The harsh reality is that this is never easy when it comes to building and designing websites that need to convert. Some of the common reasons are that it usually comes down to user behaviour and trends, and like the moods of all women, this is unpredictable and can change at any second. 

Here are a few enlightening ideas to help with taming this 500 pound gorilla.

Heat Map Software - Of course there are a few tools that you can use, like heat mapping software, which lets you see where most of the clicking activity takes place on your site, try some of these:

• http://www.crazyegg.com/
• http://www.clickdensity.com/
• http://www.labescape.com/
• http://www.fusioncharts.com/powercharts/charts/heat-map/
• http://www.virante.com/analytics/heat-mapping
• http://www.feng-gui.com/
• http://www.hitmap.com/
• http://www.clicktale.com/

Google Analytics – This is so useful that entire books could be written about how to use this advanced website tracking software platform. If you are not using this already, then you’re either a newbie internet marketer or a complete idiot.  Try some of these ideas:

• Set up some goal funnels within analytics to track and see where users are entering and exiting your website throughout the purchase process. Take note of which exit pages have the highest exit rates, and optimise them immediately by using tricks like “Calls-to-Action”, “easy sign up forms”, better content, and high quality “Trust branding”.
• See which pages keywords are driving the most traffic to your site and also to which pages. Armed with this info you can change your tactics and re-design those specific pages that are already receiving high amounts of traffic.
• Dig a little bit deeper and find which areas, countries and cities your biggest fans and visitors come from. Knowing this allows you to shift your focus on your customer demographics to better target your products to those areas, cities and countries.

Google Adwords/PPC – Also not something to miss in your arsenal for making sales online. If you don’t know what this is, then you definitely need to talk to one of our consultants or you need to find yourself an updated version of “PPC/Adwords for Dummies” – because you’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Try some of the following on for size:

• Use your AdGroup themes to set up your landing pages. When you’re using AdGroups, you’re already testing ad copy to see which ads and keywords work best, so why not use this information to optimise your conversions campaign.
• See which AdGroups convert best and export these. Design your new landing pages using the top 3 keywords per AdGroup that have the highest search volume (plug them in here to find your search volumes). Begin creating onsite copy for these landing pages using only these keywords while keeping the use of standard conversion basics in mind, like, opt-in forms, trust branding, etc…

Headlines – This is probably one of the most important focus points of your landing page so make it count and – try not to use any old and tasteless approaches like: “Hello, and Welcome to my Site Blah Blah Blah”. Get creative and get ideas by seeing what the best of the best in your niche are already doing and using. You can also use your Google’s Adwords Title Snippets, which you use for your PPC Ads that appear on the search listings in Google, as an indicator on which types of headlines work best.

Benefits- Emphasise these in a list format in the order of your product’s “value hierarchy” to your target market. Bullet points work well and make it easy for people to consume this type of information.

Testimonials – Consumer trust is so important – I can’t stress this point enough. If and where you can, try to use live testimonials recorded in video format and upload them onto your site via YouTube. Some of the biggest players are doing this very successfully. Alternatively, use quality images of your customer’s faces with relevant and clickable links, combined with their valued statement about your company. The more you can get from your customers, the better for your conversions.

In the end you need to take serious note that once you’ve set up a conversion campaign, you need to look at it, study it, and constantly tweak and re-asses your strategies from time to time. If this is too time consuming for you, then you need to consider another career, job, or business model. Keeping on top of this is not easy, but you only need to strike gold once to feel that the payoff was worth every second you spent.

Here are some very useful resources to peruse at your own leisure, and be sure to make notes and follow through:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/heat-map-tracking-do-you-feel-the-heat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_map
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/increase-landing-page-conversion-rates
http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/articles/101-google-website-optimizer-tips/
http://www.bplans.com/business_calculators/
https://gomockingbird.com/
http://searchengineland.com/how-to-build-multi-purpose-landing-pages-for-small-budget-advertising-84997

When embarking on the launch of an e-commerce site many people do not realise that the difference between a successful site and an unsuccessful one can be the e-commerce platform you use. Some e-commerce platforms do not allow for the flexibility required to completely optimise your site and get it ranking well in the search engines.

Many a time, website owners find they are getting the traffic to their site but that it is not converting to sales. What is the cause behind this and how can it be rectified?

Choosing the right e-commerce platform

These days there are too many different content management systems (CMS’s) and e-commerce platforms, one can become confused with which one to choose. A lot of people end up choosing free or open source platforms as they do not want to invest in more expensive systems. When it comes to an e-commerce site, you need to do it right the first time. This means investing time and money into getting the structure and design right. Make sure you do some user experience testing to find out how people are interacting with your site before you launch it – do they find it easy to find the products they are looking for and is making a purchase simple?

