25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

Site owners spend so much time and money on search engine optimization that they often leave conversion optimization to chance. They're happy with a 1% - 2% conversion rate, the typical rate for smaller sites. Converting visitors to buyers is part science, part art. No one formula fits all sites but here are 25 tips that will boost conversion rates on most

1. Keep it simple. The simpler it is for visitors to complete a purchase the more purchases (and fewer shopping cart abandonments) you'll see. Make it simple to find the product and go through the checkout process.


2. Provide complete contact information including a telephone number. Buyers want to know you're real and they want to know how to reach you in case of a problem.


3. Provide encouragement throughout the checkout process. The best way to do this is to let buyers know what stage of checkout they've reached, and to provide them with highlighted signage to let them know what to do next.


4. Use product pictures in shopping carts. This reminds visitors what's in their carts. It also reinforces, in the visitor's mind, the reason(s) for the purchase.


5. Link back to the product page. After an item has been placed in the shopping cart, the visitor should be able to click on the item and be directed back to the product page in a new window for example. This makes buying comparisons easier and ensures the visitor has the right item for his/her needs without leaving the shopping cart.


6. Don't keep shipping costs a secret. Nothing kills a conversion faster than a $19.95 shipping and handling charge on a $10 item. Provide shipping cost information on the first page of the checkout.


7. Is it backordered? The visitor finally reaches the end of the checkout only to discover that the item isn't in stock. Do you think they'll come back when the item comes in? They won't.


8. Provide complete product information including sizes, colors, styles and other product descriptors. This will cut down on product returns because buyers will know what they're actually purchasing. Avoid hyping products for the same reason.


9. Keep terms of service (TOS) simple and unambiguous. What's your guarantee? What's your return policy? Eliminate the boilerplate and give them the facts.


10. Provide a menu of payment gateways. Not all buyers want to pay by credit card. Some don't even have a credit card. Buyers should be given the option to pay by debit card, personal check (snail mail), PayPal and other similar services, bank transfer and, if the want to stop by to pick it up, you'll even take cash.


11. Never blame the buyer. When a potential buyer clicks on the wrong link, or forgets to enter all data fields, put up a message explaining the problem and how to fix it. The customer is always right and it's always your fault. Period.


12. Offer gift cards. Some buyers just don't know what to buy as a gift. A gift card solves the problem.


13. Use real testimonials. If you're doing it right, you've gotten good feedback from some buyers. Ask permission to use their testimonials. Don't use fake testimonials signed by Diane E., California. It's an obvious fake testimonial.


14. Provide a customer service line. Outsource it if it isn't part of the budget but buyers want to know there's help in setting it up, whatever "it" is.


15. Avoid distracting links. If your home page is crammed with PPC ads and links to other sites, it's distracting and you'll see a lot more bounces (visitors who never get past the home page).


16. Offer incentives. Free shipping encourages buyers. So do upgrades, i.e. "Spend at least $50 and receive 10% off your entire purchase." Some buyers will do the math and figure out they're getting something for half price.


17. Welcome repeat visitors by name. Your customer data base is filled with solid gold information including names, purchase amounts, items purchased and so on. First, welcome a return buyer by name. Then, offer suggestions for purchase based on individual buying histories. (See Amazon.com for examples of using data base information to boost conversion ratios.)


18. Provide a currency converter. Not all buyers will be using your country's currency. Make it easy to convert from euros to drachmas to dollars.


19. Offer a free newsletter. Your regular buyers will appreciate it when they're notified ahead of time of upcoming specials, new product launches and other site related information.


20. Add a forum. This is a great way for buyers to share information, make recommendations and complain. It's also a great way for you to handle complaints quickly, with the resolution posted right there on the complaint thread.


21. Provide informational content on your site. This establishes your credentials and credibility as an authority, whether you're selling kayaks or bake ware.


22. Learn from your competitors. Visit the sites of more-established competitors to see what they're doing to convert. How is the homepage designed? Navigation? Checkout? You can't copyright an idea so you might as well "borrow" from the best.


23. Improve site stickiness. In other words, give buyers a reason to return. Some suggestions? The Sale of the Day, Tip of the Day, Your Horoscope, This Day in History, etc. This keeps your site green and visitors returning.


24. Let buyers post product reviews. Nothing sells better than a positive review from another buyer. Of course, the converse is true, too. Nothing will kill a sale faster than a bad review. And if a product receives lots of bad reviews, drop it from your product line.


