For the second year in a row, the highest percentage of sales dollars (40%) was generated from visitors who arrived at a site via direct access or bookmarks. Engine Ready, an Internet marketing company, analyzed 18.7 million visits over two years to Web sites run by 27 of the company’s roughly 500 clients.

These figures once again prove out the importance of networking, relationship management and engagement with those visitors who you come in contact with!

• Organic listings – 12%
• Paid listings – 20%
• Direct Access/Bookmarks – 40%
• Other referrers – 28%

This could very likely be an indication of repeat visitors, despite the study showing that only 25% of the visitors were repeat visitors. Therefore one can surmise that the 25% repeat visitor value would have been closer to the 40% level had visitors not deleted their cookies.

Such visitors, who tend to be repeat customers, linger the longest, spend the most money, and are the most likely to “convert” to buyers, doing so on 3.3 percent of their visits. On average, their visits are worth $5.69 apiece.

Inbound links to a site from other domains are both beneficial for SEO as well as driving additional quality traffic. And it was found that visitors arriving from other domains and emails took top honors for the highest value per visitor at $7.19, beating out last studies victor, direct access/bookmark by $0.16.

“Ever since the pay per click model became a channel for marketers, there has been an ongoing debate whether an investment in search engine optimization generates a higher ROI than paying for clicks using a PPC advertising model.

On an individual basis, there’s a multitude of factors that determine how well your visitors will convert when arriving from a search engine. Looking at the big picture across our entire sample size, though, did show that visitors from PPC ads outperformed those from organic listings in every category except average number of page views per visit. This was consistent with our study results from 2007. Overall, we found that the average sales dollar value per visitor arriving from a PPC ad was $2.38, or 76% higher than that of a visitor from an organic listing.

Additionally, paid traffic converted at a 54% higher rate and experienced an average order value 10% above that of traffic from organic listings.”

What this study confirms to me is something I’ve thought myself for years. When I’m ready to buy, I don’t trust organics. I assume (right or wrong) that those paying for PPCs and sending out professional marketing e-mails are those who take their business and therefore their customers more seriously.

If your online “advertising” model is solely about fretting over the natural/organic rankings you have or don’t have — you don’t get it. You need to have a healthy mix of marketing activities to attract your target customer. And clearly once they do visit, it is your site, your service and your product quality that can only keep them coming back for more.

At your service,
Judith

The Winner Is … SEO or PPC? is a post from: WordPress Consultant: Judith Kallos, At Your Service...

I don’t know how many times I’ve clicked on a PPC ad to only “land” at a page that either doesn’t have what I am looking for, is poorly developed and/or simply doesn’t have a clue as to how to build confidence and cater to what I, as the searcher, “landed” there for.

Then, I listen to frustrated site owners who claim to be throwing away money on PPC campaigns with little to no conversions. A quick glance usually reflects not having the basics covered. One of the top mistakes is having all ads land on the top page of the site in lieu of a product specific or specially created landing page.

To help you out in making sure your site and landing pages are optimized as best they can be to encourage conversions, Google has two sites to help you do just that!

1. Google’s Optimizer Web site: What if you could find the magic words and images that entice visitors to stay and become customers? You can, by testing variations of your Web site pages.
2. The Official Google Web site Optimizer YouTube Channel: Google Website Optimizer videos can help you increase your Web site’s conversion rate. By testing different types of content you can design your Web site to convert more visitors into customers.

Did you notice that the word “testing” is used above? That’s because not one person on this planet can tell you emphatically what will work for your site and with your market without testing! Don’t test and experiment and you’ll never really know what works because part of testing is tracking results so you can make that determination. How you figure out that magic combo that get’s your customers to buy is determined by experimenting and testing!

Yes, there are some tried and true staples you must have in place such as:

• A quality presentation that lends to the perception of credibility and legitimacy.
• Product/service descriptions that include the details and information consumers need to make an informed decision. In other words, don’t hide the most crucial information in hopes of a potential customer filling out a form to ask for the most basic of info — they won’t. They’ll just find a site that does provide the details they seek with the least amount of effort and give their business to your competitors.
• Images and graphics that are consistent in size and quality to ensure customers can see exactly what they are paying for and that instill the perception of quality in your offerings.
• Content that is easy to read, clear in its purpose and sounds like someone with an education wrote it. No typos, mistakes in grammar or generic verbiage will do.
• Customer service contacts, policies, terms, conditions, shipping costs, time-frames — all that goes with doing business online has to be front and center. Think about the questions you have when you make an online purchase and make sure you cover that on your site — and then some.

While the above are just the basics, ensuring these issues are considered and included while testing and experimenting the various ways to present your products/services, is the only way to enjoy any tangible results.

It’s takes work and consistency, but your bottom line will love you for it!

At your service,
Judith

Do Your Landing Pages Suck? is a post from: WordPress Consultant: Judith Kallos, At Your Service...

50% of those I work with assume I mean 155 words and send an unreadable paragraph my way stuffed with every keyword they can think of. “She couldn’t mean 155 characters — how can you possibly describe a business in 155 characters or less?” It’s easy if you put your head in the right place. The place where you forget about trying to cover all the bases and instead think niche — short and sweat. You do have a niche don’t you?

Why 155 — not 150, not 160? Because 155 is where Google truncates your site’s meta description tag contents. So to be able to have a clear, concise and descriptive description in 155 characters or less means your entire desired description will display and not be cut off. You need to be pithy! By doing so you control the full description that will be displayed to searchers on Google.

In a world out of control — this is something you can control! How about that!?

For my sites I actually tend to use shorter more concentrated descriptions between 70-100 so that at a brief glance one knows what that page is about. And, I only concentrate on integrating one keyword phrase into my meta descriptions. Yep, just one — the one that specific site/post/page is most about!

When I write; I write about one topic. Unlike so many site owners who try to cover all the bases all the time. In there effort to try include every possible search term under the sun, they dilute their efforts.

See, the more you are about — in the “eyes” of the search engines — the less you are about any one thing. Which means you won’t rank highly for anything.

Use the 155 character guideline for every page on your site. Rewrite all your meta descriptions focusing on the one topic each page is most about. By making the meta description succinct to each specific page, you’ll find over time that each page in your site will stand on it’s own for that topic as a possible doorway to the rest of your site.

Yes you can use more than 155, however, searchers will only get a partial view of the full description and you won’t be as focused or concentrated with your terms. Remember, searchers have the attention span of a gnat. Put on your thinking cap so you can control and choose what they see by using the 155 guideline.

This is your opening to grab and wow them to click on your link over those listed above or below you!

At your service,
Judith

Your Business in 155 Characters? is a post from: WordPress Consultant: Judith Kallos, At Your Service...