The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: February 2005, Volume 4, Issue 2
Conversion Corner: Prioritize Your Traffic
by Sage Peterson, Vice President of New Product Sales, iProspect
Let’s face it, when most marketers attempt to improve the conversion rate of their websites, they start with the end of the sales process: the shopping cart, the order form, and the registration process. But I submit to you that this is actually the LAST place you want to start when you undertake an initiative to significantly increase your conversion rate.
The fact is that most websites experience catastrophic drop-off rates shortly after visitors arrive – well before they perform the action marketers ultimately want them to perform during their visit. In fact, nearly 80% of voluntary visitors to typical sites will leave within the first three pages that they visit.
Unanswered Questions
Think of every click, by a visitor to your website, as an unanswered question. The moment that the visitor stops clicking through your site – the moment the chance for a conversation dies – is the point at which you have failed to answer a question they had when they arrived, or that developed once they got there. For this reason you need to start to address the conversion problem from the beginning of the process, not the end. Answer some of those questions with the content of your site and progressively draw visitors into your site in search of the answers to their subsequent questions.
One of the first tips for improving conversion is to prioritize your traffic. You can do this by evaluating your traffic by the source of your visitors and where they are in the sales cycle. The better job you can do utilizing this information, the higher your conversion rate.
Source of Visitors
By knowing where a visitor has come from, you may be able to determine what information they might be seeking. Let’s say you have a property management company. If a visitor followed a link from a newsletter that discussed the trial and tribulations of being a landlord, they are most likely interested in your service. Your link in that newsletter could bring them to a landing page with a clear call to action to contact you.
If, on the other hand, the visitor came from a search engine using the keywords “property management,” you wouldn’t know if the visitor was looking for accreditation, an association, software, or a provider of the service. It would make most sense to bring them to the home page, and let them choose their own course through your site, based on their needs. This evaluation process would be similar for visitors coming to your site from PPC ads, affiliate links and from email marketing.
Position in Sales Cycle
You should also assess where your visitors are in the sales cycle so you can be sure to provide them with the level of information that will enable them to reach their goal. Basically, you need to determine if the visitor is:
Trying to figure out if he has a problem
Knows he has a problem and wants to solve it
Making sure he is making the right decision before he commits
The keywords visitors use, and how they navigate the site, will give you a sense of where they are in the buying process. For example, people typically only read about your company and clients once they are comfortable with their decision to hire you. Early in the buying process, they are trying to figure out if you have what they think they need. This is why sites that start with information all about their company and “marketing speak” will be less successful, as most visitors fall under the first two bullets.
Keywords are like breadcrumbs. They indicate the trail a visitor is following and help you predict a sales funnel. As you track your conversion rate by analyzing the source of your traffic and your visitor’s intent, based on their location within the sales cycle, you will be able to start predicting your conversion rate.
In the next Conversion Corner we will cover site navigation, and how to build a visitor-supportive environment through information architecture, copy and embedded links.
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