Posts Tagged ‘should’
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Driving traffic to a service website
Posted on March 23rd, 2012 by admin
Driving traffic to a service website
I offer consulting services. How do I drive traffic to my website?
Before you choose traffic-generation techniques, you first might want to take a look at your business model and the nature of your business.
Do you have an option for your clients to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 numbers are a free call inside Australia.
Sites that sell products need traffic volume from shoppers. But service businesses usually operate in identifiable niches, offer information instead of products and rarely sell online. You should place more importance on the type of traffic than the volume.
Most smaller service businesses operate locally rather than globally, usually through referral networks. For those businesses, websites are in essence online brochures that display the business operator’s expertise. This expertise also becomes the basis for attracting the proper traffic to a website, so everything on your site should display that expertise. This means posting useful information that educates visitors or helps them solve their problems. Service business sites should constantly add new information so that visitors come back regularly.
Also, service businesses should issue regular electronic newsletters to clients and potential clients and have the signup information prominently displayed on their sites. You might also write a blog. The information has to be useful or entertaining if it is going to attract readers. Hard selling will simply turn them off.
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pacic media centre | articles: FIJI: News website quotes 'freedom …
Posted on March 16th, 2012 by admin
FIJI: News website quotes ‘freedom call’ by deposed PM
Deposed Fiji PM Laisenia Qarase … seeking more freedom. Photo: Scoop
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Item: 7795
SUVA (Radio NZ International / Pacific Media Watch): A Fiji-based news website has published comments by former Fiji leader Laisenia Qarase calling for more freedoms in the country.
Build relationships with your Website visitors by allowing an easy method of contacting you using Click To Call Button.
The Fiji media has been restricted under emergency rule which was lifted on Saturday.
Fiji Live describes Qarase as the ousted Prime Minister and quotes him as saying things are still restrictive in Fiji.
He says basic human rights like assembly should be allowed and media freedom should be increased.
Qarase told the news organisation that lifting the Public Emergency Regulations and implementing a new Public Order Act are good but that the government should also allow people their rights before putting in place what is necessary.
He is quoted as saying he welcomes any positive decision made by the Bainimarama government.
Fiji Television ran an interview with regime critic and union leader Felix Anthony at the weekend.
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How I cam improve traffic on my website
Posted on February 28th, 2012 by admin
How I cam improve traffic on my website
Please advise How I can improve traffic on online shopping website.
onlineshoppingworld.co.cc
Posts
10
Make sure that you let the people know what you are selling. Make sure you have the products on the homepage of your site.
The perceived value of your company can be upgraded by making your company appear bigger. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your home company to the international stage.
Place your products in multiple categories.
The shopping cart of your online store should be easy to use. Use attractive product images and product descriptions.
152
Join forums and form online communities.
Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.
Posts
118
Since your shopping site is mainly on computers and computer components you should have tried to name it something related instead of a broad name like onlineshoppingoworld.
However to build traffic to your shopping site your first stop should be a PPC network like Google AdSense. Test it out to see how effective it is, try various ad campaigns and monitor your sales compared to the different PPC ads you use.
Another thing you could do is start a blog like onlineshoppingworld.co.cc/blog and post related content that is helpful to people in your Niche. Then you can send the traffic from the blog to your shopping site, you can also do this with a normal content site if you prefer that over a blog.
Without offering any valuable content to visitors you are most likely not going to shop up on the first few pages of google’s results.
You could also try article writing and then in the resource section of the articles link to your website.
That should get you started for now, there is always a lot more you can do to help build traffic.
Want To Create A Website? – The Website Teacher , where you can find all the information and help you need to create a website.
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How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion
Posted on October 6th, 2011 by admin
How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 3
by Steve Jackson
In a recent teleconference I was asked a number of questions about conversion and how to improve a website conversion rate. In the first article of this series we covered what was meant by conversion, what you should look for and what factors have the biggest impact on conversion rates. The second article covered measurement, looking at measurement tools, the differences between log and browser based measurement, average conversion rates and why it helps to track how people use your website. In the final part of this series well be looking at where traffic arrives from and how that effects conversion, specific search engine queries, PPC issues and other general topics.
The perceived worth of the services you offer can be upgraded by chaging the perception of your company – make it appear bigger than it is. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your local business to the international stage.
Question 1
How do keywords effect your conversion rate in terms of SEO/SEM (search engine optimization/marketing)?
Keywords are important for two reasons.
Firstly by using the keywords which relate to your reader you get listed by search engines accordingly meaning that people can find you. Notice that I phrased the last sentence carefully. I said keywords which relate to your reader. Its important to understand that what you consider key words might not be the keywords your visitors are using to reach you.
