Conversion Rate Web Marketing Blog 

If you’re involved in marketing, then you’ll probably have heard about the ABC’s show about advertising, The Gruen Transfer. Last week, comedian and host Will Anderson asked the panel to talk about advertising that backfired on them.

According to Russel Howcroft, MD of Ad Agency George Patterson’s Y&R,

All advertising works, it’s just a matter of how much.

For many businesses marketing is one of the biggest expenses, and you don’t need to work for an ad agency to know that there is big money changing hands for good advertising… and bad advertising.

Maybe Russel Howcroft’s statement that all advertising works is true in an advertising agency sort of a way… but maybe not for long.

Marketing on the Internet has introduced many businesses to the concept that you can draw a direct line from good marketing to increased sales. It has introduced an unprecedented standard of tools, data and accountability.

Now, Google Analytics has launched a tool in the US that allows marketers to see what impact their TV ads have on their website traffic.

It may not be expected in advertising agencies, but In our opinion advertising has failed if it doesn’t generate a return on investment. Looks like Google Analytics is about to shake up the ad world.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

I received an email this morning that made the startling claim that “People remember 50% of what they see and hear and only 10% of what they read.”

Interestingly I read this quote (and for that matter, saw it too) in an email about online video. I’m sure that you have read, seen and heard variations of this so-called research too.

Before you rush off to turn everything that you’ve ever published into a video - as the email implied that I should - you should know that this research is a myth and the quote itself is rubbish.

Graphics like the one above are extremely widespread and they are usually constructed to suit the purpose of the person presenting them.

There are a couple of things that give these graphs away:

• Percentages are being used to generalise people
• The results are always a factor of 10%

So I did some research to find the source of this information, and I found this post from learning consultant Dr Will Thalheimer that shows that there is in fact no valid research that shows that any mode of learning is superior to another.

A comment on the blog cites the following quote regarding the real story of retention:

Each of the methods identified by the pyramid resulted in retention, with none being consistently superior to the others and all being effective in certain contexts.

Lalley, J., & Miller, R. (2007). The learning pyramid: Does it point in teachers in the right direction? Education, 128(1), Page 64

In other words, as soon as you hear someone say, “people remember blah blah blah,” know that you’re hearing rubbish.

The two keys to retention

The reality is that there are no real statistics on reading vs hearing vs seeing vs doing and there can’t be.

There are two keys that dictate retention:

1. Student
2. Subject

For example, taking a guitar lesson (subject) from a book is pretty tough. There are so many things about learning guitar that just can’t be communicated in written words. The lesson is unlikely to be retained if you (student) don’t play guitar.

However, if Dr Will Thalheimer presented his debunking of the retention styles myth by video, it would be hard to comprehend. That’s because video is real time, and that makes it harder to digest at your own pace.

Also, if you are a motivational speaker, a transcript of your last speech probably isn’t going persuade people to hire you.

How to increase retention (and conversion rates)

So if you want people to retain your message, consider the student and the subject. That will determine the mode of delivery that you choose.

What ever mode you choose, ensure that the content you deliver is of a high standard, targeted to your audience. This applies to your blog, copy writing, online video, pictures and every form on content on your website.

From the author: As a web programmer I have been involved in developing several content management systems. I was hands on in developing our own content management suite called eComMetrix®.

What I know from working on hundreds of lead generation and eCommerce websites over 11 years is that there is something far more important when creating a website than the system that you use. It’s your conversion rates and it’s a measure of how effectively the content of your website engages your website visitors.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark™.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your website.

Do people believe that the testimonials on your website are real? We often hear people express the view that testimonials on websites are contrived or made up. Sometimes with good reason.

Let me make one thing clear: Made up testimonials do not belong in professional web marketing.

In this “Web 2.0″ world of fast customer feedback, fictitious testimonials will come back to bite you. So, how can you prove that your testimonials are real, spontaneous expressions of gratitude from your customers?

Firstly, the best testimonials are the unsolicited ones, so do a good job, and you’ll get testimonials. Do an exceptional job an you’ll get even more.

Here are a couple of ideas on how to keep the testimonials flowing: 

• Do an exceptional job
• Respond well to complaints
• Measure and improve your customer service
• Let customers know that testimonials help your business, and you need their help.

Make it as easy as possible for people to send their feedback, but never apply pressure. If good feedback doesn’t come freely and naturally, then it is contrived.

There are some simple ways that you can improve the acceptance of the testimonials on your website:

• Include scans of real handwritten thank you letters, or email print outs - don’t know why but it just seems more real if its printed
• Include pictures of your clients - using your product if applicable (with their permission of course)
• Include negative comments - demonstrate how you resolved issues and turned a situation around
• Video testimonials - Can be hard to arrange, try the simple things first.