From an SEO perspective, there are certain elements that need to be in place for your e-commerce site to not only rank well but also convert well.

1.    Clean URLs for product pages

Many e-commerce sites do not give you the type of control you need in order to optimise your URL structure. Ideally you want to ensure that your URL contains the name of your product. A good example of a CMS system that handles URL structure well is Joomla. Thanks to the SH404SEF module you can set your URLs to pull just the name of your product or you can manually rewrite the URL to be exactly the way you want it.

2.    Ability to Add Unique Meta Data on all pages

In order for your product pages to get indexed well you need to ensure that all your products have unique titles, descriptions and keyword tags. Some custom CMS solutions make use of a universal meta tag meaning that you need to ensure your developer has built in functionality for you to customise the meta data on all pages of your e-commerce site.

3.    XML and Static Sitemap

A common problem that many e-commerce site owners find is that their sites do not get indexed well. The site may contain 5000 pages but only 2000 of them are appearing in the Google index. In order to help Google index your site well you need to ensure that your site has an up to date XML and static sitemap. These days there are some great pieces of software which automate XML sitemaps. With e-commerce sites, products are being added and removed on a regular basis, hence you want to ensure that you always have an up to date sitemap. That, along with unique meta data, will really help your site get indexed better.

4.    Good Search Function

You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find what they are looking for on your site. An e-commerce site with a bad search function is bound to have a lower conversion rate. Make sure you test out your search function to ensure it is giving out accurate results before you launch your website.

5.    Site Speed

Some of the best e-commerce sites are successful due to the fact that it is quick and easy to make purchases. The point of online shopping was to make shopping a faster experience. Hence, if your e-commerce site is slow to load, you are not likely to get repeat customers. Make sure you test your site speed before you launch it. Externalise any JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and compress all images you have on the site. It is little things like this that can help make your site faster and more user friendly.

So there you have it, a few tips on what to look out for when building an e-commerce site. Remember that if you get the structure and design right the first time, it will save you a lot of money in the long run.

If you are thinking of starting an e-commerce site, we recommend you contact R.O.I Media for a full website design, conversion and SEO services.

It’s an exciting time for us, with great growth year on year; we need talented professionals to join a lively Cape Town office. You will be responsible for delivering results. It’s a fast paced environment so can you think on your feet?

Requirements

- working experience with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – google adsense, google analytics, link building etc.
- technical knowledge and experience – Content Management experience – Reporting knowledge – a bonus
- Internet marketing experience
- Market analysis experience – a plus

Advantageous

Marketing experience advantageous

Personal Skills/Attributes

Ability to work effectively in a team and independently
Attention to detail
Deadline orientated

In covering letter send top clients/websites that you have worked on before.

So what do you think? Fancy working for a company with a fantastic culture, (good work/ life balance) then send in your CV.

Details
Remuneration: Market Related
Province: Western Cape
Education level: Matric
City: Cape Town
Type: Permanent
Job level: Junior

Contact
Lisa
ROI Media
seo.jun@roimedia.co.za

NO RECRUITERS! Only Cape Town residents may apply please.

Apply via email
Phone-in candidates will not be considered

Don’t guess internet behavior based on your own – you’re wrong!

Define a goal

Every website has a goal, a reason for existence. The times of just being there for the sake of it are over. Even more so, your website’s goal should be supporting your integrated business model. In the best case scenario, you should define a multitude of goals. Even though not every business is suitable for the internet, keeping your finger on the wrist never hurts.

What is your website’s goal? Do you have an E-commerce site? It’s clear you that should know your conversion rate (which influences website visitors becoming customers), sales funnel, drop out percentage and returning visitors… But even if you’re not running an online shop, there are several metrics you should be monitoring that will give you valuable info, at no cost whatsoever!

Tagging

Before we look at the key metrics, what can we measure? By default free reporting tools will have standard metrics that share a lot of information. But did you know that with a few easy tweaks this tool can go far beyond your expectations? Common reporting tools have a code that is added to each page. It collects data from the visitor, such as language, origin, computer compatibility, popular pages and other data.

You can extend your arsenal however – you might have fancy pdf files that you’re offering for download; product and service descriptions, pricelists or anything else. Imagine the capability of having an overview of document download rates, allowing you to define your most popular products. It tells you how engaging your site is as well.Do you have an enquiry e-mail address instead of an enquiry form? Add a code to measure the number of clicks on your ‘mailto:’ enquiry. Compare this to the actual emails you receive through that referral. See any discrepancy? Act on it. Check the number of views your 404 error page gets. That will tell you something about site quality.