Secondly and from my point of view more importantly keywords help to qualify your audience after they have arrived at your web site. If you click through from a search engine to a web site and the headline or first paragraph dont strike you as relevant to what youre looking for youre likely to bounce (in other words leave the site). The key words you use help to assure your visitor they are in the right place.
Good use of keywords embedded in your copy and content will firstly help you to attract the right kind of people and secondly help to effectively qualify them as being in the right place. If you manage to attract and qualify them, the reader is then more likely to click through to find out more about what your website is about. If they do that, there is a much higher chance that they will convert to your desired goal.
A good SEO or SEM company in my opinion is one that understands that its about answering the visitors needs, not simply packing the website with related key words and phrases.
Question 2
What Is PPC (pay per click) and is it worth the money? Does it effect conversion?
Pay per click (or PPC) is when you set-up an account with a search engine (Google or Overture for instance) and write ads which appear when a certain keyword is requested by a visitor to the search engine. If a visitor clicks your ad you pay a predefined fee to the search engine. PPC done correctly is a good way to drive people interested in your product or services to your website and clever PPC marketing should positively effect conversion.
One of our clients recently asked me about a PPC campaign (run by another company) that was converting poorly. The reason it was converting poorly is because the ad was optimized to be clicked through and not optimized to qualify the reader. To explain in more detail, the product in the ad was a mobility scooter costing $1850. The ad explained you could get great discounts on mobility scooters and therefore the click through on the ad was quite high. Therefore it was an expensive campaign for our client which didnt convert into sales.
In my opinion this particular ad should try to qualify the reader more by having the price and location in the ad. My reasoning is that a fair percentage of visitors who are interesting in purchasing an expensive item like a mobility scooter will want to see it first. Therefore a good way to actually sell this particular product is to tell the reader the price and location so they know without going to the website whether the product is for them. If they click through and look it doesnt matter if they dont purchase but then come to the physical store and buy because they know the product is in their home town. Price in the ad pre-qualifies that they have the money. So if they have the money, are in the market and are in the same city there is a much higher chance of a purchase.
Another thing you should remember in PPC campaigns is the relevance of the ad to your landing page. Its an often overlooked problem that the PPC ad doesnt relate directly to the landing page. In the case of our client they did this correctly by linking the Google ads directly to the page about mobility scooters. A common mistake however is to link the ads to a home page which expects the visitor to work to find what it is youre selling.
Too many PPC companies work on click through as their gauge of success. They see it as their job to drive the traffic rather than convert it. The idea of successful PPC marketing is simple economics. You spend less than you earn from the visitors that arrive and make a profit. However ads that use the shotgun approach arent doing you any favors. Ads that youre paying for should bring in very interested and pre-qualified visitors that convert at a higher level than free traffic.
Question 3.
When people first arrive at your website they are a mixed crowd (coming from everywhere with different expectations) how do you cater for them all?
You cant please everyone and its fatal to try to do so. You have to figure out your best chance of business from your audience and cater to that area of business. If you have a large varied audience or are running some kind of portal then you should have a clear strategy to attract people to dedicated sections of your website.
For instance in the field of small business there are 1000s of different wants, needs and requirements to cater for. Your landing page (home or index page) is going to have a very hard time catering for all of those people effectively. So quite simply dont try. Figure out by measuring how people find you, what the biggest segment of traffic look for and cater for that group. Then take the second biggest segment of traffic and develop a different landing page for them, using content (and embedded keywords) more relevant to their wants and needs. Its possible to develop big websites which cater for a variety of different audiences but not all in the same page.
For instance, a small business owner in need of a sample contract of employment isnt immediately going to be interested in accountancy services. He might be interested in a resources section which has sample documents for download and lawyers who cater for small businesses. If therefore this visitor arrived to find a website with a plethora of choices when all he wants is a sample contract then he is likely to leave.
If however a section of your website was dedicated solely to business documents and sample downloads for small businesses and the visitor clicks through to this page from a search engine, there is a much higher chance he will browse to find what he is looking for. If then he sees that you have more resources (like an accountancy portal link) then he may even bookmark your site before leaving and thats what you want, repeat visitors.
Question 4.
I know about testing, but how much traffic (people landing on the test page) do you
need to determine if something is not working?
