Friday, November 23, 2007

Improve Your conversion Rate With An Online Sales Silo

You're probably wondering what an online sales silo is and why you need to create one. In the past, sales and marketing experts told us to create a sales or marketing funnel. You dump all of your prospects into a wide funnel and a few would drop out of the bottom of the funnel that may turn into customers. Using the power of the search engines, you drop highly targeted prospects into a silo instead of a funnel. Once they are in the silo, you lead them directly to the product or service they were searching for and sell it to them.

Why does the online sales silo work so well? In today's society we all have the same problems, lack of time and too much to do. We're unfocused and our attention spans are now measured in seconds. For example, recent studies show that when we visit a new website we decide within 3 seconds if we're going to stay. If the graphics load too slowly, we don't like the colors or fonts, or if we don't find what we're looking for in 3 seconds we abandon that website and move on to the next. We're a society that thrives on instant gratification because our time is precious and we have a million other things on our mind.

When you do a Google search you're looking to solve a problem or you're looking for some form of pleasure or entertainment. When your prospect has a problem they want an answer immediately. They type in a keyword phrase and they land on your webpage where they find your product or service that solves their problem. They complete their purchase and it's a win-win for both of you.

Sounds simple doesn't it? Then why doesn't it always work that way? Because when they type a keyword phrase they're expecting to land on a webpage that contains those keywords and a solution to their problem. If they type "lower back pain" in Google, they want to land on a webpage that offers a solution to their lower back pain. If they land on a chiropractor's home page with beautiful colors, holistic music playing in the background and a picture of him holding a model spine, they get frustrated and click away.

When someone searches for "lower back pain" their back hurts and they want to land on a webpage that tells them how they get rid of their "lower back pain". They don't care what's causing it and how qualified the chiropractor is. They want their "lower back pain" to disappear now!

When you create an online sales silo you create a process that will take them by the hand and lead them directly to what they're looking for. Imagine walking into WalMart and the greeter asks you what you're looking for. You say you're looking for a new pair of running shoes and he takes you by the hand and takes you right to the running shoes. He doesn't' take you near the shoe section. He doesn't take you to the dress shoes or the casual shoes. He takes you right to the running shoes. No distractions. No confusion. Instant gratification.

Turning your website into an online sales silo is a simple process. Using this process will improve your conversion rate, increase user satisfaction, increase your repeat visitor rate and improve your bottom line.

Step 1: Identify what action you want the prospect to take. Do you want to collect their contact information so you can contact them? Do you want to sell them a product on the spot? Determine if your goal is going to be lead generation or to complete an ecommerce transaction.

Step 2: Identify the keywords and keyword phrases that best describe your product or service. Imagine your prospect searching Google and you want them to land on your website. What keywords would they type to find you? You can use keyword research tools like Wordtracker (freekeywords.wordtracker.com) and Google's keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)

Step 3: Create separate landing pages on your website for each keyword phrase. This webpage should contain only information about that particular keyword phrase. If the keyword phrase is "lower back pain" the webpage should only contain information about solving lower back pain. Keep the reader focused on lower back pain and don't distract them with other services you provide.

The landing page should have a compelling headline that contains the keyword phrase like "7 Ways to Eliminate Lower Back Pain Instantly". The search engines like headlines with keyword phrases. Your content should also contain the keyword phrase to keep the reader focused on what they're looking for.

Stay focused on one keyword phrase or topic per webpage. If you also talk about how you can solve foot pain on the same page, they'll get distracted and forget about their lower back pain. Remember to take them by the hand and lead them directly to the solution their looking for.

Step 4: Make it easy for them to complete the transaction. If you're collecting leads then make the contact form short and easy to complete. Give them a free report, free consultation or some other compelling reason for them to you their contact information. If you're selling them something, make the Buy Now button very clear and visible. Also make the checkout process very easy to complete.

Step 5: Give them an easy way to contact you if they have questions or difficulty on the website. Add your telephone number and an email address to the landing page so they can easily contact you.

