Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As we begin a new decade in search, we face a parallel truism: great search marketing is 1% about getting the click and 99% about what you do next.
Starting here in 2010, conversion optimization is the new SEO.
To be sure, SEO is still important and still evolving. There are still plenty of companies that need to adopt its best practices. SEO isn’t dead. But among the giants of SEO, there is a growing restlessness for the next mountain to conquer.
That mountain rises beyond the SERP and beyond the click.
SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkin recently declared that conversion optimization is the most underused and highest ROI activity in the marketing department. Predicting that 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization, he wrote, “Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this… 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value.”
SEO and conversion optimization are a lot alike
Conversion optimization and SEO both thrive at the tumultuous intersection of marketing, IT and customer operations. SEO professionals are experts at navigating this technical and political tempest. They are part engineer, part creative and part strategist—all bundled together in the role of a front-line change agent.
Those same talents, honed over the past decade, are exactly what’s needed deeper in the funnel.
Conversion optimization, like SEO, isn’t a one-shot project. It’s an integral part of the new marketing. The most valuable players will do more than optimize a landing page or run a good A/B test themselves. They will help organizations absorb conversion optimization into their culture and operational rhythm.
Good SEO practitioners know that short-cuts aren’t the answer. Sure, almost anyone can “optimize” a single page’s conversion rate by eliminating all choices and brow-beating visitors with misleading promises. You can myopically increase conversions that way—but at a terrible cost to brand, reputation and customer goodwill. Such black hat conversion optimization, like black hat SEO, isn’t worth the price for legitimate businesses.
(That is one of the reasons I prefer the phrase post-click marketing—it suggests a broader regard for user experiences and long-term relationships.)
Like SEO, conversion optimization is data-driven. Web analytics remain your greatest ally, but you must roll up your sleeves and dig deeper into user behavior. Segmentation analysis becomes even more crucial. How do different segments interact with you, and how can you optimize their particular experiences? Carry that through to revenue (or at least quality-scored leads).
Ultimately, in both SEO and conversion optimization, content is king. Don’t let technicalities overshadow what really matters: compelling value propositions and meaningful brand experiences. In SEO, this wins you links; in conversion optimization, it wins you customers.
But SEO and conversion optimization are different too
SEO often prides itself on minimizing the need for PPC search advertising. While that’s a noble achievement in traffic generation, conversion optimization actually flourishes with paid search, for reasons we’ll examine below. So the first step is to clear away any paid media prejudices.
Combined with PPC, conversion optimization enables highly controlled experimentation. Turn on traffic for a specific keyword, with a particular ad, to a matching landing page, and run well-defined tests with a minimum of confounding variables—and do it in a matter of hours. Iterate quickly. If a problem arises, or you strike gold, react instantly. Test, test, test.
Of course, SEO traffic can be optimized too. But take full advantage of the control PPC offers you.
In SEO, the atomic unit of experimentation is the blog post. In conversion optimization, it’s a matched PPC ad and landing page. While most organizations can now blog nimbly, producing coordinated landing pages may still be a slog. It doesn’t have to be: optimize the process, not just the pages.
Conversion optimization extends beyond a single page. SEO usually avoids breaking up content into multiple steps. However, you may find that multi-step landing pages convert better, because they engage respondents in a mutually productive dialogue and facilitate segmentation (they’re also called “conversion paths” for a reason).
While SEO encourages open publication of everything—that great new report you produced makes excellent link bait—conversion optimization often benefits from dangling valuable content as an incentive to convert. A landing page offering your report, in exchange for a name and email address, can still be link bait, but there’s clearly some trade-off.
Furthermore, some conversion-oriented landing pages shouldn’t be indexed by search engines at all. If you’re experimenting with special offers, or running campaigns with short expirations, you want the prerogative to change them or turn them off without leaving residual expectations out in the wild. For limited promotions, the meta robot tags you probably want are “follow, noindex.”
Dream building instead of link building
The driving goal of SEO is link building. At the risk of sounding schmaltzy, the driving goal of conversion optimization is dream building.
You want to get in the mind of individual prospects, starting from their very first search query to learn something new, solve a problem, or satisfy a desire—a need that you can fulfill. That is the stirring of a dream in their consciousness. Everything you do from that point forward—every touchpoint, every landing page, every follow-up email—should help make that dream real.
Success in conversion optimization is when a prospect rejoices, “Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for!” A dream come true.
It’s harder than link building. But it’s a worthy mountain to climb.
I'll be willing to bet that when you hear internet marketing related terms like SEO, SEM, PPC, etc, you don't think of conversion optimization. And vice versa, when you hear talk of e-commerce conversion improvements, you may not think of internet marketing. If you do, then bravo!...you're ahead of the pack. If not, that's ok, but you may want to read on for some reasons why you should be integrating them.
