You may be doing everything about internet marketing right, yet you still find that your sales are not acceptable. How can this happen? Easily, especially if you are concentrating more on driving traffic than you are on getting qualified visitors to your site.
One way you can determine if you are using the right marketing methods and gaining the notice of consumers ready to buy your offerings is to analyse your conversion rate, that is the ratio of visitors to actual buyers.
What’s A Good Conversion Rate?
While some site owners might be satisfied with as little as the average of 2% in converted traffic, many of the bigger online retailers enjoy double digit rates. Imagine if one out of every two people who visited your site made a purchase? That’s a lot of profit.
But before you get depressed, consider the amount of time and money that large retailers spend to gain that conversion rate. Chances are they are spending big bucks on pay per click campaigns and other forms of online advertising, as well as television spots and the like.
If you are relying solely on SEO to drive traffic and you experience 2% conversion, then you’re really not doing too bad.
How Can I Tell If Someone is Interested in Buying?
Your website’s statistics program is a great source for a wealth of information about your visitors and whether or not they are qualified traffic.
You may be experiencing a high bounce rate at your site. A bounce is shown in your site’s statistics as a click-through that either lasts a very short period of time, or a visitor that never leaves your home page. The most likely reason for this is that someone clicked on your link expecting to find something that wasn’t there or that you failed to convince them that you had what they wanted.
Take a look at the keywords people are using to find your site. If they are unrelated to the products or services you sell, then your site isn’t properly using keywords and meta tags. And visitors who getting to your web pages based on looking for something you do not offer there are usually not going to buy anything, no matter how terrific your offerings. They are simply not interested in what you have.
How To Increase Your Conversion Rate
Perhaps the best way to Increase Conversion Rate is to ensure that people who click through to your site are getting what they expect. Make sure that all the text on your site, all of your meta and header tags, and all forms of content clearly relate what it is you sell. Optimise the keywords that best describe your business.
It might be a good idea to ask your customers, friends, mentors, and family members to rate your site based on a variety of factors such as ease of navigation, layout and website design, clarity and integrity of links, etc. Since you look at your pages often (at least you should!), you will tend to miss obvious annoyances and broken links. If you are having a hard time getting feedback, consider running a contest or offering some sort of incentive, such as a discount.
It doesn’t hurt to take a look at the websites of your competitors, either. What are they doing different? What do you find attractive about their pages?
A thorough examination of your site’s statistics and practising good SEO techniques can both be combined to Increase Conversion Rate. Start with the simple and obvious before you start panicking and making major changes that might negatively affect sales. Split testing and asking peers for their suggestions could do you a world of good!
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Hi Sean,
This is so helpful so much information. Thank you in taking the time to help so many people
.-= Rita Pepper´s last blog ..Creating Residual Income =-.
You are most welcome Rita
Hi Sean,
I’ve been making this mistake. The keywords I’ve chosen relate to my content but they’re not the keywords that people will use when they are looking to buy my product.
I have set my keywords to target too broad a section of traffic. My traffic is in the general area of what I want but they’re not targeted. So, I think I will naturally be able to increase my conversion rate when I start choosing the right keywords.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
Choosing the correct keywords can often be what makes or breaks a site. Without the right keywords you will likely have difficulty getting potential customers to your site. An analysis of the keywords people are using to access your site should hopefully point you in the right direction.
Once they’ve arrived, you’re not going to get them to stay around and possibly “increase your conversion rate” without content that that is relevant to the keywords that you used the induce the potential client to come to your site in the first place.
So in short, determine if your keywords are attracting clients and if not change them until analysis shows that the keywords you are using are working. Also make sure that the content holds their attention when they arrive at your site and keeps your bounce rate low – hopefully below 30%. With luck you may then “increase your conversion rate”.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..You Cant Throw That Out- =-.
Hi Sean
I think it is a great idea to get friends and family etc to rate my site using the suggestions you have listed. It is also important that the website design is attractive to the eye and some good feedback will reflect that if it is so.
Once again, you mention getting the right keywords that people might use to search. I think this is one of the trickiest areas and one of my goals is to be a really savvy keyword queen (lol), truly though, I am really studying keyword research because it is the ‘key’ to great SEO.
I would make sure that my keywords and meta tags matched my content.
.-= Elly´s last blog .. =-.
Hi Sean,
Very handy tips Sean. To have a high conversion rate says it all. So basically I need to fine tune my keywords to be that of what people are using in searches to find my product.
When they find my site and view my product I need to have an attractive offer that they can’t refuse. Your article helps me to understand how to become skillful to Analyzing traffic and how to Research to receive results that Increase my Conversion Rate on sales of my product.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.