Search Engine Strategies, Day 3 & 4
Days 3 and 4 were great, although there were noticably fewer people that attended the show. No complaints here, I actually got a seat in the seminars that I attended.
In the “Landing Page Testing and Tuning” session, they talked about the “Buy” vs. “Add to Cart” button. Apparently sites that use “Add to Cart” tend to have a higher conversion rate because the commitment level is not as high as asking somebody to buy something. In other words, the shopper knows that they can remove the product from their cart at any time if they decide they don’t want it. From an internet retailers perspective, this is very helpful information.
One thing that I have always struggled with is testing different ad copy and landing pages. As far as the landing pages go, I was impressed with Site Tuners. Basically, they will help you optimize your website and test different variables on landing pages. What really sets them apart is that they don’t charge you anything up front - you agree upon a fixed percentage of the lift you see on your site as a result of their services and you pay them on the backend. For this reason they are probably pretty selective about who they are willing to work with.
I had a chance to eat lunch with Allan Dick from Vintage Tub & Bath. I learned a lot about carving out a vertical niche and really owning the category. He has done a great job with clawfoot tubs and other specialized home products. You wouldn’t believe how well such a specialized internet retailer understands search engine marketing. Any retailer who has a chance to meet him or hear him speak should definitely take advantage of it.
What really shocked me about the retailers I met at the show was the amount of time they have had an online strategy and the volume that the average retailers are moving. The average annual sales volume of the retailers I met with with somewhere between $20 and $30 million/year. This is impressive, especially considering that most of these retailers had been focusing on a predominately online strategy for less than five years. Also, the average retailer stocks about 50% of the products they are selling - drop-shipping is becoming increasingly more important, especially for high-consideration items.
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