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Does this sound familiar? You're in a
store, armed with cash and ready
to buy something but, after searching
for several minutes can't find
the item anywhere. You could look
around for something else to buy or
you could travel to another store. But
that would require some hassles -
walking out to the parking lot, fighting
traffic, burning expensive gas
and finding another parking spot.
Now picture this scenario online where, in a fraction of second,
a click of a finger will take you to a different store where
you're likely to find exactly what you want - a dream for a
shopper and a nightmare for a website owner.
As a general rule, the longer it takes your visitors to find
their desired products and get to your checkout page, the less
likely they will stick around and buy.
There are a number of reasons why your "distance to sale"
may be too long: Complex navigation, incomplete information
or loads of products with no search feature are just a few.
The Answers are in Your Web Analytics
The information in your Web analytics can make it easier
to determine the complexity of your website - an important
factor in understanding how visitors interact with and move
through your site. In some analytics packages there is a report
called "clicks to pages" that shows the number of pages visited
prior to visiting a specific page.
Suppose you have experienced a decline in online sales
from your PPC campaign for a particular product from the
same period 12 months ago. It's likely your analytics package
will show, on average, how many clicks (or pages) it takes for
your prospects to arrive at the shopping cart page. Your report
from 12 months ago shows that the average clicks-to-pages metric
was five pages. In running the same report for the most
recent month, you notice that the average has increased to
eight pages.
Depending on the Web analytics package you're using, your
clicks-to-pages report may look similar to the one below.
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In this report, there are two data columns - Number of
Visits and Average Clicks. For our example, we're interested
in studying the average clicks to our shopping cart page so
we'll want to locate the URL of that page - on this report,
http://store.yahoo.com/cart.asp.
We can see that, for the time period reported, that it took
an average of eight clicks for site visitors to reach the shopping
cart page. Let's get a little more information that will help us
determine why.
In some analytics packages, you will find a Conversion Analyst. Here,
we can drill down and view the "path to here" option. This will show
a path analysis chart similar to the one above that graphically lists the
pages visited prior to arriving at our shopping cart page. In this sample,
77.43 percent of visitors who end at the checkout page are coming
from .../products/coffeemugs.html, while 4.85 percent of visitors are
coming from ...products/knife.html and 1.79 percent come from shippinginfo.html.
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If we also run this path analysis report for the same period 12
months ago, we can look for any additional branches of activity
between our primary entry page and the checkout page. These added
branches could be an indication that our customers are confused or not
getting the information they expect. Also, note how many visitors exited
your site from one of those new branches of activity.
Once new branches have been identified, take a look at the primary
entry page and those new branches for any changes that might have
been made in content or navigation. Also consider visitors' expectations
prior to their visit. If driving traffic to this primary page from a
PPC campaign, check for a strong degree of continuity between your
ad creative and the content on the page. A change in PPC ad copy
could influence a visitor's navigation behavior.
Note that depending on the size of your site, a path analysis chart
may become difficult to manage due to the numerous possible navigation
paths. So, it's important to focus on the path navigation for specific
products or pages, one at a time.
More Specific Recommendations
1. Web analytics should help determine what product and service
attributes are important to your visitors. While details for some products
seem trivial, those same details could be vital to the visitor's decision-
making process.
For example, if we're selling wine gift baskets, the dimensions of
the basket may not be important to our visitor, and we could benefit
from a cleaner product page by placing that information on a drill
down page.
However, if we're selling wine racks, the dimensions are most likely
very important and should be listed on the product's main page.
2. Wherever you list a privacy policy link, test displaying text similar
to "We value your privacy, and will never sell or share your information"
next to the link. Most of the time, that one sentence is all your
visitor wants to know. By allaying their fears and avoiding a visit to a
privacy policy page, you've removed another distraction that could
increase the distance to a sale.
3. Test your modifications to product pages on less-traveled areas of
your site. You don't want to risk losing significant amounts of sales on
your most popular items while you fine-tune your site.
Think of your Web analytics as a democratically elected reflection
of how visitors really get around your site.
The Bottom Line
When it comes to closing the distance to a sale, remember that not only
are you testing your visitor's level of patience, but also competing with
any offline distractions. The longer it takes for the sale to be completed,
the better the chance that any interruption, even a phone call, can
foil a sale.
And keep the big picture in mind. Any minor change in your pages,
navigation or ad copy could result in a different experience for the user
than originally intended.
One less click for every potential purchase could improve your conversion
rate, resulting in more profits and revenue from your existing
traffic without any further ad investment.
About the Author:
As VP of Marketing for Engine Ready, Inc., Brian Lewis brings a robust background
in strategic business marketing and management. Lewis earned his B.A.
in Economics from the University of California, San Diego and his M.B.A. in
Finance from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University,
graduating both schools with honors.
Read full article at websitemagazine.com