Equestrian model looking down

Photographer David Hamsley measuring the model

Undercover rider

See More Candid Shots on the Manhattan Saddlery Blog

Landing Page Optimization Infographic

Landing Page Optimization

Part of a broader internet marketing process called conversion optimization, or Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), with the goal of improving the percentage of visitors to a website who become sales leads and customers. A landing page is a webpage that is displayed when a potential customer clicks an advertisement or a search engine result link. This webpage typically displays content that is a relevant extension of the advertisement or link. Landing Page Optimization (LPO) aims to provide page content and appearance that makes the webpage more appealing to target audiences.1

Call-to-Action

Sometimes a very subtle change to a Call-to-Action (CTA) can result in a huge improvement in conversion, resulting in significantly higher sales for your website.

1. Develop a hypothesis such as, A user is more likely to do what we ask of them if we say, “Please.”
2. Each user is presented with a different variation of the CTA. In this example, one group of randomly-selected users is presented with Come Here, while another group of users is presented with Come Here, Now! And a third group of users is presented with Come Here, Please.
3. Data is collected until we are confident that one of these choices is the winner, based on a significant lift in conversion. On a website we would typically look for an increased percentage of users who add an item to the shopping cart, or who complete a purchase.
4. We make permanent changes to our design and/or advertising campaigns to reflect the winning combination.
5. Repeat steps 1-4

LPO Benefits – Increased Conversion & Sales

• The same amount of traffic generates more sales
• Decreased Customer Confusion – People find what they are looking for with less work
• Improved Customer Satisfaction – People are happy with the overall shopping experience

LPO Case Study: FineTuxedos.com

Prior to this LPO experiment, the homepage of FineTuxedos.com had two banners, one above the other with a different CTA.

CTA #1 (small banner): Complete Tuxedo Packages Starting at just $135.95
CTA #2 (large banner): Real Men Don’t Rent, Winter Sale, up to 50% Off

Hypothesis

Displaying two banners with two calls-to-action on the homepage confuses the user and he or she will be less likely to add items to the shopping cart and make a purchase. Reducing this to one CTA will eliminate confusion and improve conversion. In addition, CTA #1 is a stronger CTA than CTA #2 and would improve conversion even further. 2

Test Cases

• Combination #1 – CTA #1
• Combination #2 – CTA #2
• Combination #3 – No CTA

Results

Our hypothesis proved correct: Removing one banner, and displaying only CTA#1 resulted in 39% more users adding items to their shopping carts after visiting the homepage of FineTuxedos.com.

Google Plus

Google’s primary goal has always been to deliver relevant results. Relevance used to be more global in nature – the idea that someone who searches for “bananas” is looking for the most relevant website for bananas on the web. This still carries a lot of weight, however relevance has shifted from what’s relevant globally, to what’s relevant on a more personal level to the person conducting the search. For example, a graphic designer searching for pink is probably looking for pink color swatches, while a teenager is probably looking for music and images about the popular singer, Pink and on the day before Mrs. Brown’s birthday, Mr. Brown is probably looking for something from the Victoria’s Secret line, Pink.

To help shape personal results, Google modifies the results pages it delivers according to your personal preferences, pages that you have +1’d and pages that other people in your social circle like. So what does this mean in terms of how Consorte Marketing will leverage Google+ to grow traffic to your website?

Our goals for Google+ are as follows:

1. Drive users to “plus” pages from your website. This means that we may suggest design changes to shift more focus to this button, or to add a G+ button if it doesn’t currently exist on your website. Generally, we’ll look for pages that users are more apt to share with others. For example, people are more likely to share a recipe that uses bananas as an ingredient, than to share a page that talks about the history of the banana.
2. We will develop and optimize a Google+ business profile for your company. We know, we know… there are so many social networks out there it’s hard to keep up. You probably already have pages on LinkedIn and Facebook. What could another page possibly do for you? Well, the answer is common sense really. If we’re performing SEO on your website for the purposes of increasing your rank on Google, then it stands to reason that when Google wants to promote a new way to get more of that traffic, you can only gain by climbing on board the Googlewagon.
3. We will drive users to add your business profile to their “circles” on the Googlesphere.

As these goals are achieved, users who share pages will have a direct impact on the results that their connections see when performing their own Google searches.

Of course, driving users to Tweet (Twitter) and Like (Facebook) pages will still have a direct impact on traffic and rankings and should be part of an effective Social Media strategy, but if you must pick one, pick Google+.

