I had the opportunity to attend a Google Business webinar last week hosted by Avinash Kaushik. The topic was outcome driven digital marketing. Avinash divided web marketing skill sets into three stages.

Cute Toddler: When web marketers are in this stage they are focused on cost; tracking things like clicks and impressions to figure out the cost per conversion/acquisition. At this level, tracking is implemented like Google Analytics but is only used to see the basics like traffic volume, most visited pages, bounce rates, and conversions.

Rockin’ Teenager: As your web marketing skills grow and develop, you start to focus on revenue instead of just cost. If your site has e-Commerce, this is especially important. At this stage you’re also probably using Pay-Per-Click advertising. Creating advanced segments in Google Analytics will start painting a clearer picture of how your visitors interact with the conversion path. Also, linking your analytics with you Adwords (or other PPC) account allows you to start looking at not only cost-per-click, but revenue-per-click. You can now factor in cost of goods sold to find net profit.

Ninja: After mastering the skills above, you are now in the ninja stage. You understand analytics and know how to calculate revenue but now you’re onto something much bigger…value. Ninjas hunt for what’s beyond the basics and try to unite web marketing with total marketing efforts. In addition to major conversion points like purchases, ninjas track customer value by tracking minor conversions like email submissions, catalog requests, loyalty programs, and social media. Using data gathered from the web and from traditional marketing, ninjas can estimate not only cost and revenue per acquisition/conversion but total value to the company.

______________________________________________________

My Thoughts: I was extremely pleased to learn that our Web Marketing team here at Beacon is packed with skilled ninjas. We become partners with each and every client in order to reach the most sophisticated level of understanding and achieve powerful results. If you want the best in Web Marketing, hire the ninjas! 

Everyone pay attention to me, as this is the most important lesson I can teach you aside from never wearing socks with sandals.  Testing is not a way to keep your head in the clouds pondering; it’s a way to constantly improve as you laugh all the way to the bank.  Sure you can expand the keywords you are ranking for and double your traffic, but doing some testing to double your conversion rate is a smarter, easier, and cheaper way to increase the productivity of your website.  But, make sure you are testing the most efficient way possible.  Below are some quick tips to help keep you on the right track.

1)    Have faith in your tools. Thanks to easy multivariate testing sites like Optimizely, we don’t have to worry about “how to test” accurately because their user interface can handle it.  Instead, we can focus on the “what to test.”

2)    Test hypotheses, not your own opinions. To be a great web marketing strategist, you have to break away from the concept that we always know best.  A great website is not an extension of you, but rather an extension of the users that interact with the website.

3)    It’s best to approach a test from all angles. Make sure you not only measure the quantitative data from the GA and your testing interface, but that you also set up a user feedback survey or poll question within your social media profiles to get qualitative data as well.

4)    Go big first. The initial take from a user’s first impression is important since people process images faster than words.  Make sure the layout and images are good first since they have a higher impact that the content.  Big then small is the way to go.  Make sure you nail down the layout, color scheme, and font first.  Then go for the small details of button size, headline, etc.

5)    Make sure to focus on one change at a time.  If you change the button’s color and location, and the headline from ad to ad, how can you be sure what really has the big effect?  Go for one item at a time and do quick tests based on the number of users that visit the pages.

Quick Disclosure:  As the latest addition to the Beacon team, the last two weeks have been spent adapting to all the things that come with starting out with a new company.   I’m really excited about my role as an Account Executive and I look forward to digging in and being a productive part of the team.  With that said, I must admit that having to contribute to the Beacon blog has caused me some anxiety as I have never wrote a “professional” blog post before, so please show mercy…

A year or so ago, I downloaded the Coupon App on my Droid.  It’s an awesome application.  My favorite by far as it has made me aware of a bunch of great deals.  The best deals have been their free magazine subscriptions.  I have a hard time turning down the offers, so I am now the proud subscriber of everything from Spin to Forbes.  I get so many magazines that I struggle to keep up.  Over the holidays, I vowed to work through my growing backlog of reading and stay on top of it in the New Year.

