Historically, SEO has lived in a little black box as a weird tactic that gets you more traffic. And, if you’re lucky, you get some more sales out of it. At least, that’s what many people think. 

However, with the dawn of Google moving more and more towards creating a search EXPERIENCE as opposed to a simple transaction, this creates an opportunity for ecommerce businesses to consider how people search instead of what they search for.

In this blog post, I’ll be digging into the overall search journey and how each step of the way adds to potential for more conversions instead of just more traffic.

Let’s dig in.

Tactic One: Content Optimization

Everyone that has been through the SEO process knows that creating content is important. But, where most people stop is in the idea of “SEO Content.” Meaning, content that was written to “target” a “keyword”. As we begin to understand our customers more, we know that this is only step one in your customers’ journey.

Every search begins with a trigger event. 

In other words, there’s a reason for every single visitor to be on your website. When you are optimizing your content for a specific keyword, you create a subconscious impression that you are there on their screen because you want them there because they searched for that keyword. 

Instead, the impression should be that you exist as a brand to solve their problems and make their lives better. Whether you are selling a t-shirt or a widget, there is an emotional response that needs to happen in order for the person to resonate with your brand and potentially take action. 

What can you do with this information?

Instead of researching which keyword to target, research the motivation of the search itself. You probably  already know what your customer is thinking about and the questions they’re asking for one reason or another. Use that knowledge to create better content on your website. 

Answer those questions. 

People will develop a positive impression of you (the company, not the product) when they feel heard and appreciated. 

Use the words they use. 

Jargon is a curse among the marketing world. Your customer does not care about the things you think are selling points. They want to feel appreciated. 

Tactic Two: Link Building

Ah yes, the old conversation around “he who has the best links wins”.

While having authoritative websites linking to you does indeed improve your rankings, there’s an opportunity that often gets overlooked. 

Part of your customer’s buying journey is looking for social validation. This means they are looking to resources beyond your website to confirm that your brand is legit and worth buying from. 

Sure, getting a bunch of 5 star reviews is a great start. But, what if when someone searches for “‘brand’ reviews” a number of blog posts pop up that showcase your products. This holds a lot of authority with Google, sure… but it also builds up the impression with your potential customers that your website is worth buying from. 

Tactic Three: Website Performance Optimization

Yes, Google loves clean code. Clean code not only makes your website easier to crawl for Google, but it also helps your load time. While Google may claim that website load time is only a small piece of the rankings pie, it’s important to note that load time is an important consideration in your customers’ buying decision for two reasons:

First: The subconscious factor

If your website loads slow, it creates the impression that your website is not technically sound. This creates hesitation around what else could be wrong with your website. This could create internal tension with questions like “Is my credit card information safe here?” And when someone asks themselves a question like that, the sale is all but lost.

Second: The quick decision factor

It’s 2022 and people are on the move. Take a look at the shelves near the register at any department store and you will see items abandoned because people do not want to wait any longer than they have to. They will literally leave behind what they came into that store for because of the fact that they don’t want to wait. 

And, for what it’s worth… Despite what Google says about how much page speed may or may not be a ranking factor, faster sites just rank better.

Now, I also realize that this section has mainly been about page speed…

It’s also important to consider the mobile performance of your website.

Google is running the “mobile first” version of their algorithm now. This is because across the board, more than 50% of all interactions between brands and their users happen on mobile devices. 

There could be a whole other blog post about mobile performance, but I’ll share this for the purposes of this post, consider checking out Google’s mobile friendly scan. This tool gives some great insights on mobile website performance. 

Overall, I hope it’s coming across that when you take care of your customers while they’re on your website through their buying journey, Google takes care of you. 

And when you take care of your customers, you’re more likely to get that sale and gain a customer for life.

If you want me to take a peek “under the hood” and see if there may be some potential opportunities to improve your SEO and Conversion Rate right away, grab some time and we can chat. I’ve opened up my calendar and I’d love to see you win. 

Hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, please let me know below!

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. If you want to make more money from your website, you need to focus on optimizing your conversion rates. In this guide, we will discuss all of the important aspects of CRO and how you can improve your website’s performance. We will cover everything from basic concepts to advanced techniques. If you’re ready to start making more money from your website, then read on!

Step 1: Understand your customers

Understanding your customers is the first step to improving their experience with your website. In order to understand them, you need data about what they’re doing on it. The best way to do this is by understanding what motivates them.

Steps to take:

• Create a customer persona for your website. This should include information about their age, occupation, location and other demographics.

• Find out what kind of products or services they need from your site by looking at past purchases or searches on Google Analytics (or similar tools).

• Identify common pain points they face when using your company’s website and try to address these issues in future updates.

Step two: Use the right Conversion Rate Optimization tools to solve the specific problems you have.

There are many tools that can help you improve your conversion rates. These include the following:

• Google Analytics (or similar tools) to analyze traffic and find out what pages people visit most often or where they get stuck before leaving without completing an action such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter subscription service. You should also look at conversion rates for different types of traffic, including organic search, paid search and social media.

