Extra! Extra!

Extractable’s clients use their sites to accomplish a broad set of goals (Lead Generation, Online/Offline Revenues, Reach/Awareness, Customer Loyalty).  One key to discovering which variables influence conversion of visitors is knowing whether or not visitors convert in 1 visit, 2 visits, 3 visits, etc. Whether filling out a lead form, purchasing an upgrade, or entering some product feedback, we typically see that the most valuable actions from visitors are on the 2^nd+ plus visit.  So why is it that most sites look the exact same each time a visitors comes back?

The first time visitors see Amazon.com, the visitors can be impressed with the sites wide selection of products, the wealth of information about every product, and the ease of purchasing.  But the most impressive aspect of Amazon is what happens on the 2^nd visit, 3^rd visit, 4^th Visit, etc.    The site keeps track of what you looked at (whether you made a purchase or not).  The site makes personalized recommendations based on what you viewed and how many items you viewed.   Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are personalizing navigation and recommendations based on past navigation patterns.  BannaRepublic is customizing product recommendations based on the products that you looked at most recently. 

With a lot of the sites that we view, the first visit is an introduction.  The visitor is looking at high level product and organizational information – they are browsing around at wide breadth of content.  The first time visitor is validating the site/product as a viable option.  On the second visit, their navigation is much more focused.  When a user comes back, they tend to be a little more focused in their clicks/searches. 

Knowing what content/products a customer has looked at makes a big impact on what they view on their second visit.  Most sites should follow Amazon’s example.  It doesn’t take a significant about of planning and programming to think about how to make that 2^nd visit a little easier and ideally, get a better conversion rate.  We’ve had great success with clients websites by simply placing quick links to previously viewed promotions on the homepage.

I am cheap.  No, I am not trying to ask my boss indirectly for a raise (although with gas prices and my long commute I wouldn’t mind one) its just that I have just been using the Internet since Al Gore invented it (jk) and am accustomed to getting cool services for free on the Internet - news, language translation tools, playing in a fantasy league,etc.   I have even found some great FREE search engine optimization tools (that can be used as plug-ins with Firefox) that I would highly recommend:

• SEO Quake - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3036
• Search Status - www.quirk.biz/searchstatus
• SEO Book - http://tools.seobook.com

The tools above capture and display a lot of valuable information that you will need when optimizing your website for search engines - Google Page Rank, backlinks, internal/external links, Alexa ranking, cached site pages, IP address, whois info, robots file, sitemap, compete rank, keyword density, etc.

The SEO Quake and Search Status tools can be used when viewing a particular website while SEO Book shows much of the same vital SEO information from search engine results pages.  Happy optimizing!