by Scott Allen

I’ll be willing to bet that when you hear internet marketing related terms like SEO, SEM, PPC, etc, you don’t think of conversion optimization. And vice versa, when you hear talk of e-commerce conversion improvements, you may not think of internet marketing. If you do, then bravo!…you’re ahead of the pack. If not, that’s ok, but you may want to read on for some reasons why you should be integrating them.

Even though conversion optimization is not technically part of the internet marketing, we always recommend that companies integrate it with SEO and PPC efforts on an ongoing basis. Why’s that? Well, let me answer that by asking another question: What’s the use of  getting a ton of traffic to your site, if it doesn’t impact your bottom line, or your clients’ bottom line? That would be a blatant waste of time, money, and other resources. Whether the goal is sales, new clients, or simply lead generation, it’s essential to tightly integrate conversion optimization within your SEO and/or PPC strategies. 

What Exactly Is Conversion Optimization?

In a nutshell, Conversion Optimization is the process of making it easier for the users to buy from you (or whatever other conversion goal you have, whether it be filling out a contact form, etc). Don’t worry, starting to improve the conversion-friendliness of your site is easier than you think. Let’s take a look at some of the steps in the process and how they can integrate with your search marketing campaigns and strategy.

Step 1: Understand and Improve Usability

Before anyone will want to buy from you, they need to feel comfortable at your site. Take a look at some of the following tips to help make a site more user friendly:

  • Think like a user. Step out of your company mindset for a moment…how would the user feel about this site?
  • How would a new user rate your navigation? Useful? Useless? Easy to navigate? Difficult? Navigation is one of the foundational elements of usability so spend some time making this work for site visitors. The rule of thumb is to make sure navigation gets people to where they want to go in 3 clicks or less.
  • Remove barriers to either conversion or users finding what they need. Is there anything in your site that makes it awkward or difficult to proceed? Fix it.
  • Are the visuals pleasant or do they assault your eyes? Fix it.
  • Study well-executed competitor sites or those with similar functionality to find features you should be using.
  • When it comes to e-commerce usability, Amazon.com is the leader. When lost for ideas, visit their site, and other strong sales sites. It will be sure to spark something.
  • One thing Amazon doesn’t do perfectly, that you should: Use Search Engine Friendly and User Friendly URL’s so visitors can bookmark pages they like and come back. Example of Friendly URL: http://www.yoursite.com/this-is-a-friendly-url.php – Example of Unfriendly URL: http://www.yoursite.com/page.php?section=books&product=89403&q=75839

Step 2: Find Ways to Build Trust

Before people will spend money with you, they need to trust you. Some things to check for on your site:

  • Basic trust-building elements like secure lock icons and “secure ordering” verbage on your shopping cart pages. You’d be surprised and how many shopping cart programs don’t come with these out of the box.
  • Another no-brainer, but for your shopping cart it’s important to make sure your site uses standard e-commerce security features such as SSL encryption for processing orders, and appropriate security certificates that are up to date and work on all browsers. One mistake is that companies sometimes forget to renew certificates, and they expire without them even knowing it. This is more common when there has been a series of web development teams working on the site over time, and information gets lost along the way. With all the identity theft issues people deal with today, they don’t want to send their credit card info over an unsecured connection, so make sure this is in order.
  • Do you have warranty or product guarantee info that the users would love to know about? Do you have any other features or services that make you stand out among competitors? Make sure potential customers/clients know about these, not only on your site, but also in your paid ads. For example, if you have an industry-leading warranty or feature, make sure that there it’s shown prominently (and tastefully) on your site, and also in your paid ads. Not only will the customers convert at a higher rate (from all traffic sources), but if you mention this in your PPC ads it will also increase your click-through rates. This is one example of the value of integration. 

Step 3: Help Users Find Other Products to Buy

This may sound obvious, but make it easier for users to spend money at your site! Just like the “impulse buy” sections right by the checkout counters in many stores, install modules that show other items the user can buy once they’ve added products to the cart, or while they are viewing other products.

Options include:
 

  • Popular products / top sellers
  • Featured products you want to let customers know about
  • Other items also purchased by those who bought that particular item (similar interests)
  • Accessories that go with that product, etc.

Don’t Know Where to Start?

Remember that marketing is about communication.

If you’re stumped for where to start, simply start asking customers or clients for feedback. If you’re really motivated, hold some focus groups. See what they think would make your site better, easier to use, and build more trust. You can gather some incredibly valuable data by talking to the people in your target audience.

Dial-In Your Content

Once you do start to get a handle on this, it’s important to
continually dial in your page content, titles, and META descriptions to
more closely follow the mind of your target audience. Sometimes these
changes can result in an immediate and large boost in traffic, even
though most of the time it’s slow growth. Often as we’ve done research
for clients and discovered that we either need to use an alternate
phrase from what they initially thought, or added a strategic word or
two to the page titles, we’ve seen traffic and sales jump very quickly
after executing the change.

Continually Improve Your Understanding of Your Audience

After you’ve spent some time improving the conversion-friendliness of your site, and learning how your users think, you’ll start to know better how to improve your campaign strategies for organic search optimization and PPC. For example, are you finding out that there are certain phrases that a searcher is more likely to use? Often what you initially think they would search for is very different from what they actually search for, so it’s important to do your competitive market and keyword research on an ongoing basis.

Also, review your contact form submissions and customer service calls. Find out what kinds of words and phrases people are using. This may
give you some additional clues as to what kinds of terms and phrases to
target. Find out what kinds of questions people are asking, because these may result from weaknesses in the site. For example if there is a common question that comes up, it may be a question your site should be answering but isn’t.

One client site we did this with provides an interesting example: By noticing a common question that kept popping up, we created a module to answer that on the product pages. The conversion rate instantly went up by about 50%, along with sales. Also, by adding this information to the page in a search engine friendly manner, the pages started ranking better for some important phrases and terms, driving more traffic to the site, which in turn drove even more sales. If that’s not a case for integration of conversion optimization and internet marketing, then I don’t know what is! 

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

This is an ongoing process, not a one-time deal. Keep working through the process throughout the life of your site, and with each cycle, it will get better and better. I’m confident that the more you do this, the more you’ll see the value of integrating conversion optimization into your internet marketing strategy.

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Continue Reading: Conversion Optimization Part of Internet Marketing? If Not, It Should Be!

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