During my day-to-day work I see websites (or do SEO on websites) that rank very highly for some key phrases you would think would deliver great results (and do in terms of traffic) but deliver little else. And, as this miserable old git always says, traffic is not the focus – it’s conversions.

Measurable Conversions

I’m not just talking about form enquiries and emails, I am talking about increased brand profile (which very often works hand-in-hand with other marketing media or advertising campaigns) or increased social engagement, both of which are measurable.

Chasing The Rainbow

Since the web became an everyday tool for marketing, the goal posts keep changing in terms of ‘good practice’. Technology and trends are changing the landscape every day.

So, what does everyone do? They follow the latest trends like sheep, taking their old marketing ways with them, Ie. marketing at people, rather than with them.

They shift from one marketing ‘tactic’ or technology (because the current one doesn’t work) into the new one that promises that it will. And, of course, it doesn’t.

Meanwhile, the basics get overlooked, especially quality web design – with sound structure, content and user journeys.

Quality Web Design

Good web design is about interface and user flow – not whether the MD likes it.

Getting traffic from a search engine is one thing. But, when a person lands on your website, do they see all the things they need to see to allow them to the next step?

Optimising the Journey

Analytics Apps (such as Google Analytics) are great. But, if you chose to focus on headline stats and forget to join up the dots, or dig deeper, your graphs could be doing nothing but making your wall look pretty – it won’t please your sales manager.

Understanding what your website is delivering – and what could be achieved – is essential. As is watching which elements of your website drive a journey.

Assumption

Very often, the design of the elements of website miss basic information, simply because there is an assumption that something should be obvious to the visitor.

One of the common things missing from websites is lack of geographical marker, ie, where is this company? Or, if geography is not essential to the sales offering, what is the specific sales proposition?

Without these simple ‘signposts’ how is a visitor supposed to know they are in the right place. And, if they don’t know that, how would they know to take the next step?

Summary

Website audits can un-earth a lot of weak points with a website. Running usability sessions and implementing the findings with a refreshed web design, you will often find the optimisation process working wonders with conversion.

With consistent growth in web traffic from search engines, combined with increased user engagement, you will often find that you don’t need to keep chasing the rainbow – you’ll find enough gold on your doorstep and have the tools to collect it.

The result, is too many web pages, most of which are very low quality.

Ps. Say Goodbye to Guidance

One of the tools that makes online marketing and SEO a more managed discipline is the constant feedback that can be gained from Analytics and keyword research. But with the supposed enforcement of the EU ‘cookie’ law coming into play in May 2012, plus the changing face of data Google is prepared to give you, this data will offer less and less guidance.

For instance, Google Analytics has a useful chart (with data) that shows which words in search engines your website is performing for.

However, back in October 2011, they decided that if you have a Google Account, and are logged in, they would no longer provide this data to the website owner. (Considering the amount of data Google collect about users, this is rather ironic to say the least.)

This graph for one of my websites, shows the growth in the past few months of “Not Provided” as a portion of this keyword data.

There are some clever ways to discover what the Not Provided traffic could pertain to, but ultimately, we have less understanding.

Quality

This points back to the argument that would always be my first…

the need to create quality content that is contextual within its market place.

Having a realistic digital marketing strategy, combined with a managed SEO programme is necessity to rise above the mass of [suppos-ed] competition you may have. Still, lots of people talk a good game but miss having the fundamentals of a good website.

For example, I am having a conversation with a client that the moment that goes along the lines of…

Right, we have created the pages that tell people what you do… Now we have to create the content that proves that you are good at what you do.

Summary

SEO and digital marketing will get harder, especially as Google push their own agenda more and more. The point is, how you continue to find quality and value from SEO focused on unpaid traffic needs to change right now as things adapt.

Is your website moving in the right direction? 

If you are based in Hampshire and need digital marketing direction, why not get in touch?

As much as I hate the lack of measurability and control, getting a clients phone to ring or email box to fill up, is far more important than my ability to report.

Could this mean that web forms are become less effective?

My answer to this is simple… It’s a case of offering choice. The relevance of how someone contacts you will depend on the type of client you tend to attract, and, the product or service you are offering.