In reading through the January 17^th issue of Forbes, I came across a really cool article on how the CEO of the Teaching Company, Brandon Hidalgo has used marketing metrics to grow his business to $110 million/year in sales.  The article speaks to specific instances of how seemingly subtle tweaks to his online and offline marketing campaigns based on the behavioral data of his customers has increased sales anywhere from 5% to over 20%.

“In February 2010 the Teaching Company changed the color (from pale green to orange) and location (from side to bottom) of an “Add to Cart” button on its website. Result: Sales improved 5.8%. In one mailing, replacing an image of Michelangelo’s God’s hand with one depicting the ruins of Petra produced a 21.8% lift in sales…”

I liked this article, because it helped me understand the business impact of what our team of Web Marketing Specialists do every day for our clients.  They share Hidalgo’s passion for metrics and use it to optimize the performance of our clients’ web properties.

If you have a moment, check out the article on Forbes.com – I think you’ll enjoy it!

If you sell multiple products on your website remember that visitors of the different product types are in fact different, and what works on one page might not work on another to create a conversion.  Always A/B test first to find the layout that works, then begin multivariate testing to focus on the details. Once you discover which layout is the best match for you to display information that your visitors like, your next step should be to determine the best headers, images, and call out buttons on each page.  Clear marketing messages, little visual distractions, and an obvious call to action will increase your conversions.  Listed below is a breakout of tips to help you optimize your landing pages for higher conversions.

1) The structure of the page has an effect.

a.      The less distractions the better for pages conversion pages.

b.      If you remove a visible navigation or several quick links form the page, you will reduce the number of engagements you have on a page (less distractions) which could ultimately help increase your conversions.

2) Each page should have 1 goal with a centralized focus point.

a.      If you want to increase sales for socks, focus on the socks for your socks page, and leave the advertising of the other products to a minimum.

b.      If you want to sell socks have an obvious conversion point such as a call to action “buy socks” button in the content section of the page.

3) Each Page should have a specific marketing message for each product you sell.

a.      On every conversion triggering landing page you should have a message that not only tells why people need the product you sell, but also tells them why they should buy this product from you.  This will give them the boost they need to convert.

4) Images and buttons do play a role in the conversion process.

a.      Make sure to conduct multivariate testing for images used on your page to determine whether it’s better to have images with people or not.  Sometimes visitors want to be engaged by people they have something in common with, but other times it might not be best if your website visitors have a big range in age, sex, or nationality.

b.      Test your buttons to see if your buttons are too aggressive, or not aggressive enough.  A softer conversion call out such as “get started” might get more visitors into the checkout funnel than the “buy now” button you have been using.

5) Use social media to help increase your brand and product awareness.

a.      I recommend using the facebook ‘like’ button and the twitter ‘tweet’ button on your product pages to help your message spread virally.  These buttons are great because they automatically are kicked to their profiles/accounts without causing your visitors to leave the page.  The best places for these small links are in the actual content section of the page so that they can share, after they have reviewed the page.

Having great products does not always ensure that they will sell on a websites.  Listed below are some best practices to  guide your visitors in the right direction.  Remember that your e-commerce site is not an online catalog, but rather a place for visitors to learn more about your company and to engage with your products  interactively.  In order for any company  to sell merchandise or a concept on the web, demonstrating credibility and earning trust are absolutely essential.  Visitors are most comfortable when they believe asite is secure and/or offers an excellent warranty; therefore, such information should be highly visible.Building trust from better known brands through testimonials and such are also effective measures and make visitors feel that much safer..   For most e-commerce websites, the three most important types of pages are the homepage, the category pages, and the product detail page.

Best Practices for the Homepage

• Remember: the primary purpose of your homepage is to provide a means for visitors to navigate themselves.
• Do not develop the entire site in flash.
• Do not provide too many choices for customers.
• Do not bog crowd the page with too many promotions that distract visitors, and  do not make the primary focus rely too heavily on one product’s promotion if the company carries several lines. This advice is to prevent visitors from becoming confused and/or distracted; consequently, they may neglect to view the full line of products and such. A good example would involve sales of clothing for the entire family, but having only one image of boys’ jeans listed on sale. Better conversions would occur if new new visitors could easily identify that the product line extends beyond boys’ denim; the visitor can find items for the entire family.

