Note: This article in not dealing with technical details to improve conversion rates. This post just deals with the conventional tips to improve conversion rates. Please read the article on improving conversion rates if you want more modern ideas of improving your websites’ conversion rate.

Why do you have a website? If it’s not just a religious website or a general interest blog, it is imperative that you would want your blog or website to achieve something. The general idea is not just to reach out to the world at large by winning the war for eyeballs, but also to create sales and bring about an increase in revenue through the website. There are many sites where people just want to be seen and heard and to register in the general consciousness of the public at large. The owners of these sites are quite happy with enhancing the website and doing keyword research as well as search engine optimization in order to increase web traffic, which is the ‘raison d’être’ or reason for existence of these sites. A lot of people get an adrenaline rush just by knowing that they registered 10,000 hits in that week, no matter if all that the visitors did was to browse the site for a few moments and then moved on. For example, there are many celebrities who write blogs that serve no purpose but merely act as a medium of expression and a way to reach out to their millions of fans spread across the world.

However, when it comes to sales online or e-sales, what matters is not just the eyeballs but also the sales that accrue from the site. The number of sales that occur from every 100 visits to the site would compute the sales conversion rate. For instance, if 100 people visit the site and only 10 people make purchases from the site, the conversion rate would be 10%. There are many online retailers like Amazon and others which have a totally online or e-commerce model of sales.

There are also a number of travel sites that do their business nowadays solely through an online model. It is these companies that are extremely interested in the conversion rates. If these companies spend a lot of money and have huge investments in the online advertising world in their endeavor to reach to their global audience, it is because these companies are expecting a return on their investment (ROI) in the form of high conversion rates. You may have a great and slick website with all the bells and whistles but if your online visitors do not buy as a result of the online ‘hit’, it is of no consequence and a real waste.

If you are a budding online marketer, here are some tips to help you boost your conversion rates:

• Reach: It is absolutely essential to increase the reach of your website. You may need to take certain steps like search engine optimization, keyword research and online promotions to take on the world and come on tops in the race and the online war for eyeballs. It is of no use if you have the best product or service to offer online but you do not take the trouble to increase your reach. Conversion rates can only take you so far and no more as there is a limit to the number of persons per hundred who would buy or try out a product or a service. To remain viable and justify your costs, it is imperative that you take the trouble and do adequate research to enhance your online reach and popularity. The Internet is a very egalitarian and a merit based medium where you cannot muscle your way or pay your way through at all. It is only merit that counts and the sooner you realize it, the better it is for you. Without this, you will be lost – just like a drop in the ocean.
  

  Try all of these – SEO, PPC and social networking. See where your returns are the most. Concentrate in that area more.

• Simplicity: Simplicity and ease of use of the site is of great importance. Remember – a complex and difficult to browse website will put off many online users and potential customers. If they cannot figure out the website, how will they ever have the confidence to buy from you? So, make your site simple and easy to use.

  For example some of the simplest websites are doing great business online. One of the best examples is Google itself. If you try to sell a lot of things to the same customer, you will sell nothing. So follow the KISS principle – Keep it Short and Simple.

• Presentation: Presentation matters a lot in the online medium. The way you put out materials as well as make it appear to the customer will make a huge impact on your sales online. You cannot be sloppy and present half-baked information – leaving gaps in your online communication strategy and style, and yet expect a lot of sales conversions. This is just not the way how it works. Be simple, lucid as well as persuasive in your communication to achieve the best sales conversion results.

  Please read my post on the importance of website design to know more about this subject.

• Browser: Do remember that there are quite a few web browsers in addition to the Internet Explorer. So, if your website is geared only to cater to IE, you will loose out on the users preferring other web browsers like Netscape Browser, Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera etc. Make sure that your website is optimized for all these different web browsers so that it can effectively reach out to the millions of customers around the globe leading to great sales and sales conversion rates.

  Once the design of the website is complete check its outlay in all of the browsers written above.

• Time management: In this day and age, people do not have the time or the patience for those who do not value their time. Be sure to present your offerings in a precise manner that’s easy to understand in order to close sales effectively and in the shortest possible time. This is effective use of your as well as the customer’s time. This is possible if you put out all the information clearly and help the customer make a decision quickly and easily.

  In other words let the call to action page be very easily reachable on the website or if you are doing PPC, let your landing page itself be the call to action page.

