-By Enam Noor
In online marketing, conversion is one of the most important elements. If web users are not converting that means there is no sale. If no sale, what good is the marketing campaign? Most of the time online marketers pay way too much attention to where they position on a search result or how much traffic comes to the website. A good online marketing consultant will always guide a client towards conversion and qualified traffic. Remember it is the customers on your website algorithm when it comes to selling your product.
It all starts with bringing in qualified traffic or visitors to your website. If a campaign can target the right audience and build the search traffic and website usability design around them, then conversion will come. Once the qualified traffic is on your website then the key is: How can you relay your message in way that will convert them into a customer. Often website owners just go out and buy PPC (Pay Per Click) from popular search engines, however if you are selling a product online then why not spend the budget with comparison shopping network? Yes, the popular search engine PPC can bring higher volume of traffic, however if you don’t have a proper landing page or call-to-action on your website you’ll lose the potential customers very quickly. A comparison shopping network, such as Google Products, Bizrate etc. showcase products on their search lists where user can evaluate/compare products before visiting the website. By the time user actually clicks on any particular product they are much more motivated to buy. I’ve seen successful online marketing campaign where search engine traffic converts at 3-4% while their shopping network campaigns convert at a rate of 7-8%. Another interesting note - typically good user friendly websites have lower bounce rate (this is the % that shows how many users do not pass through the first page) but shopping network traffic has higher bounce rate. Hmm—very interesting right? The traffic which is coming from a shopping network is more qualified so they typically would either BUY or LEAVE. They have already done there research before arriving at the website. This is why conversion is higher so is the bounce rate.
Now that we know conversion is important, what about those users who are not converting? Are they important at all? Or can they be MORE important? Well, let’s analyze. Typically if a retail ecommerce website is converting in double digit they are running a good campaign. The average number is in the single digit. That means about 90% or more of the website users do not convert at all. If we can find out what was the motivation of these 90% plus users and why they are not purchasing from the website, could we not increase the overall conversion tremendously? Yes, that’s the key. Knowing the non-conversion users’ trend and addressing those into your website usability is the key of improving the overall conversion. In my opinion both are important. Bring in qualified traffic and design your website usability based on your website users- both customers and non-customers. This will definitely improve your ROI.
posted @ Saturday, March 07, 2009 9:25 AM