Personally, I always tend to think that the best Call To Action is push, is the one that works best for the way your business works – as long as it’s not detrimental to the sales prospect.

At the end of the day – a web visitor is only worth having if they convert.

Drilling into where traffic is coming from and, arguably more importantly, the keywords that are delivering traffic can often show some interesting trends that prove whether your campaigns are working or not.

For example, a trend on a recent web marketing project I’m working was showing a very flat chart in terms of numbers of monthly unique visitors.

Even when we drilled down into where the web traffic was coming from, search engine traffic was also looking relatively flat.

Non Branded Search – Product Search

It’s only when you take away any brand-related search phrases that you see the trend on search traffic for products and services. In this instance, there was an initial impact of around 200% growth in the first three months, which has continued to rise throughout the year:

What Does This Show?

To some respect, there are a number of reasons why this may be the case and for me, there’s always a strong indication of other marketing that drives brand related traffic. You would also combine these figures with traffic from referring sites and direct traffic.

Taking this into account (along with other data I have) I can see:

• The ongoing SEO campaign has (and continues to) deliver an increase in traffic.
• Brand search is static – ongoing marketing is retaining brand awareness. This would need to be judged against whether the client would expect a rise.
• Direct traffic clearly outlines specific months where campaigns took place.  A good example is that in the early stages of this project, the company in question were doing a local launch in Basingstoke using a combination of other marketing activities, including a brochure, tele-sales campaign and a meet and greet.

Summary Of Findings

For me, I tend to always look through this data towards conversions and I can only measure either online enquiries or with feedback from the client, sales leads.

Ultimately, I still believe that when it comes to SEO and analysing the traffic data, it’s not an exact science. But, it can show trends. The key is to tie the data together rather than getting a potentially incorrect assumption by focusing on one graph… like so many people seem to want to.

I’ve been working on quite a few diverse projects recently and very often during meetings have to keep my clients focused on the end game – website conversions.

A website conversion for many of my clients means getting a sales enquiry. Although I can’t necessarily measure if someone ends up making a phone call or sends a direct email, I can push the enquiry form on a website and measure the responses.

Return On Investment

Being number one in Google, or getting ‘x’ number of website visitors are not accurate measurements of the success of a business website. They help drive traffic to the end-game, yes; but of themselves, they are worthless.

When I start working with clients, I always ask direct questions about their sales process that allow me to ascertain the value of the work I do and whether it is valuable for them when I send them my monthly bill.

If they are selling products that have low value, we have to sell a hell of a lot of them. At the other end of the scale, I know that one of my clients can get an enquiry that can turn into a high five figure sale. Obviously, the numbers of enquiries we would need to cover my costs would be much, much lower.

This understanding allows me the honesty to say yes or no to a new project.

Website Conversions For Windows Company

I recently read a report that included the stat that the top 50 e-commerce websites only convert around 2% of their visitors. As a matter of course, I tend to aim for 3% and get anywhere between 1% and 5% depending on the business model – bearing in mind many of the websites I work on are B2B.

But, when measuring any web stat – including conversion rates – you can rarely take success from one set of metrics alone. Here is a good example.

Traffic does not equal conversion

After a three month trial period of optimising a website for a glazing company last year, we decided that despite the levels of traffic increasing, the website was not delivering a proportionate number of enquiries.  The result was that I insisted that to push the project any further, the company would have to move away from it’s “off the shelf” DIY website package and move onto a system more geared towards conversions – or at least a website that gave us the flexibility to do so.

We plumped for WordPress and the new double glazing website went live in October 2011. Below you can see the impact of the SEO from July, and also the new website kicking in for January 2012. So far so good… more traffic =  more people.

Conversion Rates

The website is also in the top 3 ion Google  for many of the search phrases we went for relating to the windows and doors products they offer, coupled with geographical targeting.

Over the past four months since launch of the new website we have averaged 3.51% conversion rate – much higher than the old website was getting.

Stats That Matter

But, add the increase of traffic to the higher conversion rate and the numbers suddenly seem even more attractive.

20 conversions in a short month – February 2012 – is still worth a lot of money. Rudimentary guesswork on my part would suggest an ROI of around 1,500-2,500% if they manage to convert half of them.