Again the focus is where your visitors are coming from. If you have well targeted traffic arriving at your pages (i.e. PPC or strategic links) a fair sample size is when 1000 people have visited the site (or test page). At least thats the minimum we use to make any decisions with. When traffic is less targeted and bounce rates are higher then you have to make a decision based on larger numbers. If for instance one week 500 visitors arrived at your website which werent your target audience, its fair to say that you should discount them from your testing.
It all depends on you knowing where your visitors are coming from which requires a good measurement tool.
Question 5.
Is it really necessary to be listed at the top of the search engines? What are the other alternatives that clients should consider or is this perceived ‘holy grail’ really something we should all be chasing?
Being at the top of the search engines is not entirely necessary but it certainly helps. You should try to get a listing on the first page of results for your chosen keywords. Put simply if people have to look through to link number 8074 on Google to read about your products and services then youre not likely to be found.
For example if you do a Google search for improving website conversion our site appears in the top position as weve optimized for that key phrase. We hoped that this is what our potential visitor will key in when doing a search. However while this was part of our strategy it was only a very small part as you cannot rely on search engine algorithms to pay your bills.
The alternative and safety net to relying on the all powerful search engine algorithm is to find strategic partners who like what you do and want to re-print your information. That is what people go online to do, find information and surprisingly not enough businesses realize this.
Strategic linking while harder work than submitting your site to search engines works very well. The subscription conversion rate average from our top strategic partners is 31%. By that I mean nearly a 3rd of the visits coming from the partners who re-print our articles subscribe. Because the partners were working with are well known and highly respected they are a great qualification vehicle. Upon visiting our partner website, the visitor reads what weve said (in articles, forum posts, blog entries, advertisements etc.), like what they see, click through to our site and subscribe. In this way the reader arrives warmed up to what you have to say so the conversion rate is much improved.
The added benefit of this is that the more outbound links you have pointing to you, the higher your ranking gets on many of the search engines. Another benefit is that even if you cant get listed on search engines directly for all your keywords, some of the partner sites will do so due to their own visibility, so more paths flow to you. This is a far more effective strategy than SEO/SEM alone.
Summary
This article has been about one subject, relevance. You begin with keywords which relate to and qualify your readers. This helps with search engine visibility and means your visitors feel like they are in the right place when they arrive at your website. PPC campaigns should qualify your audience initially and when clicked should land at a highly relevant and specific landing page. This means your advertisements are working for you and not simply driving traffic which isnt targeted well enough. Your web site message should not try to cater for everyone, it should be specific and relevant to a particular target market. This means that you can focus your message in relation to what your visitor wants. Finally you should find strategic partners who work in related industries with similar target audiences to your own. This means you improve your own visibility to your target audience. In simple terms being relevant means putting the right offer in front of the right people and by getting more of the right people to your website, you improve your conversion rates considerably.
Author: Steve Jackson, Editor – Conversion Chronicles
Steve Jackson is CEO of Aboavista , editor of The Conversion Chronicles and a published writer. You can get a free copy of his e-book sent to you upon subscription to the Chronicles web site.
DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.
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How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1
Posted on September 10th, 2011 by admin
How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1
by Steve Jackson
In a recent teleconference, I was asked a number of questions about specific problems people were having and what I would do if I were in their position. This is the first article in a three part series that we’ll publish over the next few weeks. It will answer specific queries from the teleconference, in the belief that the answers will also help you to solve some of your issues.
The perceived worth of the services you offer can be increased by chaging the perception of your company appear bigger. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your home company to the national stage.
Question 1. What do you mean by conversion? Do you mean getting someone to answer the simplest call to action such as “read more here” or actually selling a product or service?
What you’re talking about here are two different ways to measure your website. “Read More Here” is what I would call a variable affecting your conversion rate. I call these kinds of variables “Micro Conversions” because they are all small (microscopic even) steps toward a full conversion. A micro conversion is something that you should test and measure. “Read More Here” might get a worse click-through rate than “Click here to find out how to win a month’s supply of vintage wine.” So by improving this click through, you get the person browsing to take another small step toward your final website goal. By doing this, you improve your overall conversion rate, which in this case is to get someone to register or subscribe to win a month’s supply of vintage wine. Micro conversions can be tracked by measuring the click through of links, or the read time for content, or the bounce rate for headlines and copy. Full conversion is persuading your visitors to do what you want them to do. In my example, it would be registering to win wine, but it could be subscribe to a newsletter, download an audio file, buy a product, sell a service or whatever, but it should reflect what your website’s business objective is.
Question 2. What strategies would you suggest when there is no “online” conversion possible? I need them to call me for more info, to learn more and to eventually give them a proposal.
