We generate dozens of reports each month on how our clients websites are performing, but how should success truly be measured, by the number of visits or by the quality of the visits?
Article by Steven Pullen
When engaging a search strategy it is important to determine a clear objective, and from this choose what the key performance indicators will be. I believe a websites search strategy should be measured on:
- The number of leads or sales
- How easy prospects can find your website in Google
- Search listings that deliver quality traffic
We recently completed a eCommerce website for a national retailer that stocks over 1,500 products. It was important to this client that they achieve high listings in Google and increase online sales. I was initially concerned over the KPI to deliver 'high listings in Google', as several of the keywords they felt users would be searching were highly competitive and taken by established companies that have household brand recognition.
I explained our best bet is to capatalise on keywords that competitors had either ignored or not come across, target specific terms that will drive qualified traffic to our website. We may not get the quantity of visitors a generic keyword would produce, but we also wouldn't get the high bounce rate that comes with those keywords. The client agreed and I implemented our search strategy.
Although traffic increased as the new look website was search friendly, the biggest increase was the online sales. Our conversion rate from organic search suddenly changed from .07% to 3.3%.
I'm delighted to report the client no longer cares about the number of visitors on the website, but now focuses solely on the conversion rate; a true measure of success. For the record, website traffic did increase in the first 3 months by close to 30%; apparently those ignored keywords were pretty good after all - never underestimate the quality of a search term.
