Converting Searchers to Guests
Mary Bowling | 4 August 2006 |
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I find it useful to think of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as a process that funnels visitors to points on your website where they are converted into customers. In the hospitality industry, this is often referred to as “turning lookers into bookers“. In other businesses, the success of a website may be measured in other ways, such as orders, leads, requests for proposals, memberships, registrations, and the like. Conversion is the goal of all e-commerce sites.
Search Gets Visitors to Your Website
Search is the wide-opened top of the funnel. You optimize for - and possibly bid on in the PPC’s - a variety of targeted terms to attract interested visitors to your website. They may enter through any page on the site and may come from all types of sources, including the SERPs, paid advertising, e-mail marketing, listings in directories, and links from other websites.
Visual Appeal Keeps Visitors on Your Website
Once a visitor arrives at one of your pages, studies show that you have about three seconds to grab their attention and keep them from immediately hitting the back button. The visual appeal of your site is the key factor in keeping them interested - this is particularly important in the lodging and hospitality industries, where searchers are trying to get a feel for a property, destination, or activity. Different things appeal to different demographics. Certain colors, styles, symbols, graphics and words are widely associated with some niches. Therefore, it’s critical to slant the look of your website toward your intended market. This helps to convince your visitors - with just a glance - that what they are searching for can be found on your website.
Usability Gives Visitors a Roadmap
Now, the visitor looks at the page for the information for which he or she initially searched. There must be keywords prominently placed on the page that tell them they are looking in the right place. There must also be sufficient, easy-to-read content that conveys that you can deliver what is being sought.
If you have convincingly designed your pages to target your intended market and specific keyword terms, visitors may be ready to convert. Therefore, present them with a strong call to action and a clear path to the conversion point. In hospitality, we are usually asking visitors to take an action like “reserve now” or “check availability”, with a prominent link that takes them to the page where they can make their reservation.
If you’re extremely confident in your page’s ability to close the deal, you may not provide any means of leaving the page except to a conversion point. However, visitors often need persuading, so include easy-to-find links that trigger them to click to other pages on the site to learn more about you and your products or to overcome their objections. Each of those pages should again have a strong call to action and a link to the page where conversion takes place.
Once your website achieves that, it has funneled your visitor to the conversion goal. A looker has become a booker.
Mary Bowling - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.
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August 21st, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Somtimes business owners have been looking at their own site for too long.
Without giving them instruction beyond the URL, ask someone outside your industry to tell you what your website is about. Ask another person to make a purchase (booking) or complete a form. After they have told you about their experiences, tell them what you “want” them to know about your business and whether that was conveyed elsewhere on the site.
Then, consider how you might re-prioritize your site using Mary’s recommendations above to increase your conversions.
Great recommendations, as always, Mary!