SOPA Blackout Day

Download SOPAstatic

SOPA Blackout Day

see the demo

Minor edit: If you’re thinking of blacking out your main website homepage, be sure to read these comments on SEO effects on how to avoid issues, directly from Google.
Script adopted from jQuery infinite rotator.

Recently we needed to pull together a list of top level domains for an international SEO project we’re working on. It’s tedious stuff and there’s not much out there by way of a comprehensive list. If we were just dealing with the US, then it’s easy: .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .us, etc. Most of us have seen these, and a few others. But what about obscure TLDs like .ac.tj or com.ve or gob.pa. Confusing, right?

In my search I found a few resources which helped me piece everything together. The first was the TLD list on Wikipedia. This was helpful as a starting point, and is a great resource for learning more about the requirements of each country. For example, a couple of years ago I bought a 3-letter domain with the extension .am for $129. And then I did my research and discovered that Armenia has very strict guidelines regarding the content hosted on their top-level-domain, and could confiscate any domains that didn’t abide by their strict requirements (similar to the Violet Blue URL shortener scandal where Libya took back her vb.ly website; thankfully we have no such restrictions on our on-hold UTags URL shortener at uta.gs).

Regardless, this wasn’t quite the list we needed and did not have 2nd and 3rd level domains (e.g. .co.uk as opposed to just .uk). After further investigation, we found this TLD list on Mozilla. This was about as close as we could get to a complete list. However, while useful for the typical end-user, the data was not in a format that we could use. Hence, the current project.

Compiling the TLD List

After some arduous labor and some Excel magic, we developed a usable list that could be imported into a PHP script or MySQL (or SQL) database relatively easily. It’s not perfect, and not fully complete, but the data is workable. Below is the complete list of TLDs in various formats, organized by country, mashed up in a single string and even converted into a usable PHP array. Feel free to use this list for your own projects, and contact us if you find an error or have expanded upon it and would like to contribute. You may distribute the list freely as long as you leave Consorte Marketing in the filename or link back to this page from anything you publish on the internet.

Download CSV Spreadsheet of TLDs, PHP Array & Code Example

Domain Extension List by Country Code

We hope you find this list useful – you might even want to register a domain name in the process. Enjoy!

Web Design: Keep it Simple

Whether you’re just beginning to build a business online, or you’ve had a web presence for a while, knowing the tricks to ecommerce web design can help grow your business and improve your sales. There are several important things to remember when discussing website design, as well as many misconceptions. Understand the tips provided in order to improve your online customer base and your company’s reputation. Then, depending on your budget, decide if you want to make these improvements to your website yourself or utilize them in the development of a brand new website. Or, consider hiring a professional web design company like Consorte Marketing to do these things for you.

The first tip is simple; make sure each page of your website has a purpose. There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than a website without a well-thought homepage that has an intuitive design and easy navigation.

Next, your site should be aesthetically pleasing. There is a lot to be said for a clean, intuitive website. A professional design will establish trust in a potential customer and increase conversion from traffic to sales. Most people aren’t experienced in website design, and hire a designer or a professional design firm to handle this aspect of the business for them. Investing at this stage frees up time that can be spent on building other aspects of your online business.

Additionally, your site will need continued maintenance to ensure that it is up to date with the latest trends and interactive technology, and that it is search-engine friendly according to the latest algorithms. After the initial design, your site should be created in a way that makes updates and maintenance simple for either you or your staff. A good design starts with a wireframe developed by an experienced information architect. This is the “blueprint” of a website and will guide the designer during the design phase. The wireframe should contain the basics of your site, including on-page elements such as the locations for product images, banners and navigation.

If your website is an ecommerce store, it is crucial that the shopping cart, product descriptions and checkout are easy to navigate. Customers don’t need reasons not to purchase items from you, and a complicated check out process isn’t doing your business any favors – people will abandon the cart before placing their order, and you will lose the sale. Developers understand the in’s and out’s of website construction, and when their talents are paired with a landing page optimization strategy, the result is more sales for you. A few ideas for the DIY web developer: include package-tracking information, provide shipping options, and make returns easy.

Finally, a successful ecommerce website should give the customer reasons to return again and again. For instance, a strategic email marketing campaign with targeted messages for your shoppers will draw them back to your store. You’ll improve your company’s reputation and people will go to you first to buy products they’re interested in.

Following these ecommerce web design rules should land you the business increase and web presence you’ve been waiting for. Just remember the old adage and Keep It Simple.