• Heatmaps to see where people are clicking on your website and which pages or elements are getting the most attention. This can help you determine what’s important to your customers and where you should focus your efforts when redesigning or updating the website design.

• Conversion Rate Optimization Software like Crazy Egg or Hotjar to track user behavior on different pages and identify areas where they might be getting lost in navigation menus, filling out forms incorrectly due to poor usability issues etc… This type of software also provides insight into specific actions that may need further testing such as button colors

Step Three: Use split testing tools (A/B tests) to measure the performance of different versions of your site against each other. This step is important because it allows you to find out what works best for your customers.

There are many different split testing tools available, but the most popular ones are:

• Google Experiments – a free tool that is integrated into Google Analytics and allows you to test different versions of your website pages against each other.

• Optimizely – one of the most popular commercial A/B testing tools that has a wide range of features and is suitable for both small and large websites.

• VWO (Visual Website Optimizer) – another popular A/B testing tool with a focus on usability and simple, easy-to-use interface.

Step Four: Analyze the results of your tests and make changes to your website based on the findings.

After you’ve run your tests, it’s important to analyze the results and make changes to your website based on what you’ve learned. This may include making design changes, updating or removing content, or changing how certain elements work on the page.

It’s also important to continue testing different aspects of your website even after implementing changes so that you can keep improving its performance over time!

Step Five: Repeat steps two through four until there are no more improvements to be made.

It’s important not just for conversion rate optimization but also other areas of online marketing such as SEO or social media marketing that you continue testing and measuring results as often as possible.

This will help ensure your website is always providing visitors with what they need so that you can keep growing your business and attracting new customers! This process should be repeated until there are no more improvements to make.

Need to increase your Conversion Rate?

We put together the Conversion Rate Blueprint for you to analyze your website and make changes as needed!

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Wouldn’t it be great if every single visitor to your website became a customer? While the likelihood of everyone converting is highly unlikely, it’s worth noting that it is totally possible to increase your conversion rate before your traffic increases. This is what happens when you know the power of conversion rate optimization and use it on every aspect of your business. That includes their website design, content strategy and marketing tactics. If you want to learn more about this topic, read on for 5 tips that will help you make your site into a conversion machine!

1. Create a clear and concise title that matches the content on your page

Each page on your site should have an engaging title that matches the content. Let’s say you’re trying to sell a product or service, make sure the title of your page is telling people what they can expect when reading it.

One of the critical factors is in making sure that your website does not create a pause in someone’s journey. If your visitor is researching a topic and stops because your messaging confuses them, your conversion rate drops.

2. Add images to break up long blocks of text

Adding images to your website can have a significant impact on the conversion rate of the page. This is because people are more likely to stay on your site if they’re reading text that’s broken up by an image, chart or graph – even if it’s just one paragraph at a time!

If you want this effect for blogs and articles, it also helps to break paragraphs into small groups with bullet points below them (or use short sentences). That way readers will be able to skim through important information without having to read long blocks of text.

3. Include testimonials from satisfied customers in order to build trust with potential visitors

This is based on a concept known as “social proof”.

When you’re looking at a product or service, many people will be persuaded to buy it if they know that other customers are satisfied with the purchase.

A study from Dr. Robert Cialdini found that up to 70% of visitors would increase their likelihood of purchasing something after reading testimonials on the website (as long as those testimonials were believable and authentic).

So what does this look like? It’s simple: just get some customer quotes by asking them for feedback about your products/services, then post these reviews in order to encourage others to also make a purchase. You can even send an email out highlighting recent successes – this is proven strategy!

Another benefit of getting more reviews?

This is incredibly beneficial for your SEO! Sites with a high number of reviews rank higher in search results, which gets more people through the door.

4. Use the same words and phrases that your customers use.

This is a big one that a lot of companies miss. Companies by default use jargon phrases that are specific to people that work in the industry. They think that this helps create credibility when in reality, it only creates confusion.

One example of this is “make more money” vs. “increase revenue. The definitions are basically the same, but the message appeals to two different people in two very different ways.

5. Use videos to provide more information about your product

Adding a video to your website is one of the best ways to improve conversion rates and increase sales. When people visit pages with videos, they believe that there’s more information about this topic because you’re providing them with value.

This means they are less likely to leave because it seems like there’s “enough” content on the site for their needs. In addition, if someone tunes in for five seconds or fifty seconds – no matter how long they watch – it will be perceived as valuable by those viewing it!

Another benefit? It converts better than any other type of content out there (including text). So make sure you take advantage of this opportunity when considering what types of media should be used.

Personally, I enjoy writing about these conversion-related topics. It’s always interesting to learn how others are handling this and what the results have been.

To summarize: create compelling content by using relevant words and phrases from visitors (and potential customers), ensuring there is no pause in their journey on your site, adding testimonials from satisfied customers who provide social proof, including videos where appropriate and make sure you’re using well known SEO best practices like keyword research.

If you have any questions, please let us know!