For an eCommerce website you might consider using a product rating and feedback system. However, the implementation of a system like that is not right for every eCommerce website. It’s also a big project that needs to be carefully planned.

Taking small steps to prove that your testimonials are genuine will have a greater effect than having hundreds of testimonials on your website.

Take a look at the testimonials page we were able to create for Block Out Blinds using their customers real feedback here.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

Is shipping a mystery on your online shopping website? Lack of clarity around shipping is one of the biggest conversion killers in eCommerce. Fortunately there are some simple conversion techniques that you can use to stem the flow of lost orders caused by shipping mystery.

Let’s start with the basics:

• Detail your shipping policy
• Link to your shipping policy
• Display shipping costs up front
• Keep shipping simple
• Use shipping offers

Detail your shipping policy

The first shipping conversion technique is having a clearly stated shipping policy. Some of the details that you need to cover in your shipping policy include:

• Where do you ship to?
• What options are there?
• What carriers do you use?
• How long does it take to get there?
• How do you calculate the shipping price?
• What happens when problems arise?

Link to your shipping policy

Once you have a good, well detailed shipping policy, you need to make sure that it can be found. Include a link to the shipping policy near the shopping cart, in the menus and on product pages.

Display shipping costs up front

One of the real keys to succeeding with shipping is being up front about it. Unfortunately, many shopping cart systems are configured to kill conversions by default. That’s because they force you to register and enter your personal details before they show you the price of shipping.

Make sure your shopping cart shows your customers the full price of the sale before they’re asked for their personal details.

But what if you need to know the customer’s location to calculate the shipping price? Ask them for their postcode, state or suburb, but… keep it simple.

Keep shipping simple

If your shipping calculations are complicated, do they really need to be? You might have more success with a simpler shipping price structure. Even if it is more expensive, making shipping easier to understand for your customers could have a positive effect on conversions.

Of course, this may depend on other factors such as competition, but it’s worth a test!

Use shipping offers

Shipping can be a conversion killer, but it can also present a profit opportunity for your eCommerce business. Try using quantity based shipping incentives to increase your average order value. For example, you might offer free shipping on orders one $100.

You can also use free shipping or discounted shipping offers to create an artificial deadline to push some of those conversions over the threshold.

Carefully calculate the costs of any offers that you make on shipping and make sure that the cost will be less than the return.

Once you have the basics covered, you can then start to look at some of the technical tricks that can improve your customer’s shipping experience even further.

From the author: If you run an eCommerce website then you might wonder, “How do I know if I’m getting as many orders as I could be through my website?” The answer to that question is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your eCommerce website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your eCommerce website.

This is part 2 of our article on The 7 Keys of High Conversion Lead Generation Websites.

Key 5 :- Design for conversion

A website that is designed for conversion will be:

• Easy to read - why do so many designers hate words? I say that because so many of them try to hide your text by making it tiny, grey and putting it on a white background
• Easy to scan - highlight keywords and concepts, use good headlines and sub-headlines, bullet points, short paragraphs and short sentences
• Easy to navigate - It will be intuitive so that your visitors won’t have to think about where to find things
• Easy to act on - Phone numbers, contact details and contact forms will be built into the logical flow of your website content. On a high conversion lead generation website these things will never be sacrificed for aesthetics.

A good lead generation website is designed for content and designed for conversion. It’s not designed for other designers or to be judged at website design awards (did they go the way of the dodo?).

Key 6 :- Get website traffic from the right places

From a conversion perspective not all website visitors are equal. For instance, if your product is only available in Australia then there’s no point in getting traffic from India.

If your product is only for Architects, be sure that they are the ones who are going to come to your website. So you might advertise your website in the local Architects journal. You might decide to use Search Engine Optimisation to get traffic to your website from Google, but you would target the terms and keywords that Architects are likely to use in a search.

If you get website traffic from the wrong sources, your conversion rates will be low.

If you get people coming to your website who are likely to be interested in your services, then your conversion rates will naturally be higher. Concentrate on getting traffic that’s likely to convert.

Key 7 :- Active measurement and continual improvement

A high conversion lead generation website is never really finished. High website conversion rates rise out of continual measurement and improvement.

You need to be continually monitoring your website to know the answers to these questions:

• How many visitors are coming to my website?
• Where are they coming from?
  
• How many leads am I getting?
• What’s my conversion rate?
• Where are the best leads coming from?

You can easily get the answers to all of these questions from your website and your website analytics software. If you want a high converting lead generation website then this must be your priority. At a minimum you need to monitor this every month.

Oh, and Google Analytics is free. The insight that it can give you into your website is remarkable. There’s no excuse for not having it configured on your website.

