MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

In a recent article over at Adotas, they take a hard look at how changes in algorithms at Google can have a painful impact on sites that depend on the giant search engine for organic search results.

And if you think this applies just to small companies, consider this passage from the Adotas article:

“Now that Google has changed its algorithm, many sites are seeing a backlash that cannot be ignored. Answers.com has reported traffic to have gone down about 28% and ascribes this to the changed Algorithm of the search giant. Having an average of 3 million visitors in June, the loss has been significant.”

We have seen a number of algorithm changes at Google over the last few years, and each time thousands of businesses online feel the pain.

A sudden loss in ranking can be particularly frustrating for companies which invest significantly in professional SEO help, only to find that investment flushed away by the next tweak over at Google.

The problem can be compounded for those companies which depend not only on Google for organic search listings, but also use AdWords to drive additional traffic.

As we have noticed through our own research, promoting a site through AdWords can also be vulnerable to changes in competition and gradual increases in cost per click.

An alien MBA might reasonable ask, “Are you nuts? Why put your business success in the hands of one or two channels over which you have no control?”

Good question. And there is no doubt that any company which depends too much on traffic through Google is putting itself in a very vulnerable position.

The rational answer always has to be that one should develop additional marketing channels and promotional strategies. You have to expand your sources of traffic and reduce your risks.

In a sense, the lure of “free” organic traffic through Google has made too many companies lazy.

It’s also likely that some online businesses have succeeded to date without any real marketing strategy as all. Some will have either lucked out or worked hard to get a substantial and regular flow of traffic through Google, and have simply never bothered to explore other channels.

These companies are the most vulnerable and, if they crash and burn, they will really have nobody to blame but themselves.

But for every company, large and small, it makes sense to do a traffic audit and determine whether or not their revenues are too dependent on Google, or on any other single channel.

If the answer is yes, then it’s time to think like an alien MBA and put things back into balance.

Sounds a little scary.

The point is that any online sales page, or sequence of pages, includes some friction.

That is to say, there are elements on every page that will slow down your visitors, make them pause, or maybe even result in a buyer abandoning the process altogether.

Here are a few examples of friction points that need to be addressed in order to optimize conversions:

1. Too many pages in a sales or subscription process.

2. Too many fields in a sales or sign-up form.

3. Too many choices to be made while buying or registering.

4. Too many graphics that are not directly related to the sales process.

5. Too many columns and links that attract attention away from the core sales message.

6. Too much copy (“You had me at Introducing…”)

7. Too little copy (“What am I buying exactly?”)

And so on. When you find friction points, you need to either cut them out (the scissors) or reduce the friction (grease them).

An example of greasing a friction point would be when the subscription term is long, you add a 110% Money Back Guarantee. The term commitment creates friction. The guarantee provides the grease.

Ultimately, every sales page will have some friction. The process of having someone complete and submit a form cannot be achieved with zero friction.

But you can increase conversion rates by being brutal with the scissors and grease, and making every sales message run as smoothly as possible.

For more on this, and the data we collected to support our findings, listen to our latest clinic presentation – Big Conversion Gains From a Little Scissors & Grease?

If you sell a product online, you already know how shoppers can check out your prices and the quality of your customer service through sites like PriceGrabber, Shopzilla and Google Product Search.

But if you think it’s tough having your pricing so immediately transparent to every shopper online, things are now getting even tougher.

Now there are niche price comparison services which dig deeper into specific product and service areas.

For some time TripAdvisor has been pooling the experience of millions of travelers. So if you have some service problems with your hotel or resort, you can bet people are talking about it.

But what if you sell something very specific, like contact lenses? You’re not safe. Check out FindContactLenses.com.

You sell gas? Take a look at GasBuddy.com

How about strollers? You can’t get much more specific than that. It’s all there at FindStrollers.com

And to compare health insurance quotes, try Vimo.com

Each month more of these sites appear, giving consumers an extraordinary level of knowledge before they decide where they’re going to spend their money.

But what about when people go to the mall? Until now physical store owners may have enjoyed a measure of protection, simply because their customers are not sitting in front of their computers.

That’s changing too. If you see someone using a cell phone in your store, maybe he or she is logging into Text4Price.com, a mobile price comparison service.

As more and more comparison services begin to serve tighter and tighter niches, you have only two choice: offer the lowest price, or deliver a value that justifies a higher price.

The latter option is where the real business potential lies.

To survive absolute price transparency, you need to create a unique value around your product or service that justifies a higher price.

The short answer appears to be — Yes.

In a recent set of tests, in which we distributed 28 short, entertaining video clips through YouTube and Google Video, we converted almost 1.5% of viewers into subscribers.

That may not sound like a huge conversion rate. However, all of these video clips were non-commercial. They were simply entertaining, with no sales message included.

In other words, the video clip was simply part one in a three-step process.

1. Watch the video.

2. Go to the site url featured at the end of the video clip.

3. Sign up for the site’s newsletter.

The use of online video in this way, to drive site traffic and convert visitors to subscribers or buyers, is still in its infancy.

If you would like to know more, and study the full set of data from our recent tests, register for our free webinar, this Wednesday, at 4:00PM EST — Can viral video clips drive targeted traffic to your web site?

That is to say, if you create a video clip to run on TV, will it be received just as well on the web or on a mobile device?

Marketers everywhere might hope that the answer to this question is yes. It would certainly cut down on budgets if a single video could be run across all media with equal success.

But common sense says no. As does this article in MarketingVOX, citing results from a recent survey sponsored by the Cablevision Advertising Bureau.

Here is a short excerpt:

More than 60 percent said they prefer watching video on TV rather than a computer or iPod. Only 12 percent of those with video-enabled phones said they used it for video. Only 30 percent said they had an additional screen device (beyond a TV and computer) used for watching video.

So while marketers dream of teens and those in their early twenties being glued to their iPods and cell phones, eager to watch another commercial video, the truth seems a little different. And you have only to look at some of the short amateur video clips that have burst onto the scene through services like YouTube to see that while they were immensely popular on the web, they would likely not go down as well on TV.

In other words, each medium, or screen, suits different approaches to video, and they are not necessarily interchangeable.

As we have mentioned before in this blog, we are undertaking a significant study ourselves on the potential of video as a marketing tool online. The question of the right video for the right screen will doubtless be an issue that merits exploring.

Web page designers and writers often struggle between loading a page with plenty of information and choices, or keeping it clean and simple.

Which approach works best and gives you the best conversion rates and highest revenues?

Should you present readers with plenty of options, to best suit their own preferences?

Should you let them choose, for example, between a number of different subscription options?

Should you provide links to related or more detailed information?

Should you use multiple columns to provide space for related images, links and supporting information?

Or should you aim instead to keep your pages as simple as possible? Should you reduce the number of choices available to your readers to the absolute minimum?

We will be answering these questions, and sharing recent test data to support our findings, in our free webinar this Wednesday.

You can sign up here: Choice vs. Simplicity