by Admin
by Michael Rock
by Michael Rock
http://www.webrankingconsultants.com
I attended the EXOMXPO convention and found one seminar to be very helpful and informational and thought I would share the knowledge with you. This seminar called, 'Getting the Word Out' gives many ideas on how to bring traffic into your web site AND generate a better ROI (Return on Investment) to get more sales.
Brett Hurt of Bazaar Voice
The first presenter Brett Hurt of Bazaar Voice was explaining word of mouth marketing and gave some startling statistics on how these techniques can help.
First of all 56% of all online shoppers start at a retailers brand web site to find out about their product and when they do the research on what they are searching for they are influenced by these areas:
Brett gave an example of how PETCO tweaked their web site to make great improvements in their sales by creating a link to a new web page entitled, 'Top Rated Products'. The Top Rated Products (TRP) page had a listing of the most popular items that sold at PETCO instead of showing the visitor an overwhelming amount of products. From the addition of this page on PETCO's site they increased their conversion rate by 35% and had an increase of 40% of sales per order.
How did they do this? By applying Web 2.0 designing to their web site. They put the most relevant products on the TRP page, added credibility by posting customer testimonials next to the product, had one on one customer support, and utilized the knowledge that was received from the customer feedback forms. The feedback they got from the forms told PETCO what customers wanted to see in their shopping experience.
Web 2.0 is a phase of web design and marketing that makes visitors more interactive with the web sites through the use of feedback forms, forums, testimonials, product rating, live chat support, etc. With this knowledge the search engines are putting value on this input into their search engine algorithm to provide better search engine result pages (SERPS). With this kind of input the search engines can provide better results of what visitors are looking for.
One of the examples given at the seminar was that by reading the customer reviews on a certain camera they found out that 61% of them mentioned that the camera supported Dolby 5.1 surround sound. Since this was such an interest to the consumers they added that little bit of information onto their web site and watched their sales go up.
When doing keyword research for clients I can usually get a good 'feel' for what customers want and are searching for by examining what they type into the search products. If they are concerned about side effects of a product, what information they are looking for, and other concerns that they may have. In my keyword research report I include my conclusions of what people are searching for, what their concerns are, and a list of the search terms they are using so that my clients can tweak their web site around to what the customers are looking for and answer the questions they may have on a certain product.
With the addition of 'Review Pages' to web sites these things were discovered:
After the company discovered how valuable reviews were to their web site they implemented a plan to give away a $250 gift certificate to someone if they wrote a review to generate more reviews for the site.
Susan Sweeney
The next speaker was Susan Sweeney of her self entitled company Susan Sweeney and she talked about viral marketing.
Here are some of the recommendations she had made to increase word of mouth to your web site:
With Susan's viral marketing word of mouth can spread easily for your web site and when someone is referred to your web site they get it from a trusted source. Their friend!
Roger Dooley of Dooley Direct
The next speaker was Roger Dooley of Dooley Direct and he talked about how Web 2.0 goes hand in hand with Word of Mouth Marketing.
Roger then went on to discuss how an interactive site, which is what Web 2.0 is all about, helps with marketing. Through the user added content from such things as Blogs, discussion forums, feedback forms, and wiki generated sites he explained how you can add credibility and respect to your web site to increase your sales.
Matt Bailey of Site Logic Marketing
Last, but not least was Matt Bailey of Site Logic Marketing discussed how forums can make or break a site.
He gave an example of one site that added a page to their web site called, 'Basement Bargains' where they can sell off extra inventory for a lower price and offer a discount on shipping if they ordered from here.
What they found out came to them as a surprise! People found out about the discount and posted it on forums that list sales and discounts such as www.fatwallet.com, www.fishingfordeals.com, www.teachers.net, and www.mycoupons.com. From these forums people listed the good deals they got from this web site, what the customer support was like, and the good experience they received when dealing with this web site. In essence they received testimonials from these forums bragging up their web site which led to a number of good referrals and increased traffic to their web site.
All in all these were the results they received:
Here is a breakdown on the visitors to their web site:
40% of the sales made at this web site came from these forum referrals.
So the important thing to remember about this is that customer service is more important than the actual deal and if you have a good word of mouth about your service it can be profitable.
This is Michael Rock of www.webrankingconsultants.com signing off to find more information that will be beneficial to you!
Michael Rock is a search engine optimization specialist that provides website positioning strategies, SEO consultation, keyword research, analyze competition, web site analytics, and website linking campaigns to help you achieve better search engine ranks!
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