Archive for the ‘Conversion’ Category
Posted on April 29, 2013 by Reid Bandremer
A lot of folks come to us asking us to help them restore a decline in website traffic that occurred after a site migration or major update. Typically, most – if not all – of the traffic loss was preventable. There’s a lot of different update and migration scenarios and a lot of different things that can go wrong, but we keep seeing many of the same underlying issues.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll define a migration as anytime a large amount of pages or content move from old URLs to new URLs whether it be migrating an entire site to a new domain, a subdomain to a subdirectory, merging a small site into a bigger one, or what have you.
And I’ll assert that most potential problems with any migration can be prevented by following 7 fundamental pieces of advice so simple that even a CEO should understand.
- Understand the Stakes
- Make Sure No Content is Missing
- (Properly) Redirect Every URL
- You Need a (Cross-Functional) Migration Team
- You Need a Pre-Launch Plan
- You Need a Post-Launch Plan
- Use Tools (more…)
View Comments (5 Responses) | Categories: Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Usability
Posted on March 12, 2013 by Dorcas Alexander
A while back, analytics aficionados hailed the return of Google Analytics Page Value, formerly known as $ Index, one of the fastest ways to figure out which pages get more visitors to convert.
(more…)
View Comments (3 Responses) | Categories: Analytics, Conversion, Google Analytics
Posted on February 4, 2013 by Sayf Sharif
Recently, over the holidays with family, I participated in a conversation where I mentioned that the data supported my position. I made the mistake of saying “Statistically….” which as you might imagine, in a holiday family setting, is bound to generate at least one comment about how you can prove anything with statistics, and a dismissal of a scientific study, without reading it, because it contains *GASP* data.
“Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’” – Mark Twain
Interestingly, there is no record of Benjamin Disraeli saying that, so the attribution of that quote by Twain to Disraeli itself was a lie. (more…)
View Comments (No Responses) | Categories: Conversion, Usability
Posted on January 28, 2013 by Dorcas Alexander
Where do visitors go after using your internal site search? How quickly does site search lead visitors to conversion pages? Do specific search terms lead to unexpected pages, for better or worse?
The answers are in your Google Analytics data, but not in the regular Site Search reports. Allow me to introduce Site Search Flow in Google Analytics: a way to use Visitors Flow for site search insight.
In the regular Site Search reports, you get useful data like which search terms resulted in immediate exits and which terms kept visitors engaged or even led to conversions. To see which pages visitors chose, go to the Visitors Flow report instead.
Turn Visitors Flow into Site Search Flow in 3 easy steps:
(more…)
View Comments (2 Responses) | Categories: Analytics, Conversion, Google Analytics
Posted on January 17, 2013 by Sayf Sharif
Even Vulcans can be afflicted with dreaded cognitive biases.
The goal of content testing different variations of web pages during a conversion optimization experiment is to get as accurate a result as possible, in order to say which variation is the best possible one.
Just because we’re testing, however, doesn’t mean we can’t be wary of cognitive biases which can filter into our experiments. Just because you put up two pages, release them to the public, and then gauge reaction, doesn’t mean that you’re not subjecting those tests to your own or others’ perceptual distortions. Watch out for these cognitive biases when forming content experiments. (more…)
View Comments (3 Responses) | Categories: Conversion
Posted on December 4, 2012 by Sayf Sharif
Part 2 in my unofficial “You’re Probably Doing It Wrong” series. Read the first part about using Google Analytics to gain Insights.
The Cruel Tutelage of Sayf Sharif
You are wrong. This is the first rule. You think you know what the right thing to do on your website is? You are wrong. You think you know what to do to properly improve your digital presence? You are wrong. You think you know what your users want? You are wrong. Before you can truly begin to optimize your website and your online digital presence and marketing you must come to this realization. You must be unmade before you can build yourself back up. You must know that everything you think you know to be good, and right, is wrong.
I emphasize this with a beard swish.
(more…)
View Comments (2 Responses) | Categories: Conversion
Posted on November 15, 2012 by Travis Loncar
Google’s Panda update is anything but extinct. It frolics in the wild web, chewing on and spitting out the bamboo that is thin, outdated content. It is not particularly forgiving and, thus far, has caused severe search engine visibility problems for web properties of all sizes. Those nomenclature guys at Google – they ruin the cutest creatures, don’t they?
Now, more than ever, it is imperative that, as SEOs, we advise our clients to get copy (indexable text) on their pages. Having 300-400 words on important pages can be an easily attainable competitive advantage. Often, however, the client is concerned with design and usability – a valid concern, no doubt. How do we add 300-400 words in a way that doesn’t detract from the current design and/or usability of our website? My answer: Get creative.
Let’s look at a couple of examples (using various web properties and some Lorem Ipsum text) of how copy might be implemented in a way that provides SEO value but doesn’t detract from design/usability.
(more…)
View Comments (2 Responses) | Categories: Search Engine Optimization, Usability
Posted on October 18, 2012 by Sayf Sharif
The sheer number of blog posts out there on how to increase your website conversion rate are overwhelming.
10 Ways to Improve your Website Conversion Rate
9 Time Tested Ways to Increase Website Conversion
25 Ways to Increase Conversion Rates
7 Basic Ways to Improve Your Conversion
And you know what, they all make great points. There are some really talented conversion people out there working to make websites better, but if you’re reading this, you’re either a LunaMetrics regular, or you’re reading this post looking for SOMETHING SIMPLE you can do to start out. (more…)
View Comments (2 Responses) | Categories: Conversion
Posted on September 10, 2012 by Dorcas Alexander
Let’s say you want to add an event to the beginning of your Google Analytics funnel. Maybe you want to compare the success of various internal promotions. Do people who click on promo A go all the way through the conversion funnel more often than people who click on promo B?
Traditionally that would mean tracking each of those clicks as a virtual pageview, and adding the virtual URL as a funnel step in two different goals. That’s inconvenient for a couple reasons. Using virtual pageviews will inflate your actual pageview counts unless you set up a special profile that includes virtual pageviews and exclude them from the rest of your profiles. You also have to set up separate goals for each promo click. More promos mean more funnels, and more work not only setting up but also analyzing the results.
Use Customize Dimension to Segment Funnels
With Goal Flow reports you have another option (not available in the traditional funnel report) – segment your funnel to make as many funnels as you need. The key to this approach is the “customize dimension” feature of the flow reports.
(more…)
View Comments (8 Responses) | Categories: Analytics, Conversion, Google Analytics
Posted on August 9, 2012 by Travis Loncar
If content is king, presentation is queen. An aesthetic appeal can make good content great link bait. Similarly, poor presentation can detract from a well-written, thought-provoking post. It’s important that the king picks a beautiful queen, regardless of whether or not he’s the cat’s pajamas. In this post, we’ll look at three simple CSS styles that you can implement to make your blog posts shine.
CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is the presentational language of the Web. Typically, styles are housed in external .css stylesheets, and referenced in the head of each HTML document. However, we’ll be concerning ourselves with inline styles, or CSS that’s added directly to the HTML. Let’s take a look at a simple example of inline style.
(more…)
View Comments (1 Response) | Categories: Search Engine Optimization, Usability
Traffic
Analysis
Action
Subscribe to this blog's feed