CRO and Keyword Advertising

Keyword advertising costs money.

Now that we’ve stated the obvious, let’s look at another simple statement of truth. Keyword advertising offers one of the most cost effective and flexible mediums to advertise your business.

The second ‘truth’ depends greatly on your commitment to finding how best to convert ad clickers, into customers. The smartest businesses focus on conversion rates. It’s smart business, because it gleans the greatest return on your advertising investment.

Keywords and the Diverse Internet Audience

Because the internet involves such a diverse group of users, one size will not fit all. Good keyword advertisers internalize this concept when writing ad copy. The words you use, affect the types of users you attract.

Many internet users search before buying. This group searches using more general keywords—they seek information to make a final decision.  Other users want to commit to a purchase. These users tend to search using specific product names or brands. Professional internet marketers know that each group requires its own ad text.

Include Keywords in Multivariate Testing

When implementing CRO, remember your groups, and their varying motivations. Landing pages consume a great deal of the conversion conversation. Multivariate testing often relies on testing variations of landing pages, but not variations in keyword text.

Your ad text may compel one market segment at the initial click, while your landing page compels clicks from a different segment. You then begin the ‘black box’ task of reworking your landing page. Changes in your ad text, may be the key to unleashing an already effective landing page. Using this approach saves work, and has the potential to reveal valuable market segments.

SEO and CRO: The Long and Short of It

If your small business maintains a website, you’ve most likely considered, talked about or implemented some type of SEO strategy. The belief being, that if you can attract traffic, you will by default attract customers or registrants. This may be the case to a small degree, but doesn’t accurately represent how things usually work.

Your site does need to attract visitors, but it also needs to drive those visitors to some goal. Establishing that goal, and subsequently compelling the user to satisfy that goal, means just as much to your business. Internet gurus label this concept conversion. Though the concept remains the same for all websites, the specific outcome— the actual goal, may vary. Your desire may be to register users, request a sales call or make a purchase. In any case, the final outcome provides some benefit to your business.

SEO and CRO work in concert to benefit your business.

Just like SEO, where we optimize our sites so they will be found during user searches, we need to optimize websites so that they convert as many visitors to successful visits as possible. This concept is known as Conversion Rate Optimization. Many experts agree, including most major online retailers, that conversion rate should be considered just as important as SEO. Jamila White, owner of E-Commerce Diva said about conversion, “So many small biz owners don’t know that is THE most important metric.” The two concepts do not contradict, actually one complements the other. They do need to be approached with a different perspective.

SEO the Long Term Strategy

Irrespective of many claims by some SEO consultants, results from SEO take time. That’s because SEO is organic in nature. You should commit yourself to at least a six month effort before expecting consistent benefits. During that six month time span, you’ll need to work and rework your strategy to stay ahead of the pack. In short, SEO strategies are long term strategies.

CRO

CRO focuses more on the present. In short, it focuses on how well we compel the current site visitors, to accomplish a desired result upon visiting.  CRO has a more immediate effect. Conversion rate matters, whether you receive 100 visits per day, or 1000 visits per day. Conversion rate impacts your website efficacy more than SEO.

You can receive 100 visits per day, but convert twenty visitors into customers. This would have more impact than receiving 1000 visits per day, and then only converting ten visitors into customers. Again, we can stress the immediate focus of CRO, no matter the number of visitors, we need to convert as many as possible.

SEO and CRO a Combined Approach

SEO and CRO should not be considered competitive concepts. As website owners we should combine the two practices, knowing that our strategy will have short as well as long term business impact. It should also be noted that  CRO will benefit your SEO efforts.  CRO helps to better identify successful market segments, thus enhancing your ongoing SEO practices.

When converting customers, you will hopefully have analytics giving you customer data. Knowing what regions, pages or search terms used to find your site will elucidate more about the segments that find your product, service or information attractive. If this market doesn’t match your present SEO focus, now you know how to adjust, or better focus your current strategy.

SEO and CRO: Continual Efforts

Both CRO and SEO require continual modification. Consistent testing of landing pages and conversion paths– your CRO efforts, will greatly benefit your long term SEO. Let’s look at an example.

CRO can be affected by numerous factors. If a CNBC guest makes recommendations about what to look for in certain financial products, or throws out a new term, this could alter what financial products customers seek. Sudden drops or increases in conversions, could be the first clue to  a change in your visitor’s needs. Knowing this, allows you to also adjust your SEO strategy to be in place when that CNBC audience turns to the internet to find the company who will sell that product.

