4 Steps to Better Conversion Rates
| Category: Online Promotion | Date: 2003-06-23 |
I am going to foreshadow your future and assume that there will come a time where your increased positioning may not show you the sales figures that encourage continuation. Before you nix your plans for future Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or even go so far as to devalue the hard work that you or your SEM provider have done analyze the traffic concurrent with an in depth site analysis to determine if your site effectively promotes your products and services. The few simple steps outlined below will get you on track to better results from your SEM.
Step 1: Site Appeal
It is a human characteristic to exude an attractive appearance. Our appeal allows us to attract desirable partners to carry on with the circle of life. Appeal has ripple effects throughout our society and much of our pop culture and our consumer habits are based off of this same principle.
The appeal of your website is no different and does not have an exemption of being a victim of being attractive. Your site will be appealing if it is well balanced and congruent with the nature of website design amongst the competitors in your particular industry. Imitation is the highest form of flattery; sure enough too, retail companies worldwide mimic characteristics of their successful competitors.
Attract your visitors and retain your visitors by helping them find what they need. Make sure the purpose of your business is not a question upon the customer’s first visit to your website. Do not let your customer ask the question, “what does this company do?” Believe it or not many sites fall into that situation and ultimately lose business as a result, watch for this big faux pas of site design and fix it if you find that someone could potentially ask that question.
Step 2: Type of Visitor
All visitors are not created equal. If you’re a number hog and your only factor for determining the success of a marketing program is hits, impressions, page views or sessions then perhaps you’re not analyzing your crucial site data properly. Do not lump all visitors into one category.
If you are a number hog and only look at raw server data do yourself and your profits a favor by investing in a high level stat package that can analyze the data and traffic for you. Find a package that can be installed in your site that will track your traffic to the nth degree. What you want to get out of your stat package aside from conversion rate and total traffic is to get a better picture of who you are attracting to your website. The wrong visitors waste time and bandwidth and slow you down from serving the right people. Focus on attracting people that want and need you. Sounds like real life doesn’t it?
Your choice of keywords is the major factor in traffic quality. The general high volume keywords will undoubtedly drive you copious volumes of traffic but this probably alone will not increase your conversion ratio. While I don’t always agree that volume is the answer, you will find the right people through volume and volume will more quickly build brand and company awareness for you. Select your keywords carefully and be careful not to lose the focus of particular areas of your website by stuffing pages with irrelevant keywords. Build your site or optimize your site to benefit from targeted terms.
Step 3: Point of Entry
Do you make your customer work too hard to buy from you? Do your customers get confused, or lost in your website and simply forget to buy? How would you perceive a new store that does not use it’s main entrance but rather blocks it off and has all traffic enter through a basement door? I assume that you would be taken aback by the situation and take your business elsewhere. This example, while comical is a trait indicative of many online retailers that notice poor conversion rates. Americans have become accustomed to buying a certain way and all too often websites attempt to reinvent the sales process. I assure you that if you utilize search engines to direct traffic to certain products and specials the same way that store circulars bring you to the store for a specific product then you will be on a path to higher conversion rates.
Look at your latest traffic report to view the typical path of traffic on your site. How is your customer introduced to your website? Does your customer start at your index page and navigate their way to their purchase? Does your customer enter your website under a specific category? Does your traffic go directly to a specific product page?
The point at which your customer enters your website will determine their chances of buying. The logic for this assumption is simple; as we saw in the example above if you confuse your customer they will not be comfortable with your site and will probably seek alternatives. Yes, confusing your customer and giving them an uneasy feeling will lose sales even if you have the best price in the world.
Use your SEM properly and target your traffic as much as possible. Use 3 levels of keywords. The most broad keywords for your business should appear at the top level of your website. Your site architecture should have slightly more targeted terms at the product category level; this is now your second set of keywords. Your third set of keywords will be dispersed throughout your website at the specific product levels.
The more general the term, the more options you should offer your visitors. The more targeted the term that your customers use to search, the more options they should have when they arrive. The perfect entry point for a general search term should be the point where the customer has the most options. For example, if you sell all types of Barbeques, and the search term is Barbeque bring that visitor to the index page. Let them navigate through the site on their own. Here is a question for you; let’s say the term is “Gas Grill” where should the point of entry be? Send that visitor to a page that displays all of your Gas Grills. Finally, we have a customer who found your website on the search term “Weber Genesis Silver A Gas Grill”. Now that visitor should be directed to a page that only has that single grill on it.
All of this is simple you say? Yes it is simple but to the dismay of many online consumers they reach walls in their shopping processes because websites and more importantly website marketers have not grown accustomed to the fact that this process leads to higher conversion.
Step 4: Price and Value
Regardless of what your company sells, you will probably fall into a situation where the either the price or the value of your products or services will make or break the sale. By the nature of online shopping price is a major factor for snagging new customers, but price alone may not help you convert your traffic effectively. Concurrent with your pricing model you need to express a certain level of value to your customers.
When price is not something that you can compete with, add value through having a fast loading, trustworthy and competent website. Build your stature as an industry leader and of course back this claim up with substantial information. People will buy from you if they trust you; analyze your competition to see where their weak points are. Use your competition’s weakness as your trump card.
