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Don’t Waste Your Search Engine Marketing Efforts - Apply These 17 Conversion Principles And Generate Leads and Sales

Over the years we’ve had a chance to systematically test and prove many different conversion principles. Today we’re sharing them all with you so that you can benefit from all of this research!

Search engine optimization is a means to an end. That being the delivery of qualified traffic to your site. All that new traffic is wasted if you can’t convert it into leads or sales. Since our clients tend to judge us on how much we help grow their business vs. how many keywords we get them ranked for we’ve spent a lot of time working out strong conversion techniques for sites. Here is the list that we use when producing or maintaining our clients sites from a search engine optimization perspective.

1. Include the phone number in the top right corner of the banner on every page. If possible, use a call tracking service such as Who Called?
2. Use a “Click To Call” feature on the phone number. Let’s face it, web visitors are motivated by convenience and nifty things, and click to call fills both of those needs.
3. In the top banner and on every page include the value proposition for the visitor
4. Create strong calls to action in key scanning points on the home page. For example, give away something for free to get their contact information. Once you have their contact info you’re much more likely to sell them something over the phone!
5. Provide a short privacy statement on each form. This should be linked to a PIPEDA compliant privacy statement for us Canadians, or the equivalent in the US, or abroad. At the very least provide a “privacy” link to your privacy statement immediately next to the submit button of any form.
6. Also, provide point of action assurances as necessary. This includes the privacy statement on forms – but could also include a re assurance as to why a visitor should call, or complete a form and that you’ll respect their privacy, and meet their objectives.
7. Use Email Marketing to re assure users after they’ve converted. Send them a confirmation email (HTML) that confirms their submission was made, and that your team will follow up accordingly. Include any “next step” information which may be required by the user. Make them feel special.
8. Provide a contact form on the contact us page which has the following properties
   • Client and server side validation (server side if possible)
   • Mentions the privacy statement
   • Asks customer comments first, then collects personal contact information
   • Limits the number of fields to only those absolutely necessary. Additional information can be collected after contact with the prospect has been made
9. Include a site map for visitors
10. Include a “home” button in the main navigation bar (make current pages in active on the nav bar)
11. Ensure that copy is just the right length to explain the products, services and value propositions for the reader, and not any longer.
12. Use inline text navigation (anchor text) to allow the reader to follow the desired path through the website while reading the copy, and then take the ultimate step of converting to a lead by submitting a contact form, or calling from whichever page they decide to convert on! Don’t make them hunt for your contact information.
13. Use pictures of people - it humanizes your business and warms people up to your services.
14. Use an H1 tag on every page and break up copy using H2 tags. This improves the “scanability” of each page allowing the user to determine if they want to bother reading the page. It’s also good SEO practice.
15. Include all certifications, accreditations, association logos, etc. on the site and repeat them on every page perhaps in the footer, or header.
16. Remove the “Reset” button from all of your forms. Why give the user one more convenient way not to convert!
17. Always construct each page with the four types of traffic in mind. Note: we did not define the visitor types but cam across them in our research. If anyone knows who did, please comment and let us know. We’ll add the credits (with a link) to this post.
    • Visitors who know exactly what they want are looking for facts.
    • Those with a need but not all of the answers and are looking for facts but also reassurance.
    • Window Shoppers – those visitors who are simply looking for information which they may or may not act on in the future
    • The lost – visitors who would up on the site by mistake. Let them know they are in the wrong place as soon as possible – this happens naturally if you’ve done the above correctly.

Don’t waste search engine marketing efforts by not maximizing your opportunity to convert all of that traffic! If you take the time to implement these conversion principles we are convinced you’ll see an increase in conversions. Good luck and we hope this information helps you grow your business!