April 2011 Newsletter
By Erik Baeumlisberger
I am often called upon to consult with clients in varied industries. I usually start by asking them to describe the following, "What business need does your website solve for?" The answers I get are predictable, but nonetheless important. Clients are typically looking to increase lead counts or increase the sales of products / services.
I also ask my clients, "Do you think being #1 in the search engines is the most important objective for your Internet Marketing team?" That answer varies from client to client, but the variances usually range from "Yes" to "I think so".
Here's why being #1 in the search engines doesn't matter. The most important traffic is not the traffic that you think you might get when you're #1, it's the traffic you already have.
Your current visitors may be longtime customers. They may be referrals from trusted friends or business partners. They may be people that dug through 5 pages of search results and clicked through to 20 or more websites looking for the one that "gets it right".
Conversion Optimization is the process by which Internet Marketers "get it right". It's the thoughtful combination of message, image, content and call-to-action that creates the potential to convert every site visitor into a customer.
Web Developers don't have a crystal ball. They can't see into the future and craft the perfect layout with the perfect combination of sales copy and imagery. They can, however, point you in the right direction.
Once the pages are live and traffic / conversion numbers start rolling in, the temptation is to make knee-jerk reactions and start changing page elements immediately in order to improve sales or form fill completion rate.
One must avoid temptation and let the pages run for 300+ conversions. That's usually the bare minimum we like to see when defining our baseline performance measure. Next step - start optimizing!
The nice folks at Google have provided a free tool called Google Website Optimizer which helps Internet Marketers test radically different versions of the same page against one another (A/B split testing) to quickly define the likes and dislikes of their audience.
Once the likes and dislikes have been identified, Google Website Optimizer empowers Internet Marketers with the ability to take the testing process one step further by allowing different combinations of message, copy, image and video to be served to each visitor. The resulting data is immensely powerful for determining what information your customers really want to see and how they want to see it.
What have you always wanted to know about your website visitors? Contact Us today and we'll let you know how Conversion Optimization can help!
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AN INSPIRATIONAL VIDEO - MAN'S BEST FRIEND