A few easy fixes can make a big impact on the bottom line.

By Kent Lewis

The primary focus of search engine optimization (SEO) professionals is to generate traffic to a Web site. Some SEO professionals are better than others at achieving that goal via higher rankings in search engines for target keyword phrases. Where the ball often gets dropped is once the visitor actually hits the site, and most likely, leaves. Successful SEO professionals understand the secret is to dial in Web site conversion rates. The following article details some of the most effective and relatively easy steps to take to maximize conversion on your Web site.

Being a Good Guy
When I first joined consumer electronics e-retailer goodguys.com (recently purchased by CompUSA) my task was to increase sales via business development and marketing strategies. My background in agency-side search engine marketing (SEM) made that a relatively easy task. My boss told me that I needed to increase traffic to boost sales via SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) strategies. I told him that the first thing we needed to do was increase the sales from our existing visitors, as it’s much more cost effective to improve the site’s performance and convert current site visitors than to generate new ones.

My first step was to assess the overall site design and performance. Even with my limited expertise in usability and graphic design, I was able to pinpoint a few critical issues: the home page file size (mostly high res images) was so large the site took almost 30 seconds to load on a broadband connection. I had the design team optimize many of the images to cut down file size with virtually no degradation of image quality. I did the same thing with the development team: challenging them to clean up the JavaScript and other elements of the code that were slowing down download (and negatively impacting spiderability).

After optimizing the code (and copy), my next step was to bring in usability engineers to conduct a heuristic analysis of the shopping experience. With a relatively low conversion rate, we had nothing to lose by looking for easy design fixes through the shopping and checkout process. A local Portland agency, Tweak Interactive, provided a set of trouble tickets tiered in order of importance. We implemented a majority of the changes within weeks and noticed a slight up tick in conversion that added up to 6 and 7 figure improvements to the bottom line over time.

Soon after, I started up my own SEM agency, Anvil Media, and have serviced hundreds of companies over the years, both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). In that time, I’ve created a checklist of easy fixes that any company can make relatively quickly and affordably to improve Web site conversion rates.

Validation
While it would seem like a no-brainer, very few e-commerce companies have taken advantage of a very simple but effective sales tool: social proof. Originally outlined by Robert Cialdini, the basic concept is that people are more likely to purchase something that everyone else has deemed worthy. By providing a “Best Sellers” or “Recommended Items” list on your Web site, you’re helping save time and make any purchase decision easier for the site visitor. In addition, there are other third party validation techniques that apply to B2B as well as B2C companies: customer/client testimonials, awards and recognition, product or service reviews and case studies/success stories. Every company has a slightly different audience, so it’s important to know what type of content is most compelling to your prospects.