What is one of the biggest challenges for today's SEO agencies? Is it the latest Google algorithm change? Having to keep up with all the social media marketing avenues available? Finding quality links? Yes, those are all issues facing anyone trying to run a successful internet marketing campaign, but one that trumps all those is unrealistic expectations of the power of SEO. Though, we can boast of edge marketing search engine optimisation specialists.
SEO Isn't Effective
We got an e-mail from a client this week saying they'd like to cancel service, as they believed "SEO isn't very effective". I take personal pride in every campaign we manage, so I quickly pulled their latest reports to see what the problem was. This local home furnishings distributor had gone from being unranked to position one for their chosen keywords. Google Analytics showed 50-100 unique visits per day versus the 50 per month they were getting when we began the project. So why were they cancelling their service?
"Nobody Calls Us!"
Despite the massive boost in traffic and rankings for high quality and locally targeted keywords, they saw no measurable increase in revenue. How could this be? Surely if you've got exponentially more people finding your business online, there would have to be some kind of increase, right? With 75% of traffic coming from organic search, wouldn't the visitors be ready to shop? Not if the website stinks!
The Decision to Buy is Made in Seconds...
...In less than 30 seconds, that is, which is how long the average visitor stayed at the site according to the analytics report. I recommended to them time and time again to put more effort into the site and it's content, but my recommendations fell on deaf ears. I made it clear what our responsibilities as an SEO company were from the start, and recommended we renovate their site to maximize results, but they were happy with their own design and content.
Yes, when visitors hit the homepage, they were greeted by pixelated and stretched out images of their products which were hastily stuffed into a template provided by their budget web host. Not only that, there was a lack of clear product images, a shopping cart page with no products to add to it, and no address information anywhere on the site to indicate how to find their local warehouse.
Besides not making themselves any sales, this bad website can have long term effects, like showing Google their site isn't relevant because of their high bounce rate, or even worse, damaging their reputation in the local marketplace as pretenders rather than contenders.
The Answer
Before you even think about spending money on an SEO campaign, make sure your website is up to snuff and is conversion optimized to bring in sales leads. Here is a list to get you started with some ways to make sure your site's ready to convert searchers into buyers when it comes to an e-commerce site:
- It should be clear what products and services you are offering
- It should be clear how to buy the products, whether it's through a brick and mortar location, or online
- Clear and attractive photos of your products
- Detailed information and specs for your products
- Easy and sensible navigation
- Your web design should be consistent; each page should look like they belong together
- Clear information about your business, including location and history, to increase trust
While many of these points are for websites selling products, many of these work for any kind of website that has the goal of representing your business and making you money!
Got any conversion tips of your own for any kind of website? Leave some comments and tell us what you think!