There is no such thing as “no online conversion”. You’re looking for leads who will eventually phone you but the visitor is the one with the power. If you don’t give your visitors a reason to let you continue to have a dialog with them, then they won’t. Using opt-in is one answer. If, for instance, you ask for a name, email address and telephone number from your visitor so that he can then get useful information from you in the form of a free report or audio file, you do two things. First, you qualify the visitor as someone who is interested in your services, and second, you get permission to contact him/her again. You need to build into your website a powerful reason for your visitors to give you permission to email or talk to them rather than expect someone to pick up the phone. In your case, you say they need to ring you to learn more. Put what they need to learn into some form that they can opt in to get, such as a white paper, report or audio file. Then you have a conversion rate that is the percentage of people who give you permission to continue the dialog with them by giving you their email address or phone number so that they can learn more about your offering. People visit a website to get information, so give them the means to get it.
Question 3. What if the product you sell is also sold by several others on other websites? How do you get someone who is browsing the Internet to notice your site and want to order from you?
In offline marketing, a successful tactic is differentiation. It’s no different online. If you stand out from your competition, then you get noticed. What makes you different (not necessarily better, just different) from your competition? A USP makes an enormous difference to conversion rates. We improved subscriptions by 11% per month for six months by differentiating ourselves. The second point is that your site should be of use to your visitor. The one thing that all people online have in common is that when they browse they are looking for information. So give your visitors what they want in the form of education. If your potential customers become educated about your offer and take away something useful from your website, they will remember you over your competition.
Question 4. How do you get the address, telephone number and name of the owner of any company that you’re trying to get in touch with to see if they would be interested in what you sell?
You need to get permission from the visitor to get that information. It can’t be done with any tracking tools available. There is a very good reason for this and it’s called privacy. If you or I went online and could have our names, addresses and phone numbers tracked by software, it could be potentially dangerous. Imagine if you were online and were talking in a chat room about going on holiday in a faraway land for the next few weeks and your personal information could be gathered. The person who sees that information then knows when to go to your address and rob you while you’re away. It’s OK to track browser behavior because no personal details are ever tracked. I for one hope it stays that way.
Question 5. What should one look for in the web logs to determine conversion rates?
Web log files are a problem because they record everything. Web logs record every request to your site’s pages from search engine indexes, to email harvester software, link harvesters and visitors. So first you need to filter out from log files the information that isn’t relevant to visitors. Then you’re looking for unique visitors (not visits) or unique sites. Once you have that filtered figure, you have the approximate number of visitors coming to your site, still not close to 100% because of proxy servers recording multiple visitors as one browser, but it’s as close as you can get with log files. Then you divide the number of people who complete the conversion action by the total visitors. That is your conversion rate. If you can get software that doesn’t use logs like IRIS METRICS or log software that works out the filtering like Web Trends, it makes your job much easier.
Question 6. What factors have the biggest impact on conversions on my web site?
The short answer is differentiation, target marketing, your site’s relevance to your desired audience, measurement, experimentation, and most importantly trust.
Differentiation is the first step in the process. You must find a way to stand out from the competition. It should start with the domain name, and continue throughout your entire website’s strategy.
Then in your content, your copy and your design, you must smack your target audience between the eyes. You have to find out exactly what it is they want and answer the wants and needs of that audience.
Relevance is hugely important, too. If you’re running a campaign on Overture or Google with certain keywords, your audience should land at exactly the right place after typing those keywords and finding your website. So if the audience types “Red Vintage Wine” into Overture and your link appears, on clicking through they should be taken to the page on your site talking all about and selling red vintage wine. They shouldn’t land at the home page of your website which has a small link to the red vintage wine section and 5 or 6 other types of wine for sale. Measuring and experimenting is then the key to improving conversion rates. You can’t improve conversion without measurement unless you’re making educated guesses or you’re just plain lucky. So get a good measurement system, learn what it’s all about, and test your changes. Finally and most importantly trust. You can’t sell anything if your audience doesn’t trust you. You can help them to trust you by prominently displaying your privacy policy, your shipping procedure, the fact that you use SSL encrypted protection for the forms on your site, that hundreds of satisfied customers have already bought from your store, that you make it very easy to find contact information such as a name and address as well as support via email. You could educate via your website with articles and ‘how to sections’ or newsletters and instill trust over time. In short, your prospect must trust you to part with his or her money.
What’s next?
In part two of this series , we’ll be looking at measurement software tools, the pros and cons of logs versus ASP vendors, average conversion rates, why it helps to track visitor activity using the software which is available, and what you should test and tweak to improve conversion rates.
