Search Engine Marketing Done Right

Part 2: How Many Clicks Does It Take?

In the first installment of Search Engine Marketing Done Right Steve Winkler took a look at the logical order in which you should apply search engine marketing (SEM) techniques. In this second part he discusses the art of turning well optimized pages into efficient sales tools.

Now that you’re on your way to better positioning I’m going to switch gears and focus on making the sale. If you are one of the countless marketers that is consistently perplexed as to why visitors are not turning into sales at a high enough rate then piece by piece you can deconstruct your online marketing program to determine where the chasm starts.

If you are confident that your search engine positioning has been properly executed and the quality and quantity of your unique visitors are sufficient for your industry then the following information can help you apply the proper techniques to increase your sales conversions.

So you say that your conversion rates are just perfect at 1%? You firmly believe that the laws of the Internet disallow high conversion rates due to the nature of online buying habits?

As the Internet and online marketing techniques continue to evolve, the complacent will fall victim to the forward thinkers and the analysts that realize the yet to be seen potential of marketing online. Until we live in that perfect world of online marketing we can analyze the facts and statistics to see what works and what does not.

One of the most overlooked issues in the loss of sales and low conversion is total site effectiveness. Since that statement was a reflection of the obvious in that an ineffective site will not convert as well as an effective one, I will share with you the experience that among the most overlooked issues in site effectiveness is the process in which you direct your users to essentially make a sale.

The Wise Old Owl

To set the mood I’ll share with you an age-old anecdote of the wise old owl and the tootsie pop. I am unsure of the exact age of this famous commercial in which you may recall there is a child who asks authority figures of the animal world how man licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. Each interaction with “the know-it-all animals” yields a different reaction.

Eventually the boy comes across the wisdom of the old owl who gives the delicious candy shell 3 licks and then a bite to arrive at the tootsie roll center of the Tootsie Roll Pop.

Metaphorically it parallels the questions that Internet marketers face each and every day in that there is no answer to the question of how many clicks it takes to achieve a sale. However, a bit of analysis, a bit of trial and error experience and a bit of success will enable any Internet marketer to come to a unique answer that meets the unique situation that they are in.

Begin With the End In Mind

My philosophy in life revolves around the simple notion, “Begin with the end in mind.” Working backwards from the desired result often unravels the mystery of a solution. Feel confident that I’ll come back to this philosophy again in the future.

The largest issue that I see with sales conversion problems on a website is misdirecting traffic to an ambiguous or irrelevant page of a website. This is often the fault of poorly executed SEM or Marketing Managers who have not yet grasped the dynamics of marketing through search engines.

Antiquated search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) techniques simply focused only on the attainment of popular keyword marketing directing traffic to a main page or a search engine targeted landing page. More often than not visitors are distracted and quickly lose their interest when their desired search question is not answered immediately when visiting a page.

If you are unsure where to start analyzing your own situation, follow this example and compare this to your own situation.

• Your top search term for a very specific product directs your end user to the main page of your website.
• On the main page of your site a category list of your products.
• In addition to your list you also have a special offer in the center of the page.
• The special offer lures the attention of the visitor to a unique landing page for this product.
• The visitor to your site realizes that he has been misdirected and leaves your site to find another site that more clearly has the product he or she was looking for.

This problem is among the most simple and among the most common in issues where conversion rates are lower than they should be.

By beginning with the end in mind you can solve many hidden marketing faux pas before they occur. For the sake of this topic, we shall assume that the end goal is simply to make a sale. When you are planning your next SEM campaign highly consider page specific marketing endeavors to not only increase your propensity to achieve high positioning in an expedited manner.

Simply stated, the more targeted that you are in your website design and implementation with respect to search engine requirements the more quickly and more easily you will be able to increase ROI. By beginning with the end in mind your proactive approach will shorten the length of time it takes to determine a solution.

The Three Click Strategy

If you have lived and breathed in the business world in the last century you probably have heard the KISS Principle (Keep it simple, stupid). This principle states that you should remove the “fluff” from the presentation and focus on the empirical message. The KISS principle should permeate the presence of your website and be in congruence with your total SEM strategy.

From the point of entry to the point of sale, keep your navigation and procedural shopping process to three clicks or less.

Thoughts on Shopping Carts

Forrester Research claims that most sales are abandoned in the shopping cart and continues to prove that abandoned sales are lost sales. Unarguably the most cumbersome aspect of online shopping is the inconsistency of shopping carts. The inconsistencies are mainly attributable to the lack of a standard for the development of shopping carts.