Your attention to security will also help your value. Make your customers comfortable with your business and you will capture a larger part of your audience.
The Three Click Strategy
If you have lived and breathed in the business world in the last century you probably have heard the KISS Principle (Keep it simple, stupid!). This principle states that you should remove the “fluff” from the presentation and focus on the empirical message. The KISS principle should permeate the presence of your website and be in congruence with your total SEM strategy.
From the point of entry to the point of sale, keep your navigation and procedural shopping process to three clicks or less.
Thoughts on Shopping Carts
Forrester Research claims that most sales are abandoned in the shopping cart and continues to prove that abandoned sales are lost sales. Unarguably the most cumbersome aspect of online shopping is the inconsistency of shopping carts. The inconsistencies are mainly attributable to the lack of a standard for the development of shopping carts. As an Internet marketer you probably have accepted that regardless of your efforts you will convert traffic in area of 1%. Do your company a favor and explore of the new and exciting shopping carts available to you. If you are simply utilizing technology from 2000 or 2001 you will more than likely have a need to upgrade.
Among the simplest yet most novel improvements to the shopping cart process is the elimination of needless or redundant steps bringing the online shopping experience closer to an offline world sales experience. Modern retail sales and marketing principles enable you and I to have a generally standard, efficient and pleasant shopping experience. I was quite pleased with a recent purchase at a major online golf retailer who makes very efficient use of their customer’s time by consolidating the purchase process to three distinct steps once the choice of product has been made. After steps 1, 2, and 3 I was done and my new Golf club was on the way to me via express shipping. I do commend this retailer for their ability to conveniently channel me into the sale.
Dot your I’s and Cross your T’s
SEM and SEO are the most important steps towards increasing low cost traffic. Your SEM/SEO provider should do their part to ensure proper placement. In your interactions with your SEM/SEO there is a caveat to heed. Ask them to verify whether or not they have experience and can help you with sales optimization and ask what their process is in ensuring that SEM/SEO revolves around a Return on Investment model. In my experience many SEM and SEO providers have not extended their services to include consideration of sales as part of the SEM model. Traffic alone will not make the sale; you must have the right visitor and then furnish that right visitor with the right information. Take the preceding information and apply it step by step to increase your Return on Investment through your current and future SEM/SEO programs.
About the author.
Steve Winkler is the Business Development Manager of the KeywordRanking.com team of Search Engine and marketing professionals.
Steve Winkler has experience in demographic based marketing, interactive marketing programs and business efficiency consultation. Click here for more information, a free ranking report or a free in depth consultation. He can also be reached via email:
swinkler@keywordranking.com
http://www.keywordranking.com/index.cfm?ref=24a
Step 1: Site Appeal
It is a human characteristic to exude an attractive appearance. Our appeal allows us to attract desirable partners to carry on with the circle of life. Appeal has ripple effects throughout our society and much of our pop culture and our consumer habits are based off of this same principle.
The appeal of your website is no different and does not have an exemption of being a victim of being attractive. Your site will be appealing if it is well balanced and congruent with the nature of website design amongst the competitors in your particular industry. Imitation is the highest form of flattery; sure enough too, retail companies worldwide mimic characteristics of their successful competitors.
Attract your visitors and retain your visitors by helping them find what they need. Make sure the purpose of your business is not a question upon the customer’s first visit to your website. Do not let your customer ask the question, “what does this company do?” Believe it or not many sites fall into that situation and ultimately lose business as a result, watch for this big faux pas of site design and fix it if you find that someone could potentially ask that question.
Step 2: Type of Visitor
All visitors are not created equal. If you’re a number hog and your only factor for determining the success of a marketing program is hits, impressions, page views or sessions then perhaps you’re not analyzing your crucial site data properly. Do not lump all visitors into one category.
If you are a number hog and only look at raw server data do yourself and your profits a favor by investing in a high level stat package that can analyze the data and traffic for you. Find a package that can be installed in your site that will track your traffic to the nth degree. What you want to get out of your stat package aside from conversion rate and total traffic is to get a better picture of who you are attracting to your website. The wrong visitors waste time and bandwidth and slow you down from serving the right people. Focus on attracting people that want and need you. Sounds like real life doesn’t it?
Your choice of keywords is the major factor in traffic quality. The general high volume keywords will undoubtedly drive you copious volumes of traffic but this probably alone will not increase your conversion ratio. While I don’t always agree that volume is the answer, you will find the right people through volume and volume will more quickly build brand and company awareness for you. Select your keywords carefully and be careful not to lose the focus of particular areas of your website by stuffing pages with irrelevant keywords. Build your site or optimize your site to benefit from targeted terms.
Step 3: Point of Entry
Do you make your customer work too hard to buy from you? Do your customers get confused, or lost in your website and simply forget to buy? How would you perceive a new store that does not use it’s main entrance but rather blocks it off and has all traffic enter through a basement door? I assume that you would be taken aback by the situation and take your business elsewhere. This example, while comical is a trait indicative of many online retailers that notice poor conversion rates. Americans have become accustomed to buying a certain way and all too often websites attempt to reinvent the sales process. I assure you that if you utilize search engines to direct traffic to certain products and specials the same way that store circulars bring you to the store for a specific product then you will be on a path to higher conversion rates.
