SEO (search engine optimisation) is currently rising in popularity and becoming a huge part of the marketing strategy of businesses large and small due to the amount of traffic that can be driven to your website for a relatively low cost (when compared to other marketing strategies). However if you aren’t doing anything to convert this traffic or to optimise conversion levels then you’re missing out on potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds, millions of pounds or even tens of millions. And let’s not forget that conversion optimisation applies to all your digital marketing channels, not just SEO.
Are you currently optimising your site for conversions?
So your SEO, PPC and email marketing campaigns are in full swing and you’re successfully gaining traffic to your site through increased search engine rankings. But have your conversions risen in line with your expectations? If not then you need to take a good look at your site to understand why not. Once you understand why your site’s not converting get your web agency or internal team on it instantly. If you haven’t got any conversion optimisation specialists internally then ask your digital marketing agency, if they give you a confused look as to say what’s conversion optimisation then quite simply change your agency
What should I do to convert more of my traffic?
Okay, so you’ve done the hard bit and you’re driving increased levels of traffic to your site. What next? let’s start with the basics:
- Are you driving traffic to the most relevant pages on your site? If you’re not directing your organic traffic to the most relevant pages then get your SEO or SEO company to get the best possible pages ranking. If the same is true for you PPC campaign then set up custom landing pages with the specific purpose of converting the visitor. With email marketing just put some thought into which pages you link to
- Check your site and server analytics and check for page with high bounce rates – improve them and add a call to action or two
- Check your site and server analytics for any abnormally high errors, or 404’s
- Install a program such as clicktale and carry out a user behaviour analysis, this will help identify any issues with your site and most importantly your booking engine
- Have you got call to actions on your landing pages, if not add them. This point is vital once you’ve got a visitor show them the call to actions so they know what to do
- If your site has a product search look at the stats, if a user is carrying out more than two searches then you are not returning relevant results to them
- Set up funnels in your web analytics package so that you can track the number of exits at each stage, this will instantly tell you if certain pages just aren’t working as they should
Conversion Optimisation – Vital but certainly not complex
You should have gained from reading the above that conversion optimisation is a vital part of any online/digital marketing campaign, but at the same time it’s really not the most difficult thing to implement. The most important aspect is using the correct analytics software to put the relevant data in your hands. Once you have all the data you arrive at the hardest part which is interpreting it, but hey if your not confident with this aspect get a specialist involved as when done correctly you’ll make you’re investment and then some back in no time at all.