E-Commerce for All

Google Anchor Links

If you have doubted the need for fresh, related content on your store pages…. You better rethink your position! Google has improved the search results snippets to include “jump to” links to the page’s specific area containing the related content.

We have seen Google recently making huge and innovative changes in sitelinks and snippets, but in fact this most recent innovation may be the most valuable yet. We have discussed here many times, Google’s “full text” indexing and ranking ability… Now Google has sought to put that very ability to work for searchers.

Imagine that a shopper is searching for the specs on a gadget they wish to buy, with this type of anchor linking you have a unique opportunity to grab and better convert these topical and information seeking searches. Let’s face it, even if you rank for these type of searches, your product pages are designed to sell… Thus very likely the information for this type of search is buried. So much so, that even if they land on the page, they leave never finding the information they are seeking. While this is for good reason, and I do not suggest clouding the ability to shop with this type of information… Now you can include it in a less obtrusive manner, link to it with anchors and discover a entirely fresh conversion opportunity in information gathering searches.

Let’s say for example you search Google for “good cholesterol level”. You are met with a very unique opportunity in the search results…..

Google Jump to Sitelink

This content or sitelink as we say, not only takes you to the most relevant page… But the most relevant location on that page too!

I know, how can I do that? Well, Google has posted the means to get your site coded and correct anchors set in place for these type of results in a recent post on Webmaster Central Blog. Essentially you will need to relearn a bit of html in order to help Google index you in this manner. Creating page anchors for static pages is really not difficult, but including them in your dynamic pages can be a far greater challenge. Here is a really easy tutorial from W3Schools to get you started.

Melanie E-Commerce Design, E-Commerce SEO, Zen Cart

Power Blogging Titles

Website visitors are in a hurry. You’ve got but just a moment of their attention to grab them and reel them in. When someone visits your blog, will they only scan your headlines and leave, or would they be drawn to read more and stay awhile?

Think about how you read a newspaper. You short read or scan the papers headlines, deciding which content you’re going to read. People read blogs in much the same way.

You’ve only got about 10 seconds…. How will you engage your visitor?

Let’s compare a couple of post headlines:

Dog Explodes – BIG Mess!
or
Hot Dogs Overcooked in the Microwave May Explode

Very likely that first post title grabs your attention, and you’ll want to read more of the story. While certainly, it’s important not to “mislead” people, but using creative headlines will help capture a reader’s attention and get them engaged.

Here’s another post title example:

Reader’s Eyes Glued to Computer Screen
or
Man Reads Article after Reading Exciting Headline

Just by putting a fun spin on the title will spark people’s curiosity. In those brief seconds it took to scan those titles, the reader decides to stick around your blog a little longer, as they are intrigued. Using strong headlines that grab attention is a great way to help your bounce rate. People come to your blog and stick around. What do your post titles say? How many people are leaving simply because of how you say it?

Don’t stop at the post title with a little creativity, you can really make the rest of the copy pop as well. Stop and think about the articles that you read, what keeps you reading an article? Have you ever started to read an article, and then got bored during the middle of it? Oh yeah, you need to keep that creativity rolling… Or I will just flip the page. The longer somebody is on your blog, the better chance they’ll take whatever conversion action you’re striving for, whether it’s to sign up for something, purchase something or click through to another article or ad.

So experiment with your post titles…. Know that you can do some very creative things to grab your readers attention. Many great examples of effective post titles also include language like these popping post titles below.

Top 10 Reasons to Blog for Your Business

5 Secrets to Online Success

How to Skyrocket Online Sales

Why You Want Your Business on the Web

Ideally, your post titles can be anything… as you can set your page title (if you choose to do so) to a clearly more relevant title for your SEO. Make them short, easy to understand and engaging for blogging success! Sounds easy…. It is, just use your imagination and measure your success with your stats.

Great post headlines will keep visitors on your site longer and get them deeper in to your content. This greatly reduces bounce and inspires participation from your readers as well. Add the fact that if you can really engage your readers they will share your posts….. Remember after all, blogging is intended to be a creative release.

Melanie E-Commerce SEO

So you have your store up and running and hopefully you are watching those conversions closely. Today, we are going to hit some not so blatant discrepancies about online conversions that you should know. I have said this before, but it bares repeating, every store is different. Even store with the exact same flow and product line will convert differently. So lets did in to some conversion dirt.

First of all, and certainly unnecessarily, lets define a conversion…

In marketing a conversion occurs when a prospective customer takes the marketer’s intended action. If the prospect has visited a marketer’s web site, the conversion action might be making an online purchase, or submitting a form to request additional information. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take the conversion action.

