Hey all…
( and John if you made it)

I started looking at the ‘Review my site’ boards for the first time, (sorry am get enough heat..I start reviewing….look out. Lol) and some one was talking about getting people to ‘drill down’ into the deeper pages. http://forums.site-reference.com/viewto … 655#p19655

Hmm.. this is a part of the process I feel needs some illumination. This is NOT web design. This is NOT usability. This is NOT SEO/SEM… This my friends is CONVERSIONS. I notice Mr. Cutts does like to discuss this bit of lost art.

We look at the internet business process as such around here;

Attract – Captivate  -  Educate – Sell

The SEO/SEM Attracts
The MAIN page captivates
The 1st drill down (or 2 tops) Educates (as to why choose this product/service)(
You CLOSE the transaction (sale, forum sign up, newsletter yada yada)

Then RINSE AND REPEAT

You would be amazed at how many SEO clients expect sales to increase. Duh?

Now for a bit of my PERSONAL fun with this stuff. I never give client goodies… so here ya go…

My site is ‘wired for sound’ as far as tracking is concerned. I have 3 different analytics programs running ( we use these on client sites). For this chat I am looking at the PATH TRACKING. This shows me where they enter, where they go, how long they spent on each page and what actions they took and where they left.

Just for fun, I play with my home page. Ya’ll here are part of the fun as I track all my SR referrers separately to see if you’re ‘browsers’ or ‘shoppers’ and you know which you all are...as do I.

If you look on my home page (www.thebusinessdevelopers.com). I play with a few things here for fun.

See the top 2 hyperlinks? I switch the text around and observe the click rates. Regardless of the text, the TOP hyperlink gets clicked 70% more than the second (and 60% of all movement on the page is the TOP link regardless actually)

See the PIE CHART? I change around the actual graphic and the links (Biz Dev, Internet Marketing, Contact us blab la). I then see if the actual positions of the items makes a difference.

Moreover, I even change the COLORS of the pie chart pieces and observe the reactions.

This process, while overdone in my case, is called SPLIT TESTING. This is how you begin to understand what changes on a page make a difference. IT is not an activity of web design nor SEO. It is part of SALES…..

This post is turning into an article...I shall cut it short for further discussion…

…and how is it that Dave the SEO/Web Dev dude is on about this? Well we are launching a new company in late 06 or early 07 named increased-conversions.com

We hope it complements our ‘empire’ to include; The Hosting – The Website development – The Marketing- and NOW the converting of the marketing… a logical step I felt…

By the end of 07? We’re finishing off the puzzle with a company that specializes in Customer Relations Management (CRM).. then I am done… for the moment...lol…

Back to my point... WE NEED AN ANALYTICS OR CONVERSION BOARD.. ha ha ha...

Dave,

What a great article! I took some of the advice I got from a review of my site and rather than allow my visitors to find their way to what they wanted - in my case Vacation Rental accommodation availability, I gave them a search facility on the index page.

Result:  I now get 67% of people using it rather than them just jumping to the 'Rental Rates' page to see if its cheap enough!  That gives us the opportunity to show the properties before we get to the pricing.  (after all - would you buy a car blind - only on the basis of its price).  It really works!

I really love the stuff. I am a bit of a ‘numbers freak’ or as they call me around here ; Data Dave .

I have been playing with Analytics/Conversion metrics for a few years. Prior to that I would sit and go through log files (and simple analysis apps like Webalizer/Aw Stats) for hours at a time

Now I have more sophisticated tools and the data gets cooler. I do a lot ‘split testing’ type research on websites (ours and clients). Sometimes in search of better page retention rates and conversions, and other times..just for fun to see what the ‘sheep’ will do..lol

Which brings up another point; never trust a single data source. I have a few (3) applications that we track things with. It ensures that you are getting TRUE readings as having multiple applications running gives you the opportunity to ‘cross reference’ your data to ensure all is legit

thegyspsy wrote:

Back to my point... WE NEED AN ANALYTICS OR CONVERSION BOARD.. ha ha ha...

Point noted...I'll take it into consideration.

SiteReference wrote:

thegyspsy wrote:

Back to my point... WE NEED AN ANALYTICS OR CONVERSION BOARD.. ha ha ha...

Point noted...I'll take it into consideration.

Yeah not really sure what to name it though....

Web Analytics comes to mind

a conversion board would be a nice addition....