Key metrics

In Google Analytics you can go to these reports and click the “add to dashboard” button which allows you to see these at first glance.

• Bounce rate
  This is one of the most important metrics for your site. A high bounce rate (over 50%) will tell you that there’s a huge gap between what your visitors expect to find on the site and what you offer. Maybe you’re running a PPC advertising or SEO campaign. If you have a high bounce rate (1 page/visit), you’re throwing money out the window. Identify the pages with the highest bounce rate and improve them. Every website is different though, so evaluate this according to your website.
• Average Time on Site
  How much time are visitors spending on your site? Are you offering your extensive expertise? You even might want to divide long articles onto different pages to see how many people go to page two. It will show you how engaging your content is and how much visitors read this content.
• Keywords
  Which keywords (PPC vs. SEO) are pulling in the bulk of visitors? Why stop there? Check that metric in perspective and look at it cross-linked to your goals. Which keywords are converting? And which aren’t? You’ve got work to do.
• Actions
  Downloads and clicks on email links are by default unknown. Add a sample code to the link and see how engaging (converting) your site is, usually between 2%-3%. Identify the weak pages that convert poorly and optimize them.
• Goal Abandonment Rate
  Did you define a goal? Splendid. Now, how is your funnel abandonment rate, plainly stated, how many people are leaving your store with their wallets drawn? Identify your weak funnel pages and optimise these ASAP because you are losing money!Did you know that you can even check the progress of each individual field of an enquiry form? See how many people almost send you an enquiry but don’t quite get there.
• Conversion Rate
  Conversion rates are like missionaries in early colonies; how many people were converted to their belief? How many of your visitors are converted into prospects, clients or any role you define?
• Map Overlay
  Where are your visitors coming from? You probably have a good idea locally. But in times of expansion do you know where to turn?

Add value

Throw in a value for each goal you define on your site and you’ll see what’s going on for real. Define a real site value by working backwards. Let’s say for every 100 completed enquiry forms you make 25 sales. Each sale has a $20 margin. So $20 x 25 = 500 ÷ 100 = $5. In theory, each completed enquiry form brings you $5.

Online business compared to real life offers a priceless source of information about your customers. You would be unwise not to take advantage of that. Take that step ahead over your competitors and get smarter today. But remember, reporting is not the goal itself. It’s merely a tool to achieve your goals. So spend time where it benefits most, and you will soon start seeing the results.

Quite simply, your conversion rate is the percentage of people that visit your site as browsers and leave as customers. More subtle definitions relate to the percentage of people that visit your site and take a positive action – such as, signing up for a newsletter or making an enquiry.

A good way to understand the relationship between web design and conversion is to compare them to architectural design and Feng Shui. (Even if you’re not a believer in the art of Feng Shui bear with us for the sake of the comparison).

While architectural design is purely about the look of the place, where the architect uses his skill to create the home the client desires, taking Feng Shui techniques into account when designing the house improves (according to proponents of the art) utilisation of space and the flow within the building structure, leading to greater productivity.

So, with conversion techniques being applied by the designer at the time of website creation, the new site won’t just look great, but will achieve the goal of increased conversion due to better structure and flow throughout the site.

Let’s look at some of these techniques.

Design with the user in mind:

It’s great to have a dynamic site that blows caution to the wind and breaks out of the mould – that’s the stuff award winning sites are made of. However, don’t forget your user also needs to feel comfortable enough on your site so that s/he doesn’t get lost or irritated looking for standard tools like navigation menus, login and search boxes that are put in unexpected, hard-to-find places. As with fashion design, we love looking at cutting-edge haut couture on the runway – but we don’t want to wear those outlandish designs when driving to work or dining out – we want style and comfort combined.

Ensure your user has an enjoyable experience on your site, not a frustrating or confusing one.

Create desire for your product or service by showing real value:

Aspects such as feature selection, product guarantees and user benefits all work together to create desire in your browsers that will turn them into buyers. This is not a once-off process; these tools need to be refined and optimised regularly. This is the way to maximise your online profits and make your venture lucrative.

The back-end (eCommerce engine) is the brains behind the ‘beauty’ of your site. A good web designer will make sure your site’s back-end functions are instrumental towards customer retention and client conversion.

Employ a web designer who understands conversion:

If your designer makes the most eye-catching, stunning sites ever, but doesn’t have the knowledge and expertise pertaining to conversion, your online venture could be doomed to die and leave nothing but the good looking corpse of your website.

Choose your web designer carefully and your website will be created as the silent salesman it should be – attracting customers, holding their interest and guiding them to make the purchase.