If your company has separate departments for marketing and web design, who is responsible for ensuring the website leads to a conversion? You may assume that the optimisation of conversions is part of the web designer’s role; however, as marketing managers delve more into the world of online marketing, conversion optimisation becomes much more of a collaborative effort between departments.

Marketers have a unique understanding of the needs and wants of their customers. They use this specialist knowledge to drive potential customers to the website. But can they use these skills to turn potential customers into conversions? Many marketers may not realise how important their customer knowledge is to conversion optimisation.

In a recent article, Dave Chaffey (Smartinsights.com, 2012) talks about landing page success factors. Our SEO specialists believe many of the points he has made can easily be applied to improve website conversions. Here we have summarised the key points that both marketers and web designers can use: 

1. Delivery Relevance – clear headlines and suitable images reassure potential customers they are on the right page to find the information they need
2. Integration – as a marketer you work hard to entice customers to visit the website. Keeping your message consistent from offline to online will improve conversions
3. Details – whilst short sharp points will attract attention, visitors are also likely to be looking for informative text which helps them to make buying decisions
4. User Journey – this is where the web design department really becomes a part of the optimisation process. Every page should be designed to take users on a journey, whilst minimising the number of clicks to reach their destination
5. Page Length – part of conversion optimisation is about testing out which approach is most effective. Longer pages with lots of information or shorter, more impactful pages. Try both and test which is the most effective at converting
6. Graphics – through experience with offline brochures and advertisements, marketers will have gained useful insight into the images that illicit the strongest response from the target market. These should be incorporated into your web design to improve conversions
7. Menu Options – reducing the number of menu options on a page also reduces the number of possible clicks, often resulting in improved conversions 
8. Call to Action – marketers should be adept at writing persuasive copy, and strategically placed calls to action could be the difference between a conversion and a lost customer

Whilst the web department will have an expert understanding of what looks the most appealing, website design should be guided by the expertise of marketers. By working together and analysing the data, conversion optimisation becomes a lot easier. There is no single solution to website conversion optimisation. Only testing and in-house knowledge and expertise can help to provide your customers with the ultimate online experience.

 

No matter how savvy and on-the-button your Google AdWords consultant may be, if your website isn’t up to scratch, all that hard pay per click (PPC) work will be for nothing when the visitors your PPC campaign brought to your website disappear without a trace.

In fact, if your website isn’t going to convert PPC visitors into buyers, the time, money and energy you and your Google AdWords consultant/agency/team have ploughed into a great PPC campaign may be for nothing...

Of course, not every visit is going to convert into sales, but there are literally hundreds of ways that you can boost your conversion rates. In this post we’ll be looking at just three of the most fundamental changes you should consider if you’re hoping to become a conversion champion and squeeze every last drop out of your PPC!

(A quick note: Although this article covers website conversions from a PPC/AdWords angle - after all, you don't want to have to pay for traffic that doesn’t convert! - a lot of this could equally apply to traffic arriving to your site from non-paid search, too!)

Clarity
The first and most important thing you need to learn and never forget is that human beings are fickle and impatient creatures. The sheer accessibility of information on the Internet - at the click of the button - only makes matters worse. Visitors are not going to hang around if you do not give them strong, clear messages about who are you, what you do and what you’re selling, so be clear and don’t overcomplicate!

Keep your homepage short, sweet and to the point. Include strong images which show visitors that they have come to the right place for what they’re looking for but absolutely do not overcomplicate matters. However, if a better page is available as a landing page then make sure it’s the landing page!

By ensuring that your visitors know exactly what they’re looking at you’ll keep the ones you want and lose those you don’t.

Keep track of stats
Your Google AdWords person should be keeping their beady eye on your data in order to constantly improve your campaign and boost traffic, but these stats can also help you tweak your website into conversion perfection. Data from enquiry forms and shopping baskets will tell you which PPC ads brought visitors to your site and which ones converted into sales.

As an example, imagine you’re selling your clairvoyance service through your website (although if you can actually see the future, you’re probably not going to need a consultant’s help)! One of the keywords your campaign is targeting is “cheap clairvoyance service” but unlike your other keywords, that particular keyword just isn’t converting into sales, yet it is bringing in tonnes of traffic and your service really is cheap.

In all likelihood, your website isn’t making it clear enough just how cheap your service is. Highlight the key sales points that lure in visitors and you’ll turn even more visitors into customers.

Hand-holding
Visitors might be fickle, but they also need an awful lot of attention. Make sure you provide clear, helpful guidance to walk them through the sales journey on your website and you’ll find that your conversion rates soar. Make contact information easy to see and easily accessible, so they don’t end up leaving frustrated if they can’t find your phone number...