Site Home Pages: “Sell the Sizzle”

I once worked as a telesales representative for a cruise travel agency. Our new sales hire training contained a module named “Sell the Sizzle”.  The instructor stressed that we should sell the experience, not the cruise.  

As an example, we shouldn’t tell the listener that the cruise stopped in the Virgin Islands. Instead– the cruise let them enjoy the crystal clear waters of the carribean, including access to one of the most beautiful coral reef snorkling experiences available anywhere.

In a nutshell, sell the benefits not the features.   When you sell the sizzle, be creative–  see your site as someone who knows nothing about you.

Site visitors scan your site in seconds, what they see must compel that first click. That doesn’t mean avoid text, it still rules the SEO world. 

When looking at your home page, ask yourself a few questions:

Does a First Time Visitor Know What We Do?

• Users should understand what your company does with a quick scan of the page.
• Find a way to encapsulate your business in a few words or short sentence. Use this text on your homepage.
• Make it easy to find customer testimonials. Satisfied customers love to talk about what you do, and how well you do it.
• With ecommerce sites, products— big and bold, should be the first thing I see.

Does Your Homepage Describe What Problem You Solve?

• Right from the beginning, tell visitors how they’ll benefit— sell the sizzle.
• Numbers work great. If you can reduce costs by 40%, say so– and make sure the words ‘Reduce’ and ‘40%’ are in large type.
• Convey what makes your business unique. Sure— you sell great steaks, but tell or show me what makes your steaks special.

Do You Have Enough Accessories?

• Provide information that supports your main point. If you sell BBQ grills, provide great grilling recipes– or maybe a photo of the family having a great time in the backyard watching dad grill.
• Again testimonials help drive home the point— word of mouth is the best advertising. 
• Provide answers to common questions. You already know your customers’ most common questions. Provide the answers right up front— there’s nothing else left for them to do but buy.

Do I Establish My Expertise?

• Provide a very visible link to a basic tutorial about your product or service. 
• Displaying logos of well known clients provides credibility from the start. Be sure to get permission first.
• Display logos for professional or trade organizations or certifications. The Better Business Logo goes a long way in making a potential customer feel better about giving you their credit card number.

Do My Images Tell the Story?

• Make sure your images reinforce the story told by your words.
• Your images should put your product or services in context. Think back to the image of dad on the grill we described earlier.
• Always use high quality images.  Hire a professional photographer, it’s worth the investment.

 

The Vonage home page packs a punch. It includes many elements to convince vistors to keep clicking.

 

Test to Find Out What Works

Putting all the elements together into a presentable home page can be daunting.  Take it a piece at a time.  Play with different layouts, and combinations– use multivariate testing to verify you’ve found the right recipe.

Putting Your SEO Strategy to the Test

Many small business owners in 2009 will decide to take a do-it-yourself approach to SEO. I say go for it! In fact, marketing trends indicate moving SEO duties in-house has become the smart thing to do.

If you’ve already started your efforts, you quickly discovered that executing a good SEO strategy takes a great deal of time. Your next thought– “I hope all this work pays off”.

The top ecommerce companies test and retest their SEO strategies to find out what works, and what doesn’t. You will want to do the same thing. This article will help you get started.

First let’s look at some of the tools required to test how well you’ve done. Then we can look at a simple five step plan to start your SEO testing strategy.

Analytics Provides the Foundation

First you’ll want to start with a good analytics package. If you’re going it on your own, utilize Google Analytics (GA).  GA offers a feature rich web based tool at no cost. The tool provides an extensive set of metrics and reports without any setup. Because its widely accepted in the industry, you’ll find lots of support across the web.  Start with the Google Analytics Forum. 

Multivariate Testing: The SEO Proving Grounds

Multivariate testing allows users visiting the site, to each view different versions of the same web page.  Your testing application tracks how users respond to each page. 

Google provides a great multivariate testing application— Google Web Optimizer for free. Again it’s easy to setup, and comes with the support of  a large user community.

How to Implement Your SEO Testing

Below I’ve provided a few suggestions on setting up your testing methodology.  I’m assuming you’re using the Google Analytics and Web Optimizer package.  If you decide to go with something else, it most likely will provide the same functionality, just with possibly different names and locations.  If your package doesn’t provide the abilities described here– scrap it, and go with GA.

STEP 1:  Place the GA Tracking Code on Your Web Pages
If you have a large site, this may take some time, but it’s worth the effort.  If you don’t feel the page merits tracking, then the page probably doesn’t need to be included in your web site.  Not tracking pages leaves you in the dark.  Not knowing what appeals to users costs you money– in either lost conversions or wasted effort.

