DMN3 Blog

The role of Web site Optimization is poorly understood by many organizations with Web sites. Typically, the two most important objectives of a Web site are to...

• Attract qualified visitors, i.e.traffic
• Have qualified visitors take specific actions when they interact with the Web site, i.e. conversion

To achieve these two objectives, the Web site itself needs to be developed with “best practices” in mind to achieve these results. This is called Web site "optimization" in the online marketing world. These two optimization strategies are complementary in achieving business objectives. We need both a sufficient number of qualified visitors and a sufficient number of those visitors to take the actions we want. Let’s look at the two objectives:

• Attracting visitors: Search engines are still the best way to attract qualified traffic to a Web site. To optimize a Web site for search engines is determining specific search word strings, i.e keywords, that describe your business offerings. These are the search terms people type in a search engine query. The objective is to rank high in the search engine page for that search term. The more competitive the term, the more difficult it is to rank high for that term.

There are two different strategies to rank high on search engines. The first is to buy your ranking through paid search advertising, e.g. Google AdWords. Through competitive bidding, you can place your ad for these keyword strings to be displayed adjacent to the organic (non-paid) search rankings.

The second is to achieve high search engine organic rankings for the keywords selected. The goal being high on the first page (top 10)  for your business keywords.

The first step in getting high rankings for a search query string (keyword) is to optimize the site for that keyword. This is done in a number of ways. A whole industry of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has grown up around optimizing Web sites for keywords. Use of the keyword(s) in specific places within the Web site for good organic rankings - like, URL, page title, headlines, body copy with relevant content, page link anchor text, image attributes, etc.

Another part of achieving high search rankings is creating high quality inbound links to your keyword optimized Website pages. External Inbound Link building efforts go beyond the optimization of the Web site itself. However, high-value, relevant content on web pages is very important in getting inbound links from quality sites around the Internet. Another strategy used to create inbound links is the creation and distribution of articles, white papers, news releases, etc. around the Internet that are optimized for certain keywords that link back to web pages optimized for those same keywords.

Whether using paid search (pay-per-click) or organic search engine optimization, it is important to have "continuity" through the whole process.

• Getting people to take specific actions on the website: Web sites also need to be optimized to get visitors to take the most favored action once they are on the site. This "conversion optimization" process includes designing with best practices in mind, but also involves a continuous process of testing and refining the site over time.

It includes using a Value Proposition and good persuasive headlines and copy writing to create interest, desire, and motivation. You want to maximize the chance that visitors will take specific action(s) when they visit the site. To get them to take action, a level of trust must be created between the visitor and the Web site, as well as the organization it represents.

Conversion best practices include using elements on the Web site to build trust. Best practices means writing attention getting headlines and persuasive copy that demonstrates to the visitor that you understand their issues and have the solution to their problem. They also dictate that you clearly show what action you want them to take with well designed Calls to Action. It also means making it easy to take action and reassuring them as they move through the sales cycle through various design and content elements to minimize their anxiety in taking the action we seek.

 The Search Engine Optimization/Search Engine Marketing Industry has been able to raise the awareness of the need for such services. In fact, it has been my experience that many sites have been concentrating on getting traffic to their Web sites. It is amazing to me that many of those same sites have not optimized their sites for conversion.

My question to those responsible for those sites is: So What?

What good is traffic unless you have optimized the site to get that traffic to take action when they get there? Unless you do, you could end up wasting a lot of resources for very little return.

Both of these two Web site optimization strategies should be employed to achieve a good ROI using "search" as part of your promotion strategy.