At Liberty Marketing, our PPC and Google AdWords consultants are experienced online marketing experts, who can advise you on how to boost your conversion rates whilst bringing you all the traffic you need to make your business a success on the Internet. Fill out an enquiry form today or get in touch on 029 2076 6467 or at info@libertymarketing.co.uk to learn more!

The world of SEO does not sit still for long. One of the biggest changes to the digital landscape and addition to the tools available to inbound marketers is the implementation of on-page data mark-up languages such as Schema.org.

The aim of on-page data mark-up is to increase the amount the search engines actually understand about the information they are categorising, ultimately leading to more accurate search results.

Thus back in 2011, as a result of collaboration between the search engine superpowers Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, Schema.org was created to improve the search engines ability to understand the web by creating a structured method of microdata mark-up. By sharing a microdata mark-up vocabulary, webmasters are able to ensure their efforts are properly rewarded.

As is often the case in the field of SEO, a simple process has been made to sound more complicated than it actually is. Hopefully an example will clear up any underlying confusion:

When using a search engine, people have a primary understanding of the information they are viewing. Until now it has been impossible for search engines to replicate such an understanding. For example, if as your header 1, you have the word ’Flipper’, there is no information to tell you what the text string actually means – Flipper could of course refer to the popular film about a 12 year old boy who befriended a dolphin, or the popular swimming aid. This can make it difficult for the search engines to display content relevant to the user.

By using the Schema.org vocabulary, it is possible to tell the search engines that this information describes a specific movie, place, person or video, helping to tidy up the search engines understanding of your content.

So, will Schema.org help your website to work its way up through the rankings? Well no; as yet mark-up is not used for ranking purposes. However, there is still a huge benefit to implementing Schema.org to your website.

Google has slowly begun to roll out rich snippets within the search results for those webpages that have used microdata such as Schema.org, to help display authorship, videos and review data.

There are many different kinds of snippets Google supports, and the number keeps growing. Rich snippets are having a tremendous impact on a visitors click through rate within the search results with some webmasters reporting a 30% increase in CTR after implementing rich snippets.

Applying the mark-up isn’t a difficult process on small sites and there is a great guide for getting started with Schema.org at: http://www.schema.org/docs/gs.html

Once you have implemented your microdata mark-up, use the rich snippets testing tool to make sure that Google can read and extract your marked-up data, and enjoy your improved CTR.

Many of these tips may seem obvious but it is surprising how many new clients we take on haven’t considered any of them. Have a quick run through these to see a few of the basic ways of turning curious website visitors into customers.

1. Highlight relevance

A visitor will disappear within seconds if they don’t see evidence that they’ve discovered what they are looking for. Make it obvious that you can help them. Add titles and sub-titles that describe and sell your business (remember to also include keywords) and make sure you include images that show your products or illustrate your services. Could you also add a brief bullet-point list of why you are the only supplier they should consider?

2. Build trust

The internet is filled with tricksters, so people are weary of dealing with new names. Remove any anxiety by showing what a reputable business you run. Place testimonials around the site to highlight that you have done a good job for people in the past and use your “About Us” page to give a little background info on your business and to re-affirm your main messages. If you can paint the picture that dealing with your business is completely hassle-free then visitors will not feel a strong need to check out your competitors.

3. Tell them what to do next

Surprisingly, something vitally important but often lacking from the copy on a web page is a Call to Action, i.e. an instruction of how to proceed. People are used to these and without them your conversion rates will always be low. Remind visitors at the end of your sales message that you want them to “Call now” or “”Enquire here” and in doing so, they will. If you can add some urgency, like “Free trial to the first 10 people to call this number” then it’s even more influential.

4. Answer questions before they are asked

Visitors have lots of questions buzzing around their head and if your site doesn’t answer them then they’ll bounce off to find one that does. “Can this product solve my problem?”, “How long does delivery take?”, “What happens if something goes wrong?”, etc.  Pre-empt these questions by building them into your website copy and by creating an FAQ section that sales pages point to. This is also a good way of showing off the experience you have within your market.

5. Be interesting as well as persuasive

Simply throwing sentences together for the sake of having something on your website isn’t going to win you any new customers. Each web page needs to tell an informative, compelling story that convinces prospective customers to deal with your business. All things considered, the text on your website is the most influential component and you need to make sure that your website is a highly effective salesman.

If you are not experienced in writing copy that can attract visitors as well as sell to them then invest in some professional SEO copywriting.