Archive for the ‘call to action’ Category
Is Internet Traffic All That Important?
By: Cade Lee
Is internet traffic the most important consideration for online success?
Of course it is, internet traffic is critical to the success of any site. It is extremely important, but it seems to me that some companies and individuals do not really focus their time on other extremely important factors like conversion. It was a couple of weeks ago and I was at a local meetup here in Denver for SEO, I was talking with one of the other search engine optimization professionals about some projects that we were looking at, when the topic of conversion surfaced. Ultimately I explained how a low bounce rate was so important to us and that it was one of the KPI (key performance indicators) that we really measured our success by. At first I thought he was going to have a heart attack, he began to “school” me in the ways of search engine optimization and explain to me that bounce rate should not be something that we (search engine optimization professionals) should be gauged or tracked by.
Of course we had to respectfully disagree on this. Good search engine optimization does bring traffic to a site, which goes without saying. If your SEO, SEO department, internet marketing firm or search engine marketing professional does not bring more traffic to the site, than the entire campaign is worthless. It’s not necessarily just a matter of getting your site on the 1st page of Google (which is nice, and important), it is a matter of bringing a constant growth to the overall traffic through site referrals, banner ad placement, social networking, PPC or CPC and organic results. Right next to increasing traffic as far as importance is concerned is conversion. All the traffic in the world without a sale or conversion into a real lead is just as worthless as having a website that isn’t getting any traffic at all.
So, who works on this conversion and how do they funnel the traffic through your site? The answer to this I believe is your SEO firm and your web developer together. Of course if you don’t have both, than certainly either one of these would understand or should understand traffic conversion and implementing a “call to action” within the site. A call to action is any action which visitors can take to complete the selling process. Obviously in a perfect site, a call to action would be so perfectly designed that the end users have no alternative choice but to move forward with the call to action. We have found that most sites are stuck in the traditional methods or “calls to action” with flash banners that say, “Click here” or a “buy now” button. Consumers or end users want information so that they can make educated buying decision. By now that end user has more than likely made a purchase or request for information online that they regretted. This has left most a little “gun shy” to say the least. So, why not give them that information that they are craving. I am not suggesting that you go out and load your sales pages with content, but on the other hand, instead of having another “click here” or “buy now” button, it might behoove the seller to have a link to product reviews or testimonials.
Another call to action that works is stating the benefit or value received next to the action you want the end user to make. So for example, “purchase now and save 46% over the next 12 months”, long I know but this states a clearly defined benefit as opposed to simply “buy now”. Your call to action should also state the benefit of acting now; you want to create a reason for urgency in your buying message.
If you are not obtaining the conversion rate that you are looking for with your internet traffic, re-consider the message that you are giving to your users. Is it enticing to you? After you have reviewed the site, make sure to look outside for criticism from others about what would make them act on your offer. Invest some time into conversion instead of just focusing on increasing your internet traffic.
