Well, you have built a cool looking website and invested a lot in your company, now what next? In a world of cut throat competition, companies are made overnight and are broken overnight. You can have a snooze button but your website/company does not have one. It is visible, active, usable and accessible all round the year! Hence, it is necessary not just to build a great online persona for your website/company but it is necessary to maintain and possible “up” the image.

• Be creative in your design – fun and funk go hand in hand. Depending on your target market, design your website. Take personal interest in creating it – do not just leave it to professionals. You need to put character and story behind the whole theme and design of the website. After all, customer attraction and retention is essential and this is the first step
• Content management – no one comes to a website and wants to read tones of boring theory! They want to be intrigued and surprised. Try creating creative and imaginative content so as to retain the attention of people visiting your website
• Remember Google is free – let your SEO management be strong so that you appear on the first two pages of relevant search in Google
• Email signatures – get the word out that you are here to stay! Make sure brand awareness is done through all activities. When you are sending emails or documents, company signatures will speak a lot
• Scan able writing style – make sure your content o the webpage is easy to read without grammatical errors or long sentences. Make use of comma and full sop. Bullets, heading etc make it easier for people to read. Using long, drab and boring sentences will distract viewers and they will give up soon
• Video uploads – many search engines like Google offer free video uploads. Use them! Upload fun and related videos and get the word out that you have arrived and are here to stay!
• Use the social network sites – be active and be all over social network sites like Twitter and Facebook. It will be a platform to communicate with possible customers and viewers and this will also be a good way to be in tune with customer demand

Tags: Content management, creative web design, facebook business promotion, Twitter Online Promotion
Posted in Conversion Optimization, Facebook Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Web Design and Usability | No Comments »

Websites are the key resource for enhancing a brand’s identity and for promoting sites. So, if an organization hasn’t launched its own website or hasn’t redesigned it, then there is possibility that it is losing on the opportunity to impress clients, find new projects and attract prospects into the sales pipeline. A website may be a perfect representation of a business, but the question is whether it meets the requirements of what the target market’s demand is. It is also important to find out whether the website reflects expectations of visitors and if its content is really useful.

For improving a website’s performance it is very important that SEO and Design part be taken care of. The core areas are as under:

• Website branding and messaging should be very innovative in nature.
• Information architecture that is user-friendly.
• Making of landing pages with CRM (customer resource management) integration.
• Right use of keywords.
• Optimized copywriting and content creation.
• Flawless web design, functionality and coding.
• Open Source CMS (content management system) development.

It is also important to tab on the visitors that visit the site. The website’s content has to be unique so that unique visitors tend to come to the site. A good design team thus becomes very vital for the promotion of the website. It is important to knit the intricacies from a professional point of view so as to make improvements for the success of the website. The key fundamentals for making such improvements are:-

• Attracting more traffic to key web pages through improvements made in architecture, homepage and subpage design.
• Bringing into application the thought-leadership impact of social media content and intelligently integrating the content in website design and functionality.
• Streamlining content management with practices like HTML and Open source.
• Increasing lead capture by aligning offers and content to visitor’s profiles.
• Exceptional rebranding for bringing improvements in lead quality.

These are essentials for promotion of websites and to instill recognition of a site. On following these basics, it becomes easier to impress clients and increase traffic as the website gets recognized.

Tags: Conversion Rate Optimization, seo web design, SEO Web Design Company, seo web design tips, website conversion optimization, website lead generation
Posted in Conversion Optimization, SEO, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

For an effective web presence it is very important to get your websites optimized by prominent search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN etc. Therefore in order to showcase your website high among the search engine rankings, Search Engine Optimization is required. These days Landing Page Optimization is the most recent and talked about internet marketing strategy. So in order to generate as well as maintain targeted traffic to your site it is very important to have a strong landing page.

A strong landing page harmonizes all your traffic generation efforts. The first and the foremost principle of effective landing page optimization for any Internet Marketing endeavor is to specifically recognize and gratify the requirements of the website visitors. Generating a series of events, the main purpose of landing page optimization is to eventually result in converting visitors to potential clients.

Although, the importance of landing page optimization could not be denied yet there is lot of ignorance regarding landing page optimization and its role in forming as well as implementation of internet marketing strategies. So, in order to ensure that you have a strong landing page it is important to consider the following elements.

First thing which need to be considered is the URL. The URL name should be relevant to the topic. Secondly, the structure of the page should be well thought out, from the design to the text to pictures; the entire page should be put up around the topic. Make sure that you work on header and footer optimization by making use of web design and Meta tags.

Next thing which needs to be given due consideration is that the links should be directed to the content which provides the most ideal description of the subject.
For a website visitor, a page that holds on to appropriate landing page optimization principles becomes an important resource. A website could gain credibility among the visitors by directing the visitors to pertinent and useful information.