Best Practices for the Category Pages

• People tend to process images seven times faster than they do words, so use images to divide your categories or different product lines within your categories.
• Try not to place  too much content on these pages; save it for the product detail pages.

Best Practices for the Product Detail Pages

• Make sure there is a clear call to action.
• Provide enough detail for customers to feel comfortable about purchasing products on the spot.
• Use high quality images
• Take advantage of social pushes (the Facebook “like” buttons, a share button, etc) to move items infectiously by gaining exposure with large numbers of viewers.
• Though users are more comfortable using their scroll bars, 76% of all clicks are still above the fold; therefore, make sure to position major calls to action above the fold.

We sometimes become so lost in colors, buttons, navigations, keywords, and KPI’s that we forget for whom we are building optimized landing pages.  Let’s return to the basics of Website Making 101.  For starters, the websites we make and optimize are not for us; they are for our customers.  They serve as the tools the end users utilize to learn and engage with our clients and ourselves, so they need to meet their needs and appear in a way they like. When entering a website, visitors want to feel comfortable; therefore, we need to provide them information in a clear and easy way that will make them happy and confident enough to spread the word.

All landing pages, which for the record are any pages someone lands on—organic, paid, or whatever, should have the following:

1)      A call to action or focus of the page

2)      Information for the user

3)      Images to draw their eyes

4)      Contact information for support; you must be available with nothing to hide.

When you have a larger website, it can often be an overwhelming challenge; nevertheless, you should always be testing.   To make sense of the chaos, I recommend you do the following:

1)      Data mine for pages to focus on that are non-converting, high-traffic pages. Research their current conversion performance metrics as a benchmark.  You need to know your base conversion rate before you try to improve it.  This way the numbers speak for themselves.

2)      Learn about how current visitors react to these pages.  We eat, sleep, and breathe Crazy Egg to see where they are clicking to know what they deem important to them and better evaluate the real estate of the pages.  If you or your clients don’t mind some constructive criticism, I also recommend utilizing a survey on your website to understand what its visitors are thinking.  Also, if you are thinking about rolling out a brand new site, it is very important to be invasive with your visitors to gain a clear understanding of what they are looking for so your changes will be for the better.  If you don’t want to bother them during the user- experience session, you should consider doing a follow-up survey to all email captures you receive.

3)      Test out new options in an attempt to improve the KPI’s you have chosen.  Old school GWO is still awesome and free.  If you need a quicker fix and are not so great with code, I have used both Unbounce and Optimizely, which are great, except for the fees they charge!

4)      Roll out the optimized changes and begin again.  Once you optimize a page, it doesn’t end there.  Take some time away from it, but remember to return to it again for revision.  Making improvements should be a continual process.

5)      Last on the list, the step that everyone usually forgets to complete is the results report —good or bad—to your clients or bosses.  If a test turned sour, it is not a problem; it is an opportunity from which to learn.  Communication is key for steady improvements to take place.

For the past 10+ years I have been consulting and advising businesses with their Web Strategy investments.  From Corporate Websites to University/College Re-Designs to eCommerce systems to Web-based Integrated Applications…all projects demand a careful discussion regarding the investment and the possible return on the investment.

Very often with our clients, Web Marketing Services is a vital piece of the puzzle towards driving the necessary ROI for the Web Strategy.  For many years, the majority of focus in Web Marketing was driving qualified traffic (new prospects) to our client’s sites using Optimization, Paid Ads and more recently with additional attention on Social Media Strategies. I could spend the next hour writing about the detailed tasks on how we help our clients receive qualified traffic but that is not the purpose of this blog entry.

The purpose of this entry is to drive more attention to the art of Conversion Optimization.

Wiki defines Conversion Optimization as the “science and art of creating an experience for a website visitor with the goal of converting the visitor into a customer“.