Even though conversion optimization is not technically part of the internet marketing, we always recommend that companies integrate it with SEO and PPC efforts on an ongoing basis. Why's that? Well, let me answer that by asking another question: What's the use of getting a ton of traffic to your site, if it doesn't impact your bottom line, or your clients' bottom line? That would be a blatant waste of time, money, and other resources. Whether the goal is sales, new clients, or simply lead generation, it's essential to tightly integrate conversion optimization within your SEO and/or PPC strategies.
What Exactly Is Conversion Optimization?
In a nutshell, Conversion Optimization is the process of making it easier for the users to buy from you (or whatever other conversion goal you have, whether it be filling out a contact form, etc). Don't worry, starting to improve the conversion-friendliness of your site is easier than you think. Let's take a look at some of the steps in the process and how they can integrate with your search marketing campaigns and strategy.
Step 1: Understand and Improve Usability
Before anyone will want to buy from you, they need to feel comfortable at your site. Take a look at some of the following tips to help make a site more user friendly:
Step 2: Find Ways to Build Trust
Before people will spend money with you, they need to trust you. Some things to check for on your site:
Step 3: Help Users Find Other Products to Buy
This may sound obvious, but make it easier for users to spend money at your site! Just like the "impulse buy" sections right by the checkout counters in many stores, install modules that show other items the user can buy once they've added products to the cart, or while they are viewing other products.
Options include:
Don't Know Where to Start?
Remember that marketing is about communication.
If you're stumped for where to start, simply start asking customers or clients for feedback. If you're really motivated, hold some focus groups. See what they think would make your site better, easier to use, and build more trust. You can gather some incredibly valuable data by talking to the people in your target audience.
Dial-In Your Content
Once you do start to get a handle on this, it's important to continually dial in your page content, titles, and META descriptions to more closely follow the mind of your target audience. Sometimes these changes can result in an immediate and large boost in traffic, even though most of the time it's slow growth. Often as we've done research for clients and discovered that we either need to use an alternate phrase from what they initially thought, or added a strategic word or two to the page titles, we've seen traffic and sales jump very quickly after executing the change.
Continually Improve Your Understanding of Your Audience
After you've spent some time improving the conversion-friendliness of your site, and learning how your users think, you'll start to know better how to improve your campaign strategies for organic search optimization and PPC. For example, are you finding out that there are certain phrases that a searcher is more likely to use? Often what you initially think they would search for is very different from what they actually search for, so it's important to do your competitive market and keyword research on an ongoing basis.
Also, review your contact form submissions and customer service calls. Find out what kinds of words and phrases people are using. This may give you some additional clues as to what kinds of terms and phrases to target. Find out what kinds of questions people are asking, because these may result from weaknesses in the site. For example if there is a common question that comes up, it may be a question your site should be answering but isn't.
One client site we did this with provides an interesting example: By noticing a common question that kept popping up, we created a module to answer that on the product pages. The conversion rate instantly went up by about 50%, along with sales. Also, by adding this information to the page in a search engine friendly manner, the pages started ranking better for some important phrases and terms, driving more traffic to the site, which in turn drove even more sales. If that's not a case for integration of conversion optimization and internet marketing, then I don't know what is!
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
This is an ongoing process, not a one-time deal. Keep working through the process throughout the life of your site, and with each cycle, it will get better and better. I'm confident that the more you do this, the more you'll see the value of integrating conversion optimization into your internet marketing strategy.
Starting here in 2010, conversion optimization is the new SEO.
To be sure, SEO is still important and still evolving. There are still plenty of companies that need to adopt its best practices. SEO isn’t dead. But among the giants of SEO, there is a growing restlessness for the next mountain to conquer.
That mountain rises beyond the SERP and beyond the click.
SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkin recently declared that conversion optimization is the most underused and highest ROI activity in the marketing department. Predicting that 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization, he wrote, “Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this… 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value.”
SEO and conversion optimization are a lot alike
Conversion optimization and SEO both thrive at the tumultuous intersection of marketing, IT and customer operations. SEO professionals are experts at navigating this technical and political tempest. They are part engineer, part creative and part strategist—all bundled together in the role of a front-line change agent.
Those same talents, honed over the past decade, are exactly what’s needed deeper in the funnel.
Conversion optimization, like SEO, isn’t a one-shot project. It’s an integral part of the new marketing. The most valuable players will do more than optimize a landing page or run a good A/B test themselves. They will help organizations absorb conversion optimization into their culture and operational rhythm.