Tags: business web presence, landing page conversion rate, landing page optimization, landing page optimization tips, LPO, what is a landing page
Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Conversion Optimization, SEO | No Comments »

Ecommerce sites offer an easy way for the product owners to sell their merchandise. But there are various things that need to be taken care of to convert the visitors into actual customers. Many ecommerce owners spend considerable time to promote their site using SEO/SEM but miss the mark owing to proper usability which is more important to convert leads into sales. Typically, the conversion rate is 1%-2% which can be increased with proper usability. I have compiled a list of things which shall boost the conversion rates on most commercial sites.

1. Clutter free homepage: The landing page of the site should be clutter free with clearly defined categories and products menu. Some featured or best selling products can be highlighted.
2. One Page Checkout: Keep the shopping process simple and quick with one page checkout. This will reduce the cart abandonment rate as the lengthy checkout process may irritate the customer and prevent from completing the buy.
3. Display the contact info prominently: Display the contact info like Phone no, toll free no and email id prominently on all the pages as this will generate trust in the customer and also provide an easy way for the customer to contact you if he is facing any issue with the online shopping process.
4. Checkout process bar: Its important to have a checkout process bar so that the customer knows all the steps he need to complete before the buy is complete and also where he is at any step.
5. Thankyou and payment confirmation page: A customer needs to be clear that the order is complete and the payment has been successfully paid. So, its necessary to have a thankyou page with order number and payment receipt confirmation. Also an email with order information and payment receipt should be sent to the customer.
6. Early shipping calculation: Its now very important to display the shipping charges at the start of the checkout process as its very annoying to the customer if the shipping charges come out to be more than the product cost itself.
7. Stock Update and Display: The stock situation of all the products on the site should be correctly displayed to the user. Ideally, the customer should not be allowed to add a product to the cart if the product is not available in stock. Rather an option to either contact the seller or add to wish list should be there to the customer so that an email can be sent to the customer when the product is replenished in the stock.
8. Product details: Provide as much details of the product as possible like title, description, available attributes like color, size, styles etc, multiple images, related products. This helps the customer to get a proper touch and feel of the product.
9. Product Reviews: Displaying product reviews submitted by real customers also help the new customer to make a quick decision.
10. Multiple payment options: Its quite helpful to have multiple payment options to the customer as some customer may be comfortable with credit card payment but some may not. Also add the accepted payment options on all the pages of the site, so that the customer can know beforehand whether he has the possibility to pay using the available options.
11. Shopping Cart: Use the product pictures in the shopping cart with each item. Also, link back the product with the product detail page in a new window so that the customer can view the details and compare with other products.
12. Terms of Use: Its very important to provide all the terms in simple and clear text description. Its recommended to cover Guarantee policy, Return policy, Privacy policy and general terms of use.
13. Discounts and Offers: Special offers from time to time attract visitors and prompt the visitor to purchase. For example. Free shipping with a purchase of over $75 will prompt the customer to purchase more to save on shipping price.
14. Product Reviews: The customer love to read reviews and this aid in their decision to make a purchase. Provide customer reviews for the products on the site and also allow the customer to submit a review.
15. Currency converter: The customers always feel comfortable buying in their own country’s currency. So, if you are selling to international customers also, its much advisable to have a currency converter on the site and allow the customers to view the products price in their preferred currency.
16. Confidence building and trust logos: The SSL certificate seal, security seal, business bureau seal are some of the seals that generate trust and confidence to purchase in the customers. If you are offering credit card gateway as the payment option, security seal and SSL certificate are very important. The business bureau seals provide trust in your organization and validate that you are a legal entity.
17. Customer testimonials: The potential buyers always find testimonials from other customers useful in making the purchase decision. The testimonials should be with proper customer’s details.
18. Newsletter: A newsletter signup facility with regular newsletters to the subscribers is a good way to keep in touch with the customers. You can send new products, product offers and other promotional information using the newsletter.
19. Articles and resources on the products/services: Apart from the product information, any article or resource providing details about the processes, know how, and tutorials on uses or advantages helps the customer to make an informed decision. The customers also perceive that you are specialists for that product.
20. Support and Helpdesk: The support contact information along with the response time is very helpful to the customers. If a support helpdesk or ticketing system can be added, it would be great addition.

The Ecommerce SEO is very important to achieve high traffic but once the traffic has been attained, the priority is to convert it into sales. We specialize in ecommerce consulting and conversion optimization.

Contact us for a free consultation on Ecommerce SEO.