25. Target your site's skin to your demographic. If you're selling collectible knives, your site should have a certain "look" and that look doesn't include pastels and prissy type. Big, bold and manly — that's the way to go. On the other hand, if you're selling needlepoint patterns, a nice pastel background with little flowers works perfectly.
    

Search engine optimization is designed to attract search engine spiders. It's also intended to ensure that your site is accurately and completely optimized. But, once traffic arrives on site, conversion optimization takes over.

Keep it simple. Keep it easy. Keep it honest. Not only will you see a boost in conversion ratio, you'll also see a nice pop in return buyers. And they're the best buyers any web site owner could ask for.

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How Important Is Alexa Ranking?

All businesses that have taken up online marketing aim at improving their conversion rate. Now, there are different ways of attracting targeted traffic. Some go for a good place in the SERPs, others like to know that their site receives heavy traffic. Either way, everybody has this goal of achieving financial success.

But, while scoring high with Google may seem to certain business people the only way to make themselves known and thus reaching their goal, there are others that think that a good place in the Alexa ranking system might benefit them just as well.

What is Alexa Ranking?

This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com ) that basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits on various Web sites. The algorithm according to which Alexa traffic ranking is calculated is simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed over a period of three months.

This traffic is based on such parameters as reach and page views. The reach refers to the number of Alexa users who visit a particular site in one day. Page view, as its name shows, is the number of times a particular page (URL) is viewed by Alexa users. Alexa.com makes it clear though that, if a particular user visits the same URL multiple times on the same day, all those visits will be counted as one.

The first step of the ranking process is calculating the reach and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily basis. The Alexa ranking is obtained by performing the geometric mean of reach and page views, averaged over a predefined period of time (three months).

How Alexa Ranking Works

It's quite easy to get started. All you have to do is visit the alexa.com site and download (and install) the Alexa toolbar . This toolbar offers a search function but it mainly displays the rank (at a global level) of the visited site, as well as the sites that have been visited by Web surfers that are linked in some way to the site being visited.

The Alexa toolbar not only displays information, but it also sends data to the central server. Thus, each time you visit a Web page via a Web browser (be it Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has the toolbar installed, information is sent to the server indicating your IP and the page you are visiting. Such data is gathered from all the Web user who have the Alexa toolbar.

With Alexa, the smaller the numerical ranking, the better. Most people say that if you manage to make it in the top 100,000, it is a sign that your site enjoys quite heavy traffic.

Is Alexa Ranking Worth Anything?

Benefits
• As opposed to Google's PageRank, the lower your ranking number, the better.
• It helps Webmasters and advertisers see the true marketing potential of your Web site. The better your Alexa rank, the higher they will be willing to bid to buy advertising space on your Web site.
• Personal pages or blogs are taken into consideration and ranked in the same manner as regular Web sites. They will even get a distinctive mark (*)
• Given that Alexa ranking offers you information about your Web site, it is a good tool to have in view of search engine optimization.



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Google Crawlers and Stray Cats

A favorite topic that I write about is advice for small business website owners to add fresh content often for the benefit of their visitors. Those visitors include search engine crawlers, and the search engine optimization value is enhanced by adding new content frequently. A small business blog is the perfect way to create new site content, and making a post once a week may give you an edge over your competition.

Consider how many of your small business competitors have a blog. The majority do not. If you are a blogger, a weekly post could be the key advantage beating out the competition and attracting new prospects to your website.

Let's compare Google crawlers and stray cats with this fun analogy to illustrate the value of providing visitors with tidbits of advice compared to seeing a stray cat near your home and tossing it a small chunk of steak. Do it again each night for 2-3 days. Skip a day and do it again and eventually that cat will come back every day even if you toss the scrap of steak once a week. Search engines are no different. Fresh content, no matter how small, attracts search engines to your site more often.

Here's an example of the value of posting fresh blog content often. Search Google for tips shooting Moose+Maine and view results. As of the date this article was published, my personal blog was listed #3 and #4 on Google page one out of 353,000 results. It may be different as you read this, yet my Growin' Up in Maine bog is probably still on page one. Here's an explanation of why the results were exceptional which may relate to your small business website or blog because that personal site hasn't been around very long.

The storytelling blog was a test site for customizing templates and graphics for the new Blogger, and after a couple of weeks my plan was to scrap it. The topic is childhood stories and it ended up being fun, so I kept it online. The Google page one search results for the moose tips happened when the blog was less than 6 months old, yet by adding new posts at least once a week the new content attracted search engines with high ranking, and perhaps an occasional stray cat.

