When shoppers are using their mobile device to browse the web, they are most likely clicking a link on one of the popular mobile apps from Facebook, Twitter, or Google or through a web search. They are then redirected to a page designed to be accessed from a laptop computer or desktop, not with the viewing capabilities of the small screen our mobile devices offer us. This inevitably will kill your conversion rate. As a retailer, you must account for all the mobile social users that are clicking links created for a desktop search. It is vital that you understand a lot of your customers are now coming to you on a smartphone through Google, Facebook, and Twitter apps that connect to content with desktop page URLs, not mobile URLs.

So how exactly should we be optimizing our mobile commerce sites?

Brian Klais, founder and president of mobile commerce consulting and technology from Pure Oxygen Labs LLC, says, “To build a mobile commerce site on the m-dot domain structure (for example, m.Retailer.com). When alle-commerce site www-dot web pages are in perfect alignment with all mobile m-dot pages, it becomes easier for a retailer to redirect a consumer from an e-commerce page to an m-commerce page, regardless of where the consumer is clicking from.” By doing so, this will lead to those high conversion rates every retailer hopes for.

Amazon is a great example of how redesigning ones layout to be more tablet friendly will improve your conversion rate. They recently changed their interface to a simpler and less cluttered look, with larger buttons that are easy for tablet users to tap (as opposed to the standard links or smaller buttons). The biggest improvement, as stated by the web design firm Alexander Interactive, is a fly-out window that appears when user taps ‘Shop By Department.’ The bold text in this menu is praised for its clarity on both PC monitors and tablets.

Now we ask, when will you be making the change to have your site more mobile-friendly?

The new analytics graphics track the most valued and pertinent information of a user’s progression through the site. It begins at the source and tracks every subsequent page visited, how long the user stayed on the page and also tracks the common behavior of a typical user before he or she leaves the site.

Tracking the web activity and traffic numbers allows administrator’s of a site to tweak their content marketing as well as their internal linking structures to point users in a particular direction based on the current behavior patterns displayed through Flow Visualization. What other aspects could Google’s new tool display in their flow chart to make it even more functional?

When used correctly video can drastically increase traffic and conversion rates.  This is why IMI posts at least two videos a week to our blog.  People like to watch videos, its a fast and simple way to communicate your message, and it helps your SEO rankings.  In this post I want to address the following:

• Where to Use Video Content
• The Core Purpose Behind Using Video Content

Where to Use Video Content

The most frequently used pages for video content that results in better traffic and conversions are:

• Home Page
• Service or Product Pages – Including E-Commerce Product Pages
• Landing Pages
• Blogs

For the purpose of this post, I want to focus on the first three:  home pages, product pages, and landing pages.  As we have already highlighted, video content can improve traffic (which we will address in the next section) and conversion rates.  Keepp in mind a conversion can have many different definitions.  In the example below we show a product page which uses strong video content and could be used to support PPC advertising, display ads, TV ads, or email marketing.  Notice that the page has three specific “calls to action” each of which could be considered a conversion of the user taks action.  The three calls to action are:

• Call Now – with the phone number in bold yellow font
• Order Now – with the price in bold yellow font and the button in red
• Join Our Email List – a great way to remarket to customers that may not convert the first time around

When the page loads the video begins playing immediately (this is an effective tactic to ensure that the video is played and can also increase the views – when users see that your video has been viewed many times they are more likely to watch).  The video is well done, well edited, exciting, and communicates the message effectively and quickly.  It of course also helps that the key spokes person is the world famous Oscar De La Hoya.  But let’s not worry about having to use celebrities.  If your pages are well designed and the video content is well done, your pages should perform better than pages without video content.  This is all part of conversion optimization. 

The same methodology can be used on your home page.  Often times you will see home pages that look more like a traditional PPC landing pages, but possibly with more content.  And why the heck not?!   If your home page can be your biggest converter and users don’t even have to click further, so be it! 