As an Internet marketer you probably have accepted that regardless of your efforts you will convert traffic in area of 1%. Do your company a favor and explore of the new and exciting shopping carts available to you. If you are simply utilizing technology from 2000 or 2001 you will more than likely have a need to upgrade.

Among the simplest yet most novel improvements to the shopping cart process is the elimination of needless or redundant steps bringing the online shopping experience closer to an offline world sales experience. Modern retail sales and marketing principles enable you and I to have a generally standard, efficient and pleasant shopping experience.

I was quite pleased with a recent purchase at a major online golf retailer who makes very efficient use of their customer’s time by consolidating the purchase process to three distinct steps once the choice of product has been made. After steps 1, 2, and 3 I was done and my new Golf club was on the way to me via express shipping. I do commend this retailer for their ability to conveniently channel me into the sale.

Your SEM strategy should include targeted terms that direct visitors to specific product pages that are as close to the shopping cart as possible. Make this sale as quickly as you can by ensuring that from this point there are less than 3 clicks before the product is shipped to the customer.

Once the user is there, the natural inclination of a retailer is to add another product to the sale to maximize revenue. Do not do this, rather make the sale at hand, process the sale and ship it. Once the order is processed you can direct your registered customer back for another sale.

Add on sales will hurt you more than they will help if the add on product requires thought or added costs beyond the normal market pricing for the initial product. Online sales are often single item sales, accept this principle if you’re interested in increasing conversion rate.

Making Changes

Firstly, as you modify your site be mindful of the positioning that you currently have as drastic changes not congruent with your current SEM strategy can be detrimental and counter productive. Make subtle marked changes and analyze changes individually. While this will undoubtedly take time and energy to specifically analyze the changes that you make in your positioning you will benefit from knowing how the cause and effect relationship works.

As you begin with the sale in mind it only makes sense to bring certain products to the forefront of your website. Regardless of whether you are selling shoes, DVD players or nutritional supplements, you should have an idea of what your big sellers are. If these products are not in some way displayed at the top level of your site, do this first. Bring your popular products to the front of the site and highlight their qualities.

Demonstrate proper SEM compliance through the use of genuine relevant text, appropriate headers, supportive and descriptive alt tags and the subsequent Meta Tags that summarize the information the on the each page that you wish to be ranked. Place these products as high in your site hierarchy as possible to ensure that spiders readily see the information. If you cannot place this information at the top level (i.e. index/home page) then place at one level below at a maximum.

If you are working with a dynamic website you can feel comfortable that the engines are doing their part to include your dynamic pages within their index, it is always safe to utilize static pages whenever possible. By creating perfectly optimized product pages you can dramatically increase the propensity of these pages to obtain positioning.

Properly include perfected and optimized content, which emphasizes not only the qualities of the product but that, also emphasize your company as the undisputed authority on the sale and distribution of these products.

If you should also have prime pricing or special shipping and handling offers do not hesitate to include this information. The optimized page outlined above should be pointed directly to the shopping cart that should be concise and manages to close the sale in quick manner.

Dot your I’s and Cross your T’s

Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) are the most important steps towards increasing low cost traffic. Your SEM/SEO provider should do their part to ensure proper placement. In your interactions with your SEM/SEO there is a caveat to heed. Ask them to verify whether or not they have experience and can help you with sales optimization and ask what their process is in ensuring that SEM/SEO revolves around a Return on Investment model.

In my experience many SEM and SEO providers have not extended their services to include consideration of sales as part of the SEM model. Traffic alone will not make the sale, you must have the right visitor and then furnish that right visitor with the right information. Take the preceding information and apply it step by step to increase your Return on Investment through your current and future SEM/SEO programs.

Go to part 3 of this series, on synergistic marketing.

Further reading:

On the development of search engine marketing strategies
Rank Rage - on search engine spam
2003 Search Engine Marketing Buyer's Guide
How to find the right keywords when optimizing Web pages for search engines
Using metatags in search engine optimization

Steve Winkler is the Business Development Manager of the www.KeywordRanking.com team of Search Engine and marketing professionals.

Steve Winkler has experience in demographic based marketing, interactive marketing programs and business efficiency consultation. Click here for more information, a free ranking report or a free in depth consultation. He can also be reached via email: swinkler@keywordranking.com

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