So you see a conversion or the act of converting a visitor to an action, not just about a sale. It is in fact a general term referring to getting them to do what you want such as sign up for a newsletter or click an Ad even. Now lets dig in…

I really hope you are using a great Analytics program like Urchin or Google Analytics which tracks conversions (completed sales and funnels) for you. Without these types of analytical tools you are pretty much popping caps off in the dark. We will assume you are using Google Analytics for our purpose.

On your main account stats page, the “dashboard”, you have several statistical summary boxes. We are going to concentrate on your “Ecommerce Overview”. In this summary box within your dashboard you get very basic conversion information. While I would never argue that your overall conversion rate is important, its just not enough information to grow your business. So click the “view report” link and lets dig deeper.

Before we go any further I want to debunk a very common misconception, something I hear far too often…

No, we always sell more beta widgets… That’s always been our top product. The alpha widgets just don’t sell, so lets concentrate on the beta widgets.

Personally, I really don’t care in the least “what you have always” sold more of historically. Have you considered the search rank, volume and potential sales of the other widgets? No, probably not. Here’s the thing, ALMOST 100% of the time when a customer tells me that, their lack of sales/conversions for the under performing widget is related to either their site or its lack of rank and therefore search phrase traffic. Only one time that I can remember was this actually related to a “bad” product. So throw everything you think about your products and whether you think they will sell out the window and rely on the data.

Ok, so we have or page one Ecommerce view up in Analytics. Some cool stuff here and some things I want you too look for…

1. In the top graph is about 30 days of conversions. The blue vertical line indicates the weekly separation, by default this is a Monday. I want you to look at the graph and try to discern if you have weekly sales bursts and plummets related to the days of the week. For example, the site I am using has very poor Friday sales.
2. In the next section there is some interesting data, including the amount of sales generated from your site in the 30 day period. I certainly realize many store convert a large percentage of sales on the phone and that this number is in fact skewed for those types of stores… However, you should always be looking for ways to convert more sales on your website and less on the phone. Better usability, search functions, descriptions and perhaps live help will help you to spend less money to make those sales.
3. Average Order Value. This is a highly important metric! For example the site I am using has an overall conversion rate of 12.14%, but the average order is only $40.87. I know the products on this site are in that 40$ range and this tells me quite frankly that shoppers are not being converted in to bigger tickets, additional products are not being added. There are many reason for this, the biggest one is a complete lack of any cross selling technique. Looking at the transactions vs the products purchased confirms this theory. Making no effort to boost your order average is like agreeing to work for the same wage the rest of your life.
4. On the right hand side of the same box is some very detailed revenue information. We’ll cover just a few, but I encourage you to poke around in here. In the traffic sources, under Revenue Analysis, click keywords. This is all of your converting keyword traffic. In the same area you can select just paid or non-paid (organic). Here you will look for high converting keywords… Even if the visits are low. You should also seek out some very badly performing keywords and jot them down as well… They are likely to have big traffic and low conversions. These are shoppers that you dropped the ball. They got there and you/your site consistently failed to convert them.
5. OK pack to the previous E commerce main page. In the same area click on the map overlay. There is significant value in knowing where your shoppers are coming from. Perhaps you are getting a great deal of traffic from a region you don’t currently ship to… This you can fix. Maybe you can add some products with regional flavor to better convert those regional shoppers in to larger orders. This is good info all the way around.
6. The last section on the E-Commerce main page is “Top Revenue Sources”. Lets check out the “products” section which is on your left by default. Here you can determine a few things about your purchased products… My favorite is “Unique Purchases”. Depending on your shopping cart system this number means the number of purchases used to purchase the total number products purchased. On some shopping cart systems, like Zen Cart, it will track combined cart results and additional purchases from logged in shoppers in the same “purchase”. This is a nice indication of repeat business from satisfied shoppers!
7. Lastly, click back to the main E-Commerce screen and lets have a look at your traffic sources. This is last, but likely to be your best change to get a handle on your site and its potential for sales. Sure you want to look to see what converts best, but consider the source! For example this site is using AuctionBlox for their eBay auctions and clearly they are converting best… Um-mm 100%. So remember, look for opportunities, not just things converting well… They can be quite deceiving.

All in all, you have to get a feel for your site. I would very highly suggest that you checkout a heat map if your visits are high, but conversions are low. Make use of the tools available to you… Things like software/mods to recover cart sales from shoppers who have bailed from checkout are invaluable. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box… And please do your own thing, its ok to learn from others and you may find some success in copying their techniques… But you will never be as successful as you could be with fresh ideas. Your store will give you the answers, just put your ear to the ground and listen.

Melanie E-Commerce Marketing