So you’ve spent tons of money and resources on a search engine marketing (sem) campaign, your site is ranking well, your pay-per-click campaign is in full swing driving tons of qualified visitors to your site each day and you’re noticing tremendous growth in traffic compared to previous months – now what?

Many people run into the issue of having conquered their search engine marketing goals, but continue to see low conversion rates. The issue I see is that many marketers and website owners neglect the design, layout and the effectiveness of their landing pages while focusing primarily on conquering Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Taking it a step further - the quality of design, information architecture and product content is the most crucial component in generating any type of lead or sale on your website. In fact, many businesses can simply increase sales by focusing on converting the visitors they already have rather than by adding more traffic.

For example, would you rather convert 500 of 30,000 visitors or convert 1000 of 10,000 visitors? The point is, with proper testing and design alterations; you can achieve these types of results.

While I won’t go into great detail in this article, below are a few things that will improve the sales and conversion rate of any website:

1. Put yourself in your customer shoes – Walk through your site, role-playing as a customer and ask yourself, would you buy into what you’re selling? Does your site give you (the customer) everything you need in order to make a decision on purchasing the product or inquiring on for more information? Are there things you could add to your site that a customer might be looking for?

2. Video – Video is exploding and there is HUGE opportunity within the business arena for the use of video demos and tutorials. For example, if you sell a product, having some sort of video or demo where users can see the product in action will dramatically improve conversions. How many times have you been sold on a product from watching an infomercial? Don’t tell me I’m the only one with a bowflex collecting dust in the garage.

3. Literature – This is more so relevant in the B2B market, but vital for any web presence. Having literature such as brochures, data sheets, white papers, articles and press releases readily available for download can sometimes be the difference from someone buying or walking.

In Conclusion
As I’ve mentioned many times before, there are numerous things that goes into achieving success on the web. It’s a constant challenge that every company faces. Yes, search engine marketing is important in driving visitors to your website, but the quality of design and content is what’s going to engage the user and close the deal.

If you have any questions or would like more insight on achieving higher sales and conversions, send me an email.

When optimizing a site for search engines, writing quality content using competitive keywords is crucial. Although keyword density on a web page is important for ranking well on search engines – key phrases can be even more valuable to your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.

Keywords are important, but they are very competitive and expensive in regards to paid inclusion (Pay-Per-Click). Key Phrases (more detailed and specific search phrases) on the other hand has a laundry list of benefits. Not only are they less competitive, key phrases attract serious, more qualified visitors.

Think about this, when people aren’t sure what they want, they tend to search using generic keywords (cars, bags, shoes, picture frames, new homes, pc software, gardening tools, dogs etc.). This isn’t rocket science, it’s just common sense. People today are smart. The majority of people (consumers) searching the web understand that generic keywords will bring back a gazillion results that may or may not bring back what they want. It’s a crap shoot. But when people are serious, ready to buy, looking for a specific solution – you best believe they will be searching using longer, more specific key phrases.

For example:

When someone is ready to buy a used car, they don’t search on used cars - they search on “2006 range rover fully loaded”.

When someone is looking for a certain bag, they don’t search on bags - they search on “kenneth cole black leather messenger bag”.

When someone is looking to buy a pair of shoes at a discount price, they don’t search on shoes - they search on “discounted mens dress shoes”.

When someone is looking to purchase a dog, they don’t search on dogs - they search on “beagle puppies for sale in los angeles”

When someone is looking to buy a new home, they don’t search on new homes, they search on “new homes in porter ranch california”

When someone is looking for a specific lawn mower, they don’t search on lawn mowers, they search on “john deere riding lawn mowers”.

I’m sure you get the point.

In Conclusion
Single keywords are often very competitive, expensive and saturated within the search market. Focusing on more detailed specific key phrases will allow you to achieve faster and higher page rank. You will also attract more serious, qualified visitors. This long tail approach to search is a strategy that has been growing over the past few years. Basically, while there is a huge demand, very competitive market for generic keywords, there is a long tail of less competitive and more specific key phrases that exceeds the market share of the more popular keywords. So take a look at your title tags and make sure to focus on key phrases instead of generic keywords.

If have any questions or would like assistance with your search engine marketing (SEM) initiatives, please send us an email.

Web users tend to dislike banner ads - especially the infamous pop-up banner ads (hence all the pop-up blocker tools out on the market). The click-through rate (CTR) on banner ads are generally low, below 1 percent. In addition, people visit websites not for the banner ads but for the content it provides.

If you asked a random group of people today how they feel about online banner ads, they would most likely tell you that they either hate them, they get in the way of reading content, or that they really don’t care. No one besides a web designer or marketer would tell you that they like banner ads. So if people generally dislike banner ads and banner are so “annoying”, why is it that a large percentage of the top 100 visited websites (from Alexa.com) display banner ads, and continue to grow in popularity? Besides the fact that these websites provide great content and services - my theory is that users are subconsciously affected by online banner ads in many ways that draws them into a website rather than discouraging them.

My theory is that banner ads subconsciously tell users that the site is Free, it’s Alive and it’s Popular. This train of thought came about recently while I was researching a new car on many of the popular car buying websites (cars.com, edmunds.com, carsdirect.com etc.). In addition to the popular sites, I might have visited over 50 different websites that offered car reviews and info. Some of them I liked, others not so much. I’m always searching for new things to write about, so I began to question myself on why certain car related websites stood out over others. Why did I spend more time on certain sites, and not so much on others? Why did some sites draw me in while others didn’t? Keep in mind, all of the sites I visited provided the same type of information.

So I began to list out characteristics of the sites I that I liked and sites that I didn’t like. While I was building my list, I noticed that almost all of the sites I liked had some sort of banner ad. And the sites that I didn’t feel so highly about contained no banner ads. This was interesting to me. Can banner ads have some sort of effect on a user? Of course. It’s like with any flash component of a website – it’s animated, it generates movement, it’s engaging.

The Subcoucious Affect of Banner Ads
Not only can banner ads liven up a flat static website with animated movement, but Banner ads subconsciously give users a feeling that the website is FREE, that there are more people on this site, that the site must be popular, that the site is alive and kicking. Users subconsciously are thinking it has to be a popular site, it’s generating ad revenue, right? All of these things lead to visitors staying on the site that much longer, making an extra click into site, taking a step further beyond the home page - all of which benefits the website owner.

The next time you visit a popular website, whether it’s CNN.com, ESPN.com, take note of the ads. How well are the banner ads designed? Are the banner ads from major brands? These ads may be affecting you without you even knowing it. Also, take note of similar sites that doesn’t display banner ads – is there a difference that you can tell. Does the site without banner feel different? It’s just something to think about.

In Conclusion
There are many things that can make or break a website. My theory on the affect banner ads have on users is just one example. These are just my thoughts on the hidden value that animated or static banners can add to your site. If you have a free, informational base website that competes with other leading brands that rank higher than you on competitive keywords – make sure the ads on your site are consistent with the ads on the leading websites. Build relationships with leading brands and place ads on your site for free until you begin to generate a high volume of traffic. This instantly gives you a look and feel that is similar to all the big players – giving users the impression that your site must be just as good as the ones at the top.

Please feel free to share your thoughts?