• Write down the file names of the pages included in funnels you want to track.
• This is also a good time to make copies of these files as you prepare for multivariate testing.

STEP 2:  Setup Goals Tracking
Goal tracking allows you to guage the efficacy of the various funnels within your web site.  

• Start with your most important landing page, and determine where you want the user to end up.
• If your funnel includes a form, be sure to include the thank you page.
• Include product display pages from your shopping cart.
• Include the registration pages for your cart.
• Your cart funnel should also include the thank you page.
•  For keyword advertisers pay attention to the  landing pages that result from advertising clicks.

STEP 3: Setup Multivariate Testing
Now you can find ways to optimize your funnels success.

• Create multiple copies of the same landing page.  Start with your busiest landing page. 
• In each version of the page, things like graphics, page copy and page layout. 
• With keyword advertising, test how various pages work with different ad copy.
• If you’re advertising via print, radio or tv, set up specific landing pages.
• Remember to that you can use different page versions to alter funnel flow.  Test if one flow works better than others.

STEP 4: Review Goal Tracking Results
Determine how well your funnels worked.

• Utilize conversion percentages to establish baselines. These will be useful for future testing.
• Look at visits as compared to visitors.  This will give you an idea of how often users converted on their initial visit, or on a return visit.
• Also make note of referring web sites.  Knowing where users came from can help improve efficiency with marketing budget.

STEP 5: Review Multivariate Testing Data
Go back and compare your goals with various landing pages in the funnel.  

• For a very successful funnel, use the best variations as a model for other pages.
• Remember to note unsuccessful variations as well.  Try to analyze why the page failed. 
• Take the most successfule variations from each page, and put them together in one funnel.
• If variations all had similar success rates, take a good look at your goal conversions. Poor goal conversions may indicate an offer with little appeal to visitors. 

Going Forward

Don’t stop testing.  It will take consistent effort over the long haul to truly gain the benefits of SEO.  Don’t let early successes lull you.  Remember that the Internet and user behaviours change constantly.  What worked in January, doesn’t always hold true in June.  Attempt to run tests on at least one funnel per month.  This will require planning, but don’t let the additional work dissuade you.  The benefits will be worth the effort.

Visits Versus Visitors– Insights Into Copy Quality

 

We’ll define their meaning and benefit from their results. Looking at your website analytic report, visits compared to visitors seems simple. In a website analytics report, the two terms’ meanings differ somewhat than expected. Knowing the difference provides vital clues into the quality of your website copy.

 

The Website Analytics Report ‘Visit’

An analytics report ‘Visit’ means someone came to the site and established a session. They may have left the sight and returned within the session time limit (usually 20 or 30 minutes) without closing the browser. Two visits correct— No, this registers as one visit in your website analytics report. That’s because the user maintained their original session. The user switches web addresses without closing the browser. Assuming substantial web traffic numbers, many ‘Visits’ generally means many website hits.

The Website Analytics Report ‘Visitor’

Now consider the analytic report’s ‘Visitor’ metric. ‘Visitors’ means a visit from a new guest. This visit in theory came from a new source. Visitor statistics require a defined time frame. Look at the following example to understand the concept in practical terms.

Let’s consider a website analytics report that covers June 1 – June 30. An individual web surfer’s first visit to the site in June— June 3rd for example, registers as a ‘Visitor’ in the website analytics report. The same user returns on June 21st— this registers as a ‘Visit’ in your analytics report.

Visits:Visitors Ratio

Comparing Visits to Visitors provides valuable insight for judging your website copy. The ratio reveals the audience’s perceived quality of your website copy. Let’s look at what the analytics report reveals.

Visits:Visitors > 1: Quality Website Copy, Find New Market Segments
In fact, the higher this number— the more people are returning to the site. The site audience finds your website copy interesting, and returns frequently. You want to continue producing quality content. Make sure you keep adding new content. Determine if you can duplicate these efforts with another market segment.

Visits:Visitors<1: Improve Website Copy, Verify Market Segment
A very low number here indicates the audience perceives poor website copy. The visitors come– but seldom return. Review your keyword research, an adjustment often produces very different results. Think of unique web article ideas, or find a professional website copy writer. Keep driving visitors to the site. Your new website copy will compel more frequent visits.

Conclusion

By itself the Visits:Visitor ratio doesn’t provide all the numbers. It doesn’t account for the same visitor visiting from different locations. As well, we are assuming substantial site traffic exists to provide reliable data.

Beyond those assumptions, keeping good data over extended periods helps you. Developing a range for your ratio allows recognition of trends. Early trend recognition provides one more advantage in the highly competitive internet arena.