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So there you have the 7 keys of high conversion lead generation websites. They are:

Key 1 :- Clearly identified customers and goals

Key 2 :- A simple, clear message

Key 3 :- Trust

Key 4 :- Call to action

Key 5 :- Design for conversion

Key 6 :- Get website traffic from the right places

Key 7 :- Active measurement and continual improvement

A well conceived lead generation website will play a critical role for your business by making all of your marketing more effective. TV, newspaper, magazine, outdoor and radio advertising can all leverage a high conversion lead generation website.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

Here in Australia, some economists have been spinning the yarn that our economy is “decoupled” from the US economy. They would have you think that your business will not be affected by the US recession. However Morgan Stanley economist Gerard Minack set the record straight last week on ABC’s Lateline program. Gerard broke the bad news that for the 98.5% of Australians who don’t work in mining, it looks like hard times are on the way.

So how do you protect your business from a looming downturn?

1. Ensure your supply of customers by investing in highly cost effective marketing

Web marketing is about finding people who are in the market now and ready to buy. Getting your website found in Google and driving 24 x 7 traffic to your website is one of the easiest ways to ensure that you have a steady stream of customers whatever the economic climate.

2. Improve your website’s conversion rates

You can boost the number of leads and sales that come from your website by analyzing and improving the performance of your website. There is enormous leverage in your boosting your website’s conversion rates. The payoff for boosting your conversion rates is far higher than the payoff from getting more traffic.

3. Start an email newsletter

An email newsletter that’s rich with content and informative is one of the easiest ways to keep your customers safe from the competition. If you’re not already producing an email newsletter, don’t wait until times are tough. Start now.

Act now

We’ve been warned that trouble is on the horizon. However, your business need not be hit hard by a retracting market. You need to be smarter than the competition and take a greater market and dollar share. And you need to act now…

I’ve been thinking about this topic since I saw Gerard Minack on Lateline last week, however US conversion rate guru Jeffrey Eisenberg at Future Now beat me to writing this article, so this was partly inspired by his post.

From the author: How effective is your email marketing? The answer lies in your conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your email marketing you need a combination of the best email marketing tools and a team that includes experienced web marketers, email designers, web programmers, copywriters and editors. That’s why we created Bitemark.

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your email marketing.

Why do some websites generate leads better than others? Having developed a number of lead generation websites that convert over 20% of visits into enquiries, we know that asking this question is a big step in the right direction.

In several years of striving to improve lead generation website conversion rates we’ve come up with seven keys that will make your website perform beyond expectations.

Key 1 :- Clearly identified customers and goals

The highest performing websites that we have worked on all had two things in common from the beginning. It was clear:

• Who the customers were
• What we wanted them to do (i.e. contact us, become a lead).

There are plenty of reasons to have a website. For example you might use your website to enhance your branding, customer service, customer loyalty or to streamline your business processes. The important thing is that you are clear on what the goal is and that you can measure the outcome.

Having a consistent stream of leads can have a huge impact on your business. After all, that’s why businesses spend so much money on marketing. So let’s be clear that for the purpose of this post, the goal is to generate good quality leads that convert into sales easily.

A good picture of who the customer is likely to be, what they need and how you can help them is also essential. If you don’t invest the time to understand your customers and prospects before you start developing your lead generation website you will not achieve high conversion rates. Knowing your prospects is the foundation of a high conversion website.

We didn’t learn this lesson from the lead generation websites that soared to conversion rates of over 20%. We learned this from the websites that failed miserably.

Key 2 :- A simple, clear message

Delivering a clear, simple and understandable message is as important on a website as it is on a highway billboard. Considering that on most websites, half of the visitors will leave in 10 seconds, you have a very short time to grab your prospects attention.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that a flashy design laden website is the answer to this problem either. Most of those websites haven’t even loaded by the time that half of their prospects have left.

A clear simple message is going to be delivered through copywriting.

Do you remember why people come to your website? They come for useful information. That includes things like descriptions, reviews, recommendations, pictures, videos etc.

Your clear, readable written message should wrap up all of your content (useful information) in a way that’s easy for people to quickly scan and understand.

Take a look at your lead generation website and ask yourself if it’s clear at a glance:

• Who it is intended for?
• What problem it solves?
• What the benefits of solving that problem are?

Even better, ask some prospects if it is clear (no, not your friends, colleagues or relatives).

Key 3 :- Trust

If a visitor from your target market lands on your website and is motivated by your clear simple message, what’s stopping them from contacting you?

The barriers that sit between a captivated reader and a lead are keys 3 and 4, call to action and trust.

The first hesitation that a prospect will likely feel is related to trust. Unless you have a brand that is well known to your prospects it is likely that they have some questions about you floating around in their heads. They will be wondering:

• Why should I trust your company?
• Who are you?
• Can you really solve my problem?
• Will you get back to me?
• Are you reliable?
• Can I trust you with my contact details?

