Recently we created A/B landign pages for a ecommerce site that convert at over 6%

The Keys to the success were :

1. Video - youtube embedded
2. Tabbed navigation of content
3. Removal of primary & secondary sit enavigation
4. 2 purchase options

Click to see this landing page

The easiest way to improves sales & leads for any ecommerce or lead generation client is A/B Landing Pages

I pride myself on the results I’m able to provide with LP’s when done right

1. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing
   2. Use Google Analytics to create a “thank you page” for each A & B versions to track Goals & conversions for each page
   3. Let your OWN DATA make the decision on what to use for this and future campaigns

Below is a quick screen shot that speaks to form placement in the case of the recent EmpireLoan.com Page.  This has worked fantastic for my clients!  Doing an A & B version is really not much more dev time, and without doing it you are just GUESSING and left to wonder “Why didn’t this work so well?“  Or “How could it have worked better from the start?” And often HIPPO (Highest Paid Person Opinion) kills the effectiveness of these

In the recent EmpireLoan.com case here’s what I’d recommend

The Definition of Bounce Rate and Exit Rate
The definition of Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that hit your website on a given page and don’t visit any other pages on your site. For example, Dustin views an organic search listing, clicks through to your site, and then leaves your site without visiting any other pages. He bounced. You can learn more about lowering your bounce rate here.

The definition of Exit Rate is the percentage of visitors that leave your site from a given page based on the number of visits to that page (or pageviews in some cases). Sounds similar to Bounce Rate, doesn’t it? There’s a difference, though. The visitor who exits might have visited other pages on your site, but just exited on that specific page. For example, Dustin views an organic search listing, clicks through your site, reads a blog post, then clicks the About Us link. After finding out more about your company, Dustin clicks the contact us link and fills out a contact form. He then exits your site. The contact us page is where he exited. In contrast, if he simply visited the site via organic search and left without visiting any other page, it would have been a bounce. Make sense?

Why are Bounce Rate and Exit Rate Important?
Both metrics are important and can help web marketing people glean insights from the data, but they are definitely used differently. Bounce Rate is extremely important for determining how your landing pages perform as compared to visitor expectations. For example, if you run paid search campaigns, then you know the importance of testing a landing page (optimizing the landing page). I find that bounce rate at the aggregate level doesn’t tell you very much (site level bounce rate), but I find that bounce rate at the page level is extremely useful. It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. For example, if you are driving paid search visitors to your landing page selling Coffee Makers, and you have a 70% Bounce Rate on that page, you’ve got a problem. Why are that many visitors bouncing after clicking through your paid search ad and landing on a page that theoretically should be highly targeted? This is actually the fun part…digging into the data, optimizing the page, and using multivariate testing to lower your bounce rate and to increase conversion. As you can see, bounce rate can help you determine how well your landing pages perform (which directly affects revenue and ROAS).

It could be argued Exit Rate is more important for determining which page in a process isn’t performing up to expectations. For example, if you have mapped out scent trails on your site (ala Persuasion Architecture), and you find visitors are exiting the site on a webpage that clearly is a stepping stone to a more important page, then you should probably take a hard look at that page’s content. Are the calls to action not compelling enough? Does the page provide content that throws off visitors? Is there a technical issue with the page? Does it take too long to load? So on and so forth. Note, that for specific processes like cart checkout, you should use funnel analysis, but analyzing exit rate for more open ended processes works well (like targeting a type of buyer and providing a scent trail for them to get to a registration form.)

Different Yet Important
As you can see, both metrics are very different, but both are important. My recommendation is to start analyzing Bounce Rate and Exit Rate for key pages and processes on your site. I would begin with a focused effort, like a landing page that receives a lot of paid search traffic (for Bounce Rate) and possibly a lead generation process on the site for Exit Rate (if you have one). I won’t cover the process of optimizing your content in this post, but you can read an introduction to multivariate testing using Google Website Optimizer to learn more about website testing. I believe multivariate testing is a critical component to increasing conversion and lowering bounce rate for your key landing pages. It can help you increase revenue without adding one more new visitor to your site. NEAT, isn’t it?

Please feel free to validate this with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate

As an SEM Specialist, I must understand the different algorithms search engines use in their work. I also need to have an understanding of how my client’s target audience searches these engines.

Analytical tools and their test results offer the most valuable information about visitors searching and browsing behavior. The resulting traffic changes and most frequent keyword phrases that appear in these web analytics reports are the Site Catalyst of any SEO campaign.

This helps one understand the information retrieval algorithms and heuristics process that takes place when search engines qualify a web page for a particular keyword phrase. That is why in order for a web page to be considered relevant, its content organization must accommodate a wide variety of direct and semi-direct search behavior, which is mostly disclosed by its own metrics, in a given time period.
Part of the important information web analysis provides is the amount of words and phrases people type into search queries to find a particular web page, and it is equally important to include this information in order to receive targeted search engine traffic. That is just one of the aspects in the existing relation between web analytics and SEO: understanding how visitors search and browse websites.

In a similar fashion, search engine generated traffic is reported by a web analytics tool, including the phrases entered into the search engine that were used to find a website. By separating the paid traffic generated by SEM from the total traffic that was referred by search engines, you can monitor the effectiveness of SEO efforts. Higher-end analytic tools break out organic search engines into a separate report.

Another area where this statistical data is used for SEO benefits is in copywriting. Understanding how to write for the target audience of a website is key. Finding the right terms to use semantically within the copy of a web page is one of the main components of all successful SEO efforts. A SEM should always consider what each web page communicates to site visitors and search engines. This content should not only help achieve top search engine rankings, but it should also encourage searchers to visit the website.

To improve positioning on search engine results pages, you need to be able to measure effectiveness. These tools make measuring your improvement on search engines easy, but it is really important to know is if the improvement affects traffic and sales. By monitoring and tracking this information frequently, a SEO can make recommendations, prove these recommendations work, and accurately report on the true effectiveness of these changes. Web analytic helps shorten the gap between what you think your visitors are searching for, and what they actually are.