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.