Search Marketing: Turning an 82% bounce rate into a 400% conversion increase

How three simple steps turned an 82% bounce rate into a 400% increase in conversion

Search Marketing

Today’s presenters

Courtney Eckerle, Reporter

MECLABS

@courtneyeckerle

Jennifer Stagner, Technical Support Manager

Tops Products

Join the conversation

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Developing strategy is a top challenge

According to the 2012 MarketingSherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Report…

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42% of respondents forecasted “Developing an effective and methodological strategy” as one of their MOST FRUSTRATING SEO challenges for 2013.

Self- assessment…

How mature is your organization’s SEO strategy?

• Reviewing Google Analytics data, Stagner noticed a substantial amount of inbound traffic was coming onto Tops Products e-commerce website from a referral path from an online automobile website.

The campaign

• Reviewing Google Analytics data, Stagner noticed a substantial amount of inbound traffic was coming onto Tops Products e-commerce website from a referral path from an online automobile website.

• Despite this high inbound traffic count, Stagner noticed the bounce rate was even higher.

The campaign

• Reviewing Google Analytics data, Stagner noticed a substantial amount of inbound traffic was coming onto Tops Products e-commerce website from a referral path from an online automobile website.

• Despite this high inbound traffic count, Stagner noticed the bounce rate was even higher.

• For every 100 visitors that were clicking through to the site, 82 of them were instantly exiting the landing page.

The campaign

• Reviewing Google Analytics data, Stagner noticed a substantial amount of inbound traffic was coming onto Tops Products e-commerce website from a referral path from an online automobile website.

• Despite this high inbound traffic count, Stagner noticed the bounce rate was even higher.

• For every 100 visitors that were clicking through to the site, 82 of them were instantly exiting the landing page.

• Surprising since Tops Products had just rolled out a fresh, modern site.

The campaign

• Tops Products’ SEO objective is to drive traffic to their site that will result in a high number of conversions and additional revenue, as well as delivering a great experience for their user.

The challenges…

• Tops Products’ SEO objective is to drive traffic to their site that will result in a high number of conversions and additional revenue, as well as delivering a great experience for their user.

• Needed to find out why such a large percentage of the people who were landing on the page were exiting immediately.

The challenges…

• Tops Products’ SEO objective is to drive traffic to their site that will result in a high number of conversions and additional revenue, as well as delivering a great experience for their user.

• In order to find out why such a large percentage of the people who were landing on the page were exiting immediately.

• Stagner and her team dug deeper into the issue causing the high bounce rates, and were able to fix it and stop the site from hemorrhaging traffic.

The challenges…

• Ensures visitors to Tops Products have a consistent and smooth path onto the website

Monitor SEO avenues

• Ensures visitors to Tops Products have a consistent and smooth path onto the website

• Utilizes different buckets to find leaks in sales funnel and discover new opportunities

Monitor SEO avenues

• Ensures visitors to Tops Products have a consistent and smooth path onto the website

• Utilizes different buckets to find leaks in sales funnel and discover new opportunities

• Domain authority is consistently evaluated for trust in Tops Products over their competitors

Monitor SEO avenues

• Ensures visitors to Tops Products have a consistent and smooth path onto the website

• Utilizes different buckets to find leaks in sales funnel and discover new opportunities

• Domain authority is consistently evaluated for trust in Tops Products over their competitors

• Foundation for analyzing is Google Analytics

Monitor SEO avenues

• Ensures visitors to Tops Products have a consistent and smooth path onto the website

• Utilizes different buckets to find leaks in sales funnel and discover new opportunities

• Domain authority is consistently evaluated for trust in Tops Products over their competitors

• Foundation for analyzing is Google Analytics

• With so many paths and elements to monitor, the amount of data can be substantial to track

Monitor SEO avenues

Stagner and her team noticed the same domain was consistently passing traffic to Tops Products website.

Monitor SEO avenues

But the initial bounce rates from that inbound referral link, shown in Google Analytics, were astronomical.

Monitor SEO avenues

• Tops Products secured a partnership from AutoTrader.com

• AutoTrader provided a link to Socrates.com offering:

“Get an As is Addendum from Socrates.com”

Identify the issue

Identify the issue

“Get an As is Addendum from Socrates.com” should have redirected TOPS customers to this…

Identify the issue

But, They were being redirected to this…

• Google Analytics showed high amount of traffic being passed from that link onto Tops Products website

Identify the issue

• Google Analytics showed high amount of traffic being passed from that link onto Tops Products website

• Soon realized that the traffic was good, but the overall result was harmful to the health of their SEO program

Identify the issue

• Google Analytics showed high amount of traffic being passed from that link onto Tops Products website

• Soon realized that the traffic was good, but the overall result was harmful to the health of their SEO program

• Most visitors were exiting immediately – not browsing the site or making any purchases

Identify the issue

• Google Analytics showed high amount of traffic being passed from that link onto Tops Products website

• Soon realized that the traffic was good, but the overall result was harmful to the health of their SEO program

• Most visitors were exiting immediately – not browsing the site or making any purchases

• Discovered 10 different links on AutoTrader that were funneling traffic to Tops Products

Identify the issue

What you need to know

! Verify SEO elements by viewing them like a consumer

By looking at the links to see what people were viewing and where they were redirected, Stagner and her team were able to identify the cause of the high bounce rate

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Tops Products used analytics and link information to redirect customers to what they expected to find

Correct false links

• Stagner and her team had their webmaster set up a 301 redirect site, configured so that the consumer would automatically go to the correct page.

Correct false links

• Stagner and her team had their webmaster set up a 301 redirect site, configured so that the consumer would automatically go to the correct page.

• If your company doesn’t have the ability to set up a redirect, contact the other company to correct the links would also be a simple fix.

Correct false links

• Stagner and her team had their webmaster set up a 301 redirect site, configured so that the consumer would automatically go to the correct page.

• If your company doesn’t have the ability to set up a redirect, contact the other company to correct the links would also be a simple fix.

• Waited a few weeks to see what the impact in Google Analytics would be now that consumers had a smooth path to the product.

Correct false links

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Results

What you need to know: Dedicating time and resource management is key to a strong SEO strategy that catches costly simple mistakes.

400% Increase in conversion

39% Reduction in bounce rate

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What you need to know

! Make API’s work for you!

Three Key Steps

1 Monitor SEO avenues for bounced traffic

2

3

Identify the issue and find false links

Correct false links

Thank you

Courtney Eckerle, Reporter

MECLABS

@courtneyeckerle

Jennifer Stagner, Technical Support Manager

Tops Products