Look at your latest traffic report to view the typical path of traffic on your site. How is your customer introduced to your website? Does your customer start at your index page and navigate their way to their purchase? Does your customer enter your website under a specific category? Does your traffic go directly to a specific product page?
The point at which your customer enters your website will determine their chances of buying. The logic for this assumption is simple; as we saw in the example above if you confuse your customer they will not be comfortable with your site and will probably seek alternatives. Yes, confusing your customer and giving them an uneasy feeling will lose sales even if you have the best price in the world.
Use your SEM properly and target your traffic as much as possible. Use 3 levels of keywords. The most broad keywords for your business should appear at the top level of your website. Your site architecture should have slightly more targeted terms at the product category level; this is now your second set of keywords. Your third set of keywords will be dispersed throughout your website at the specific product levels.
The more general the term, the more options you should offer your visitors. The more targeted the term that your customers use to search, the more options they should have when they arrive. The perfect entry point for a general search term should be the point where the customer has the most options. For example, if you sell all types of Barbeques, and the search term is Barbeque bring that visitor to the index page. Let them navigate through the site on their own. Here is a question for you; let’s say the term is “Gas Grill” where should the point of entry be? Send that visitor to a page that displays all of your Gas Grills. Finally, we have a customer who found your website on the search term “Weber Genesis Silver A Gas Grill”. Now that visitor should be directed to a page that only has that single grill on it.
All of this is simple you say? Yes it is simple but to the dismay of many online consumers they reach walls in their shopping processes because websites and more importantly website marketers have not grown accustomed to the fact that this process leads to higher conversion.
Step 4: Price and Value
Regardless of what your company sells, you will probably fall into a situation where the either the price or the value of your products or services will make or break the sale. By the nature of online shopping price is a major factor for snagging new customers, but price alone may not help you convert your traffic effectively. Concurrent with your pricing model you need to express a certain level of value to your customers.
When price is not something that you can compete with, add value through having a fast loading, trustworthy and competent website. Build your stature as an industry leader and of course back this claim up with substantial information. People will buy from you if they trust you; analyze your competition to see where their weak points are. Use your competition’s weakness as your trump card.
Your attention to security will also help your value. Make your customers comfortable with your business and you will capture a larger part of your audience.
The Three Click Strategy
If you have lived and breathed in the business world in the last century you probably have heard the KISS Principle (Keep it simple, stupid!). This principle states that you should remove the “fluff” from the presentation and focus on the empirical message. The KISS principle should permeate the presence of your website and be in congruence with your total SEM strategy.
From the point of entry to the point of sale, keep your navigation and procedural shopping process to three clicks or less.
Thoughts on Shopping Carts
Forrester Research claims that most sales are abandoned in the shopping cart and continues to prove that abandoned sales are lost sales. Unarguably the most cumbersome aspect of online shopping is the inconsistency of shopping carts. The inconsistencies are mainly attributable to the lack of a standard for the development of shopping carts. As an Internet marketer you probably have accepted that regardless of your efforts you will convert traffic in area of 1%. Do your company a favor and explore of the new and exciting shopping carts available to you. If you are simply utilizing technology from 2000 or 2001 you will more than likely have a need to upgrade.
Among the simplest yet most novel improvements to the shopping cart process is the elimination of needless or redundant steps bringing the online shopping experience closer to an offline world sales experience. Modern retail sales and marketing principles enable you and I to have a generally standard, efficient and pleasant shopping experience. I was quite pleased with a recent purchase at a major online golf retailer who makes very efficient use of their customer’s time by consolidating the purchase process to three distinct steps once the choice of product has been made. After steps 1, 2, and 3 I was done and my new Golf club was on the way to me via express shipping. I do commend this retailer for their ability to conveniently channel me into the sale.
Dot your I’s and Cross your T’s
SEM and SEO are the most important steps towards increasing low cost traffic. Your SEM/SEO provider should do their part to ensure proper placement. In your interactions with your SEM/SEO there is a caveat to heed. Ask them to verify whether or not they have experience and can help you with sales optimization and ask what their process is in ensuring that SEM/SEO revolves around a Return on Investment model. In my experience many SEM and SEO providers have not extended their services to include consideration of sales as part of the SEM model. Traffic alone will not make the sale; you must have the right visitor and then furnish that right visitor with the right information. Take the preceding information and apply it step by step to increase your Return on Investment through your current and future SEM/SEO programs.
About the author.
Steve Winkler is the Business Development Manager of the KeywordRanking.com team of Search Engine and marketing professionals.
Steve Winkler has experience in demographic based marketing, interactive marketing programs and business efficiency consultation. Click here for more information, a free ranking report or a free in depth consultation. He can also be reached via email:
swinkler@keywordranking.com
http://www.keywordranking.com/index.cfm?ref=24a
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