Good SEO practitioners know that short-cuts aren’t the answer. Sure, almost anyone can “optimize” a single page’s conversion rate by eliminating all choices and brow-beating visitors with misleading promises. You can myopically increase conversions that way—but at a terrible cost to brand, reputation and customer goodwill. Such black hat conversion optimization, like black hat SEO, isn’t worth the price for legitimate businesses.
(That is one of the reasons I prefer the phrase post-click marketing—it suggests a broader regard for user experiences and long-term relationships.)
Like SEO, conversion optimization is data-driven. Web analytics remain your greatest ally, but you must roll up your sleeves and dig deeper into user behavior. Segmentation analysis becomes even more crucial. How do different segments interact with you, and how can you optimize their particular experiences? Carry that through to revenue (or at least quality-scored leads).
Ultimately, in both SEO and conversion optimization, content is king. Don’t let technicalities overshadow what really matters: compelling value propositions and meaningful brand experiences. In SEO, this wins you links; in conversion optimization, it wins you customers.
But SEO and conversion optimization are different too
SEO often prides itself on minimizing the need for PPC search advertising. While that’s a noble achievement in traffic generation, conversion optimization actually flourishes with paid search, for reasons we’ll examine below. So the first step is to clear away any paid media prejudices.
Combined with PPC, conversion optimization enables highly controlled experimentation. Turn on traffic for a specific keyword, with a particular ad, to a matching landing page, and run well-defined tests with a minimum of confounding variables—and do it in a matter of hours. Iterate quickly. If a problem arises, or you strike gold, react instantly. Test, test, test.
Of course, SEO traffic can be optimized too. But take full advantage of the control PPC offers you.
In SEO, the atomic unit of experimentation is the blog post. In conversion optimization, it’s a matched PPC ad and landing page. While most organizations can now blog nimbly, producing coordinated landing pages may still be a slog. It doesn’t have to be: optimize the process, not just the pages.
Conversion optimization extends beyond a single page. SEO usually avoids breaking up content into multiple steps. However, you may find that multi-step landing pages convert better, because they engage respondents in a mutually productive dialogue and facilitate segmentation (they’re also called “conversion paths” for a reason).
While SEO encourages open publication of everything—that great new report you produced makes excellent link bait—conversion optimization often benefits from dangling valuable content as an incentive to convert. A landing page offering your report, in exchange for a name and email address, can still be link bait, but there’s clearly some trade-off.
Furthermore, some conversion-oriented landing pages shouldn’t be indexed by search engines at all. If you’re experimenting with special offers, or running campaigns with short expirations, you want the prerogative to change them or turn them off without leaving residual expectations out in the wild. For limited promotions, the meta robot tags you probably want are “follow, noindex.”
Dream building instead of link building
The driving goal of SEO is link building. At the risk of sounding schmaltzy, the driving goal of conversion optimization is dream building.
You want to get in the mind of individual prospects, starting from their very first search query to learn something new, solve a problem, or satisfy a desire—a need that you can fulfill. That is the stirring of a dream in their consciousness. Everything you do from that point forward—every touchpoint, every landing page, every follow-up email—should help make that dream real.
Success in conversion optimization is when a prospect rejoices, “Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for!” A dream come true.
It’s harder than link building. But it’s a worthy mountain to climb.
I'll be willing to bet that when you hear internet marketing related terms like SEO, SEM, PPC, etc, you don't think of conversion optimization. And vice versa, when you hear talk of e-commerce conversion improvements, you may not think of internet marketing. If you do, then bravo!...you're ahead of the pack. If not, that's ok, but you may want to read on for some reasons why you should be integrating them.
Even though conversion optimization is not technically part of the internet marketing, we always recommend that companies integrate it with SEO and PPC efforts on an ongoing basis. Why's that? Well, let me answer that by asking another question: What's the use of getting a ton of traffic to your site, if it doesn't impact your bottom line, or your clients' bottom line? That would be a blatant waste of time, money, and other resources. Whether the goal is sales, new clients, or simply lead generation, it's essential to tightly integrate conversion optimization within your SEO and/or PPC strategies.
What Exactly Is Conversion Optimization?
In a nutshell, Conversion Optimization is the process of making it easier for the users to buy from you (or whatever other conversion goal you have, whether it be filling out a contact form, etc). Don't worry, starting to improve the conversion-friendliness of your site is easier than you think. Let's take a look at some of the steps in the process and how they can integrate with your search marketing campaigns and strategy.
Step 1: Understand and Improve Usability
Before anyone will want to buy from you, they need to feel comfortable at your site. Take a look at some of the following tips to help make a site more user friendly:
- Think like a user. Step out of your company mindset for a moment...how would the user feel about this site?