While ‘converting visitors to customers’ is certainly an obvious goal, Beacon will take you much deeper and determine multiple ‘Conversions’ within your website and your processes so we can carefully track, measure, analyze and act to improve the success of your website investment.

I view Conversion Optimization at a more granular level than “converting the visitors to a customer”.  It all starts with a very thorough and possibly complex implementation of Google Analytics. Without a very sound setup of analytics, you will NOT be able to successfully invest in Conversion Optimization.   The process starts with consulting sessions with the client to understand the business so we can recommend and implement a custom Google Analytics setup for segmentations, funnels, and goals.  Afterwards, we begin to accumulate data in order to make informed decisions for modifying the site/funnels/processes in order to increase Conversions.  Certainly the process is more involved and is unique to each client but I hope this gives you a sense of how we view Conversion Optimization.

More and more of my interaction with clients/prospects is focusing on Conversion Optimization.  Beacon has an exceptional team of Marketing experts and we truly understand the value of Conversions Optimization!!

I enjoyed reading this article below and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Please comment on this blog if you have any thoughts and suggestions.

Patrick

336-232-5668 direct

336-944-4187 mobile

Patrick Flanagan at LinkedIn

ARTICLE TO READ

Conversion Optimization Is The New SEO

by Scott Brinker

Thomas Edison said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As we begin a new decade in search, we face a parallel truism: great search marketing is 1% about getting the click and 99% about what you do next.

Starting here in 2010, conversion optimization is the new SEO.

To be sure, SEO is still important and still evolving. There are still plenty of companies that need to adopt its best practices. SEO isn’t dead. But among the giants of SEO, there is a growing restlessness for the next mountain to conquer.

That mountain rises beyond the SERP and beyond the click.

SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkin recently declared that conversion optimization is the most underused and highest ROI activity in the marketing department. Predicting that 2010 is the Year of Conversion Rate Optimization, he wrote, “Online businesses can generate so much revenue from this… 2010 is the year, simply because it’s an inflection point for companies to assess their spend and where they derive value.”

SEO and conversion optimization are a lot alike

Conversion optimization and SEO both thrive at the tumultuous intersection of marketing, IT and customer operations. SEO professionals are experts at navigating this technical and political tempest. They are part engineer, part creative and part strategist—all bundled together in the role of a front-line change agent.

Those same talents, honed over the past decade, are exactly what’s needed deeper in the funnel.

Conversion optimization, like SEO, isn’t a one-shot project. It’s an integral part of the new marketing. The most valuable players will do more than optimize a landing page or run a good A/B test themselves. They will help organizations absorb conversion optimization into their culture and operational rhythm.

Good SEO practitioners know that short-cuts aren’t the answer. Sure, almost anyone can “optimize” a single page’s conversion rate by eliminating all choices and brow-beating visitors with misleading promises. You can myopically increase conversions that way—but at a terrible cost to brand, reputation and customer goodwill. Such black hat conversion optimization, like black hat SEO, isn’t worth the price for legitimate businesses.

(That is one of the reasons I prefer the phrase post-click marketing—it suggests a broader regard for user experiences and long-term relationships.)

Like SEO, conversion optimization is data-driven. Web analytics remain your greatest ally, but you must roll up your sleeves and dig deeper into user behavior. Segmentation analysis becomes even more crucial. How do different segments interact with you, and how can you optimize their particular experiences? Carry that through to revenue (or at least quality-scored leads).

Ultimately, in both SEO and conversion optimization, content is king. Don’t let technicalities overshadow what really matters: compelling value propositions and meaningful brand experiences. In SEO, this wins you links; in conversion optimization, it wins you customers.

But SEO and conversion optimization are different too

SEO often prides itself on minimizing the need for PPC search advertising. While that’s a noble achievement in traffic generation, conversion optimization actually flourishes with paid search, for reasons we’ll examine below. So the first step is to clear away any paid media prejudices.