And, as 2012 progresses, we would fully expect to see the website traffic increase as the new pages grow in age and profile, so any new traffic should continue to convert.

A Joined-Up Numbers Game

If you are in sales or marketing and have been charged with making your website deliver sales leads, then making sure you remain focused on the end game is essential. Don’t get too distracted with the bits that can make that happen – they are just cogs in the online marketing machine.

You will (as I do) get detractors – People who obsess with Google positions for some phrases that they think are important. Smile sweetly and continue to optimise your website with…

• The key phrases that bring people into the site form search engines.
• The user journey process that turns a website visitor into a sales lead.

The interesting thing I find, is that many people can’t get past that point though. They get stuck, obsessing with the processes and optimising their site for their internal team, rather than their customers.

If you have seen this, or need help (and you think the numbers add up after I tell you I charge £500 per month for my daily retainer), why not contact me for a chat?

Earlier this year, they had a new website built which destroyed various content optimisation that had been done in the past and to say I was disappointed was an understatement.

This company spends a lot of money on Pay-Per-Click to generate sales enquiries. During 2011 alone, we are talking about £13,000.

So, when we started talking back in October, I was keen to do two things.

1. Optimise the content on the key pages of the website.
2. Optimise the pay-per-click campaigns to save money.

Pay Per Click Needs SEO

To some respect, pay-per-click and SEO go hand-in-hand. Optimising web content not only creates the potential additional natural (free) traffic from search, it also creates specific advert campaign landing pages when done correctly.

In turn, a well optimised and relevant landing page will not only bring down your pay-per-click ad spend with Google; you also tend to get much higher conversion rates from fewer clicks.

Relevant Pay Per Click Advert Funnels

Imagine you are in Google and you search for a specific product or service. Firstly, when you look at the adverts, you’ll notice that they tend to have some relevant adverts, intermingled with some completely vague and irrelevant adverts. That’s lazy advertising!

The best way to attract sales enquiries through your website is to create the most relevant sales funnel that you can by creating:

• Relevant and specific sponsored keyword lists
• Relevant advert copy attached to the keywords
• Relevant landing pages

The user then gets what they asked for when they searched – from start to finish.

How Well Does PPC Convert?

I could bore you with a whole bunch of figures here, but it’s key to explore the funnel right to the end, because it’s essential to understand  how many of the conversions (in this case sales enquiries) come from the Pay Per Click opposed to other traffic.

In this case, firstly I stripped the Pay Per Click Campaigns right back, reducing the amount of money the client was spending by over 41% (based on historic monthly costs).

Over two months, we’ve saved £1,500 alone. Not only that, the number of enquiries (from all sources) had the opposite effect – see below.

Furthermore, enquiries from Pay Per Click went up from a conversion rate (click to enquiry) from 0.15% to 1.12% in less than two months.

In real terms the pay per click optimisation project resulted in four times as many enquiries, while at the same time slicing 41% off the ad spend.

Summary

If you are running ad campaigns through search engines and can understand the potential to optimise your pay-per-click strategy, why not contact me today?

Me, I seem to be coming out of the other end of the cycle. Cynical, but with an even more focused understanding of what’s worth doing to make a website deliver. Here’s a couple of thoughts:

Google – Adverts Not Results

Google is forever blurring the lines between search results and people who pay to be there. Let’s face it, the Adwords Pay Per Click model is genius – it lets the market decide the prices… and they keep going up as idea-less marketers throw more money at it.

Take this screen shot (from a standard PC monitor) which proves my point. The natural listings (local result from a localised result) is so far down the page that the number two result is only just hitting the screen.

Does this mean the pressure is more and more towards the number one result at the cost of all else?

While Google tell us to focus on basic guidelines of quality, it seems there is less and less chance of being found for the investment of time taken to create the content.

(See also this interesting article at SEO Book which highlights that Google Are Advertising to say as much).

Less Feedback from Analytics

I love Google Analytics. Combining the data with Webmaster Tools (and Adwords when applicable) treats me to a lot of data feedback when refining and creating website content.

But, they seem to be choosing their own rules about privacy and have started to hide keywords from logged in Google users.

