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Presentation from Adaptive Consultancy deomonstrating how to optimise the use of all sources of traffic to your website.
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More Visitors = More Sales Ways to increase your website traffic
IJL Seminar – Tuesday 5th September 2011 Presented by Eddie Prentice, Adaptive Consultancy
Agenda
• Introduction
• How search engines work
• Paid search
• Search engine optimisation
• Email marketing
• Affiliate marketing
• The semantic web
• Measuring success
How to increase online sales
It’s easy. You either
• Increase web traffic
• Improve your conversion rate
Focus of this seminar is increasing traffic.
How search engines work
How does Google find you?
Google uses software known as "spiders" to crawl the web on a regular basis to find relevant results for specific search phrases. Google issues specific guidelines: • Design and content guidelines • Technical guidelines • Quality guidelines
Make sure your designer / developer is aware of, and follows, these guidelines.
It’s not a secret!
Why search engine marketing is so important
People who type a phrase into a search
engine are
four times more likely to purchase than those who click on a
banner ad.
Why do people use search engines?
• Learn more about a product/service 46%
• To compare products/services 25%
• To read reviews about product/service 10%
• To purchase a product/service 9%
• To find to a particular site 7%
Where do searchers click?
Organic 74.3%
PPC 12.2%
PPC 13.5%
Paid Search Marketing
The Paid Search Process
It’s quick and easy to set up.
Unless you have a process it’s also a quick and easy way to fail.
% …
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Same day 1 week 1 month
3 months 6 months
9 months
How soon before purchase does research begin?
Keyword search and competitiveness
Long tail keywords have low search volumes but bring high quality traffic
Competitor Analysis
• Look at who’s on page 1 of Google for search phrases you want to be found for.
• Look at their ad copy
• Look at their landing pages
• Determine factors which
drive success
• Assess your strengths and
weaknesses
• Know what actions you need to take
- Websites incorporating Google ads
- Google matches your keywords to the content found on the website
Visitors tend to be impulse clickers and may be less likely to convert.
- Displays your ads along with the organic search results in the search engine
- Your keywords are matched to what the visitor typed into the search field.
Visitors have a specific purpose - more likely to be looking for what you are selling.
Display and Search Networks
Quality Score and Relevancy
The AdWords system works best for everybody – advertisers, users, publishers – when the ads displayed match users' needs as closely as possible.
• Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear
• A Quality Score is assigned to each of your keywords
• Measures how relevant your keyword is to your Ad Group and to a user's search query
A Word About Google Quality Score
Optimisation is not just about making bid changes.
• Edit ad copy to replicate the keywords that drive traffic
• Ensure landing pages meet the expectations set by the ad message
• Pause or delete poorly performing keywords
Relevant ads appear in higher positions, earn more clicks, and bring you the most success.
PPC Campaign Optimization
All these ads came up under the search phrase “diamond engagement rings”. Which ones would you click on?
Ad Copy Relevancy
No Better Best
Ad Copy Relevancy Make sure your landing page matches your offer or they’ll hit the back button
Where’s the
75% Off?
Landing Page should be Charm Bracelets
not home page
Title line in ad matches search phrase and landing page content.
“Google Adwords doesn’t work for me”
• Do you send ads to a specific Landing Page? • Do you use “exact phrase match”? • Do you use “negative keywords”? • Did you know Google increases your bid price on
poor performing ads? • Did you track results with Google Analytics? • Did you use conversion tracking? • Did you test your Landing Pages? • Did you use Google Adwords Content Network?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The Basics of SEO
• Onsite factors – Coding
– Navigational structure
– Web page copy
• Off page factors – Backlinks
– Articles/PR
– Blogs
– Social media
SEO: Onsite Factors
Source code Web page copy
Optimised website copy
• Set an objective for the web page • Who are you writing for? • What keywords to use? • What do they need to know? • What action do you want them to take? • Call to action – direct them to the next step
Off page optimisation
Who likes you? Who’s linking to you?
You need to build good quality, relevant links.
SEO: Off-site factors
Building Links - being seen as “popular” by Google
Blogs
• Target bloggers who reach out to your customers. • Create your own blog.