What's the moral of this story? Get in the habit of feeding Google crawlers once a week and your valuable posts with advice and expert small business content may just give you an edge. If your competition does not have a blog, the search engines are more likely to favor you and drive traffic your way.

Tip: Do not use your small business blog for personal posts with off topic subjects like your vacation, a great restaurant, or anything unrelated to your site theme. While perhaps cute, unrelated content may dilute search results when people search for your real product or service.

The most common mistake I see in new small business blogs is a lack of discipline, and misunderstanding of the true value of posting often. Some owners launch a blog and become distracted with day to day activities that bring immediate income. This is necessary from a tactical standpoint. Revenue means survival. However, blogging needs to become a habit in order to enjoy the strategic long term benefits. Post weekly and the value will continue to grow over time.

Writing may not be fun for you. It may not be your top priority. Once you make blog posting a routine, you may be amazed that writing actually becomes easier each time. Looking back at my posts I can see how the style and slant of my advice has evolved and improved. It can for you, too, and the seo or search engine optimization value makes the effort worthwhile, so do it.

In conclusion, the Google crawlers are no different than that stray cat. Feed them quality content often and they are certain to come back to reward you with results based on your contributions. Previous articles I wrote may help you jump start your blog and get over writers block, too.

Here's some final advice. Search using quote marks for "Small Business Blog Integration Advice" or "Small Business Blog Writing Tips" to find these articles I wrote that are published in a number of article directories. Blogging for small business is worth your time because it is a low cost way to add new content often with significant seo benefits to follow.


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Professional Search Engine Marketing helps to achieve high rankings

With the help of professional search engine marketing you can aim to attain a first page placement in the search engine listings. No SEO consultant can guarantee you a top placement but a professional can give you assurance for this. It can be attained and maintained often may be after some time.

Professional search engine marketing involves an effective use of search engine optimization methods and solutions related to it. Effective implementation of search engine marketing methods can enable your company to achieve higher placements in the search engine listings. The professional approach can include designing a website which is search engine friendly and easy to navigate. Further define the content of website which is easy to understand. Draft the contents using those words and phrases which users frequently use to find it as specified content. To increase the accessibility of the site to enhance effectiveness is another part of professional search engine marketing. Other factors affecting the placement of site are link building. Link building is in the form of reciprocal link building, one way link building and multi site link building. All these elements make the website search engine friendly and direct towards the comprehensive use of SEO solutions. This helps in maintaining higher search engine rankings. The other approaches in professional search engine marketing include website analysis, search engine review, submission to search engines and all other features of optimization process.

Most companies hire professional consultants for their search engine marketing works. In this case the entire search engine marketing activities depends on the professionals. It is advisable to appoint an experienced professional consultant who has trained team of experts with him.

With professional search engine marketing you can achieve ranking in the top of search engines, make a suitable content management system, implement suitable methods of optimization, and use unique optimization methods for each website. So professional search engine marketing is required to have a presence in the World Wide Web. The basic idea is to create an online presence at different places in World Wide Web. Getting professional search engine marketing is not difficult if you find a proper company to work with.

Thus professional approach of search engine marketing not only gives your website a presence in the World Wide Web but also helps in optimizing the site to a great extent. Just select the best online company to provide such professional services, and then you can get the desired results.


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15 Reasons To Join Affiliate Programs

There are HUGE benefits to promoting affiliate programs with your own homebased Internet business. Let’s look at 15 of the best reasons to join affiliate programs.

