Increasing Conversion Rates through Search Engine Optimization
Customer Conversion Rates
Posted by Adam Hayes
Search engine optimization can directly increase your customer conversion rates.
I've recently been reading "Call to Action" by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg. So far they've really focused on increasing conversion rates without the need of increasing the number of "eyeballs" that view your site. I liked their analogy:
[You need to] understand that improving your customer conversion rate right now has a return on investment that not only is huge but also keeps paying you back again and again with every marketing campaign you run. Not doing it, on the other hand, is like trying to keep a leaky bucket full by pouring in more water rather than fixing the leaks.
I agree that increasing customer conversion rates will and can dramatically improve your online sales. However, I would suggest that improving your search engine optimization will increase both your customer conversion rates and the number of visitors that view your site. Lets examine what conversion rates really are the result of. Besides needing a simple process that even your mother could understand, more importantly, your mother needs to be able to find your site that has what she needs.
Individual pages designed with a better focus of your specific product and unique value proposition will not only attract customers, but more importantly attract the customers that need and want your product. Focusing on only one side (increasing conversion rate or increasing the number of customers that view your site) will never be effective. You need both to be effective.
Having the simplest, most efficient checkout process is useless without customers that use it. Or with their analogy, it doesn't matter if you plug all the holes in your bucket if there isn't any water in it. However, just as bad is having lots of customers who want to buy but cannot figure out your checkout process.
Case in point, I recently made some basic updates to an e-commerce site I inherited from another programmer. After some simple search engine optimization updates, we've seen a dramatic increase in pageviews AND an increase in customer conversion rates. There is a direct relationship in the number of "specific" queries and the increase in conversion rates. I'd rather create a bigger bucket (by allowing my site to be found by more people), fill it with more water (having the information or product they want so they want to come to my site), and continue to eliminate the holes.