Copy is absolutely crucial to not only delivering a great customer experience on your website but also converting all that traffic. This is true for traffic that originates from organic search as well as pay per click advertising. In fact, research has shown that organic search visitors tend to convert at a higher rate than visitors from search engine advertising. So how do we make the most of our efforts to attract visitors to our website?
Achieving a good balance between visitors from organic search and search advertising is important as the right mix will bring you more traffic. To maximise the opportunity this presents, I recommend you develop landing pages with "purposeful design". This is critical to the success of your online business.
When a visitor lands on your web properties (pages), their subsequent behaviour is determined to a large extent by what they see and experience within the first few seconds. How do you know what will work and what will not? Well we need to create different versions and test. This is where the science of landing page optimisation begins.
There are two types of tests that I like to apply. One is called AB Testing and the other multivariate testing. Each has its place in the optimisation process. Let me explain.
Let’s use an example to explain each. Let’s assume I have a website that sells products. Should I direct visitors from my pay per click advertising to a page that contains all the products in a category or should I direct them to a single product? Which will convert better? We use AB testing to find out.
AB Testing allows us to test the conversion rates of 2 different pages. So we might direct an equal amount of traffic to each of our pages for a period of time and monitor the conversions rates of each to determine which delivers the better result. Once we have a winner, we adopt that page for all subsequent visitors. We could do sequential testing on this page but that’s a topic for another time.
We can now apply multi variates testing to compare the performance of different elements of the same page to determine what works best. To do this, we select different parts of our page, for example the headline, an image and perhaps the call to action. Then we test each of these with alternative versions.
For example, each time a visitor lands on our website, we can display one of three images of the product. Once we have had a statistically valid sample of visitors through the page, we will begin to learn about which image works best. We can do the same for other elements.
It is important not to get carried away with the testing. I prefer to test perhaps one or 2 elements at a time with 2 to 3 versions of each. If you change too many elements, it is more difficult to assess what really makes the difference.
Once we have the results of our multi variates test, we adopt our highest performing option and then, you guessed it - we do it again!
I hope I have been able to explain how to convert your traffic. As a channel to market, the internet offers a rich source of information that can be used to fine tune your website. Over time, you will know what works and what does not. This really places you at a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.
Billy is an internet marketing specialist and writes on various topics such as landing page optimisation.
Article Source: http://www.free-articles-zone.com
Showing posts with label Site Traffic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Site Traffic. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tips to Increase Ranking and Website Traffic
It is really worth cataloguing the very basic principles that should be enforced to increase the traffic to your very own website and improve your search engine rankings.
a) Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
b) Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
c) Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
d) Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags Headers, etc.
e) Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
f) Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
g) Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
h) Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
i) Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
j) Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
k) Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
l) When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer 's experience fast and easy.
m) When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
n) Don't look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process.
The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually.
Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be "submitted" to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.
If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.
Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high.
Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.
a) Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
b) Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
c) Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
d) Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags Headers, etc.
e) Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
f) Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
g) Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
h) Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
i) Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
j) Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
k) Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
l) When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer 's experience fast and easy.
m) When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
n) Don't look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process.
The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually.
Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be "submitted" to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.
If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.
Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high.
Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.
About the Author
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor and co founder of Free Affiliate Programs
For more information and resource links on site promotion visit: Search Engine Marketing Specialist
Article Source: Content for Reprint
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Website Traffic Stats Can Help Determine The Effectiveness Of Your Visitors
Web traffic statistics can be a valuable tool for a number of different reasons. Before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data. These figures are the most accurate measure of your websites activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.
Often there is a great misconception about what is commonly known as hits and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.
The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.
It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.
Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.
If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.
As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.
Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.
After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it 's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.
If you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, it means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of success.
Often there is a great misconception about what is commonly known as hits and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.
The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.
The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.
It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.
Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.
If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.
As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.
Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.
After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it 's time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.
If you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, it means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of success.
About the Author
Brandon uses wotArticle.com for his article submission and buy cheap dot coms at wotDomain.com.
Article Source: Content for Reprint
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