SEO, Website Content Optimization
& Software Development

Page load times (how fast a website is displayed to users) have influenced Quality Scores in Adwords for quite a while now; if your site loads quickly you are rewarded (in theory) with cheaper, better placed ads.

The reasoning behind the Quality Score is that Google wants to improve the experience of its users, because if users aren’t happy they are less likely to use Google in future and their advertising revenue suffers.

Presumably working on the same logic, Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed at last week’s PubCon event that load times will soon be a ranking factor for the organic listings. If your website loads too slowly, there is a chance your rankings will fall as a result.

The confirmation caused a bit of a stir in the SEO community, even though it will be only one of hundreds of ranking factors in Google’s algorithm, and probably not a hugely influential one at that. (more…)

Trust is fundamental to all business, but if you’re not a big brand then establishing credibility online can be hard work.

Everyone knows who Amazon are and what they’re about. Interflora are an international brand known to millions, their reputation precedes them. What about the rest of us? How can we prove to potential customers that we’re trustworthy and safe to deal with?

Bricks & Mortar vs. Online

Despite their bigger overheads, one advantage bricks and mortar businesses have over online ventures (or even the websites of bricks and mortar companies) is the trust they are able to generate - an essential for any sale. (more…)

We came across an interesting article from respected conversion rate optimisation company Future Now. They have put together a list of “reasons shoppers listed causing them to abandon shopping carts”.

If you have an e-comm cart and are wanting to convert more, this makes for an interesting list. But on reading this, ask yourself the question, “Have I even got the basics right first?” The list itself, whilst very valid, assumes that some of the basic issues present on many e-commerce website are already solved.

Their list includes things like:

• High shipping charges
• Desire to comparison shop
• Couldn’t find customer support
• Couldn’t find their preferred payment option
• Item unavailable at checkout
• Worries about security
• Leaving to find a coupon code on a search engine (more…)
  

Conversion rate optimisation is fast becoming recognised as one of the most important disciplines in online marketing - the reason being that all the traffic in the world is useless unless you can convert it into sales or enquiries. No point spending all that money on SEO only to see all those visitors just disappear eh?

So how many businesses are now using CRO? We recently carried out a fairly extensive survey that produced some interesting stats:

• 97% of business websites are intended to generate sales or enquiries.
• Over 80% of UK businesses are dissatisfied with the conversion performance of their websites, which fail to make the most of visitor traffic.
• Around 75% of online businesses now take advantage of search engine optimisation (SEO), compared to around 10% who actively optimise conversion rates.

Image credit: Zickie

Despite the massive ROI benefits of improving website conversion rates (doubling or tripling online sales isn’t uncommon) conversion rate optimisation (CRO) remains one of the most overlooked and underrated internet marketing activities.

All too often, a website’s conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who take a desired action e.g. purchasing or enquiring) is either completely ignored or given only cursory attention. (more…)