- How would a new user rate your navigation? Useful? Useless? Easy to navigate? Difficult? Navigation is one of the foundational elements of usability so spend some time making this work for site visitors. The rule of thumb is to make sure navigation gets people to where they want to go in 3 clicks or less.
- Remove barriers to either conversion or users finding what they need. Is there anything in your site that makes it awkward or difficult to proceed? Fix it.
- Are the visuals pleasant or do they assault your eyes? Fix it.
- Study well-executed competitor sites or those with similar functionality to find features you should be using.
- When it comes to e-commerce usability, Amazon.com is the leader. When lost for ideas, visit their site, and other strong sales sites. It will be sure to spark something.
- One thing Amazon doesn't do perfectly, that you should: Use Search Engine Friendly and User Friendly URL's so visitors can bookmark pages they like and come back. Example of Friendly URL: http://www.yoursite.com/this-is-a-friendly-url.php - Example of Unfriendly URL: http://www.yoursite.com/page.php?section=books&product=89403&q=75839
Step 2: Find Ways to Build Trust
Before people will spend money with you, they need to trust you. Some things to check for on your site:
- Basic trust-building elements like secure lock icons and "secure ordering" verbage on your shopping cart pages. You'd be surprised and how many shopping cart programs don't come with these out of the box.
- Another no-brainer, but for your shopping cart it's important to make sure your site uses standard e-commerce security features such as SSL encryption for processing orders, and appropriate security certificates that are up to date and work on all browsers. One mistake is that companies sometimes forget to renew certificates, and they expire without them even knowing it. This is more common when there has been a series of web development teams working on the site over time, and information gets lost along the way. With all the identity theft issues people deal with today, they don't want to send their credit card info over an unsecured connection, so make sure this is in order.
- Do you have warranty or product guarantee info that the users would love to know about? Do you have any other features or services that make you stand out among competitors? Make sure potential customers/clients know about these, not only on your site, but also in your paid ads. For example, if you have an industry-leading warranty or feature, make sure that there it's shown prominently (and tastefully) on your site, and also in your paid ads. Not only will the customers convert at a higher rate (from all traffic sources), but if you mention this in your PPC ads it will also increase your click-through rates. This is one example of the value of integration.
Step 3: Help Users Find Other Products to Buy
This may sound obvious, but make it easier for users to spend money at your site! Just like the "impulse buy" sections right by the checkout counters in many stores, install modules that show other items the user can buy once they've added products to the cart, or while they are viewing other products.
Options include:
- Popular products / top sellers
- Featured products you want to let customers know about
- Other items also purchased by those who bought that particular item (similar interests)
- Accessories that go with that product, etc.
Don't Know Where to Start?
Remember that marketing is about communication.
If you're stumped for where to start, simply start asking customers or clients for feedback. If you're really motivated, hold some focus groups. See what they think would make your site better, easier to use, and build more trust. You can gather some incredibly valuable data by talking to the people in your target audience.
Dial-In Your Content
Once you do start to get a handle on this, it's important to continually dial in your page content, titles, and META descriptions to more closely follow the mind of your target audience. Sometimes these changes can result in an immediate and large boost in traffic, even though most of the time it's slow growth. Often as we've done research for clients and discovered that we either need to use an alternate phrase from what they initially thought, or added a strategic word or two to the page titles, we've seen traffic and sales jump very quickly after executing the change.
Continually Improve Your Understanding of Your Audience
After you've spent some time improving the conversion-friendliness of your site, and learning how your users think, you'll start to know better how to improve your campaign strategies for organic search optimization and PPC. For example, are you finding out that there are certain phrases that a searcher is more likely to use? Often what you initially think they would search for is very different from what they actually search for, so it's important to do your competitive market and keyword research on an ongoing basis.
Also, review your contact form submissions and customer service calls. Find out what kinds of words and phrases people are using. This may give you some additional clues as to what kinds of terms and phrases to target. Find out what kinds of questions people are asking, because these may result from weaknesses in the site. For example if there is a common question that comes up, it may be a question your site should be answering but isn't.
One client site we did this with provides an interesting example: By noticing a common question that kept popping up, we created a module to answer that on the product pages. The conversion rate instantly went up by about 50%, along with sales. Also, by adding this information to the page in a search engine friendly manner, the pages started ranking better for some important phrases and terms, driving more traffic to the site, which in turn drove even more sales. If that's not a case for integration of conversion optimization and internet marketing, then I don't know what is!
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
This is an ongoing process, not a one-time deal. Keep working through the process throughout the life of your site, and with each cycle, it will get better and better. I'm confident that the more you do this, the more you'll see the value of integrating conversion optimization into your internet marketing strategy.