• Integrity and transparency: When you are selling online, your reputation is at stake as people depend on you and would spend money on your products or services. Any slip-up in terms of less than transparent and ‘above the board’ conduct and dealings would mar not only conversion rates but also your reputation and chances of growing your business. So, never cut corners or adopt shortcuts when it comes to honesty and integrity.

  For example, if you are offering a money back guarantee of 7 days, then if a customer asks for a refund within 7 days, you should promptly return their money. This will not only enhance the customers confidence in doing business with you, he/she may also spread about your honesty online, and/or offline (word of mouth).

• Unique Selling Proposition: This is what differentiates you from all the others and the “has-beens’. If you want to be a quality online sales entity, you must work very hard to be a cut above the rest and a benchmark in terms of standards and quality. Do remember that the battle is not only about sales conversions but it is about your continued fair name and distinction which is what will keep your business thriving and growing long after all the cheap imitators have shut shop and vanished.

  For that its best to take customers reviews about the product and if possible implement if some of their suggestions in your product / service.

Use these steps as mentioned above to improve your conversion rates.

Recommended Reading:

1. Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions – Its a book written by conversion rate expert Tim Ash. Will teach you step by step what you need to do to your landing pages to get the best conversions possible.

2. Conversion Rate Questions

Websites are generally present because people have put them out for a particular objective. In some cases, people are interested in putting out their views to the general public through web logs that are commonly known as blogs. A lot of celebrities and media personalities like to interact with their fans and propagate their ideas through websites. This is also true of many professionals as well as religious leaders who want their views as well as sermons to reach the largest audience possible in order to spread their views far and wide. The objective of a website is to garner the maximum number of eyeballs in the best interests of the website. There are other sites also that are geared towards e-commerce or online marketing. These websites have been created with the express idea of providing means to advertise goods and services that can be used by the public to make orders and buy online. These online marketing sites generally have online forms in order to enable people to make online purchases and increase their revenue. A good example of this is companies like www.amazon.com or www.traverus.com in the realms of online sales.

However one needs to keep in mind that just having a website is not enough. Whatever be your goal – brand building, information distribution, advertising, lead generation, sales or service – a website needs visitors. Without visitors a website is a waste resource.

If you are a big brand like Google, Yahoo, CNN etc people may type your URL in the web browser and reach your site, else you may need to advertise your site.

There are two major ways to get visitors – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC). Both these methods involve money and time.

The way most sites reach out to a wider audience is by way of search engine optimization (SEO), which essentially refers to the effective use of keywords. A majority of web surfers get to websites through search engines like Google.com as well as Yahoo.com. These sites crawl up or look at various websites that have the particular keywords, which the surfer has used to search for information online. These sites have certain complex algorithms or Meta search formulae that are used to assign specific ranks to the websites based on the usage of the keywords. For instance, if you look up the terms “Indian curry recipes”, you will find a listing of various sites that have these keywords. The reason of such a result is search engine optimization that helps sites get better ranked on basis of how well certain key words or phrases have been used in their web pages.

It is said that websites ranked 1-10 or at most between 1-20 have a much better chance of attracting traffic, which is why SEO is indeed such a great business as well as training proposition. SEO experts are indeed in great demand as they can influence immensely the way a website is ranked and thus the amount of traffic that a site is able to garner online. It is indeed no wonder that there are so many sites and online groups that are quite dedicated to ensuring better SEO knowledge and information dissemination to SEO enthusiasts and students.

SEO is an exciting field of work and study in today’s context. A lot of researchers are working day and night to come up with new strategies to enhance SEO effectiveness. There are whole new companies that have mushroomed with the express objective to provide SEO related services online. If you are looking to outsource SEO services you must be very careful before doing business without knowing about the history of any SEO company. Google has also written some questions you need to ask before hiring an SEO. I quote:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?
• How do you measure your success?
• What’s your experience in my industry?
• What’s your experience in my country/city?
• What’s your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you?
• Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Good SEO experts critically look at online content and revise it based on keyword research as well as HTML editing with a view to enhancing search rankings. While no one can guarantee that their services will surely give you a number one ranking, it is true that an optimized site will have a better ranking than the one which has not been search engine optimized.

The concept of pay per click (PPC) is also linked to the objective of increasing traffic to a website. In very simple terms, pay per click means that an online marketing company would pay to the website a particular amount based on the traffic that the site brings to the site of the marketer. For instance, if you have a tie-up with Yahoo.com and have agreed to pay them $0.10 per visitor that you get on your site through yahoo, you would have to pay up $1.00 for 10 clicks ($0.10 * 10 = $1).