Steve Jackson is CEO of Aboavista, editor of The Conversion Chronicles and a published writer. Visit his web site at http://www.conversionchronicles.com for more information.
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DrivingSales.com | The Largest Automotive Marketing & Car …
Posted on September 3rd, 2011 by admin
Which Event Should I Attend This Fall?
My statement on this is simple…. The only point of discussion that is important is how can an influential group of thought leaders, evangelists, experts and professionals, help drive the Auto Industry at all levels to become a more professional, e…
Do you have the ability for your to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 numbers are a free call inside Australia.
Lessons Learned from Jack Handey
Congratulations on a really big month. Obviously, visualizing your success at the beginning of your month and each day as you moved forward meant a lot. I hope that confidence and your unquestioning will to win results in your best year ever, and y…
Finish-Line Syndrome
Bryan, That’s outside of box thinking and you know that is not encouraged or allowed….lol. I like it. But it screams to me the old adage “we get what we pay for”. Thank you my man, you got some people thinking…
Which Event Should I Attend This Fall?
…again, as I said before, I’m not trying to “bash” your event, just illustrate the differences in the three. I included your keynotes in the “outside industry” speaker stats. As soon as I’m able, I can update your attendance numbers but I need to k…
Videos
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How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1
Posted on September 1st, 2011 by admin
How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1
by Steve Jackson
In a recent teleconference, I was asked a number of questions about specific problems people were having and what I would do if I were in their position. This is the first article in a three part series that we’ll publish over the next few weeks. It will answer specific queries from the teleconference, in the belief that the answers will also help you to solve some of your issues.
The perceived value of the services you offer can be increased by making your company appear bigger. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your home company to the international stage.
Question 1. What do you mean by conversion? Do you mean getting someone to answer the simplest call to action such as “read more here” or actually selling a product or service?
What you’re talking about here are two different ways to measure your website. “Read More Here” is what I would call a variable affecting your conversion rate. I call these kinds of variables “Micro Conversions” because they are all small (microscopic even) steps toward a full conversion. A micro conversion is something that you should test and measure. “Read More Here” might get a worse click-through rate than “Click here to find out how to win a month’s supply of vintage wine.” So by improving this click through, you get the person browsing to take another small step toward your final website goal. By doing this, you improve your overall conversion rate, which in this case is to get someone to register or subscribe to win a month’s supply of vintage wine. Micro conversions can be tracked by measuring the click through of links, or the read time for content, or the bounce rate for headlines and copy. Full conversion is persuading your visitors to do what you want them to do. In my example, it would be registering to win wine, but it could be subscribe to a newsletter, download an audio file, buy a product, sell a service or whatever, but it should reflect what your website’s business objective is.
Question 2. What strategies would you suggest when there is no “online” conversion possible? I need them to call me for more info, to learn more and to eventually give them a proposal.
There is no such thing as “no online conversion”. You’re looking for leads who will eventually phone you but the visitor is the one with the power. If you don’t give your visitors a reason to let you continue to have a dialog with them, then they won’t. Using opt-in is one answer. If, for instance, you ask for a name, email address and telephone number from your visitor so that he can then get useful information from you in the form of a free report or audio file, you do two things. First, you qualify the visitor as someone who is interested in your services, and second, you get permission to contact him/her again. You need to build into your website a powerful reason for your visitors to give you permission to email or talk to them rather than expect someone to pick up the phone. In your case, you say they need to ring you to learn more. Put what they need to learn into some form that they can opt in to get, such as a white paper, report or audio file. Then you have a conversion rate that is the percentage of people who give you permission to continue the dialog with them by giving you their email address or phone number so that they can learn more about your offering. People visit a website to get information, so give them the means to get it.
Question 3. What if the product you sell is also sold by several others on other websites? How do you get someone who is browsing the Internet to notice your site and want to order from you?
In offline marketing, a successful tactic is differentiation. It’s no different online. If you stand out from your competition, then you get noticed. What makes you different (not necessarily better, just different) from your competition? A USP makes an enormous difference to conversion rates. We improved subscriptions by 11% per month for six months by differentiating ourselves. The second point is that your site should be of use to your visitor. The one thing that all people online have in common is that when they browse they are looking for information. So give your visitors what they want in the form of education. If your potential customers become educated about your offer and take away something useful from your website, they will remember you over your competition.
Question 4. How do you get the address, telephone number and name of the owner of any company that you’re trying to get in touch with to see if they would be interested in what you sell?