1. No Production Costs: The cost to develop and produce a new product is prohibitive for almost anyone who wants to start a home-based business. With affiliate programs, production costs aren't an issue. The product has been developed and proven - all on the merchant's nickel.
2. Low Cost Set-up: Compared with building a brick and mortar store, starting a home-based Internet business is relatively cheap. You probably already have a desk, Internet-connected computer and word-processing software, which is all the equipment you may need to start making easy money from affiliate programs.
3. No Fees or Licenses: I often compare doing business as an affiliate, with distributing a line of products in the real world. The biggest difference is that the distributor must often pay for a license to distribute products within a limited geographic region. Affiliate programs, on the other hand, are usually free to join, and geographic market reach is limited only by the affiliate's ability to promote his website.
4. Sell Almost Anything: What isn't sold online? That list must be shorter than the one describing all that IS sold online. There are thousands and thousands of affiliate programs selling every product under the sun. That makes it easy to find products related to your current or planned web site.
5. No Sales Experience Required: When I started my affiliate business, I had absolutely no sales experience. That wasn’t a problem, however. The companies I affiliated with provided excellent marketing material. Using their sales copy, I was able to get my first affiliate site up in less than a day.
6. No Employees: Employee salaries are the biggest business expense. Although you may need or want someone to work for you on occasion, you'll never have to worry about hiring full or part-time employees while working as an affiliate marketer. When you have a project you want to hire out, it is easy to find specialists in every computer-related field who can work for you from the comfort of THEIR own homes. You pay only for the project, and never have to worry about ongoing employeerelated benefits and deductions.
7. No Merchant Accounts: Setting up a merchant account is time-consuming and costly. However, affiliate marketers don’t need merchant account. Merchants bear all the costs for payment processing. As an affiliate, you’ll never lose sleep over chargebacks, fraud or losing your merchant account.
8. No Inventory: As an affiliate marketer, you can sell large items without storage concerns, even if you live in a small one-bedroom apartment.
9. No Order-Processing: Forget the problems associated with collecting and storing names, addresses, credit card numbers, etc. The merchant does all that!
10. No Shipping: The cost and hassle to prepare and ship products to customers worldwide could be staggering. Affiliates never have to worry about packaging supplies or postal rates.
11. No Customer Service: Do you hate the prospect of dealing with nasty people or customer complaints? Don't worry about it! The merchant handles the snivelers.
12. Make Money While You Sleep: What other business allows you as a sole proprietor to keep your doors open and keep making money even when you take breaks or after you go home for the night?
13. Worldwide Marketplace: The Internet is the world's largest marketplace. You can drive more visitors to your online store in a day, than a small-town merchant will see in his or her brick and mortar business in a year.
14. Minimal Risk: The product you chose isn't making money? Dump it. Take down your links and promote another! It's that easy. There are no long-term contracts binding you to products that don't sell.
15. High Income Potential: If you have a job, your salary or hourly wage is probably pre-determined. Maybe there's not much, other than working overtime, that you can do to increase your income. With your own affiliate business on the Internet your income potential is limited only by your desire, effort and imagination. No other business is so inexpensive to start yet offers such high profit potential without investing years of labor.

Affiliate programs enable you to work from Almost Anywhere in the World! Best Wishes.



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Importance of Search Engine visibility

A lot of people search the internet generally when they are in require of some service or to expand product information. Most people would do search using few keywords as they are unconscious of the brands they want to use to advantage the service or product. Also the person who is searching frequently decides before he hits the end of the search page.

Well that leaves us with only one question, how can one get good search engine visibility? How can the product or solution on extend be visible in the first page itself?

There are few tips that can really help you to achieve visibility on the search engines and that means your content is accessible to millions of Internet browsers.

First thing you will have to do is find out what words do people use to search to access a particular service or product and their related key words. Once you set your keywords you could Meta tag the same to represent the entire company’s website content.

Once you have the list of key words you have to try and use these keywords in your content of the website. The more keywords you collect and add on to your content the more will be the visibility for your website.

Regular press releases using these keywords can also do the trick. This way you have more gain more visibility and more search engines will pick up your data as it’s the latest update. Do make sure your press release has relevant and important data so that your possible client gets all wanted information. As he lands on your website he should see the expression of the information he has seen and should be satisfied with the further information he expected on your website.

Start a blog so that you and your employees add on that and they become an entire part of the domain you control on.

With a good search engine visibility you have already won the war of the markets, as most people would not even look at the other websites. So your competition is already filtered and you are ready to be the leader. So now Prepare your content filled with keywords and get ready to rule the market!



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Important SEO Strategies

First, for those of you who may not know, what does SEO mean? SEO stands for: Search Engine Optimizer.

If you would like your web page to be found more often in a search engine chances are you will do what everyone else is doing and shoot for some SEO strategies to help you out. If you are going to use SEO strategies for your web page you will need to focus on your keyword text. If your page is in the subject of “Reptile help” then throughout your text you should put “reptile help” in this. Putting reptile helps” is not the same as putting the actual key word either. When using SEO strategies you have to put the exact keyword in the exact spelling in order for the search engine to pick up what you want it to pick up.

How often should you use key word density when you are using SEO strategies?
If you have 250 words in your text you will want to include at least 5% of it as the keyword. There are plenty of engines out there that you will be able to check your keyword density in, you can search for them by going to a search engine and typing in “keyword density checker.” You should always place the most important writing around the top of your article.

A lot of people are making SEO’s so you should be doing the same as well if you have a web page and you follow the SEO strategies you are sure to have more hits than ever to your web page, you just have to find the time and patience to write your own SEO articles, be sure to mention that word that you are aiming for in there a lot though and you should have no problem with your SEO’s.


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