If you are running a Web marketing campaign without emphasizing conversion—the actual process of converting Web visitors into contacts and then clients—then you are throwing your money away. Wait a moment and let that statement sink in.
If you are not taking the extra steps to convert Web visitors, you are wasting money on your Internet marketing efforts.
You can do all of the right things to generate traffic to your website. In fact, you might have figured out how to get thousands of people to go to your website each month, but it is all pointless if those people aren’t at least converting into contacts.
The vast majority of people who look up your services are not going to be ready to talk to you immediately. They are simply at the research phase and are trying to determine if they do, in fact, need to go to a lawyer to get help.
Tracking the success of your entire Web marketing campaign is essential. Failing to do so is the same as shooting at a target while wearing a blindfold. You end up making decisions about your campaign and the actions you want to take going forward, without really having a clear picture of what is working (and what isn’t).
There are many programs out there to help you analyze your website’s performance and determine how people are finding you. By far, the most popular analytics application today is Google Analytics.
Analyzing Google Analytics
When it comes to improving the success of your website and marketing plan, information is power. And if information is power, then Google Analytics is certainly one of your most powerful tools.
This free tool includes detailed statistics about your Web visitors. If you want even better news, Google Analytics wasn’t created for Webmasters. Instead, it was designed with marketers in mind, which means that it is not going to be overly technical. You don’t have to be a tech guru to use the program. However, you can be easily overwhelmed by the large amount of data that Google Analytics provides, as well as what to do with that data to help you improve your marketing strategies and page ranking.
As a rule of thumb, three sets of data available on Google Analytics that you should check at least once a week include:
- Top Content: On the main page of Google Analytics, your top content is located under “Content” in the sidebar. This feature will show you your most popular pages, how many unique page views they have received, the average time spent on the page, and the bounce rate. From this information, you can see what your most popular topics are and what people are coming to read.
- Top Traffic Sources: Located in the top traffic sources overview, this great resource tells you where people come from to land on your website. While it is normal for much of your traffic to come from Google and other large search engines, it is important to focus on other sources of traffic, as well as which sources of traffic resulted in the longest stays with the lowest bounce rates.
- Keywords: The keywords report can be found under “Traffic Sources” in the sidebar. This feature lists the most common keywords typed into search engines, along with the number of visits from each keyword, the number of pages visited, the average time on the website, and the bounce rate. This information can help you target new keywords and analyze how your keyword campaigns have been faring.
Improving Bounce Rate
According to Google, a bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality, and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.
What Should I Do About a High Bounce Rate?
Click on a page with a bad bounce rate and take a look at the summary statistics.
If the “Time on Page” metric is less than 30 seconds, consider changing that page’s content and keywords to deliver more value to readers. High-quality, targeted content will convince readers that other content on the site is of equal value. They will click through and this will lower the bounce rate.
If the “Time on Page” metric is more than 30 seconds, consider adding relevant links and “call-to-action” content to the page. Help these engaged readers explore their interest (and your site) by providing links to content that is similar to the content on the page.
When it comes to lowering bounce rates, no single answer will work in all cases. It is going to depend on the type of content on that landing page. However, there are some general guidelines you can follow to help improve this number:
- Revise the page title. First check out your page title. Does it correctly describe the content on the page? Remember: Your page title needs to match your meta description and your body copy. Don’t do a bait-and-switch by making a super-catchy page title that doesn’t correlate with the content on the page.
- Examine the keywords that visitors are using. Do the keywords seem to match the landing page? If not, you need to update the keywords used. Again, everything needs to match up correctly.
- Review the content. One of the biggest keys to Web marketing success is answering the searcher’s question. If a landing page has a high bounce rate, determine if it is really answering the question and speaking directly to the Web visitor. If not, it’s time to do some revising. Also, make sure the content doesn’t have typos, grammar mistakes or other errors. Those types of things turn Web visitors off very quickly.
- Add a video to the landing page. If you have a relevant video clip, add it to the landing page. Videos tend to keep people on Web pages longer, which ultimately reduces bounce rates. If you don’t have a video, consider creating one.
- Reformat the page. The visual appeal of a webpage does make a difference. If you were looking for quick information about a particular subject, would you stay on a page that had really long blocks of text, or would you be more apt to stay on a page that was broken up into sections with bulleted lists? You would go with the content that is easiest to peruse. Your Web visitors will do the same thing. Also, images go a long way in the visual appeal of a webpage. If you can add an appropriate image, do so.
- Include a call-to-action. If the page doesn’t have some type of free offer or enticing call-to-action, add one. This will do wonders for your bounce rate and conversion.
Author: Tom Foster
Courtesy: www.fosterwebmarketing.com