If you can’t collected ‘deeper’ data from Analytics, some of which will highlight conversions over traffic, perhaps we are being guided to optimise for less and less keywords to drive up the prices of adverts?

Next year will be interesting with the “Cookie Law”. If anyone takes notice, you can expect to get VERY little data out of your Google Analytics. A company I know complied to the law and saw they tracked data fall to 6%.

What To Do?

This post may seem like a bit of Google bashing but it’s not. It’s more about having clarity of business goals. If you are paying an SEO who consistently refers to keywords, yet you can’t see the business benefit, perhaps it’s because keywords and optimisation in themself are becoming less important.

Or, more to the point, SEO is just part of a much larger strategy requirement.

Good SEO housekeeping is not a luxury anymore – it’s a necessity. But beyond the basics, there are too many other factors in the mix to simply rely on SEO alone moving forward. So:

• Make sure you understand your standing in search engines. Which market, and who, can you compete with realistically?
• Make sure your web pages each contain specific content pertinent to that page (product, service, case study, etc.)as standard – including location.
• Take part in social engagement IF it is relevant and WHERE it is relevant. There are still to many B2B companies with Facebook Pages… Why?
• Don’t get hung up on social media. If it works for your business, make sure there is a measurement in place that truly justifies the investment of time and money.
• Google Adwords can get very expensive. Optimising your campaigns will save you money and help you compete to get not only traffic – but sales enquiries. Don’t let Google guide you in setting up your campaigns.
• Web Design and Usability seem to STILL be overlooked by many companies. Instead of focusing on Google Position, why not focus on conversion rates?

There is still plenty of opportunity to be had in terms of search engine optimisation. But, canny sales and marketing teams are measuring the conversions and stripping back their activity.

Yes, brand and product promotion are still essential for SEO (as with all marketing) but ROI is pushing the lean to become leaner.

You’re setting up a new business. You are excited, and have a lot going on as you organise everything you need for your startup. In terms of marketing, you know want a website and you know you need email so you find a web designer or web programmer who offers to do the job. Then they ask…

What domain are you using and where is it  managed?

Very often, the answer will be something along the lines of… I don’t know all about that techy stuff, can you organise it for me?

Five Years Later On…

Domain management (and ownership) is invisible when it works and is often forgotten. Then, as your business grows, you need to scale; whether it be with additional email accounts or a new website, or even simply moving your hosting to a new platform.

Then comes the problem. Right… where is the domain managed?

Recently, I have come across three big problems, which I hope will scare the shit out of you enough to wake up and get your domain management sorted.

Case Study One – The Domain Kidnapper

A new client of mine was getting fed up of ‘the guy doing their website’.

He was great when our business was small because he was cheap and when we aksed for stuff, he did it. Now, as the business has grown, we find him slow to respond so we want a new website that we can manage.

When they told him they were moving over to a new supplier, he got incredibly upset and angry and eventually relented to the fact that he was losing a client.

He then quoted them £1,500 to transfer their domain.

When the domain was initially registered by the supplier, the web designer registered it in his own name. So, he is the legal owner of the domain and holds the control, even though the customer was building their online marketing strategy around the website.

Yes, they could fight him for it, and get lawyers involved, but the costs involved could soon get out of hand.

Result

My advice was to either pay the ‘ransom’ and put it down to experience, or, start with a brand new domain. We chose the second option.

In this specific case, the original domain (and associated website) had not built up enough reputation over the previous three years – not enough to worry about anyway.

Four months later the new website is live and – because yours truly was involved – it is delivering more than the original website ever had.

Case Study Two – Now Where Did I Put Those Details?

Another new client (who I’ve been speaking to for some time) had various people managing various parts of their online profiles. The company has a number of website on various domains, scattered across a number of providers.

Then, one day, suddenly, one of them disappeared showing a holding page for the Hosting Provider.

Through the confusion of what was where, a bill was not paid to one supplier. Although it was a year ago (during which time you’d assume you hadn’t done anything wrong because everything continued to work) suddenly, the hosting was switched off. The loss of the website online and the loss of the website files.

Ouch.

Result

The client is taking control. My advice was to collate all of his domains into one central management console that he has access to and control over.

Case Study Three – Where Are The Account Details?

