The purposes of Marketing optimization

Checking traffic flow

If your site provides information about services or a wide range of products for example, you will want to know whether your visitors find what they’re looking for. Marketing optimization is the process of analyzing how your site is being used after visitors enter your site from the various marketing channels that you’ve set up, and trying to improve the user experience to serve your visitors with the information they’re looking for, thereby making it easier for them to reach your site’s goals.

External optimization

The most basic indicator that tells you how well your site is doing in providing information is the amount of page views per visit. This number can be pretty low or even just 1 – meaning a visitor exited your site after having seen only the page he/she landed on. The first figure I think you should be focusing on is what’s called the ‘bounce rate’, which is the percentage of one page visits taken from the whole number of visits.

The 8-second rule

The basic theory behind the bounce rate is that you, as a webmaster/designer, have 8 seconds (rule of thumb, not exact science) to persuade a visitor to stay on your site. It’s a pretty reasonable theory, after all most web users scan a page quickly to determine whether the info they are being presented with is what they’re looking for. During these 8 seconds you have to offer your visitor 1. relevant content 2. an easily legible layout 3. a gimmick
In simple terms, ‘gimmick’ means an eye-catching object which ads value to your site. Be it a download, a nice photo etc. It’s a well known fact that we act favorably to seeing an image of a person, so that might be something you can experiment with.

Trying to lower the bounce rate of your site actually starts on the outside. The first thing you need to look out for is whether the keywords you’re targeting on organic search engines properly match the content of your pages. Forget old-fashioned SEO techniques and focus on 2-3 important keywords per page. That doesn’t mean you can’t try for more keywords, but your page will become more valuable for Google if you limit the amount of keywords you’re searching for. For your website this also means (in theory) that if Google can provide you with more traffic for the few keywords you focus on this will already have a positive effect on the bounce rate of your site. If the page you’re trying to optimize is mostly about bass fishing, don’t try to optimize that page for ‘fishing rods’, ‘top quality worms’ or ‘green lures’. Visitors looking for that kind of information will be disappointed coming across your bass fishing page and will continue their search to find what they want.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Google Analytics provides you with Search Engine Marketing tools to help you figure out which keywords attract visitors and which keywords require more effort to get better rankings and more traffic. The next level, however, is provided by Google Analytics also in that it tells you which keywords provide you with the best quality traffic, which is information that will help you get the most out of your SEO efforts.

Internal optimization

Look at your website’s entry pages and check whether they meet certain standards. Too many images for example, will take focus off the page’s content. Too much text will discourage your visitors from reading your content and from navigating to other pages.

Examples of basic rules you should stick to:

• Use the same basic layout for all your pages – conformity is important
• Keep your content concise. Don’t say more than you need to say. The more text you display the less likely you’ll catch a visitor’s attention
• Use headers to indicate the type of information that is available underneath
• Use a paragraph layout for text for easy reading
• Highlight important keywords – These will stand out from the text
• Keep important images and links to the left – following one of the most basic aesthetics rules

Conversion optimization

Conversion optimization is all about trying to improve the amount of visitors that reach the goal you set out for them. This could either be reaching a specific page that indicates a process has been completed (purchase, registration, etc.) or maximizing the amount of page views per visitor.

The following Google Analytics reports are of particular interest for conversion optimization: Marketing campaign results, Goals and Funnel Process and Search engine marketing reports.

Landing page optimization

Landing page optimization allows you to get better conversion rates by tweaking and testing elements of your landing pages. Landing pages are set up specifically designed to connect with the ad used to attract visitors to your site. These pages are also unique (customized for particular ad messages for example) and are separate from a company home page. They are often one of the prime areas that are used for extensive optimization through tests, mostly because of the direct conversion: It usually takes only one step, one action to reach a successful goal on a landing page.

The following Google Analytics reports are of particular interest for landing page optimization: Navigational analysis and Goals and Funnel Process reports.