You need to get permission from the visitor to get that information. It can’t be done with any tracking tools available. There is a very good reason for this and it’s called privacy. If you or I went online and could have our names, addresses and phone numbers tracked by software, it could be potentially dangerous. Imagine if you were online and were talking in a chat room about going on holiday in a faraway land for the next few weeks and your personal information could be gathered. The person who sees that information then knows when to go to your address and rob you while you’re away. It’s OK to track browser behavior because no personal details are ever tracked. I for one hope it stays that way.
Question 5. What should one look for in the web logs to determine conversion rates?
Web log files are a problem because they record everything. Web logs record every request to your site’s pages from search engine indexes, to email harvester software, link harvesters and visitors. So first you need to filter out from log files the information that isn’t relevant to visitors. Then you’re looking for unique visitors (not visits) or unique sites. Once you have that filtered figure, you have the approximate number of visitors coming to your site, still not close to 100% because of proxy servers recording multiple visitors as one browser, but it’s as close as you can get with log files. Then you divide the number of people who complete the conversion action by the total visitors. That is your conversion rate. If you can get software that doesn’t use logs like IRIS METRICS or log software that works out the filtering like Web Trends, it makes your job much easier.
Question 6. What factors have the biggest impact on conversions on my web site?
The short answer is differentiation, target marketing, your site’s relevance to your desired audience, measurement, experimentation, and most importantly trust.
Differentiation is the first step in the process. You must find a way to stand out from the competition. It should start with the domain name, and continue throughout your entire website’s strategy.
Then in your content, your copy and your design, you must smack your target audience between the eyes. You have to find out exactly what it is they want and answer the wants and needs of that audience.
Relevance is hugely important, too. If you’re running a campaign on Overture or Google with certain keywords, your audience should land at exactly the right place after typing those keywords and finding your website. So if the audience types “Red Vintage Wine” into Overture and your link appears, on clicking through they should be taken to the page on your site talking all about and selling red vintage wine. They shouldn’t land at the home page of your website which has a small link to the red vintage wine section and 5 or 6 other types of wine for sale. Measuring and experimenting is then the key to improving conversion rates. You can’t improve conversion without measurement unless you’re making educated guesses or you’re just plain lucky. So get a good measurement system, learn what it’s all about, and test your changes. Finally and most importantly trust. You can’t sell anything if your audience doesn’t trust you. You can help them to trust you by prominently displaying your privacy policy, your shipping procedure, the fact that you use SSL encrypted protection for the forms on your site, that hundreds of satisfied customers have already bought from your store, that you make it very easy to find contact information such as a name and address as well as support via email. You could educate via your website with articles and ‘how to sections’ or newsletters and instill trust over time. In short, your prospect must trust you to part with his or her money.
What’s next?
In part two of this series , we’ll be looking at measurement software tools, the pros and cons of logs versus ASP vendors, average conversion rates, why it helps to track visitor activity using the software which is available, and what you should test and tweak to improve conversion rates.
Steve Jackson is CEO of Aboavista, editor of The Conversion Chronicles and a published writer. Visit his web site at http://www.conversionchronicles.com for more information.
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How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1
Posted on August 17th, 2011 by admin
How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 1
by Steve Jackson
In a recent teleconference, I was asked a number of questions about specific problems people were having and what I would do if I were in their position. This is the first article in a three part series that we’ll publish over the next few weeks. It will answer specific queries from the teleconference, in the belief that the answers will also help you to solve some of your issues.
The perceived worth of your company can be upgraded by making your company – make it appear bigger than it is. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your home business to the international stage.
Question 1. What do you mean by conversion? Do you mean getting someone to answer the simplest call to action such as “read more here” or actually selling a product or service?
What you’re talking about here are two different ways to measure your website. “Read More Here” is what I would call a variable affecting your conversion rate. I call these kinds of variables “Micro Conversions” because they are all small (microscopic even) steps toward a full conversion. A micro conversion is something that you should test and measure. “Read More Here” might get a worse click-through rate than “Click here to find out how to win a month’s supply of vintage wine.” So by improving this click through, you get the person browsing to take another small step toward your final website goal. By doing this, you improve your overall conversion rate, which in this case is to get someone to register or subscribe to win a month’s supply of vintage wine. Micro conversions can be tracked by measuring the click through of links, or the read time for content, or the bounce rate for headlines and copy. Full conversion is persuading your visitors to do what you want them to do. In my example, it would be registering to win wine, but it could be subscribe to a newsletter, download an audio file, buy a product, sell a service or whatever, but it should reflect what your website’s business objective is.
Question 2. What strategies would you suggest when there is no “online” conversion possible? I need them to call me for more info, to learn more and to eventually give them a proposal.
