SEO Vision: SEO News, Tips and More

As we gear up for day-by-day coverage at Sage Software Insights, we tackle the question — what do I do when I REALLY want my graphic navigation? We say it several times, and say again, you shouldn’t need a graphic navigation, but if you really must have it… we’ve got some tips on how to keep it from dusting your chance of getting rankings.

SEO Audio: Episode 31

As a lover of all things audio (and the podcasting format in particular), it was with great joy that I read a SiteProNews newsletter article on “Enhancing Web Effectiveness with Sound Design.”

Audio has a powerful effect on an audience. The internet has a powerful effect on an audience. And whoever said “ne’er the twain shall meet?”

We’ll be talking more and more about using web video to make a powerful impression, but let’s not forget that even though the moving pictures make a movie, an, uh, “move”-ie, the audio is just as important.

If not more.

The thing about audio is that it captures your mind and is cheap to produce. You can put it on your ipod and take it with you to the gym, take it on the bus and enjoy it while driving. Try the same with a movie and you run into problems.

Also, the file size of audio is much smaller than video, which in turn lowers the bandwidth expense of adding video to your site… and increases how many people can effectively enjoy it with a primitive connection.

Audio is not for everything, but for the right offer, it can be transformative. For example:

• Have your actual customers voice their testimonials
• Create a voice-version as an alternative to text on your website… great for people with limited patience or with a vision impairment
• Jazz up descriptions of your products with professional narration of key selling points and some tactfully used effects and music
• Create a weekly podcast covering hot topics about your industry (hey, it works for us)
• Use audio as training or learning materials to accompany webinars, webcasts, or PDFs

And that’s just brainstorming for a minute or two — the point is, there’s a way you can use it on your site, and the uses of audio are only limited to your imagination. Which, by the way, is the canvas of audio.

Internet Retailer.com recently revealed a list of the Top 10 online retailers with the highest conversion rates in March. The research was conducted amongst online retailers with at least 500,000 unique visitors. Office Depot, QVC, VistaPrint, Roamans & Lands End made the Top 5 with conversion rates over 15%.

Disclaimer: The user conversion on one of these sites is so compelling, it prompted me to purchase an item, as I was typing up this post. Read on to find out which retailer’s user conversion struck my fancy.

The full list includes:

Office Depot - 20.9% QVC - 19% VistaPrint - 18.3% Roamans - 18.1% Lands’ End - 16.2% eBay - 15.7% 1-800-Flowers.com - 15.5% eBags.com - 15.3% L.L. Bean - 14.6% Pottery Barn Kids - 14.2%

A quick visit to these sites reveals several common user conversion strategies:

Time sensitive Specials: (Examples: 10% Until 5/28 on Office Depot, 4 Hours Only Sale on QVC.Com)

Offering time sensitive specials to your visitors encourage them to buy..and buy quickly. If they feel they are getting a good deal for buying now, that may be all the incentive they need to click “Purchase”.

Give something away for free: (Example: Free Business Cards @ Vista Print.com)

Believe it or not, you CAN get 250 free business cards with Vista Print. While many shady online retailers use the “Free” catch phrase in a bait and switch move, Vista Print actually delivers on their promise, which builds trust in the company. Consumers who receive the free business cards are more likely to return to buy future office goods, because they already know what they are getting with VistaPrint.

Clear Navigation: (Example: 1800flowers.com and PotteryBarnkids.com)

1800flowers delivers a user-friendly text based navigation. Whether you are shopping by occasion or specific flower, it is all ready navigable from the home page, no need to navigate through dozens of categories. Pottery Barn Kids also does this well, their homepage is segmented by the types of rooms to be decorated: girl rooms, boy rooms, baby rooms and play rooms.

Engage the audience (Example: LLBean.com)

LL Bean features a compelling video of family and friends enjoying the outdoors in LL Bean gear. The video is soo cute, I just purchased the french sailor’s quarter zip pullover for my son, yes I really did!

User conversion theory is not an exact science, it is more of a consumer experiment. As a website owner, it is essential to continually try new methods of conversion, measure your return on those strategies and tweak as needed.

Yes, Virginia, social media is here to stay and video is a big, big part of it. Even if you’ve been under a rock, you’ve been to YouTube once or twice, and maybe that’s got you wondering — how can MY business take advantage of it? Fred and Chrystie chat about the biggest video site ever and how you can build your business by looking at it differently.

SEO Audio: Episode 30