Conversion Rate Web Marketing Blog 

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.

We’ve been working with the translators at Meaningful Exchange, helping with their email marketing for a little over a year now. We recently launched a new website targeting companies that are needing translation of their company documents and marketing material.

What we’ve learned is that translation is not as simple as it seems. Whilst Moore’s law has made machine translation a welcome reality, it should never be relied upon for communicating an important message.

Machines translators run in to trouble with things like:

• Cultural differences
• Idioms and Expressions
• Intended meaning
• Words with more than one meaning

That’s where a human translator can help. A professionally trained translator can do more than translate. A good translator will also localise the translation for the intended audience.

Meaningful Exchange offer the translation in the following languages:

• Arabic Translation
• Chinese (Simplified) Translation
• Chinese (Traditional) Translation
• Dutch Translation
• French Translation
• German Translation
• Greek Translation
• Indonesian Translation
• Italian Translation
• Japanese Translation
• Korean Translation
• Portuguese Translation
• Russian Translation
• Spanish Translation
• Turkish Translation
• Vietnamese Translation

If you’re looking to market your company from Australia into other countries or ethnic groups, we can highly recommend the translators at Meaningful Exchange.

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.

I was meeting with William MacLean from McLean Finance today and we found that his website is on page one in Google for the term “Development Loans.” He’s been getting a number of leads through his site for Development Loans and it’s an area that he specialises in.

So the question is, “How can we get more leads for development loans?”

So I thought I’d outline the basics of our strategy.

Step One - Website Traffic

By reviewing the Google Analytics stats for the site, we found that a number of people were finding the site by searching on Google for Development Loans.

We knew that the site was ranked number eight on the front page of Google. We know from experience that being number one in Google is likely to bring in far more traffic than being number eight. At a minimum, we would expect the numbers to go up by a factor of four, but it could be much higher than that.

So the strategy to get the site up to number one in Google for development loans is:

1. Check that the pages are optimised correctly
2. Get links to the site from other websites from pages that are relevant and use the keyword “development loans”.

Fortunately, William has a blog so he can write about the topic and link back to his site. He’ll also ask his business associates to link to him from their websites too, preferably using the keyword “development loans.”

Another good link would be from a directory that allows you write up a description of your business and link from the description to your website.

Step Two - Conversion Rates

The next step is to look at the content of the web page that is on the site to target development loans. Now we’re already getting a reasonable conversion rate for this page at around 6%. It could be higher, though, so I asked William about the types of people that have been enquiring about this product.

He tells me that there has been a range of people enquiring, from “Mom & Pop” investors through to property developers. So a basic way to improve the conversion rates would be to tailor a web page to each group of people that you want to attract. The page needs to:

1. Raise their specific needs
2. Use their language
3. Tell them how you can solve or address their needs
4. Show real pictures that relate to them and topic
5. Make it easy for them to take action
6. Show testimonials from similar people.

By implementing these basic strategies, not only will MacLean Finance get more traffic to their site, but they’ll also get more leads from that traffic.

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 1300 248 362 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 my personal goals for 2008 is to get a new acoustic guitar. I’ve been playing guitar for about 3 years now and I love it. Now that I can hear the difference, I’ve decided that it’s time to get a new, more refined acoustic guitar.

I’ve had many different experiences in Music shops. I’ve encountered shopkeepers and sales people who treat you with indifference or even disdain, like you’re a shoplifter. I’ve also had the hard sell. So it was with a little apprehension that I stepped into the Acoustic Centre in Park Street, South Melbourne.

I went upstairs and entered a shop that was wall to wall with acoustic guitars. I was thinking to myself, “Where do I start?”

The first thing that the guy behind the counter (Michael) did was ask me a few questions. What style to you like to play? What are you looking for? What do you like?

Now these guys are a cut above most shops already because they started by showing personal interest. Those few simple questions established that this was about me, the customer. I said that I like to play finger-style, and I mentioned that my friend has a nice Maton. What followed next sealed the deal for me.

Michael started to arrange a series of guitar stands around the central couch in the Maton room. He disappeared for a few seconds at a time and resurfaced with an acoustic guitar each time to place on the stands in front of me.

He spoke a bit about the styles, differences and benefits of each guitar and then said to me, “Have a play with each of these, see what you like.”

I took good time and played to my wife Donna in the store. We both decided that the guitar for me was the Maton EBG808C Michael Fix Custom. What an awesome guitar… I’m still excited about it, even though I haven’t bought it yet!