The Core Purpose Behind Using Video Content

As mentioned earlier in this post, the two key reasons to use video is to:

• Increase traffic
• Increase conversion rates

Increasing Traffic – How could having a video on my page increase traffic?  The answer is because video content carries a lot of weight with the search engines and you will typically find pages using video content have a better chance for higher rankings.  Video is great for search engine optimization.  For example, if you compared a product page with only a product description to a product page with a product description, a video, and a transcript of that video, the page using video will most likley rank higher.  They only way to find out is to test it out.

Increasing Conversions – Similar to increase rankings and traffic, to see if video will improve a page’s performance and conversions you have to test it out.  You should A/B split test this for product pages and landing pages.  Try serving the page with the video half the time and the page without the video the other half of the time.  You can also compare different videos.  Using analytics you can compare conversions on pages without the videos, conversions on pages that have the video but it wasn’t viewed, and conversion with the video when it was viewed. 

In the past creating video content meant hiring a production team and scheduling time consuming filming sessions.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  You can create professional video content with your own camera, a green screen, and some simple editing tools.  So look at the facts.  If three quarters of online retailers are doing it, there must be some value!

Expedia realized customers were inputting their bank name in the optional ‘Company’ field and proceeded to enter their bank address instead of their home address in the subsequent field. This was preventing the credit card verification process and consequently driving customers away. By simply removing one misguiding data field, an immediate improvement was noticed resulting in a $12 million profit per year.

We can all learn from this example.  It is essential that the direction on your website is efficient for the average online user. Remember that people do not want to spend extraneous time on a website if they don’t need to.   The information you provide on online forms  must be straightforward and free of misunderstandings. Analytics can only obtain so much information about online users. One way to completely understand your website users’ behavior  is to  physically observe them navigating the website and note their confusions.

According to SAS analytics (http://www.sas.com/success/expedia.html), Expedia applies their resources in three ways: inventory selection optimization, website design and fraud reduction. Each facet of SAS analytics observes data in order to learn and optimize on previous customer behavior. These data collections ultimately prevent issues like credit card fraud and help interpret data that will be useful to a specific customer.

Although the primary purpose of using analytics is not eliminating problems such as these, it has proven to be useful in removing glitches to optimize a website’s performance. Analytics only provides statistical information which is why it is crucial to understand your customer in order to make your website as efficient as possible. Who knows, maybe removing a couple of optional fields on your website’s  online form could result in similar benefits.

When writing content on the web, a good rule of thumb is to use the inverted pyramid technique, also known as Bottom Line Up Front.  This entails putting your most important point as the title and first paragraph of text in your article, and the supporting details towards the end.  Be sure to capture the attention of your users’ right at the beginning of your page, so that way they don’t need to scroll down to get the main points of your article. On the web, people tend to jump from page to page on websites, so you want to catch their attention right away.

Benefits for Readers

If a user likes what they see in your article from the beginning, they are more likely to bookmark it and read the rest of the article later. Or, if they are using a mobile phone, they can see the main point of the article and email it to themselves to read later on.

There have also been eye tracking studies that show the behavior of web users – they focus mainly on the very beginning of a page only. When a reader reads a magazine article or a book, the expectation that the reading may take a long time is already set. On the web, the expectations are not exactly the same. Web readers like quick but complete thoughts. More people are on the go all the time and want information as quickly as possible, plus on the web,  there are a lot of other competing tag lines, images, and advertisements that may take their attention away.

That is why you want to use the inverted pyramid writing style, where you write in a manner where the conclusion comes first and the details follow. If a user chooses not to read the page completely, at least the main thought of the whole page was already read before they bounce away.

Benefits for Search Engines- Keyword Prominence

Keyword prominence refers to the distance of the target keyword from the very beginning of the source content. The closer the target keywords are to the beginning of the page, the better the page will rank for these keywords. This rule does not only apply to the page as a whole, but also within individual HTML tags and parts of a page, such as in the HTML title tag, the meta tags, header tags, and the beginning of the main content.