Being able to address questions like that concisely in your lead generation website will boost your conversion rates.

Key 4 :- Call to action

The second problem that many lead generation websites start out with is a complete lack of call to action mechanisms. Call to action for lead generation is all about this question that a visitor to your website should never have to ask:

I want to contact you, but how can I do it?

Answer this question before it’s asked by carefully considering the placement of the following on your website:

• Local phone numbers
• Contact forms
• Physical address details
• Maps
• Details of the real people that you might speak to.

If you can build a high level of trust with your prospects and combine that with simple ways of getting in touch, you are well on the way to having a high conversion website.

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This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Read on to part 2 of The 7 Keys of High Conversion Lead Generation Websites

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

Piano Removalists - Network Piano Carriers - entered the online removals world late last year with their first website. To their great credit, this highly professional piano removals company systematically measures the outcome of everything - especially their marketing activity.

Google rankings can be hard to achieve if you’ve never had a website before. Many companies can expect to wait over six months before seeing their site show up in important searches. Yet the Network Piano Carriers website hit the ground running with strong Google rankings and the highest lead generation conversion rate that we’ve seen yet.

In addition to strong Google rankings, Network Piano Carriers are using other marketing to drive traffic to their website including:

• Yellow Pages® Directory
• Yellow Pages® Online
• Good Truck Signage
• Strong Referral Marketing

In only three months, Network Pianos achieved a staggering 31.5% lead generation conversion rate.

Visit to Lead Conversion Rate = 31.5%

Bear in mind that Network Piano Carriers only service Brisbane and Melbourne, but Google rankings bring website traffic from everywhere. With that in mind, 30% of people visiting the site came from Markets that Network Piano Carriers do not service. The adjusted lead conversion rate is over 40%.

So what makes a lead generation website work so well? Stay tuned… We will be examining what makes a high performance lead generation website in our next post.

From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your web marketing you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 03 9012 6600 for a free conversion rate review of your website.

Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.

One of the simplest metrics that you can use to benchmark your eCommerce website is the dollar value of a visit. Often this metric is called “Revenue Per Visit,” but I just find that it feels better if you put the $ sign in front of it. It’s an emotional thing. If your currency is not called a dollar, then insert your symbol here…

$ Per Visit = Number of Website Visits / $ Total Website Sales

If the number is high, then just concentrate on getting more traffic. If it’s low, then start asking questions about things like:

• Order process conversion rates
• The average number of items sold on orders
• Your pricing 
• The pages where most people abandon the order process.

There are many places to look for ways to improve you $ per visit.  

You should also look at this metric across the different sources of traffic. For example, look at the $ per visitor from Google organic searches as opposed to Google Adwords.

Dollars Per Visit is also extremely useful for setting bid limits in Google Adwords and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaigns. For instance, if you know that you margin is 50% and your $ per visit is $1.50, then bidding over 70c a click will lose you money. Be sure to monitor this specifically for your Adwords and PPC traffic as it is sure to vary with different traffic sources.

From the author: If you run an eCommerce website then you might wonder, “How do I know if I’m getting as many orders as I could be through my website?” The answer to that question is in your website’s conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your eCommerce website you need a team that includes seasoned marketers, web designers, web programmers, copywriters, editors, bloggers and search engine gurus. That’s why we created Bitemark.

And yes, we can get your website to number one in Google too ;-)!

Contact us on 1300 248 362 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your eCommerce website.

Sure, truck signage is an great opportunity to engage your audience on the road, but what about creating traffic to your website?

A recent study* on radio advertising showed that 80% of listeners who heard a relevant radio ad with a web address mentioned in it went on to visit the website. We postulate that the same would hold true for other forms of volatile advertising like TV and outdoor (including billboard advertising and car, van and truck signage).

Warning: When advertising, make sure that your web address is memorable.

If your web address is not relevant to your advertising message, it may be too hard to remember. So make sure that your web address relates to the key theme of your ad. Think about registering a domain name specifically for you advertising campaign.

For example, for one of our clients - Superior Mobile Mechanics - we registered www.superiormobile.com.au for use in advertising and vehicle signage in addition to the domain www.superiormobilemechanics.com.au.

The first domain is easier to remember and spell correctly, but the second domain was better for search engine ranking… so we use both.

* Source: commercialradio.com.au

From the author: If you use email marketing to reach your customers and prospects, then there’s are simple things that you can do ensure that you message gets through and gets acted on. They key is in your email marketing conversion rates.

We know that to achieve high conversion rates and sales from your email marketing you need a combination of the best email marketing tools and a team that includes the seasoned marketers, email designers, web programmers, copywriters, and editors. That’s why we created Bitemark.

Contact us on 1300 248 362 for a free conversion rate review of your email marketing.