What does it take to rank on Google?
Posted on January 2, 2007
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If ever there was a question that the multitudes in quest for Internet success want answered, this must be it. But we all know that even if we could crack the Google algorithm the answer would vary for every search term and in some cases what is required is, well, really not very much at all.
I’m known to lurk on a number of forums and one of the things that makes my eyes roll back in my head is to read about ‘miraculous’ near overnight Google ranking success stories. You’ve probably seen them too. The tend to read like this:
“Wowee! My new site ranks on page one of Google for my main search term after only 1 week.”
With a little effort you can easily determine that the phrases are pretty darn easy material. Usually a four or five word phrase that VERY few folks would ever type in. Somthing like:
unique valentine’s day gift for grandson
Now that shouldn’t be too hard, in fact maybe, just maybe, someone could rank for a phrase like that just by using it on a page. Anyone want to take bets?
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I apologize for not updating this sooner – I forgot about the silly SEO experiment. Anyway we not only got to page one of Google, we are page one of Google:
Conversion Metrics and Sales Copy
Posted on January 1, 2007
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Awhile ago I wrote of working on TheGolfCollection.com to improve sales copy. I was basing what I changed on the product detail pages on guidance from the book Call to Action. So what has happened so far?
First, there was a disturbing drop in sales conversion. This lasted for about a week. I’m not sure if the revised pages were jarring to those who had visited the site earlier or some other factor was at play. The drop in sales conversion hit most products except the first fiew I had changed. But then after a week, the sales conversion rate started to climb back and now we are running between 2% – 3% most days. Last Friday we converted at nearly 4% which is unusually high for us this time of year.
On specific product pages I worked on first, the sales conversion rates are fairly high. On one, almost 20% of all people who visited the page purchased. On that same product 100% of the people who found the page by typing in a relevant phrase purchased. So if they were looking for the product specifically, they purchased. If they were browsing through the site from another phrase (e.g. golf gifts) they had about a 12% conversion rate. Combined gets me to the near 20% quoted earlier.
The pattern I used was as follows:
Pricing, ordering and order specific information (options and where we ship to) are provided above the sales copy in a ‘just let them pee’ set up suggested by the book.
In addition to the product detail page work, changes are being made to department or category pages to improve skimming. And finally, changes were made to make the satisfaction guarantee more meaningful and easy to understand and great care was taken to ensure all references to our guarantee was made consistent in wording.
Seems to be a good approach.
Pages
- About Nancy
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- Ask Nancy – Got a question? I’ll do my best to answer it.
- Silly SEO: Unique Valentine’s Day Gift for Grandson…
Recently
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- OK – It’s True – I’m Opening Again…
- Social Media – Heaven or Hype?
- You can do this – SEO is simpler than you think
- More on How to Rank on The Search Engines
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- Is the Supplemental Index Really Dead?
- After a Too Long Absence…
- Questions about my comments on links from directories…
- Product Sourcing