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An answer to some commonly asked questions about SEO and improving sales conversions
Tue, Nov 2009 06:38
| seo, vpasp, improving sales conversions
I received an email from a client today, and after I finished the reply I realised I’ve been asked the same questions many times before.
Having looked at your site, I think that it would benefit you to use some of our add ons from this page: http://www.bigyellowzone.com/byz_vpasp_seo_bundle.html
As you will be well aware to get the best positions you really need inbound links from quality sites / pages to make a real difference. For most ecommerce site that’s a very tall order as it isn’t feasible to do that for thousands of products in inventory. The good news is that its the same for your competitors. I am aware of some sites who get inbound links to some of their products which are high margin or high profile for them. But that’s an expensive game and costs (especially in time soon outweigh benefits) However, there are things you can still do with the on page content that can help (see below).
As far as the bundle goes. I’d recommend implementing all the products on the page I’ve linked to above with the exception of the friendly pages. As you have a mature site with established pages it would be a step back (ed. less mature sites may benefit).
Something which can make a difference is by in site cross linking. I don’t know what your level of technical expertise is, but the content enhancements enable you to do things like cross link categories and cross link products. For example you could add a section on your category page that links to top sellers within that category. Or cross link products to the most popular products within category, or brands etc. Telling visitors a product is most popular is also a good psychological trick as where they are presented with 5 very similar alternatives they feel more confident buying something other people have bought are more likely to convert. There are many permutations, but what it does is to create in site links of relevance. If done well those links can help with navigation too.
You might also want to consider internal link building by using ( BYZ116 Enhanced Paging/Searching) to link brand names or other cross category relationships. BYZ116 builds search page results that can be indexed by search engine.
I’d also strongly recommend that you consider using the product feeds. Specifically, the Google feed (the others may / may not work out for you as they are paid for inclusion). The feed loads product data direct in to Google’s shopping engine so Google can make sense of searches where people put in things like product ids or UPC (unique product code).
Just an observation on your product pages (this may be applicable to other pages too). You may want to consider using standard heading tags <h1>Heading 1</h1> etc. for items of key data like product name and model. There are a few tips on stuff like that here: http://www.bigyellowzone.com/vpasp_seo_guide.html
As for improving conversions we’ve found that the best way to find out why people aren’t buying (or are buying) is to get as much feedback as you can about the site. Try running a contest or sending out a follow-up email a couple of weeks after a customer orders (offer them a coupon - it can lead to further sales conversions on its own). For example, when I used a Mac running Safari (it may look different on Windows) to look at your homepage and I can see that your links are blue on a black background which makes them hard to read. An important part of getting good conversions is getting all those small things right because they can add up.
The most cost effective way to buy the software is to join our membership subscription program. You get all the add ons we have produced at a heavily discounted price: http://www.bigyellowzone.com/vpasp_add_on_hosting_plans.html
Having looked at your site, I think that it would benefit you to use some of our add ons from this page: http://www.bigyellowzone.com/byz_vpasp_seo_bundle.html
As you will be well aware to get the best positions you really need inbound links from quality sites / pages to make a real difference. For most ecommerce site that’s a very tall order as it isn’t feasible to do that for thousands of products in inventory. The good news is that its the same for your competitors. I am aware of some sites who get inbound links to some of their products which are high margin or high profile for them. But that’s an expensive game and costs (especially in time soon outweigh benefits) However, there are things you can still do with the on page content that can help (see below).
As far as the bundle goes. I’d recommend implementing all the products on the page I’ve linked to above with the exception of the friendly pages. As you have a mature site with established pages it would be a step back (ed. less mature sites may benefit).
Something which can make a difference is by in site cross linking. I don’t know what your level of technical expertise is, but the content enhancements enable you to do things like cross link categories and cross link products. For example you could add a section on your category page that links to top sellers within that category. Or cross link products to the most popular products within category, or brands etc. Telling visitors a product is most popular is also a good psychological trick as where they are presented with 5 very similar alternatives they feel more confident buying something other people have bought are more likely to convert. There are many permutations, but what it does is to create in site links of relevance. If done well those links can help with navigation too.
You might also want to consider internal link building by using ( BYZ116 Enhanced Paging/Searching) to link brand names or other cross category relationships. BYZ116 builds search page results that can be indexed by search engine.
I’d also strongly recommend that you consider using the product feeds. Specifically, the Google feed (the others may / may not work out for you as they are paid for inclusion). The feed loads product data direct in to Google’s shopping engine so Google can make sense of searches where people put in things like product ids or UPC (unique product code).
Just an observation on your product pages (this may be applicable to other pages too). You may want to consider using standard heading tags <h1>Heading 1</h1> etc. for items of key data like product name and model. There are a few tips on stuff like that here: http://www.bigyellowzone.com/vpasp_seo_guide.html
As for improving conversions we’ve found that the best way to find out why people aren’t buying (or are buying) is to get as much feedback as you can about the site. Try running a contest or sending out a follow-up email a couple of weeks after a customer orders (offer them a coupon - it can lead to further sales conversions on its own). For example, when I used a Mac running Safari (it may look different on Windows) to look at your homepage and I can see that your links are blue on a black background which makes them hard to read. An important part of getting good conversions is getting all those small things right because they can add up.
The most cost effective way to buy the software is to join our membership subscription program. You get all the add ons we have produced at a heavily discounted price: http://www.bigyellowzone.com/vpasp_add_on_hosting_plans.html
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