Pay per click can also have various levels and different kinds of arrangements with various sites based on the kind and volume of traffic that you get from the site that is more visible and well known. You could also differentiate between sites by paying more for sites that bring greater effectiveness into the traffic on your site as compared to less effective ones. PPC is a very effective and quite commonly used means of getting targeted traffic.

While SEO does show results, you can rest assured that targeted PPC is much more effective in attracting web traffic. When you go about further incentivizing your customers to view your website, you will find an exponential increase in the web traffic and that too so fast that it will belie your wildest expectations. No wonder the whole world is going absolutely gaga over PPC and its results. The moot point here is that both in SEO as well in PPC, one cannot underestimate the utility of keyword research in driving traffic. The only difference is that with PPC, one cannot depend on two word keywords. You will need a set of long word keywords that are not being searched up by competitors so that your position is unparalleled and unmatched as compared to what the competition is up to.

PPC keyword research is quite an exact science. You have to know a lot about which words to pair and which to eliminate in order to achieve the most optimized and suitable results. Of course there are many tools available to help you do keyword research. Apart from the tool, a lot of this also happens with time and through trial and error, meaning that the results cannot be quick fix or ‘in-a-jiffy’ answers. One also has to be an accomplished PPC keyword research expert and not just an SEO expert in order to bring about the very best results. For instance, if you have a client who is selling various computer products including accessories, peripherals as well as software products, it would not be possible to actually run a PPC on each and every one of the computer products as that would be too wide a net leading to diffused results. The PPC keyword expert would do the keyword tests by using the word computer in conjunction with various other words like accessories, peripherals or software in order to achieve the best results and thus eliminate those combinations that are sub-optimal. So, there lies the essence of researching PPC for SEO purposes.

One interesting fact is that SEO is more popular than PPC. One of the major reasons why I think SEO is more popular than PPC is that the human nature of thinking that free is good and better. I do agree through SEO one can get free visitors, but it may take a long time before someone sees results. Compare this to PPC – it can bring instant traffic, though you may have to pay for every visitor irrespective of whether there is a sale or not. In the long run may be SEO is profitable, but it can be debated whether each and every site can generate that much traffic required to stay in business through SEO only.

Website owners who realize this therefore “try” both SEO and PPC to generate traffic and track results to invest more time, money and energy where the returns are the most.

Its debatable whether SEO is better or PPC. If you ask me I would suggest first try PPC. Get to know the keywords that can bring good returns for your site and then concentrate on only those keywords for SEO purposes.

Recommended Reading:

1. SEO vs PPC Whitepaper

2. SEO vs PPC – Cases

What do you say? SEO or PPC?

A few years ago, if you spoke of search engines, one would perhaps speak of Yahoo or AltaVista or even MSN as the search engines of yore. Then came Google and almost swept the search engine market in one great sweep. Nowadays if you talk of search engines, almost everyone would swear by Google as it has indeed revolutionized the way we search for information online. The complex algorithms that Google contains are able to crunch millions of sites and bring up those particular sites that are most appropriate for our needs. It has also brought about the revolutionary concept of search engine optimization that helps online marketers ensure that their sites get pride of place in the search engine ranks and thereby get a major share of online traffic in the online war of eyeballs.

This is now set to change with the new search engine that already made waves even before its very launch. This site is Wolfram Alpha – http://www.WolframAlpha.com and is the creation of Dr. Stephen Wolfram. He announced it in March 2009, and released to the public on May 15, 2009. Dr. Stephen Wolfram is one of the most distinguished and celebrated mathematicians, scientist, business leader and Internet expert par excellence. He has authored path-breaking books like “A New Kind of Science” and is also the creator of Mathematica. This is a revolutionary product that changes the way of computation, simulation, visualization, development and deployment of technical solutions that is indeed taking the world by storm. It may be amazing to know that born in London and educated in Oxford and Caltech, Stephen Wolfram had his PhD at the young age of 20. He was well known for computational scientific advancements in the form of SMP, which was the first modern computer algebra system that was later released for commercial purposes way back in 1981.

Wolfram Alpha is touted to be a computational search engine and not exactly a traditional search engine like Google, Yahoo etc. In many ways, this search engine is great because it is also called a fact search engine. These days, when you generally look up a common search engine, you would see a listing of web pages that contain the keywords typed by you while you search for information on the World Wide Web. For instance, if you typed out the word ‘eggplant’, you would get page upon page containing the word eggplant and these would be listed based on ranks that the search engine assigns to these web pages based on various search engine optimization criteria and algorithms that search up the pages.