There is no such thing as “no online conversion”. You’re looking for leads who will eventually phone you but the visitor is the one with the power. If you don’t give your visitors a reason to let you continue to have a dialog with them, then they won’t. Using opt-in is one answer. If, for instance, you ask for a name, email address and telephone number from your visitor so that he can then get useful information from you in the form of a free report or audio file, you do two things. First, you qualify the visitor as someone who is interested in your services, and second, you get permission to contact him/her again. You need to build into your website a powerful reason for your visitors to give you permission to email or talk to them rather than expect someone to pick up the phone. In your case, you say they need to ring you to learn more. Put what they need to learn into some form that they can opt in to get, such as a white paper, report or audio file. Then you have a conversion rate that is the percentage of people who give you permission to continue the dialog with them by giving you their email address or phone number so that they can learn more about your offering. People visit a website to get information, so give them the means to get it.
Question 3. What if the product you sell is also sold by several others on other websites? How do you get someone who is browsing the Internet to notice your site and want to order from you?
In offline marketing, a successful tactic is differentiation. It’s no different online. If you stand out from your competition, then you get noticed. What makes you different (not necessarily better, just different) from your competition? A USP makes an enormous difference to conversion rates. We improved subscriptions by 11% per month for six months by differentiating ourselves. The second point is that your site should be of use to your visitor. The one thing that all people online have in common is that when they browse they are looking for information. So give your visitors what they want in the form of education. If your potential customers become educated about your offer and take away something useful from your website, they will remember you over your competition.
Question 4. How do you get the address, telephone number and name of the owner of any company that you’re trying to get in touch with to see if they would be interested in what you sell?
You need to get permission from the visitor to get that information. It can’t be done with any tracking tools available. There is a very good reason for this and it’s called privacy. If you or I went online and could have our names, addresses and phone numbers tracked by software, it could be potentially dangerous. Imagine if you were online and were talking in a chat room about going on holiday in a faraway land for the next few weeks and your personal information could be gathered. The person who sees that information then knows when to go to your address and rob you while you’re away. It’s OK to track browser behavior because no personal details are ever tracked. I for one hope it stays that way.
Question 5. What should one look for in the web logs to determine conversion rates?
Web log files are a problem because they record everything. Web logs record every request to your site’s pages from search engine indexes, to email harvester software, link harvesters and visitors. So first you need to filter out from log files the information that isn’t relevant to visitors. Then you’re looking for unique visitors (not visits) or unique sites. Once you have that filtered figure, you have the approximate number of visitors coming to your site, still not close to 100% because of proxy servers recording multiple visitors as one browser, but it’s as close as you can get with log files. Then you divide the number of people who complete the conversion action by the total visitors. That is your conversion rate. If you can get software that doesn’t use logs like IRIS METRICS or log software that works out the filtering like Web Trends, it makes your job much easier.
Question 6. What factors have the biggest impact on conversions on my web site?
The short answer is differentiation, target marketing, your site’s relevance to your desired audience, measurement, experimentation, and most importantly trust.
Differentiation is the first step in the process. You must find a way to stand out from the competition. It should start with the domain name, and continue throughout your entire website’s strategy.
Then in your content, your copy and your design, you must smack your target audience between the eyes. You have to find out exactly what it is they want and answer the wants and needs of that audience.
Relevance is hugely important, too. If you’re running a campaign on Overture or Google with certain keywords, your audience should land at exactly the right place after typing those keywords and finding your website. So if the audience types “Red Vintage Wine” into Overture and your link appears, on clicking through they should be taken to the page on your site talking all about and selling red vintage wine. They shouldn’t land at the home page of your website which has a small link to the red vintage wine section and 5 or 6 other types of wine for sale. Measuring and experimenting is then the key to improving conversion rates. You can’t improve conversion without measurement unless you’re making educated guesses or you’re just plain lucky. So get a good measurement system, learn what it’s all about, and test your changes. Finally and most importantly trust. You can’t sell anything if your audience doesn’t trust you. You can help them to trust you by prominently displaying your privacy policy, your shipping procedure, the fact that you use SSL encrypted protection for the forms on your site, that hundreds of satisfied customers have already bought from your store, that you make it very easy to find contact information such as a name and address as well as support via email. You could educate via your website with articles and ‘how to sections’ or newsletters and instill trust over time. In short, your prospect must trust you to part with his or her money.
What’s next?
In part two of this series , we’ll be looking at measurement software tools, the pros and cons of logs versus ASP vendors, average conversion rates, why it helps to track visitor activity using the software which is available, and what you should test and tweak to improve conversion rates.
