Learn how to improve your website's conversion rate by implementing several SEO tactics.

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The Ship is Sinking!
Utilizing Organic SEO for
Conversion Rate Optimization
Anvil Media Lunch and Learn
August 22, 2018
Mike Grill
SEO Specialist
mikeg@anvilmedia.com
Twitter: @mjgrill
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegrill

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It can feel a bit like this when your ecommerce site first launches
Unfortunately, this isn’t how most people shop online in the long term

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Here is a typical conversion funnel with how things *should* progress

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However, if your site’s SEO isn’t dialed in your conversion funnel can feel like this to your
users – you might convert some users, but this is far from the most direct route

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Over time, with the addition of products, pages to your site, images, blogs, and more,
your funnel can begin to look like this
The small shifts between touch points in your funnel develop into cracks

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Those cracks become leaks in your conversion rate

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But where did it all go wrong?

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There are plenty of reasons why your sales funnel can get out of alignment especially
with a lot of SKUsLack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10

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There are plenty of reasons why your sales funnel can get out of alignment
Lack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Black - Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10

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There are plenty of reasons why your sales funnel can get out of alignment
Lack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Black - Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Men’s – Black – Size 10

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There are plenty of reasons why your sales funnel can get out of alignment
Lack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Black - Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Men’s – Black – Size 10
Misnamed products
or product groups:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10

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There are plenty of reasons why your sales funnel can get out of alignment
Lack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Black - Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Men’s – Black – Size 10
Misnamed products
or product groups:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10 Brand W Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10

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There are plenty of reasons why your sales funnel can get out of alignment
Lack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Black - Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Men’s – Black – Size 10
Misnamed products
or product groups:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10 Brand W Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10 Brand X Shoe – Women’s – Black –
Size 10

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There are plenty of reasons why your conversion funnel can get out of alignment
Lack of naming
convention:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Black - Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Black – Size 10 Men’s – Black – Size 10
Misnamed products
or product groups:
Brand X Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10 Brand W Shoe – Men’s – Brown – Size 10 Brand X Shoe – Women’s – Black –
Size 10
Missing or incorrect meta data such as descriptions, ALT and title text for any product
images, page titles, headings, or any misaligned content can easily shift steps in your
conversion funnel out of alignment and impact your site’s conversion rate

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How can Organic SEO Help?

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*As search engines attempt to anticipate user intent, SEO has become less focused
on communicating strictly with the search engines
That means SEO is more about anticipating user intent
In other words, SEO is now about human to human interaction with the help of
search engines as a useful tool (you could argue that this has always been SEO’s goal)

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*For ecommerce sites, SEO takes on a host of roles from design and layout to
backend optimization through meta data and tagging to organic SEO’s bread
and butter: optimized content

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Speed is one of the biggest contributors to your conversion rate: according to a
study by HubSpot, a single second of delay can cost you 11% of your pageviews or a
7% reduction in conversion rate
*If your site earns $100,000 per day, a single second of your page load speed can
cost you $7,000 per day, $211,750 per month, and $2.54 million per year!

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Besides an increased conversion rate with a faster page load, sites with faster page
load times also enjoy much lower bounce rates

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Make it easy on your new users: navigation is extremely important especially as a
user browses your products for the first time
If a user gets lost on your site, chances are they aren’t coming back (about 80% of
users frustrated with a site won’t return)

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Once your page load speeds are as fast as they can be, you can start to take a look at
the way your content is optimized
It is important here to note that while your ecommerce site functions like a large
funnel, there are many different, smaller funnels that you have to be mindful of
Personalization is the goal here: you might not want to sell socks to someone who is
looking for sandals – most of us don’t want that

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Instead of taping or papering over cracks, organic SEO is more than just a temporary
fix. It is like a hammer that taps your sales funnel back into alignment, or a serious
patch over a leak.
When you conversion rate starts to slide…it’s hammer time!

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Your content is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal to sell your
products to users and maintain or increase your conversion rate
Your content has to line up with where the user is in the conversion funnel or they will
be confused, frustrated, or even completely lost
The top of each funnel is where the broadest keywords should be present in the meta
data and content; we will use a shoe site as an example with example keywords to the
left of the funnel
Shoe, shoes, men’s shoes,
women’s shoes

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The next step in the funnel is meant to build on the users interest and draw them further
into the sales process on your site
A click on ‘men’s shoes’ ought to take the user to large selection of men’s shoes, in our
example we will specify by the shoe’s use that aligns with the users interest
Men’s basketball shoes, men’s
dress shoes, etc

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As we continue to optimize the ecommerce site’s content with keywords that align to our
funnel, we have pulled the user one more step along the way to specificity
Now we can add brands to our keywords – notice that we are starting to compile a lot of
long tail keywords which is perfect for this stage in the funnel
Brand x men’s dress shoe, brand z men’s
dress shoe, etc

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At this point in the conversion funnel, the user’s intent is signaled by their selection of a
specific color of dress shoe
If a user were to enter the query ‘brand x men’s brown dress shoe’ we would expect
them to land here in the funnel – they have stated their intent and are simply looking to
make the best purchase at this point
Brand y men’s brown dress shoe, brand y
black men’s dress shoe, etc

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One more step along the funnel and we can add another keyword to our growing string
At this point, the user is ready to purchase, but could be comparing this shoe with another
site, waiting for a sale, or any number of things before they make their decision
Regardless of what is holding them back, they have only one click left to make the purchase
of their shoe on your site
Brown brand y men’s dress shoe -user’s size,
black brand y men’s dress shoe -user’s size, etc

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At this point in the customer’s journey, we would fully expect them to complete their
purchase – we know that not all users will (hence remarketing and email follow ups)
Organic SEO has held the hand of the user the whole way through the conversion
process by taking them on a non-complicated path to find what they are looking for

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Consider, for a brief moment, a very misaligned conversion funnel with the keywords
that we have inserted along the way and you are left with a very confusing map
Shoe, shoes, men’s shoes,
women’s shoes
Men’s basketball shoes, men’s
dress shoes, etc
Brand x men’s dress shoe, brand z men’s
dress shoe, etc
Brand y men’s brown dress shoe, brand y
black men’s dress shoe, etc
Brown brand y men’s dress shoe -user’s size,
black brand y men’s dress shoe -user’s size, etc

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To Summarize
A fast ecommerce site is essential to a
higher conversion rate
Slow page load speeds can cost companies
millions of dollars every year
The faster a user is able to browse your
site, the faster they can make a decision
on your site

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To Summarize
Site architecture and navigability are
essential to avoiding frustrated users
Design your site with new users in mind
and you will design a site that is easy to
move around for anyone
Optimized page titles and navigation are
an essential part of easy user movement –
use the words your users use

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To Summarize
When your content is in line with your
conversion funnel it makes it easy for any
user at any stage in the conversion process
to continue to the next step
Optimizing pages based on user intent is
the best way to guarantee a steady and
increasing conversion rate

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Questions?
Tweet: @anvilmedia or
@mjgrill
#AskAnvil

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Thank you!
anvilmedia.com
Presented by: Mike Grill
SEO Specialist
mikeg@anvilmedia.com
@mjgrill
Linkedin.com/in/mikegrill
@anvilmedia