Real examples of web site issues and
how Back2Front's on-going
management service works to solve them.
Let's examine a web site we manage that was launched earlier
this year. This is a good functional web site with lots of
excellent content in the Services section. The hits statistics for
the site have increased nicely for a web site of this size and
type from approximately 300 hits in April to over 5000 in July.
However, the client is concerned that not enough of these hits
are converting into sales.
For many of our clients, converting visitors to sales (conversion
rate) is an important goal for their web site. We provide
detailed monthly statistics reports that can help determine
conversion rates - if you know how to interpret them!
To
calculate conversion rates, the most useful statistic is not the
Total Hits, but the number of Unique Human Visitors.
Unique Human Visitors is the total number of hits, with robots
and duplicate hits from the same source, removed. This gives a
better idea of the number of people looking at your site. In this
case, (not unusual for a new site) less than 300 people visited
the site in July.
Knowing that relatively few real people are visiting the site
changes the strategy from working on the conversion rate as a
primary goal, to working on the web site's traffic first. Then work
on the conversion rate by turning as many of them into
customers as possible.
Ultimately, the way to increase traffic to any site is...
marketing. One component of a company's marketing efforts
that Back2Front can assist with is search engine optimization.
For this particular site, we noticed that although this company
provides a local service, the only mention of the location is a
fairly vague "Southern Ontario". Chances are that people
looking for this service will not search on "Southern Ontario".
They will most likely search on their city or town. One of our
first recommendations therefore, is to add specific service
locations prominently on the home page.
To help with the conversion rate we recommend adding
benefit statements to the home page. Visitors may be thinking
of inspection services only when they buy or sell, and may not
be aware of other benefits of the service. We recommend
adding some good benefit copy that is short and snappy, to
encourage visitors to call sooner - something like...
Is your home making you sick?
Delroy Inspections can find the hidden causes of illness in your
home.
If your family members are not feeling their best, call us for a
free consultation.
Call 519-555-1234 and get a healthier home for your family
today!
There is no substitute for good marketing and a strong business
plan. However, a company's web site constitutes a significant
part of their communications with their target market, so
optimizing it for performance is important. We will be working
with Delroy Inspections over the next few weeks to help them
make informed decisions about their web site, provide our
detailed recommendations (more that we have space for here),
and implement changes to the site, all as part of our ongoing
management service.
Volunteer your site for our next Case Study!
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