Speak To The Dog, About What Matters To The Dog, In The Language Of The Dog

What are the most important factors that affect conversion?

is a combination of roast beef sizzling over an open fire on a glorious summer day. scent fills the air as you cut, juicy meat in generous slices and are therefore a board pass around your friends. Your pet dog, driven crazy by the smell starts begging, whining and running around excitedly, hoping for a piece of delicious steak.

"Speak to the dog, what dog issues in the language of the dog"
Jeff Eisenberg - The call to action

What Jeff does not mean that the start barking at people.

What does it mean to write for your target audience, about what it is you want, a simple and attractive way. I am sure that you are now thinking about roast beef. This is what you should do when writing for your website, try to put a picture in your prospects head. most important factors affecting the conversion rates are your copy and content, your copy attracts, persuades and provides momentum, and the content of answers all your questions prospects. Design, usability, measurement and testing of all be taken into account, but they come after you figure out what it is you want to say and where you want to say.

where you normally start when working with a new client? Is there a set process to follow?

Yes. We start by asking lots of questions. In the beginning, we get the basic business information so that we can determine how deeply the client is not thinking about your website as a business. You'd be surprised how many companies do not know what their cost per visit, or the profit per visitor to their web site. So we develop a business objective, so we can say, "That's where you are now'.

Next we will analyze how much we think we can take, based on our own limitations and budget. Then we can say what the service might need to take to the next level. Not all businesses need the same things, some need tweaks to marketing strategies, some need better copy and content so that it is difficult to answer. However, the process we use is the same in order to determine what the client really needs.

How important is it to use web analytics tools available on-site problem?

can not prove whether anything is working on a website without web analytics tools. I advise every client I've ever worked with to get web analytics. I will work with a company the company level, if they do not have web analytics. tools allow you to do two things very well, highlighting the problems and measurement tests. Without this ability, and you're pretty much guessing.

Can you suggest some generic indicators that e-commerce teams should be monitoring?

There are many, and you should decide on the data that you can act upon. However, here are some you might want to think about adoption,

· site-wide conversion rate

· Product Conversion

· Percentage of new and returning visitors

· sales per visitor

· average order value

· average number of items purchased

· cart abandonment rate (the conversion step

· revenue and profits by product

· Repeat order rate, in order to calculate the long-term value of

· Cost per visit

"get the web site, visit

Also, do not forget to set trip wires, such as page views per visit. I have to explain better about it in this article, How Web Analytics Found Million Dollar Hole

is a Google Analytics will be good or bad for the industry?

Basically I believe that is going to be good for the industry. I'm thrilled about it. Rather than write another 1000 words on the subject, however;
Read this article

Too many paid-search and affiliate programs do not create campaign-specific landing pages. What are the key elements that should be found on the landing page?

compelling copy and content. Complimentary design, graphics should help people to see the text or reinforce a message not only be there for him. One link from the landing site - a call to action, or the Buy Now button. landing page should have to attract an audience that wants what you have so you do not have to convince them to go somewhere else, giving them any other links or options. Nick Usborne wrote a nice article about it

How to write a landing page

Do you have information to share about landing pages, eg before / after conversion?

On average, e-commerce landing pages get about 2 to 2.5% conversion. After we worked on the changes tend to make things better by 40-50%. So usually 2.8 to 3.3% after the change to convert a call to action landing page. Of course, it depends on the type of business and trade sources. Banner ads are always lower than PPC ads for example.

You're a big fan / B testing. How can web teams to implement these tests and they should be testing?

The basic principle is to write two test sites, the same traffic directly to each and see which works better. You can write your own code traffic splitter, if you're testing only a few things at the same time and have in house programmers. Or you can outsource testing something that handles like Offermatica test pages and traffic splitting.

Things you might want to test using the A / B split the headlines, copy blocks, graphical images, banner ads, PPC ads, button colors, in fact, anything where you have the potential to improve response and be able to measure improvements .

Do you have any idea of measuring the conversion of the sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion? Those that are ineffective?

