Website Optimisation After a Search Engine Optimisation Project

This article explains what to do after an website optimisation has been completed. Now is the phase in the project to explore what happens next continuing along this never ending journey of website optimisation. The most important topics now to focus upon after you've completed your SEO project and engaged in communicating with your customers are:

Conversion OptimisationRevenue GenerationEngaging with Customers.

CONVERSION OPTIMISATION

I am concerned here with Conversion Optimisation. I take a different standpoint when I look at conversion optimisation. I focus upon a holistic view of the process path. A traditional approach might be to focus on the inbound or sales funnel. While the traditional approach may centre upon analysis of the sales funnel and the leaks that exist from the moment a prospect enters the funnel and then drops out at various stages in the cycle, I focus upon four tactics when I review a conversion optimisation and these are:

Tactic 1 - Craft your marketing messages around your value proposition.Tactic 2 - Maintain cognitive momentum in every step of your sales process.Tactic 3 - Never underestimate the power of a value based headline.Tactic 4 - Use testing as a means to developing your customer profile

TACTIC 1

Craft your marketing messages around your value proposition.

The essence of marketing is the message. The essence of the message is the value proposition. And unless you're able to articulate your value proposition clearly, concisely and forcefully you're lost in the crowded market place. The goal of a message on a website or in an email is to get a click to a sign-up form, to the buying process or to a newsletter and in so doing you need to stress value in the click.

How do you craft a forceful value proposition?

Scientifically, a value proposition can be expressed in a formula that simply says the net force of a value proposition is the perceived gross force of the perceived value less the gross force of the perceived cost.

pNf = pNv - pNc

It is where in the mind of the prospect his/her perception of value exceeds the perceived cost.

pNv > pNc

There are subsets of this to consider. We are dealing here with perceptions, human nature and individuals with different attitudes and values. However there are common attributions that we, as humans, share about perceptions of value. These are:

appealexclusivityclaritycredibility

If the value is appealing and exclusive, and it has been expressed with clarity with credible language, as humans we will probably convert and buy. If you then combine these factors with an incentives and high motivational factors but lessen the anxiety and or frictional factors in the buying process then you have a winner strategy. Not easy but can be applied to your marketing message.

TACTIC 2

Maintain cognitive momentum in every step of your sales process.

Conversion optimisation must be looked at as a holistic process from the moment the prospect visit your website to the moment he leaves it after buying. The process steps may be defined as:

Clicking on a paid ad or entering the siteReading the landing page or the Home pageClicking on the buy button or call to actionCompleting the buy formProcessing the purchase procedure

Your value proposition must be re-said, re-emphasised, and repeated at every step of the process to confirm the buying decision. That is what I call emphasising the derivative level values of the central value proposition, the perceived value of the prospect, the product level proposition and the process level proposition.

In the buying process there's a series of micro Yes's that lead through the buying process to the ultimate YES of paying for the product or service or sign-up form or whatever the goal was. These series of micro Yes's occur at different levels, for example, on entering the site (central value proposition), on clinking to move forward in the site (prospect level perceptions working here), on clicking to purchase (product meets perception) and at the buy stage (process levels are easy). The value proposition must be stated at each level and this is to maintain the cognitive momentum.

TACTIC 3

Never underestimate the power of a value based headline.

There are two principles that every marketer must be aware of.
For every action you desire a prospect to make (a click or sign up) there must be an immediate promise of value that outweighs the perceived cost of that action.
Like the central value proposition, the derivative value propositions can be measured by its:
appeal (desirability),exclusivity (availability),credibility (believability) andits clarity (understand ability).

Webmaster should optimise websites for thought sequences of the visitors that manifests itself in appeal, exclusivity, creditability and clarity of the value proposition.

When crafting a headline there are two principles to remember:

All marketing messages must be centred primarily on the interests of the customer. Therefore when it comes to crafting headlines emphasise what the prospects gets rather than what he must do.The goal of an headline is similar to the opening scene of a film and that is to arrest the attention and get them into the first paragraph. There utilise a point first structure that means place the value at the front of the headline.

TACTIC 4

Use testing as a means to developing your customer profile.

The internet is the biggest laboratory there is. It has billions of users to test all plausible scenarios. However there are key principles to testing on the internet.

Key principle #1 - the goal of a test is not to get a lift but to get learning.Key principle #2 - to achieve the maximum of learning your test should be designed around two key elements;A research question (always starts with "which" - e.g. which ad gets most clicks).A theory question (what does this test tell me around the behaviour of the prospect).

To assist you to formulate a good test its helps to remember the value proposition question: If I am your ideal customer why should I buy from you and not from one of your competitors?

CONCLUSION

Employing these four tactics will assist you in reaching a greater understanding of why you're getting a series of micro Yes's along your optimisation path of greater conversions. The process begins with a value proposition that should state what you do, what the benefits are and how you do it to enhance your prospects goals.

This article is the first of three articles that focuses on website optimisation after a SEO project. The next articles are: Revenue Generation and Engaging Social Media. SEO Synovation is a web marketing agency and for more useful information on Search Engine Optimisation, Web Marketing, Online Reputation Management, Email Strategy and Web Analytics visit http://www.seosynovation.com/.

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