Combined with PPC, conversion optimization enables highly controlled experimentation. Turn on traffic for a specific keyword, with a particular ad, to a matching landing page, and run well-defined tests with a minimum of confounding variables—and do it in a matter of hours. Iterate quickly. If a problem arises, or you strike gold, react instantly. Test, test, test.

Of course, SEO traffic can be optimized too. But take full advantage of the control PPC offers you.

In SEO, the atomic unit of experimentation is the blog post. In conversion optimization, it’s a matched PPC ad and landing page. While most organizations can now blog nimbly, producing coordinated landing pages may still be a slog. It doesn’t have to be: optimize the process, not just the pages.

Conversion optimization extends beyond a single page. SEO usually avoids breaking up content into multiple steps. However, you may find that multi-step landing pages convert better, because they engage respondents in a mutually productive dialogue and facilitate segmentation (they’re also called “conversion paths” for a reason).

While SEO encourages open publication of everything—that great new report you produced makes excellent link bait—conversion optimization often benefits from dangling valuable content as an incentive to convert. A landing page offering your report, in exchange for a name and email address, can still be link bait, but there’s clearly some trade-off.

Furthermore, some conversion-oriented landing pages shouldn’t be indexed by search engines at all. If you’re experimenting with special offers, or running campaigns with short expirations, you want the prerogative to change them or turn them off without leaving residual expectations out in the wild. For limited promotions, the meta robot tags you probably want are “follow, noindex.”

Dream building instead of link building

The driving goal of SEO is link building. At the risk of sounding schmaltzy, the driving goal of conversion optimization is dream building.

You want to get in the mind of individual prospects, starting from their very first search query to learn something new, solve a problem, or satisfy a desire—a need that you can fulfill. That is the stirring of a dream in their consciousness. Everything you do from that point forward—every touchpoint, every landing page, every follow-up email—should help make that dream real.

Success in conversion optimization is when a prospect rejoices, “Wow, this is exactly what I was looking for!” A dream come true.

It’s harder than link building. But it’s a worthy mountain to climb.

1)      Consistency with the theme is so important. Make sure that the images, offers, and text content you include on your graphic are highly visible on the destination landing page so that visitors don’t feel lost when they arrive on your site.

2)      Don’t negate the necessity for testing. Things can always improve.  Why not create future ads by learning what did and did not work for the ads in the past.  HINT: Here is where Google Website Optimizer comes in handy! Always think about your options in the following areas:

• The Call to Action:
  • wording,
  • color,
  • shape,
  • size,
  • prominence

• The Point of Action Assurances:
  • Should you include a verification logo for secured online purchases?
  • Should you include a privacy policy?

• The Font You Use:
  • Which font should I choose?
  • Can my demographic read it easily?
  • If this is a mobile site, can they read the text of the ad?
  • Should I make it bold or italic?

Remember, what looks good on paper doesn’t always look so good online.

• The Headline Message
  • Should you use punctuation?
  • Should you include an explanation of benefits/features?
  • Does it need to evoke emotion?
  • Should you ask a question?

• The Graphic
  • What size/shape should it be?
  • Would the ad be more effective if there is an image of a person present for a relatable personability factor?

Remember, if you are going to have an image of a person, make sure that their eyes are facing forward to increase the false connection.

3)      Always track your destination URL. If you are new to this, use this link to help you build it.

If done right, an image ad is a great way to target your audience.  It is more visually attractive than a text ad, and is usually larger and easier to see and gain an impression.  You can also draw a visitor in by telling a story through basic animation.

Recently I attended a meeting with one of Beacon’s account executives where he was explaining Beacon’s status as a “GAAC” and it occurred to me that some of our blog readers may either not know that Beacon has achieved this status or what that even is!

You may have read about Beacon’s exclusive status as a “GAAC” or “Google Analytics Authorized Consultant” and wondered is that just fancy marketing-speak or does it really mean something?  Well, it was actually the result of months of work, interviews with Google professionals and staff and an over 100 page application detailing Beacon’s testing results, processes, team and company.  So no, it wasn’t easy!

