Search engine optimization professionals often consider their job done after the click is won from the search result page. That’s when user experience and conversion rate optimization take over. But if it affects revenue, SEO should address conversion aspects, too.
What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?
How do visitors navigate through your site when they enter via natural search? What are their motivations and how are they looking to consume information? Are they looking for information differently than those who enter via other channels? What next steps do they want to take?
All of these questions, and others like them, address how to convert shoppers when they enter via natural search — to prompt them to take a desired action on your site other than just clicking to the next page or leaving the site.
Every page is a potential landing page, but not every page is ready to convert information seekers into customers. Article content is one of the primary drivers of visits, and those visitors are notoriously hard to convert without sounding disingenuous. But there’s usually a way.
For example, someone searching for information on how to build a retaining wall — there are about 6,600 of those searches in an average month, according to Google’s Keyword Planner — may not seem like a prime candidate for an ecommerce sale. But Lowe’s uses a tools-and-materials shopping list (below) with links to category grid pages to help information seekers purchase the products they need to complete the project. It’s a helpful way to prompt the transition from information to ecommerce that doesn’t feel like a bait and switch to the consumer.