We've compiled a list of averages by sector from various sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here

What is the average conversion rate?

No one is really sure exactly how these figures. They seem reasonable based on the e-tailers that rocked the global conversion rate between 11-16% (we are talking about on-line retailers like Amazon, eBay and QVC)

sectors have always done the best catalog companies, and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I'm doing a conversion at these levels with the number of catalog companies that are hitting less than 6% before and some have come to us with a little more the conversion rate of 6% ​​at the beginning.

underperformers seems to me that the sports / outdoor retailers, or fashion and clothing. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average at 1.4 to 2.2 %.

Web site is a balancing act between the needs of business and customer needs. Factor in the needs of search engines and it is quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

customers' needs are paramount. business needs in most cases it is easy to make or save money. Companies need to achieve your business goals, while catering to users so that they can achieve their goals. more that it achieves better it should be for your company. Search engine marketing is important, but you should never sacrifice or copy the contents easily rank high on Google. search engine optimization needs and can be implemented, but it still needs toto convince the person reading the copy of that decision for them . Yes it is a balancing act, but if you have the championship with customers in all cases, then you're on the right track.

How can accessibility and usability play a role in increasing the conversion rate?

Usability is needed. You should follow the best practices in terms of navigation, color and appearance. Access is becoming increasingly important. We have seen our visitors ask us to change the font size (make them bigger) for example. We now have a function on our own site that allows you to customize the text in the browser to any size you want.

Which online retailers you most admire for their processes to cart? And those that are 'dropout from the basket' waiting to happen?

Amazon and Cafepress.com are very friendly and simple interface. The interesting thing about these two places is that while they do not take your information and record them so it's easier for you the next time you visit, you do not ask how "open account" or "create account" because the word is put many people off. How many times have you bought something from Amazon, because they are "suggested" something based on your interests? Amazon really understands about building a site around what the customer wants (or maybe you want based on their preferences ).

pages that drop-out waiting to happen are the ones that have common problems, such as requiring registration before purchase, long checkout process (I've seen the ten steps to purchase before), do not submit the information displayed, no privacy no security (SSL encryption), lack of guarantees and return policies, the list is endless.

Copywriting is all important art form for many e-commerce team. However, the challenges for large web sites can be huge, if authoring occurs at the local level. How you can manage by, so they keep focused conversion rules?

First we have to figure out what their limits are. content management systems or technical background may mean that we must adapt our methods to their systems. Then we hold them to hand for many of its most popular product by showing them how we came to a copy of the content we've developed. Then we design a custom template with rules to follow, so that content managers can work on the specification. Content managers are then responsible for their own testing to improve the site and a copy of it was done in collaboration with A / B split testing and or web analytics. Or we'll handle it themselves or train managers to do it yourself. Ownership is the key site, getting content managers to own and develop their content based on what works, gradually improves conversion.

Do you have any insight into how demographics and conversion rates vary between Google, Yahoo and MSN?

demographics are important and can mean a whole change of strategy for some companies. This observation Nielsen / / NetRatings data, Danny Sullivan is particularly good and current;

As for conversion rates from different engines, must still do a study of this and I do not know anyone there. We try to work on client and client basis to do the best sources of traffic for each, based on their own specific range of products.

(the end of the year issue a warning ...) What do you think will be at the top trends for webmasters in 2006?

I'd like to think that the focus will shift from the traffic acquisition via search engine traffic conversion, but I think it's still a bit early for that in Europe. It is beginning now in the U.S. and I think it will be another year before in the UK and later Europe really start to focus on it. I do not feel that this year, because Google Analytics more focus will shift towards web analytics, which in my view is as important to the industry as when PPC was introduced. This means that companies will be able to use quality tools without paying a fortune for yourself and see how good agent can affect the bottom line. This can only be a good thing because it will be a trend towards a shift measurements, rather than guessing the best that has been going on for far too long.

This article is a transcript of my answers to questions posed by Chris Lake e-consultancy.com since December 2005. I hopethat you will find the grilling I got useful !