Tags: conversion consulting, conversion optimization, ecommerce seo
Posted in Conversion Optimization, SEO | 1 Comment »

Keywords are broadly divided into two categories – Short tail and Long tail keywords. Short tail ones are meant to target highly competitive niche markets and the long tail ones are used for targeting rather less competitive niche markets. Marketing concept for “Long tail keywords” is based on describing hundreds or thousands of keywords and phrases of a website that normally goes unnoticed by owners of the site.

The general trend of online marketing is to focus on the best keyword list that brings maximum number of visitors to a site. So, agencies are found to focus on top 10-20 keywords for marketing a website. But on studying the referrals of search engines, it is often found that their traffic generated miss the top 10-20 terms in the majority of their sale markets.

Highly competitive keywords that generally fall in the top ten keywords list do generate a lot of traffic for the site. But their numbers fall after the top 10 most popular keywords. In fact, the cumulative traffic generated by long tail keywords far exceeds the traffic generated by the top 10-20 keywords. So, less important keyword that brings 1-3 visits when summed up results in more traffic, much greater than the top 10 keywords generate. There are cases when initial reports showed that top 10 terms brought half of site’s searches. But when the sale part is considered, the 18-19% conversions took place from first 10 keywords and the rest of 80% sale conversions happened from long tail keywords.

Working on long tail keywords may be a significant means to attract easy traffic to a site. Though it is true that such keywords do not bring much traffic individually, but then, when used on a large scale i.e. targeting on many long tail keywords, can actually generate lots of traffic for a website. Moreover, as there is less competition, so you can easily rank in Google’s first page with long tail keywords. Another benefit is that when visitors make searches on Google based on long tail keywords, they know exactly what they are looking for. So, the probability of their conversions to sales and ad clicks is far greater.

If a website is earning $5 per 1000 impression then with long tail keywords it is possible for it to earn $100 per 1000 impressions. So, it is very beneficial for a business even in cases where the website is not achieving high Google rankings for its competitive keywords.

Tags: conversion consulting, long tail keywords
Posted in Conversion Optimization, SEO | No Comments »

Bounce Rate is one of the important part of web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

For example: if 100 users visit your site and 25 of those 100 users stay to see one page only then your Bounce Rate is 25%.

The formula used to calculate bounce rate is:

Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing Only One Page / Total Number of Visits to that page

When bounce happens?

Any of these actions can result in a bounce:

• The visitor clicks on a link to a page which takes him to another site
• The visitor closes the window or that particular tab
• The visitor enters a news URL in the same window or tab
• The visitor clicks the “Back” button to leave the site
• The visitor’s browser remains idle for a long time and the session expires

What Bounce rate signify?

Generally speaking, the bounce rate of less than 30-35% is fine, around 50% is cause of little concern and more than 70% needs attention.

There is no absolute scale to derive a conclusion based on bounce rate as the significance depends on the type of the website. For example- in the case of an ecommerce site or online store, the user tends to browse for the product of choice. There may be lot of options for the same products or number of related products. This leads to lot of clicks due to which the bounce rate of an ecommerce site will tend to be low.

Whereas in the case of niche based blog, a user visiting the site may be looking for a specific topic and was led by the search engine or a link from an external site to that particular blog post. This way, the visitor will leave the site after going through that post leading to a higher bounce rate.

So,  it is important to analyze the type of website and the page views per visit before jumping on conclusions about the bounce rate.

What results in a poor bounce rate?

There are some specific reasons for a poor bounce rate which should be worked on not just to improve the bounce rate but overall betterment of the website:

1. Website design and usability
   The user is very short of time nowadays. It takes seconds for him to leave the site if the website is not professional looking or the content is not precise or the navigation is hard to follow. So, its really important for the website to be user-friendly.
2. Site speed
   The website speed is another factor for turning off the user. Its also now a criteria by search engines like Google for the site rankings. So, prefer a fast loading site with optimal of heavy elements like flash.
3. Linking from reliable site
   If a visitor comes on the site by clicking on a link in the blog post of one of his favorite blog, he will stay longer as the link is on his trusted site. So, its important to link your website from good websites and directories.
4. Browser compatibility and accessibility
   It may be possible that your website is not rendered properly on a user’s browser like Safari or Chrome. The website should be cross-browser compatible and accessible as per the W3C standards.
5. Target audience profile
   Its important to know your audience profile. If your audience is not internet savvy, its preferred to have easy controls and navigation on the website. A proper help section and search feature will help tremendously.
6. 404 Error page
   If a user comes on your website page directly by clicking on a link in the search engine or another website and that page is no longer available on your website, its important to have a 404 error page which contains the complete sitemap of the site. This way, the user can find the correct page. A search would also be an additional help.

Tags: bounce rate, web analytics
Posted in Analytics, Conversion Optimization | No Comments »