Step 6: Add a privacy policy and terms of service agreement to your website. This adds credibility to your website and shows the visitor that you are a real company providing quality products and services.

Step 7: Follow up the transaction with a series of emails. The first email should be a "thank you" email with the details of the transaction. Thank them for signing up for your newsletter and tell them how to download their free report. If they purchased a product, thank them for their purchase and give them some tips how they can best use the product. Follow up with an email every other day for a week giving them more information about your products and services, and always direct them to your website for more information.

That's how to create your online sales silo. Remember to keep the website visitor focused on one topic and only

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Google's Paid Search vs. Organic Results - A Rickety Wall of Separation

The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results - that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and never the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice?

You don't hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as "Google Hits Chinese Wall" or even "Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China" were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement?
What Is Google Really Doing for Its Big Spenders?

It has long been rumored that Google will offer technical assistance in achieving better organic search engine placement to those who spend more for paid search results. I know for certain that these rumors are true in at least two instances. In fact, I actually have the minutes from one of these technical assistance meetings after the company met with Google engineers. While the identity of these two companies is irrelevant, suffice to say that they are companies that you have almost certainly heard of and that they spend millions of dollars on paid search words each year.

To be fair, based on the meeting minutes I have, the advice that the engineers gave to the company does not include anything groundbreaking. It is mostly common sense advice that a good search engine optimization firm already knows about organic search engine placement and other issues, and much of it is already covered in the publicly-available Google Webmaster Guidelines. This, however, is beside the point. Google has obviously decided that it must offer perks to its big paid search spenders to keep them happy (or rather, happy enough to not pull their advertising). Clearly, one of these perks is access to Google engineers and the ability to glean information about organic search engine placement, a luxury that smaller advertisers do not enjoy.
Organic Search Engine Placement for Sale - The New Google Reality?

From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense, of course. Big-dollar advertisers make up the bulk of Google's revenue for paid search, and any intelligent business will take whatever steps they deem necessary to hold on to their most valuable customers. This is why larger advertisers already have a designated account representative from Google. I am willing to bet that this perk was not Google's idea. Rather, it almost certainly stemmed from the sense of entitlement that those spending large sums on paid search felt and the fact that technical help with their organic search engine placement is what they demanded.

Unfortunately, this reality leaves an advertiser with a small budget for paid search at a disadvantage. If Google is willing to offer this secret perk to larger advertisers now, what might they do in the future? Offer price breaks to larger paid search spenders? Increase the minimum monthly spend to squeeze out smaller companies and please the larger ones? It certainly has the potential to become a slippery slope, and I am interested to see where it goes next.

One final point - since Google is willing to give advice about organic search engine placement to companies that spend a great deal of money on Google advertising, is the phrase "While Google never sells better ranking in our search results..." truly accurate? I suppose this is open for interpretation. It may be technically true, but offering advice regarding organic search engine placement straight from the horse's mouth in exchange for millions of dollars in money for paid search results isn't far from selling rankings, in my opinion.
Conclusion

Please don't get me wrong - I still believe that Google is the best search engine out there, I greatly admire the way that they are continually reinventing themselves, and I think they are still the target for those seeking the most benefit from organic search engine placement. They have the folks in Redmond constantly guessing and always three steps behind, and I love how they have started from humble beginnings to take on one of the biggest corporations in the world (and consistently win). I simply believe that they have played the underdog, anti-corporate card for too long, and that even if it has not outlived its usefulness, it has outlived its truthfulness. Google is now a huge multinational corporation that answers to its shareholders. To pretend anything otherwise is silly, but it seems that, for now at least, the charade will continue.

Google's overriding principle, one that they have been happy to espouse to the media, has long been "Don't Be Evil." Whether they still adhere to this principle since they have become a public company is another question that is open for interpretation. If you are a smaller advertiser and feel that Google's favoritism toward larger paid search customers regarding organic search engine placement is evil, it probably seems as though the "Don't Be Evil" principle no longer applies. You may conclude that the principles of "Don't Be Evil" and "Keep Shareholders Happy" are mutually incompatible, and that the latter has gained the upper hand.