Michael came back to me with an awesome price that was much less than the RRP. No pressure. Do you think I’m going to bother to shop around now?

The thing is, what this guy was doing wouldn’t be considered “selling” by most people, probably even him. In fact, this was selling at the highest professional level because professionals are genuine. They never make you feel like you’re being sold to.

The professional service that the Acoustic Centre offered included:

1. Showing personal interest and genuine intention to help
2. Knowing their products extremely well and communicating on the customer’s level
3. Offering a selection of products (solutions) that would be likely to suit me and my budget 
4. Allowing hands-on time so that the customer can make their own choice 
5. Offering a great deal.

The question is, how you can apply each of these professional service qualities to your website? You can apply each of them.

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 1300 248 362 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.

Through the haze of excitement about Web 2.0 Jakob Nielsen has articulated what serious web marketing people have been saying for a long time.

Get Web 1.0 right before thinking about Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is a popular term that refers to things that encourage sharing and community between users. Think Youtube, FaceBook, MySpace, Linked In et al. Think user ratings, reviews, blogs, polls and opinions. 

The hype of it all can be overwhelming, and there are some awesome things about the whole Web 2.0 thing… but… if you think you need Web 2.0 features for your site, ask yourself first:

Will Web 2.0 bring me a return on your investment?

In reference to this question, Jakob says, ”If you’re a mainstream business site (including government and non-profit sites), your user experience needs are very different than those of the few hot sites that attract all the attention.”

The hot sites that attract attention are of course Facebook, MySpace, Amazon, etc. Unless that’s your business and you’re well down the path of raising $60 million in capital, your website is not like any of those.

What should you do instead? Jakob continues, “Instead of adding Facebook-like features that let users “bite” other users and turn them into zombies, the B2B site would get more sales by offering clear prices, good product photos, detailed specs, convincing whitepapers, an easily navigable information architecture, and an email newsletter.”

All of these things fall under the banner of good content, aka. Useful Information. Sustainable web marketing is about delivering useful information to the customer. That’s the first place to start improving your website’s return on investment.

You can read the full Alert Box article here: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/web-2.html

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 in 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 with 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 1300 248 362 to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your website.

I was speaking with Copywriter Meri Harley today about how many business marketers seem to have forgotten the very people who made them big… Their customers.

It’s manifest in their website copy that is usually laden with self references (We are the leading, We offer blah blah blah). For example have you ever seen a company with their mission statement on their home page? Who cares right?

All to often, the customer is brushed aside in their communication. It’s a one way street, and it only runs their way.

Coincidentally, Gene Stark from Stark Reality Marketing sent me a cool video about this very thing this afternoon. It’s a online video ad that was made for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions by Belgian Geert Desager. Check it out:

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 362to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your eCommerce website.

“We are the leading provider of …” Would you like a dollar for every time you’ve read that on a business website?

On many business websites, copywriting like this is common. Do all these companies suffer from self esteem so low that they need to pump up their tyres? I think and hope that there’s a better answer.

I think there’s three very good reasons that companies end up with such boring copy on their websites:

1. They copy what everyone else does without thinking
2. They focus their website team on flashy website design and content management systems, and they don’t realise the importance of the written copy on their website
3. They don’t know how to write good website copy and they don’t have a formula to guide them.

It’s a fact that the formula for great website copy is not generally known, even to marketing consultants and agencies. 

So what is the formula for writing great website copy? Read our article about the copywriting formula for business websites.

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 in 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 with 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 1300 248 362to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your website.

I’m really trying hard to look for email marketers who care about what their email looks like in the preview pane. It’s too easy to find bad examples, and I’m caved into the urge to expose them! So here are the three bad examples that I received today.

If it wasn’t for my recent posts on the subject, these emails would not have lasted in my inbox for more than five seconds (With the exception of Paul Kelly’s email, because he is an Australian Music Legend).

Example 1 - Paul Kelly

There are 2 main problems with this email.

1. It’s obvious that without seeing images, there is absolutely nothing to see. No content (as we define it, “useful information“) whatsoever.
2. The descriptions of the images that would usually give us some idea of what we’re missing out on can’t be seen because they are black text on a black background. The reason for this problem is that the HTML Code of the email references an external style sheet. This is blocked along with the images in the preview pane.

Now web programmers often like to be different from the mainstream. So it’s quite likely that they don’t use Outlook for their own email. However if you want to succeed in email marketing you simply can’t ignore the massive market share that Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express hold.

