Huge Increase in Search Traffic - Expected Drop in Conversions?

[NaHoku]

We've recently implemented a successful strategy whereby we've increased non-branded organic search traffic by over 50%.  We started with our niche products and secured those rankings and then expanded the program to include local results.  Rev is up, trans# is up, but conversion rate dropped.

Here is the question...is there an acceptable ratio between the percentage growth in visits and the percentage decrease in conversions?

[EGOL]

Here is the question...is there an acceptable ration between the percentage growth in visits and the percentage decrease in conversions?

I have found that ratio to be highly variable.  For example, you start out with a retail site that tightly targets the products that you sell.  Then you branch into articles that inform people how to use those products.  This free content can attract a lot of visitors who are looking for information.  However, these people may have already purchased or are considering the purchase.  Perhaps they are even long tail keyword visitors with queries that are unrelated to a purchase.

So, the conversion rate can really fall.

What I try to do is to develop a different type of conversion. Such as identifying pages that pull lots of nonconverting traffic and placing adsense on those pages and house ads for your own products.

If you sell at a good discount this can really be effective because the visitor sees your kickass price... then visits your advertising competitor who sells higher... so visitor comes back to you for the purchase. That way you make the sale and take a piece of the competitors advertising budget.

Ads don't hurt my sales much at all and are easier money.

[clickshipcommerce]

I think EGOL pretty much hit it on the head.  You need to figure out the intent of the terms you have.  If you break down the typical customer buying process:

1. **Awareness. **Your potential customers don’t know you exist. You need to reach them with your brand to get their consideration.
2. **Interest. **Your prospects are aware of you and might be receptive to your offers and ads.
3. **Research. **Potential customers not only know you exist but have shown an interest in learning more about you.
4. **Buying. **These people have a good idea about you and have browsed around to figure out exactly what they want. They are ready to buy buy buy!

Say your niche product is "mountain bikes".  If you are seeing an uptick in terms like "how to ride a mountain bike", "riding mountain bikes", "fixing mountain bikes", "fastest mountain bike racing times", you should expect to see a smaller conversion rate - assuming you are selling a product.  These wouldn't be considered "buying" terms.  Same thing as "mountain bike reviews" - that's more of a 'research' term.

If your goal is to collect email addresses, then maybe your 'sell' on why they should give you their email address doesn't make sense for the terms.

If you are seeing a dip in conversions, I would take a look at the highest trafficked terms that are not converting and see if there are other ways to 'make' them convert.  Landing page modification here would be key.

[NaHoku]

That basically describes what we've done - we've taken our retail site and really fine-tuned the icon/niche products and secured #1 placement for most of those terms.  We have not pursued the article/blogging avenue as of yet, but we expect to be successful in that venture.  If we do as suggested, we expect to drive even more traffic from words that wouldn't fit in our current ecommerce setup...but wouldn't that contribute to an even lower conversion rate?  At the end of the day, the "bankers" are interested in the money in the bank and not the number of visitors that came through.

So here is the dilemma - I look at the keywords and they are all what I consider to have high potential - but they are simply not delivering.  The other issue I have is that we are driving a significantly higher amount of traffic as a result of this campaign to our store locations page, but I can't tell how many of these customers go into one of our 30+ locations (I am assuming a significant amount).  Our local search efforts really have helped us in this endeavor - but without proof of the results, there are challenges to justifying the time an

So what we've done is in effect expanded our net with highly relevant keywords, but we don't know why they are not buying or if they are buying at one of our locations.

We don't know if the most effective approach would be to bring on a survey partner or seek advice from a conversion expert.

Any thoughts?

[clickshipcommerce]

Are you seeing specific pages instantly lose conversion, or is it a site wide estimation?

If it's a site wide issue, then I would take a look at the individual landing pages.

If you are targeting the right terms, my thought would be to start working on conversion testing.  Here are a few thoughts:

- How aggressive is the marketing funnel?  Is there re-targeting, shopping cart abandonment follow ups, etc.

• Start surveying customers to find out why they are not buying

• Proactive live chat

• Is the call to action correct?  Pricing?  Value Added Benefits?

If it's just one specific page that all the sudden magically seems like it lost the conversion once you started plowing traffic to it...Then, I would start to try and figure out "what is the difference between the keywords"?  There must be a different customer intent, or a different type of customer coming to the page if it all of a sudden starts tanking.

[NaHoku]

I understand your point.  We are not seeing that lateral spread - instead, we are seeing advancement in our product rankings.  Say we were in jewelry, we would be seeing more traffic from "rose gold necklace" or "pearl ring" rather than "how to take care of pearl jewelry" or "what is the best length necklace".  Similarly, we might rank for broad terms like "jewelry store" or "jewelry store + geo-modifier".  To me, these would be very significant terms that could convert, and while it doesn't hurt to have them, what can/should we do to convert?

We've definitely looked at landing page modifications and moved product around to what we think customers would most like to see.  We are definitely seeing a dip in conversions, but this could be a reflection of the economy, etc.  What I'm curious to know is if a site sees a huge lift in visits, what's an acceptable drop in conversions?

Thanks in advance for your response.

[NaHoku]

I run a custom report in GA that looks at landing page by keyword and try to make some sense out of that.  Do you have any better custom GA Reports?  As far as your other points, they are all very valid and we've been considering them.  I am a proponent of gaining insight through the customer voice - as long as it is not viewed as being intrusive.

Thanks in advance for your response.