Therefore, keep the inverted pyramid in mind and not only will your web visitors appreciate it, but you’ll also see improvements in rankings.

Long tail keyword terms are several keywords grouped together as a search string into the search engines. Typically they are 4 keywords or more. The more long tail keywords that you have ranking, the higher chances you have to gain converting organic search traffic. From keyword research you can find many long tail keyword variations.  Whether you are optimizing an existing website or building a new one, you should choose keywords to focus on that are consistent with the content of your web pages as well as your website theme. An example of the evolvement of a keyword phrase is listed below:

General word: Casino
More targeted words: Casino in Oklahoma
Long tail keyword phrase: Blackjack Casino in Lawton Oklahoma

Since millions of websites will be competing for the term “casino”, we’ll need to be more specific. By adding the state after “casino” it is a better phrase.  The long tail term though, goes a step further and includes the type of game that a user might be searching for, as well as the word “casino” and the specific city.

There are many differences to note between long tail keyword terms and the general one or two word terms.  For instance, search volume. Search volume will be much higher for the more general terms than the long-tail terms, but over time the searches for the long tail variations will add up, and you’ll start seeing that in your Analytics. Speaking of variations, you are limiting yourself if you only focus on one or two word terms because there is no keyword diversity there. With the long tail, if users change the order of the phrase a bit, you still have a high chance of ranking high for that term as well.

While the traffic volume for the general terms will be much larger, you stand a much higher chance of ranking well for specific or long tail terms. So, this shows that ranking well for some long tail terms is better than not ranking at all for a general term. The long tail searchers are much more likely to convert   as well because they are very specific in what they are searching for. Your competition will be much smaller for long tail terms, and you will see that it is much easier to get the number one or two position in the search engines for long tail terms.

Long Term SEO Goals

You want to always keep in mind that long term goal for your SEO campaign will be to have much more organic traffic from search engines as well as having many  keyword terms ranking high in the search engine result pages. If you keep the long tail in mind as you add content to your website and in your SEO strategy, it will help to achieve those goals.

Not only is anchor text important to search engines, but it’s also helpful to your website visitors. It helps them know the topic of what they are about to see. You want to make sure to choose effective anchor text for the incoming and outgoing links to your website.  This will greatly increase the value of the link and boost your search engine rankings.

To get started, during your link building acquisition, seek out links where you can determine the anchor text that another website uses for your website link.  This is an important part of the search engine ranking algorithms.  Aim for websites that not only have a link to your website, but also the words around the link that include the keywords you want to rank for. For example, in the descriptions of directory listings, blogs, and press releases you should be able to include the text you want to hyperlink.

To illustrate, instead of saying, “Click Here” as your anchor text, use the keywords that you are targeting. If the search engine bots see that the text around the link includes the keywords related to the website that the web link is pointing to, that will help you gain authority and increase the value of that link.

As an example, if we want to direct web visitors to a web page about internet marketing, we could write Internet Marketing and hyperlink that to an external website about internet marketing, or even a page on our website about it. You should also add variety to your anchor strategy to increase the value of the links. Don’t just have the same anchor text over and over.  Let’s look at some examples of this below:

• Internet Marketing Company
• Internet Marketing Firm
• Web Advertising Agency
• Website Optimization and Promotion
• Search Engine Marketing Solution

Notice how some of these have 3-4 words in them. This incorporates the long tail keywords that help us show up for many keyword terms and they typically have a high search volume.  Every day, about 25% of searches are keyword terms that never been searched before, so having variety in your anchor text is a very important way to get new visitors!   Notice that those links aren’t all going to the same page, this is termed “link diversity”.  The same would be true for inbound links, it would be better to have less links  from different sources, then many links from the same source. Keep in mind the anchor text should be different for those inbound links.  This falls in line with Google’s methodology- keep everything natural and relevant for your users!  Now, start getting creative with your anchor text- you’ll be happy that you did!