Search: “pearl earrings"
Search phrase in meta title tag and meta description
Search phrase on landing page, in opening para, as hyperlinked text.
Google also picks up on meta tags in source code
Link from landing page gives exact match for search query.
Google Places
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing Structure
The affiliate marketing industry has four core players at its heart:
• Merchant (Your Website) • Network • Publisher • Consumer
When people talk about affiliates they tend to
refer to a combination of networks and publishers.
Affiliates – How it works The website owner rewards "affiliates" for each visitor or
customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.
Generally a fee + commission.
Affiliate Facts
• £4.62 billion sales in 2010
• Represents about 10% of all retail online sales
• £31% of affiliates are generating less than £50/mth average for their merchants
• 25% of affiliates are generating at least £10,000/mth for their merchants.
It’s a mixed bag, with many “part-time” or hobbyists.
The benefits of affiliates
• Incentivises other websites to promote your company’s products and drive website traffic and sales.
• Pay on performance – that means sales not just click throughs
• Limited up-front costs – although some charge ongoing admin fee
• Limited technical requirements – just some tracking code placed on the checkout of a merchant’s site, managed by the affiliate network.
• Build incoming links – SEO benefit
• Be clear in your contract with affiliates about whether they can bid on your brand name
• If affiliates bid on your brand there will be more competition and the price will go up
• Common practice to have lists of words which affiliates can’t use:
– In ad copy
– Keywords
– Position (e.g. can’t bid for top positions)
Affiliates and PPC
Affiliates are in business for themselves
Nothing wrong with that but …
• If they don’t think you can make money for them they won’t make money for you.
• Even major brands need a story.
• If you don’t have something unique or special to offer it is unlikely that you will have prominence on affiliate sites.
Source: Econsultancy
Coupon Sites
Voucher Codes & landing pages
Make sure landing page content marches the offer
Voucher codes & landing pages Make sure landing page content matches the offer
Google Merchant Centre
Google Merchant Centre Unless your system supports this you may need the help of
your developer.
Social networks
Evolution of Marketing Strategies
• Push Marketing (radio, tv, magazines) – no customer interaction
• Pull Marketing (search engines) – customer seeks out what they want in search phrase
• Peer-To-Peer Marketing (social media) – product/service reviews, social networks
Collective Intelligence
• Shift towards information seeking on social networking sites
• Knowledge of people you know acts as a supplement to web’s huge amount of non verifiable information
• This knowledge provides extremely qualified answers to specific queries. Seeking information through a “chain of trust”
Email Marketing
Email – still a consistent performer
• Grow your own lists
• Keys to success – Relevance to recipient
– Landing pages – relevance to email content
– Timing
– Frequency
– Integrate with social media e.g. customer reviews
• ROI on email of 500% is not uncommon
Typical Email Goals
• Drive repeat traffic to your website.
• Brand building. Educate prospects on the benefits/values of your products/services.
• Alert past visitors to new offers and special promotions.
• Nurture a relationship that can lead to initial sales, cross-sells, up-sells and greater customer life time value (LTV).
Measuring Success
What you should measure?
1. Who visited my website? - Unique visitors 2. Where did they come from? - Referring url’s - Search phrases 3. What pages did they view - Entry pages - Average time on page - Page views per visitor 4. Did they have any trouble with my site? - Browser variations 5. What level of engagement was there? - Sign ups - Downloads - Sales
• Success is not just about good marketing practice and having a relevant landing page.
• If you don’t achieve your goals, consider:
– product depth and range
– pricing and merchandising
– stock levels
– your internal systems
– your competition
• Consider the online shopper buying cycle. Visitor may be an early stage buyer who purchases on a subsequent visit.
Success Attribution
The online shopper buying cycle
Broad/generic keyword phrases e.g. “gift ideas for girls”
Specific keyword phrase e.g. “animal charms from links”
2/3 word phrases e.g. “bracelet charms”
Summary
• Understand how search engines work • Know who your target market is • Analyse your online competitors • Conduct keyword research • Have a web content plan • Google Adwords is deceptively simple – follow
the process. • SEO takes time - be persistent, be patient • Start to factor in social media • Track, measure and plan to improve