Steve Jackson is CEO of Aboavista, editor of The Conversion Chronicles and a published writer. Visit his web site at http://www.conversionchronicles.com for more information.
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Ecommerce Tools – Driving Sales
Posted on May 20th, 2011 by admin
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Ecommerce Tools – Driving Sales
Wonder why you are getting lots of traffic but not many sales? Below are some tools for increasing conversion rates in your store.
Clear And Pronounced Calls-To-Action. Create clear buttons or steps for the customer to follow to purchase your products. The more clicks it takes to purchase a product, the more likely you are to lose the customer’s interest and their business. You should be able to purchase products on your home page, or within one click of the home page. “Add To Cart” buttons and “Checkout” buttons should be high on your pages and should be a bright or contrasting color so that they stand out. It is also helpful to make the calls-to-action slightly larger.
Do you have the ability for your clients to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 services are a toll free services inside Australia.
Keep Navigation Simple. If you have complex navigation, too much navigation, or any type of navigation that is confusing or that could distract the customer from finding the link that they are looking for, then you are likely to lose their business. Links that are not as popular, or links that customers do not need to use often you should put in the footer, or at least below the fold on the page.
Special Offers. Customers like to know that they are getting a deal on products. You are likey to get more sales for products at a slightly discounted price, rather than less sales at a slightly higher price. You can offer specials like buying multiples to get a discount, a free product with every order, or just regular “on sale” amounts.
Display Safe Shopping And Security Logos. Customers should feel comfortable when they are purchasing products from your website. You will want to include different security logos on your website indicating that your website is secure; this will put your customers’ minds at ease. You can get these logos by using the ShopSite security logo, contacting your SSL provider to get their logo, as well as contacting your credit card processor to get their logo. At the very minimum, these logos should be placed on the cart pages where the customer is entering their personal information, but it is useful to have them throughout your website.
Include All Store Information. Providing “About Us,” “Contact Us,” “Privacy Policy,” and “Return Policy” pages and information will allow customers to get all their questions about you and your company answered before they purchase from your website.
Clearly Indicate Checkout Process. In addition to letting the customer see their final shipping, tax and order costs before continuing through the checkout process, you will want to have a checkout process indicator to let customers know how far along in the checkout process they are. If you have three steps, (1) Shopping Cart, (2) Shipping & Billing, (3) Receipt, you will want to list all three steps on the first page of the checkout, so that customers know how long it takes to checkout. Once the customer moves to the Shipping & Billing screen, the progress bar should indicate that they are at step 2 of 3.
Shipping, Fast & Included Free. If a customer can purchase a product online in a physical store for the same price, why would they purchase online and pay for shipping? Free shipping is always an incentive to purchase from an online store. You will also want to clearly indicate the delivery date, such as how many business days the customer can expect before receiving their order.
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7 tips for a good Call to Action button for Internet Marketing
Posted on May 5th, 2011 by admin
Build trust with your Website visitors by allowing an easy method of contacting you using Click To Call Button.
Technorati |
So we have done the hard work on getting the internet to our website, but sometimes we let them slip away with no call to action!
Every website should have a call to action, a response you want users to complete. So how do you create an effective call to action?
Having an effective call to action is an essential part of any website. It is not just limited to ecommerce sites. Every website should have an objective of what it want the user to do, or complete filling in a contact form to request for information, signup for a newsletter or to request a demo.
A call to action provides…
Focus to your site
A way to measure your sites success
Engage with the users of your website
Direction to your users
So how do create a great call to action!
1: Why do they need it?
Like all sales there has to be a need, so has your site created a need that your call to action can fix? So take this call to action found on HubSpot.com. They have created the need with “Optimize your website to get found by more prospects and generate more leads”. Then by clicking on the call to actions, we can start the process of fixing issues and start generating more leads!
2: Offer a little more
Sometimes you may have to sweeten the deal to encourage users to complete a call to action. In this case it is offering a change for an exclusive phone! There has to be that reason to click now, and why.
3. Have a small limit of distinct call to actions
It is also important to be focused in your calls to action. Too many and the user becomes overwhelmed. Studies in supermarkets have shown that if the shopper is presented with too many varieties they are less likely to make a purchase. So why try and make the same error on your website.
By limiting the number of choices a user has to make we reduce the amount of mental effort. Effectively you guide the user around the site step by step.
For example if you look at the Skype home page, they only have 3 “call to action” buttons.
4: Use active and urgent buttons
A call to action should clearly tell users what you want them to do. They should include active words such as:
Call