Jeff's Online Marketing Thoughts

How To Find Your Keywords

Since everyone knows that search is important and Google basically rules the online world I want to delve a little deeper into the heart of John Jantsch's recent post about using AdWords to identify good keywords to target in organic efforts. If an SEO consulting firm is basing their recommendations on keywords for your site based on the most popular search terms related to your business, run away. Traffic means nothing if you don't achieve your goals, which most likely relate back to a conversion in some way. Using AdWords is a great way to test certain words, and there are plenty of tools to help you choose keywords, but they aren't very useful if you are starting from square one and are new to selecting keywords.

One place for you to start is by listening to your customers. When someone comes to your business, one of the first questions you should ask is how they found you. Listen carefully, not only to what marketing efforts are working, but also to what terminology they use to describe your business. Another place to look is your top ten best customers in terms of the relationship you have with them. Who are your customers that recommend you to everyone in their network? Ask them how they talk about your business, listen to the keywords they use. Finally, the third great place to look is the internal site search terms people enter. Armed with all that data, now you can start testing and tracking which terms perform the best. By perform, you need to look at what drive the best conversions. Traffic means nothing, so you need to have a good Web Analytics package in place to really follow and report on what is working for you. Always focus on your end goal and don't get caught up in numbers like visitors or page views that might look good but don't help your bottom line.
 

Customers Before Search Engines

Search Engine Watch had an interesting post by Eric Enge about PageRank Obsession. I have seen it myself with customers and co-workers that when talking about a sites SEO performance through out the PageRank as the number one cause of their not ranking well, when it is usually lack of fresh, keyword rich content that is the major cause that I see. It isn't surprising, when you have easily identifiable statistics, as Eric states, "We all want to measure the progress of our site(s) in as many ways as we can." People are very competitive by nature, not at all things but at those things that are important to them they are. If someone is in charge of a Web site you can bet they are competitive and measure anything they can.

However, at the end of the day, search engine ranking doesn't matter, it is your site and your customer's experience that matters. All the numbers and metrics don't mean a thing if your customers aren't engaged and convert. I've seen some very search engine friendly sites that are not customer friendly, and I've seen some very engaging sites that search engines hate. Find the balance that works for you and measure the things that are truly important. It is the same thing I tell customers about Web Analytics. I see so many measuring hits, visits and page views, when they don't mean anything to you if you are selling something. If your focus is eCommerce then you need to be worried about getting customers to buy and come back to buy again in the future. More traffic often just means higher hosting costs and other performance problems. It is great exposure, but if nobody buys what does that traffic get you?

I agree with Eric, focus on your customers, they should come first in everything that you do.

Analysis Without Action Is Worthless

Interesting article in ClickZ by Neil Mason on customer centricity and tying that to Web analytics. A line from the article that I couldn't agree with more was this:

"...none of the output from our analytics work is of any value if the business isn't organizationally and culturally prepared to do something about it. Analysis without action is merely an interesting pastime."

I run into a number of companies that think having a good Web analytics package will solve their Web sites problems. It is the people that can analyze to find actionable items and actually implement them that will help their Web site. Do you have a person or team on your staff that can do this for you?

Taking Action On The Numbers

I've talked before about the importance of looking at your Web Analytics data to make informed decisions on your Web site, the benefits can be seen once again in this article by Internet Retailer on Laura Mercier. They increased conversions by 40% and average order size by 50% by using their analytics data to drive what changes to make. Who wouldn't want those numbers?

The thing that struck me about this is 3 of the 4 solutions were around improving site search. This is key in today's marketplace because Google has changed people's expectation of search. It needs to be right.

The other piece I think ties into it is a post by Seth Godin on marketing. Everyone is a marketer, and certainly has been marketed too. The tie is that you don't have to be a marketing expert, online marketing or general marketing, to make your site better.

Look at what customers are doing today on your site, think about what they would want from their perspective (not what you think they should want), implement your changes (faster), and measure to see if it worked. If it doesn't adapt (faster).

3 Steps To Improve Your Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate - that golden metric to know if your eCommerce site is successful. In simplest terms, it is the percentage of your unique visitors that actually place an order. The best way to improve sales is to figure out how to turn more of your visitors into customers.

Step 1) Determine what steps customers go through to buy. Usually this is a stepped process a customer goes through:
    - View Product
    - Add a product to the shopping cart
    - Start the checkout process - Shipping/Billing information page(s)
    - Enter Payment Information
    - Review information for order
    - Place Order
Step 2) Setup your analytics to measure the number of visitors that reach each critical step in your shopping process.
Step 3) Review the data and figure out how to get more people to each next step. The more people you get to add items to the cart, to start the checkout process, etc. will push more people to checkout. That is your goal.

What other advice do people have for improving the conversion rate on your site?

Web Analytics vs. Usability Studies

I had an interesting discussion with my co-worker Amy the other day about a Web site that our company created. We just got out of a strategy meeting discussing the next steps for the site and we were having a friendly debate about what was more important in understanding what needs to be fixed on your site; the data coming from your Web analytics or the results of a usability study. They are both important tools to consider, however I do think there are practical applications for both.