This post is not sponsored by Google, but this has been a hot topic in the world of SEO today. Basically, Google has taken a stance against paid links for years, and now the buzz is that they’re sponsoring posts with followed links to the Chrome browser page. Is it real? A marketing scheme? Is it Google putting this out there or is it some online marketing firm spreading rumors as link bait? Google’s official statement has been released. Check out the Washington Post to read more.

Ottlite.com is a popular lighting website, particularly among crafties – people who engage in crafts like knitting as a hobby and a business. Ottlite primarily sells desk lamps and modern lighting fixtures such as compact mirrors.  They also offer a large selection of plant lamps and LED lights. The majority of their products are difficult to find in stores. It is because of the specialty, niche nature of their business that its affiliate program has flourished in recent months.

Join Ottlite’s Lighting Affiliate Program

Commission Junction is an affiliate network that has seen much success over the years. When Ottlite made the decision to partner with CJ, they had many choices in management, but decided that Consorte Marketing would provide the best affiliate marketing services.

We are pleased with the results and hopes to help Ottlite grow their ecommerce business for many years!

Solution

Google decided to encrypt search query data for logged-in users, such that they cannot be tracked in Google Analytics. They did this by setting SSL Search to default for all logged-in google users. Their official blog post on October 18, 2011 explained their goal of making search more secure. I’ll spare everyone the conspiracy theories behind the reasons for this major change and stick to the facts.

The end result of this change was that website analytics – either through Google or another analytics package — have become less accurate. These encrypted results show as (not provided) rather than an actual keyword in Google Analytics. Estimates are all over the place but see to hover around 10% of search queries being completely anonymous and skewing results. Merchants are no longer able to associate keywords with conversions. SEO providers are no longer able to provide accurate reporting data to their clients. Besides being unable to report specific keyword traffic results, we are even unable to differentiate between longtail results and keywords related to a client’s brand name. Simply put, there is no way to measure ROI for organic search campaigns.

There are a number of hacks to estimate keyword traffic. Cross-referencing Google Webmaster Tools, setting up advanced segments and manipulating keyword data by using filters to associating entry-pages to a website with the expected keywords used to find them and estimating traffic sources based on known values. But ultimately, the only true solution needs to come from Google.

Protecting the Privacy of the End User

If we assume that any solution to this reporting problem requires that the user’s personal information, including the search query he or she used to find a webpage, then it stands to reason that any information used for reporting needs to be aggregated in the background. This means that Google would probably need to collect browsing data anonymously, then send that data back to Google Analytics in such a way that a merchant will not be able to associate specific keywords to a specific user or transaction. This would be nearly impossible for websites with very little traffic or few conversions. However, a reasonable level of anonymity may be reached when there is ample data. For example, if Google Analytics were to report a keyword/transaction pair that led to a sale on a particular day, to a website that averages one sale per day, the merchant could very easily associate that keyword with the customer who placed the order. However, if Google were to provide this data for 50 transactions, to a website that generated 50 orders per day, the likelyhood that an ecommerce store owner would be able to make this association diminishes significantly.

The Solution

First, please note that although I know a fair amount of PHP and MySQL, I am by no means what one would consider a developer. I’m just a guy who understands SEO and website analytics, with something of a logical mind to form a solution. This initial plan is far from perfect, and may contain flaws. It is simply meant as a starting point for a discussion to find a real solution that Google, if compelled to do so, may take note of and proceed with a very well-thought plan.

First the diagram, then the explanation:

Solution to Google Analytics Encrypted Search Reporting

Explanation

Here’s how it works:

1. The user performs a search query on Google, and clicks a link
2. Rather than sending that traffic directly to the merchant website, Google runs a small redirect script to capture anonymous data before passing that traffic to the website in question.
3. Google looks up the UA-XXXXXXXX-X ID associated with the website, if it exists. This ID is stored to a new database table along with all search data – keywords, date, etc. and assigns a Guaranteed Unique ID (GUID) to that record.
4. After writing this information to the database,  the GUID is passed back to the website, sans keyword and other data.
5. In the event that this visitor ends up making a purchase, the website sends the GUID back to Google Analytics along with all purchase data.
6. Google associates this conversion and all relevant data  with the original source keyword and demographic information and stores it to the database.
7. On a daily basis, Google runs a script that checks whether enough data has been collected so as to maintain a high degree of privacy. If enough records exist in the database then that data is sent to Google Analytics to replace the (Not Provided) token with the appropriate keywords.

Want to make an impact? Send a link to this or another solution to analytics-feedback@google.com – your voice will be heard!