Technical Note: In Outlook 2007 Microsoft has switched to the the Word rendering engine for HTML messages. This has wiped out many of the HTML and CSS techniques that we commonly rely on to produce a good readable email. You’ll be shocked at how poorly it treats HTML emails. It will rank as one of the Microsoft Outlook team’s dumbest moments, but we’ll have to live with it.

Make sure your technical people test your email in Outlook (whether they like it or not!).

Example 2 - Chaos.com

More of the same with the Chaos.com newsletter. Apart from the lame “click here to view this newsletter online” there is nothing at all to see in the preview pane.

Have email marketers given up on high open rates? So much effort has gone into creating a catchy subject line for this email, but it could all have been wasted by not picking up on the subject in the body of the email.

Just like in web marketing, if there’s no scent of the subject line in the content of the email, readers will quickly lose interest.

Example 3 - POW WOW Events

This email presents quite a confronting array of images to the user. Again, there is absolutely no useful information in the preview pane.

There’s no reason that the headline seen in the complete email (left) could not have been text. That would have at least given the reader a cue that they should to download the images to see more.

The first and most simple way that you can boost your email marketing open rate is to check how your email looks in the preview pane in Microsoft Outlook.

If you are marketing consumers, you should also check to see how it looks in Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail.

Remember that email is one of the most time sensitive mediums of all marketing. With the barrage of communication that busy people receive every day, you need to make sure that your message is sharp to get through the noise.

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.

Ever wondered what it takes to get the most out of your eCommerce website conversion rates? Well, let’s start with the basics.

You must give your website visitors all of the information that they require to make a purchase.

Seem simple? A good eCommerce system and good information are the first steps to maximising your eCommerce website conversion rates.

Here’s some of the information that is typically required on your product pages for a user to feel comfortable making a purchase.

Product details

At a minimum, your product copywriting should detail the benefits of the product and the problems that it solves. Information that’s required includes things like:

• Features
  • Size, colour, height, width, depth, weight etc
  • Options, add ons, upgrades, requirements
• Benefits 
• Stock levels.

Think of the things that your customers always ask about your product and make sure they are addressed in some way.

Product pictures 

For a physical product, you should have:

• A hero shot - showing the product doing it’s job (like making someone look good)
• High resolution closeups - Consider using a flash zoom in utility
• Showing details of Front, Back, Sides, etc

Interestingly a good flash close up zoom utility gives the user an experience similar to that of touching and feeling the product. It’s a great conversion tool for eCommerce items like shoes and clothing.

Even a virtual product like an eBook should have a product shot. 

Trust elements

In order to have any chance of making an eCommerce sale. you need to satisfy the question of trust. You can go a long way to doing that by keeping important details up to date on your website. Details such as:

• Your physical address, phone number and email addresses
• Pictures of your physical location, staff, factory or warehouse 
• Information on how to get help
• Product Warranty, Guarantees 
• Shipping Policy
• Payment options
• Returns Policy
• Privacy Policy

Once you cover the basics and start to get more advanced, you can add things like product reviews, recommendations, comments and live help to your eCommerce website.

The trick to making it all work is making sure that your web design uses space effectively in order to present information in a logical way so that a website visitor can process it.

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 362to find out how you could boost the conversion rates of your eCommerce website.

Since I wrote about email marketing and the Outlook preview pane two weeks ago, I’ve been on the lookout for good examples of email marketing.

It turns out that Missy Higgins has an email marketing savvy record label. Take a look at the example to the left of the Missy Higgins concert tour email that went out on the 22nd of November.

Missy’s record label Eleven appear to have held back from the urge to make their email an art piece, and have delivered an instantly digestible message that works. As you can see,

1. You don’t have to download pictures to get the message
2. The headline is clear and readable
3. The text is scannable
4. It’s instantly apparent what the email is about.

Good job Eleven (Like the amplifiers in Spinal Tap, they really do go past ten!). It’s good that a company that’s smart with email marketing like this is involved with so many awesome new Australian artists.

Here’s an example of an email that we produced seen in the preview pane.

With this email, a form was used and pre-populated with information from the database. The key here is to make it so easy for readers to respond to the offer that the response rates will go up.

Our tips to create an effective email marketing campaign in this age of blocked images and the preview pane are:

1. Use a strong text headline in the email as well as a strong subject line
2. Keep any header design elements like banners to a minimum
3. Make sure the body text is scanable by using short sentences, bold and bullet points
4. Make sure that the email can be read without downloading images (i.e. check that it’s not all skew without the images).

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.