This post was written by Leslie Van Zee of Vantage Local – experts in local online display advertising. For correspondence or questions about online display, visit www.vantagelocal.com or followed on Twitter at @VantageLocal.
Adobe’s 2012 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey revealed that online marketers tend to invest heavily to attract a web-based audience, yet they don’t work quite as hard to convert that same traffic into sales. According to the survey results, for every $92 that is spent on attracting traffic towards a website, there is only one dollar spent on conversion. Yet what is web marketing worth if it is not ultimately trying to drive revenue?
The Importance of Optimization
Optimizing your content for conversion is important just about any way you look at it. First and foremost is the potential it has to impact sales. According to John Lovett, a renowned online marketing analyst, it is possible to attain double digit growth in conversion rates provided that sound optimization techniques are employed. Even if sales conversions do not happen online (i.e. for local businesses), it is still important to make sure that you are getting the most you can out of your content. The same metrics that indicate strong converting potential, like duration of visits and number of pages viewed, also help boost SEO and encourage social mentions. These in turn will help more prospects find your site and enter your sales funnel.
The main area that marketers need to focus on is visibility. According to Adobe’s survey results, approximately 68% of internet audience use search technology to navigate websites. This is in contrast with the 53% of respondents who claim to optimize their search results. Search optimization is therefore a key area that cannot be avoided. Do your homework on SEO keywords, and make sure that headlines include the product name and search keywords you want to rank well on.
Improving Your Conversion Rates
Luckily, you can improve your conversion rates with just some minor changes. Here are some ideas:
- Combine user generated contents with professionally produced videos in order to enhance client engagement.
- Proofread, and ensure your content is visibly attractive.
- Have links to the relevant product or service offers within your text.
- Clarify your goals – sales, signups, follows, links, and then make sure you include a clear call to action or add social sharing icons so that viewers can help spread the word
- Increase engagement with clients by embracing scalable tools such as Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook
- Consider what information your prospects will want to know in order to make the decision to buy
- Invest in high quality content writers.
Of course, optimization always must include some means of objectively measuring results. If your business does not perform transactions directly online, there are other metrics that are good proxies for interest. Common ways to measure whether your content is successful include:
- Page views, duration of visit (use Google Analytics)
- Page ranking
- Social shares
- Back links
You can also consider adding coupons and codes that would be indicative of business that finds your website online. Creative ways to track the success of your website will always be valuable, and will help you ensure that you’re optimizing your content the right way.
Attracting business to your website is only valuable if it turns into conversions. Focus more energy on conversions – even at the expense of a few of your hits – and you’ll find that your business succeeds as a result.
