Real World Computing
Convert and prosper
Two key factors determine whether your web marketing will be effective and profitable: the volume of traffic and the conversion rate (the proportion of site visitors who buy). You'll spend a lot of time on improving your Google Adwords CTR (Click Through Rate) to lower the cost per click, bringing more traffic to your site for less per potential customer. But even the best-planned ads cost money and usually the more effective they are, the more they'll cost. So never neglect marketing to those people who've actually made it to your site (you've already paid Google to get them there). Conversion rate is at least as important as optimising your ads, and both increase your net income.
The first step is to optimise the design and text on your website's landing pages. A few years ago, you'd expect most visitors to arrive at your homepage, but nowadays any properly designed site will be spidered by Google page-by-page, and if one of your pages is highly relevant to a particular search Google will serve that up instead of the homepage. Also,one of the most basic Adwords strategies is to direct-click to specific pages rather than the homepage: for example, if someone searches for "orchids", they'll expect to arrive at a page with orchids rather than a generic homepage. Understanding what visitors are expecting is the key, and that might vary from page to page. Remember it isn't about what you want to tell them, but about what they want to hear.
Think carefully about the purpose of each page and, most importantly, what action you want visitors to take once there. Every page should suggest an action, whether that's to buy a product, to register, to contact you, or simply to move on to some other page. A page on a commercial website that doesn't require user action is a page without any point.
Your design must be clear and appropriate for your audience, with a main message appearing at or around the top centre of the page. High-quality copy is essential here, and I'd suggest getting some training, as this is a specialised skill. On a landing page, first let your visitor know they've arrived at the right place, the question at the front of their mind. Then, as quickly as possible, put your "call to action" to them, even if that simply asks them to keep reading to the bottom of the page, then sign up, buy or move to another page.
Modern web users are wary and cynical, and with good reason. Most people won't buy on a first visit, yet most commercial websites are built with this as their goal, as if they were high-street shops. For most sites, the aim should be to open and then build a relationship with potential customers, the first step being to capture their email address so they can be placed into an autoresponder to receive regular emails. People guard their email addresses jealously, so you'll need to offer them something worthwhile to persuade them to register. I often have problems convincing clients about this - they understand the principle but consider their content too valuable to give any away. My attitude is that giving away a little genuine content will make your potential customer both appreciate the gift and assume you have much more like it - it makes you appear simultaneously generous and expert. And remember, if you don't offer some information, one of your competitors probably will.
The content you give out will, of course, depend on your business: it will most likely be along the lines of "ten most effective ways to do X", with a list of bullet points outlining essential information that you know but your potential customers don't. Bear in mind that your customers probably know much less than you expect, and what might seem like extremely basic information to you will feel to your visitors like admission into an exclusive club. "White papers" are also popular, which deal with a single topic in some depth.