With Wolfram Alpha, the situation is going to change as the search would not throw up separate pages but rather provide direct answers to the questions asked. For example if you search for “eggplant” in Wolfram Alpha, it will give you its average nutrition facts data such as its total calories, fat, cholesterol etc. however NO links will be provided to any website. This creates a total break from the earlier concept and mode as mentioned above.

The way Wolfram Alpha works can be better illustrated by another example. For example, if you do a search on New York City, you will get one single and comprehensive page that dwells at length on the city and various aspects thereof – including its history, geography, economy, climate and many other categories of information that you may not even have conceived. What’s more – you will also get a whole range of statistics as well as facts and figures in a way that it seems like a doctoral dissertation and source file of a wealth of information that presents vast and almost unfathomable encyclopedia of data that is quite enough to take your breath away. The information is presented in an easy and lucid way that is extremely simple to comprehend and come with charts and figures that makes it very comprehensive. In short, Wolfram Alpha is going to be like nothing that the search engine world has seen or imagined before.

If you look at the conventional search engines, they employ algorithms and techniques to crawl the data available online through Internet ‘spiders’ that crawl through the millions of web pages available to bring lists that seem to be the most appropriate and matches a query string put to use by the web browser. This is not the way that Wolfram Alpha wants to go about presenting data and getting it to you the moment you decide to search up something online. Wolfram Alpha looks up many traditional as well as public and private information sources to gather information which is then validated painstakingly by a huge and dedicated staff of almost 150 people who clean and index the data properly so that it can be presented in a manner that suits the web searcher the best. So in a way, this search engine does make use of human ingenuity and intervention to ensure that data is validated and is not just presented mechanically and robotically. In conventional search engines, the validation as well as cleaning and clearing up of data is not possible and it is up to the reader to assess the veracity and reliability of the data that has been thrown up. So, whether it is a scholar, a spammer or scammer who is the source of the data is for you to determine as authenticity is not guaranteed.
 
Another important feature of Wolfram Alpha is the presentation of charts and statistics. If you want population figures, it may be easy to pull up the trends and make a chart yourself on excel. But what Wolfram Alpha does is to look at many sources of data put out by the government and then make charts and tables of it in a matter of seconds as if it were just a simple search. At the core of this is the computational science that goes into defining Wolfram Alpha as the search engine of the new century –suited to the ever-changing needs of the tech-savvy generation of today as well as tomorrow. 

Wolfram Alpha represents a veritable quantum leap in the field of search engines and computational searching online. It is true that this search engine has its limitations, which are essentially linked somewhat to the veracity of its sources. If some data is not present or has been stopped from being published, it is quite true that even Wolfram Alpha would get it wrong and present data that is less than authentic. However, the basic way in which it searches and presents data is quite path breaking to say the least.

Did you try Wolfram Alpha? What are your thoughts about this great search engine?

This may be bad news for many webmasters around the world. Google has recently changed the way page rank flows from one page to another.

Lets take an example. If you have a page rank 8 webpage and link it to 8 other websites, then according to simple pagerank flow rule – all the 8 linked websites will get a page rank of 1 (8/8 = 1).

Suppose you did not want your pagerank to flow to 4 of these websites you could easily do a rel=”nofollow” and phew, the search engines will make sure the page rank would NOT follow to these sites.

So what about the page rank to other 4 sites? Well they would obviously get a page rank of 2 (8/4 = 2).

Now for some strange reason Google has changed this rule.

So whats the new rule?

The new rule is that page rank will flow to the 4 website without nofollow but they will only get a page rank of 1 INSTEAD of 2.

The leftover page rank of 4 (8-4) will get WASTED.

Watch this video here, where Matt Cutts of Google explained this new behavior.

It is not a simple change as you may think. Page rank is a major factor in determining SERPs (search engine results pages), and this change will dramatically affect the way Google ranks the websites.

One major example are the blogs. All the comments are nofollowed. Before if the author linked to one or two websites, they would easily get a fine portion of the page rank of the page. Now this will be divided among ALL the links (including the comments) and then page rank will flow only to the ones without No Follow. Common sense says the page rank of these pages will get reduced.

Do you like this move by Google? Please leave your comments below.