Two different times I have seen this happened – The email address and account associated with the administration account is never checked.

Once I saw a client let their domain lapse because they had registered it in an account (and with an email address) that they no longer used.

Another time, the person in the organisation had emigrated and no-one could contact him to find out where the details were.

Summary

Taking control of your domain(s) is as essential as making sure you know where your passport is. And, because there are long amounts of time in between when you may need to access your control panel, remembering how to log-in and where user names and passwords are kept is a business essential.

As your brand builds equity builds, so do the channels you use to access markets. The web is arguably the first place people search so don’t end up losing one of your valuable business assets.

For me, online marketing needs to be sustainable, as does my own personal commitment to time-related processes. Hence, I decided that there are many more productive uses for the hours in my day.

There are plenty that will tell you otherwise, that social media is the future. They’re usually trying to sell some Twitter related thing at the end of it though.

Delivering Results

I’m an Arsenal fan (don’t hold it against me). Currently Arsène Wenger is under immmense pressure after losing two top players and a poor start to the season. So much so, the media are constantly challenging his position.

Football is about results. When (crosses fingers) Arsenal start winning, it will be water under the bridge… but time is a big factor. Results are needed now to keep the fans happy. And boy are fans a fickle bunch.

Only as good as your last campaign

I deal with a lot of sales people in my job. People that want results and are very black and white about success. Sales and marketing have always been at odds on this point and brand building is an essential part of the mix. That said, I get where the sales team are coming from. Pipeline in any business is a hungry beast.

The hype surrounding SEO, online marketing and social media as a delivery tool can be honed to deliver success. But, not for every business in all industries (unless you have very deep pockets).

Payback

It’s all about payback. In 2011, many marketers are shitting their pants because they can’t bluff it any more. Strategy and execution and patting oneself on the back don’t cut it if the campaign doesn’t deliver.

Marketing is the new sales – Tweet that to your 1000 followers. See what it delivers.

My sales proposition for these companies is not that I design a bespoke website – more budget would be required – but that I create a ‘decent’ looking website using a tried and tested layout that will deliver their businesses results.

One of these new clients is a brand new company, the other has an existing website. To them, the money they are spending is a big investment; so, my number one goal is to make sure they don’t regret having paid me six months down the line.

I even found myself telling the startup that there are web designers / web companies that can create a website a lot cheaper than me… Before discussing the value of the websites I create and that Return On Investment (ROI) is the true measurement in their case.

Getting In The Game

It still surprises me – especially when you have some sort of idea how much a new client may be worth to a company – how little they invest in getting new customers through their websites; especially when compared to existing advertising channels.

For example. Say a company spends £5,000 on a website rather than their usual press adverts. After two months they start getting one enquiry a week and convert half of them. That’s around 22 new customers in the first year. If each one is worth £500 profit, that’s £11,000. They’re £6k up already.

With my new website clients, a real opportunity to get new sales leads not only exists, but is very attainable due to the quality of the competition. The ROI should end up being much higher in terms of percentages.

New Website Build

The new website is for a flow screeding company in Hampshire. Quite a niche market, but lots of opportunity. Partly through the lack of quality competition online and partly through zero local competition. It may take a while to build credibility online, but the new website should pay for itself ten times over in year one.

Website Refresh

The second website is for a sign company in Fleet. I haven’t started re-building this website yet – just tweaking what’s already there – but the local competition is beatable (I’ve done my research) and despite the existing domain having little authority, it has age – which we can build upon.

The content tweaking opportunities on the existing pages alone will have a big impact during build stage.

Although the profit from a new customer for this company is lower, the market is larger and diverse and I am confident that this client will get their investment in their new website back within 3-6 months.

Not Just Design

As much as I know quality quality web design is integral to long-term success of a business website – especially for brand building – these companies are not at the stage where their brand is so defined.

What is important in the short to medium-term is building a sales channel.

A good website can deliver sales leads for most businesses (if not all) as long as the sales messages are defined and the online sales process is clear. One of my biggest bug-bears (still) are passive websites that completely overlook the sales process completely.

If you have a website that looks pretty (or not) and doesn’t deliver sales leads, then something must be missing. Here’s where I tell you I can help. Why not contact me for a chat?