Google Quality Score parameters are becoming much more strict.  Notice the amount of content on the page.  Landing pages now must have quality (and relevant) content in order to gain a good quality score and have a productive PPC campaign.  Many landers tied to new URLs with no history require even more content in order to meet Quality Score standards.  It can often now take time to build the score, so keep adding good content to your pages!

It is now crucial to use a landing page for PPC advertising in Google because it wll have a direct impact on your Google Quality Score and conversion success.  The idea of consversion optimization is pretty simple but the purpose should be understood in order to execute it correctly for your webpages.  The main idea of course is to always be improving your ROI.  There is no point in spending tons of money in online or offline marketing if you are just planning to drive traffic to your home page (unless of course your home pages acts as a well optimized “landing page”).

Here is an example.  JetSelect Aviation (a premier private jet charter service) has performed various form of marketing (online and offline), including Yahoo PPC.  All the traffic was being channeled to their home page and results had been fairly dismal.  They were recieving about one or two leads a month.  Here is an example of the home page:

Once the marketing campaign started, aggressive Googe PPC was added and four landing pages created.  The ad copy for the ads was written according to their direct business goals.  It is important to understand Google Quality Score guidelines in order to properly optimize your PPC campaign for the best possible results.  Here is an example of one of the landing pages created.  Notice the update in design, graphics, clear calls to action, simple booking engine right at the top of the page, and simple information (there is more content below the fold). 

Landing pages can really be as simple or content heavy as you want (in my opinion).  What matters really is what is above the fold and how the call to action is designed.  Of course, this all depends on your conversion goals and what you plan to obtain from your landing pages.  Those goals should be defined first before designing the page or launching any marketing. 

The initial result of the properly optimized PPC campaigns and well designed landing pages was going from one or two poor quality leads per month to five to eight high quality leads per day.  The results will of course vary depending on your business, industry, and specific goals. 

Either way, you must use landing pages with great content ands clear calls to action in order to get the most bang for your buck from your Internet marketing strategies. 

Conversion optimization takes all aspects of your website into consideration starting with your core business objectives.  These need to be clearly defined and your website should be designed (or redesigned) to support these goals.  You should also have a solid understanding of your analytics so you can set some benchmarks:

• Where does our traffic come from?
• What are our bounce rates?
• How long do people stay and what pages do they go to, leave from?
• Do visitors convert?

What happens in 8 seconds.  A “bounce” is defined as a user who comes to your site and leaves in under 8 seconds.  Therefore a bounce rate is the ratio of people who leave in under 8 seconds VS those that stay.  Anything under 50% is pretty good.  Conversion goals are different for every website but examples are capturing information like name, address, phone; a sale; a download; a phone call…you get the idea.  So let’s take a look at the various elements that need to be considered when building a website that converts.

THE INITIAL HOOK

You must have a clear call to action, or a few key action points.  E-commerce sites usually have promotions and offer things like FREE shipping.  Everybody likes and deal and wants to be incentivized.  If your goal is to get a user to download your whitepaper, tell them why its valuable and give them some incentive for doing so. 

DESIGN

Once you have defined your goals, the site needs to be designed so that the call to action is prominent and focused on encouraging the user to act.  Using larger fonts, bold colors, simple but compelling design concepts, less content, and plenty of open space usually fall under the best practices category.  It is usually recommended to use separate landing pages with clear calls to action to support online and offline marketing efforts.

Notice the example below has a very clear purpose (sorry the picture is kind of small).  This page is designed to bring people back to the site, capture their information, and offers an incentive to do so.

SITE FUNCTIONALITY

This is very important because the more user friendly your site is the better your consversion rates will be.  Seems pretty obvious but can take a lot of focus to get it right for any specific site.  Many times bounce rates and lack of conversions are simply due to poor functionalty, poor design, and a “sales cycle” that is just too long.  Streamline the process, only capture the information you need, and keep the steps simple and fast. 

You can use technology and custom tools to enhance the experience and go beyond your competition.  Just remember, it all starts with defining clear goals first and then developing a plan.