Web analytics can tell you a lot about what people are doing on your site, where are they going, what are they clicking on, etc. I've certainly talked a lot about what you can gain from Web analytics. Amy's argument though was that you don't know why someone decided to leave your site, it could be the interface, could be the message, could be the products, you just don't know. This is true but you can look at what are your biggest problem areas are, make changes and measure the results. Then you will know what worked. The excellent point that Amy brought up is that it can take a long time to make those small modifications, by the time you get that figured out your opportunity is probably lost.

The cases when I believe a usability study is useful is launching a brand new site. How do you know what your customers want to see by measuring after it is launched? You don't. The other main instance this is advisable is if you want to take your site in an entirely new direction or branch into different areas. Finding out from customers directly is the best way to know before you shoot yourself in the foot.

At the end of the day, both usability studies and Web analytics are tools that you should know are available. Costs and time to do a usability study are one factor to consider, but your Web analytics still need to be reviewed by someone. I think both are useful, but in the end I would trust data of all of my users over what information I'm given from a handful of customers I bring in and watch.

This does bring up an important feature that should be on every Web site, and that is a prominent way for your customers to leave comments or send you feedback. Customers are as willing as ever to help companies succeed, it is a strange phenomenon but you might as well use it. People will tell you what needs to be improved if you ask them.

Your Business should love Web Analytics

I know I have talked a lot lately about Web Analytics lately and what to look at, but I came across an article in Internet Retailer about how to be successful with Web Analytics. The thing I liked about this article is that it points out the business side of things and how to embrace Web Analytics in your company. Here are the 3 keys that I picked out that many companies don't do with their Web Analytics.

- Analyze your data to determine what behaviors happen with users that actually complete the goal you want, most likely conversions. Once you know what those behaviors are, how do you get more users to do those activities more often. To me this is marketing 101.
- Don't just send out reports - take time in a company meeting to analyze the data.
- KPI's or Key Performance Indicators play an important role in successful Web Analytics. You can't look at all of the data, there are key metrics that will tell you what is happening. The interesting idea is the recommendation to assign one person each key metric and hold them responsible for the results. This also means giving them the time to actually do that work, you can't expect great things if they only have 5 minutes a day to review the data but no time to take action on it.

Things have changed today from guessing what is going on with your Web site to being able to have proof, all the information you need is in your Web Analytics. Your customers tell you everything you need to know, take the time to understand and act on it and you will see improvements.

10 things to get from your Web Analytics

Internet Retailer had a great article about what metrics to watch on your site to improve performance. It is helpful since so many providers have an endless amount of information available. It can easily be overwhelming to analyze the full spectrum of data available to you. Here is the list from the article of 10 things to look at in your Web analytics package that should give you some solid answers on what you need to do with your site to make it produce more. For more details on each, check out the article.

1. Study Site Search Results—and Non-Results
2. Optimize the Home Sweet Home Page
3. Know What Works on Landing Pages
4. Use the Shopping Cart for More Than Just Checkout
5. Look at the Look-to-Book Ratio
6. Understand How Shoppers View Cookies
7. Know Affiliate and Search Engine Marketing ROI
8. Use Analytics to Make E-mail Marketing More Effective
9. Manage Customer Category Movement
10. Find Out Why Shoppers Are Not Checking Out

So you want to raise your conversion rate

There was an interesting article in Internet Retailer about things that influence conversion in the past and what to think about today. I started thinking about this and consider it more of a stepped process on what you need to fix.

Step 1 is about the design and usability of the site. This is where you get into a lot of A/B testing with analytics review to see what works and what doesn't on your site. In the article it made it sound like that doesn't work anymore. It isn't that it doesn't work, it is that most companies have implemented the changes needed to raise the conversion rate as much as they can from those types of changes. The first place you need to start is tuning the usability of your site before you move on to the next step.

Step 2 that the article talked about was right, start targeting segments and think more about how different groups will want to shop your site. For each of those segments present choices and information that fits the persona they fall into.

Step 3 is what I think the future is going towards with a sort of the inmates running the asylum mentality. With the growth of sites like digg, flikr and YouTube the "Social Networking" side of the Web is becoming more prominent. Amazon for years has had a flavor of this where you can rate a product then others review to determine if they want to buy it. There seems to be a link with the top ideas or Web sites out there and the ability for people to share, comment and interact with the Web site.

You need to know who your customers are and how they want your site to be. Customers like to buy from companies they feel respect and listen to them. How are you capturing feedback from your customers today? What is your process to review the feedback? How do you implement the changes they are asking for that make sense for the majority of your customers? If you don't have a plan for this today, I would recommend starting something like it because your customers are the key. If you listen to them, they will tell you how to grow your business.

How to improve your site

Everyone I know is always looking for the list of 10 sure fire tips to improve conversion rates on their site. If anyone ever tells you they have a set of ideas that will guarantee a specific rise in conversions, I would be skeptical. Of course there are some best practices that should be applied like not forcing someone to have a profile before they can place an order, but there are exceptions to the rules and your site could very well be one of them. The only way to ever know what to improve and what is working on your site is by implementing a Web Analytics package like Fireclick, Web Side Story, Omniture or Google Analytics. These tools can all give great insight into how people are getting to your site, what they are doing while they are on it and what pages cause users to leave your site most often.  It does take more time and thinking about what you want to accomplish in order to implement on your site. The payoff in the end is well worth it because you are making decisions on your Web site based on actual data, not by just guessing or copying what someone else is doing.