather than at the end of the purchase process.
- Simplify, as Thoreau once said. If you need to explain your fees with an asterisk, it is time to get rid of both.
- Keep them below 10% of the total price. Otherwise it isn’t really a fee, it is just generating more revenue.
- Make it easy to find the fees. At least Spirit posts them on their site in plain sight.
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Search In Pics: Google Keg, Panda Bread & Lego High Heels
Dec 16th
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Panda Bread: Android Balloon Art: Free Chromebook Carts: Google-like Lego…
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How Brands Can Fly High on the New Twitter
Dec 15th
Twitter’s much-anticipated redesign launched last week, causing quite a bit of industry buzz. From new brand pages to embeddable tweets, the recent changes to the social networking site are major.
The new version enhances the way we use Tw…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Facebook 101: New High School and College Social Media Classes Help Train Next … – San Francisco Chronicle (press release)
Dec 15th
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Facebook 101: New High School and College Social Media Classes Help Train Next …
San Francisco Chronicle (press release) SEO.com is hiring some of these graduates as growth rates in social media marketing are expected to increase about 33 percent each year, from $400 million in 2010 to $2.3 billion in 2015, according to a forecast by BIA/Kelsey. … |
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Search Retargeting: Delivering Bargains For Search Marketers In High CPC Verticals
Dec 14th
Coupons, Rebates, Daily Deals…it seems everyone is looking for a bargain. But for search marketers, bargains in paid search can be hard to find. CPC prices continue to rise, making it harder and harder for them to expand search campaigns and achieve their goals. However, search retargeting can…
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New SEO Tool by Optimum7 Makes It Easy to Manage High Volume Content – DigitalJournal.com (press release)
Nov 18th
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New SEO Tool by Optimum7 Makes It Easy to Manage High Volume Content
DigitalJournal.com (press release) SmarPost is fully integrated as it monitors the content process step by step, preventing the SEO Specialist from skipping a crucial step. For example, the article will not be allowed to syndicate until it has been published on the clients' website, … |
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How To Use Rich Snippets, Structured Markup For High Powered SEO
Nov 7th
I recently received a question from a reader asking about the way search engines were using microformats and other forms of structured markup. Today, I am going to address that topic from the perspective of its impact on SEO. What is particularly interesting about this topic is that structured…
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View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
How To Use Rich Snippets, Structured Markup For High Powered SEO – Search Engine Land
Nov 7th
 Search Engine Land |
How To Use Rich Snippets, Structured Markup For High Powered SEO
Search Engine Land Today, I am going to address that topic from the perspective of its impact on SEO. What is particularly interesting about this topic is that structured markup provides publishers a way to provide the search engines information about their website(s). … Upcoming Seminar Helps Business Owners Plan 2012 Marketing Strategy |
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