Google “insiders” told us that they were very impressed with Beacon’s application, particularly with regard to our ability to provide real expertise in search engine marketing, Google Analytics consulting, Google Website Optimizer and web development.  Most search engine management/Google Analytics firms are primarily marketing-based and either outsource development or merely offer recommendations to their customers for development and testing, making it very difficult to actually EXECUTE Google website optimization.

So, once again you ask– what IS a GAAC??  Google Analytics Authorized Consultants are companies that have been thoroughly vetted by Google and can provide expertise in both Google Analytics and Website Optimizer products.  We provide hands-on help with setup, configuration, reporting, segmentation, and tracking through consulting with your internal staff.  In addition, as a GAAC, we have access to an exclusive resource network of GAACs and Google staff.  So if we haven’t already seen your particular issue, we’re sure that the GAAC community can help us resolve it (and we welcome the challenge!).   We are experts in the “World of Google” as it were.  In fact, at this time there are fewer than two dozen ”GAACs” in the U.S.,  so we are a very exclusive group!

So after all that serious business– and it is serious– contact us to find out just how we can use Google tools to increase your sales and productivity!  How about a little fun?

You have a new website
And want to sell stuff, right?
You need to use Google
And still be quite frugal.

I am your GAAC
To help you keep track
Of all of your clicks
With no tech speak or tricks!

OK, so maybe I should keep my day job… But hopefully you learned something about GAACs!

New Google Analytics Tracking Code SLI Setup:

1.    Starting from the “Analytics Settings” page, click “Edit” under settings, then click “Edit” again under the main Website Profile Information section. This will present the following options.

2.    Select “Do Track Site Search”

3.    Complete a Site Search on your website and view the resulting URL and find the keyword phrase you used as a test.  Identify the query parameter that immediately precedes your test query and insert it into the Query Parameter box as seen in the setup below.  Be sure to replace with your parameters versus what is in the example below.

4.    If you have categories, follow the same test and place your Category Parameter in the box below as well.

Google Analytics Tracking Code for Results Hosted on SubDomain:

** Must be placed on every page on both the main domain and the search results sets.

<script type=”text/JavaScript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-789266-1″);
pageTracker._setDomainName(“replacewithyourdomain.com”);
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Google Analtyics Tracking Code for Third Party Tracking:

Complete the steps listed above and follow the instructions listed below.

The following code must be placed on all pages on both websites.

<script type=”text/JavaScript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-642481-1″);
pageTracker._setDomainName(“replacewithyourdomain.com”)
pageTracker._setAllowLinker(true);
pageTracker._setAllowHash(false);
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

The action in the form must also contain an onsubmit event using the following code:

“pageTracker._linkByPost(this)”

** Every link on either site that allows visitors to cross each domain including all search results must also contain the following code in the onclick event:

pageTracker._link(‘http://www.websiteaddress.com’); return false;

Ecommerce Setup and Tracking:

Access the “Edit Profile Information” configuration through the same steps as setting the Site Search.

Select “Yes, an E-commerce Site”

Select your currency and related settings.

You will need to embed the following GA Ecommerce Tracking code into your website’s ecommerce Confirmation Page.  This code will need to be integrated with your existing ecommerce platform and will have to dynamically extract the information either from the database or from variables that can be carried over from the shopping cart.

** This step will require programming knowledge and custom programming in order to extract the correct variables and build an array for instances where there may be multiple products.  The array will then dynamically add all the products and build the correct coding to deliver the information to Google Analtyics. If this step is not completed correctly, your ecommerce will not function.  You can not copy and paste the code below and have it function for your system.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
pageTracker._addTrans(
“order-id”, // required
“affiliate or store name”,
“total”,
“tax”,
“shipping”,
“city”,
“state”,
“country”
);

pageTracker._addItem(
“order-id”, // required
“SKU”,
“product name”,
“product category”,
“unit price”,  // required
“quantity”  //required
);

pageTracker._trackTrans();
</script>

Example of Reports Available Once Setup is completed:

The reports above are only a few examples of the available reports.  You have the option to dig down on any of these and investigate peculiar or interesting information in much further detail.  I hope this has been helpful and if you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Brad