Ask Kalena

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Dear Kalena…

I was just wondering if you would have time to look at my site and give me any ideas of how I could improve it from a customer landing on the site for the first time. I seem to be getting good traffic but conversions are just average at best. Any ideas would be appreciated.

John

Dear John,

There could be lots of factors that result in lower than desired conversion rates. It’s possible that your expectations are too high. If you are only servicing one local community, you have to assume that a lot of your traffic may be coming to your site only to find out that you do not service their area. However, I never like to tell my clients that their expectations are too high, although that is sometimes the case.

The design and professional appearance of your site is terrific. It’s easy to navigate, has all of the important information, and even does a good job at up-selling the customer. One thing I noticed rather quickly is that you do not mention any of the benefits of your flower shop over any others in the Perth area. When someone lands on your site (according to statistics) most people look at the top left of the screen. I would try adding a big button above your left navigation that says something like “Same Day Delivery” or “Guaranteed Freshest Flowers in Perth”, or whatever. Just make sure it’s a benefit that keeps them on the page. Since most of your internet business is deliveries, you might want to feature more information about that on your homepage. In fact, wouldn’t it be really cool to have a little call-out on your site that displays every day up to 11am (your same-day delivery cut-off) that says “It’s not to late to have your flowers delivered today!”? I am sure you can do that with a little PHP code.

One feature of another florist I have used, which I think is nice, is a flexible pricing option. I noticed that some of your flowers have different sizes and different prices. Why not feature this on the category page instead of just the product page? When a user browses all of your flowers you should have a buttons that shows them that they can buy this plant for $12, $24 or $48…. you get the idea. It’s just really nice to know that if they like a specific arrangement, they don’t have to spend $75. Check out this site to see what I am talking about.

You may want to also add a search box on your site. Not only does this help your customer find what they are looking for, but it also gives you invaluable intelligence about what your customers want! Google Analytics has a great feature that allows you to read a log of whatever people are typing in your search box. It provides great information for e-retailers.

Lastly, your site analytics could help you to find out where all of your traffic is going. For example, if you find that 90% of your traffic is entering your site through your index page and that you have a high bounce rate (users who click right off the site), or a very low “time on site”, you’ll know that your homepage may need to be optimized for sales. You may also want to determine what the most frequent exit page is. If you find that most people leave your site on the delivery information page, than perhaps you need to look at your delivery policies, or even your fees.

Again, your site looks very nice! Good luck, and thanks for the question!

Nick
www.TheSmallMerchant.com

Popularity: 30%

Dear Kalena

I’m currently taking your SEO 101 class for certification.  I’ve been looking over some of the recommended reading and I am confused about something.  Can you tell me if it is SPAM if you have multiple domain names forwarded to one website?

Thanks for your assistance.

Laura

Dear Laura

No, not necessarily. It depends how they are forwarded and the original purpose of the forwarding. For example, if you have a main site e.g. site.com but also own regional domains for the site e.g. site.com.au or site.co.uk and you wish to forward people typing in those regional domains to your main domain, then that is a legitmate use of forwarding.

Same with domains for branding purposes, for example, I own both www.ask-kalena.com and www.askkalena.com but I prefer to use the first one for branding as it is easier to read the site name. However I don’t want to miss any persons who type in the second version of the domain, so I forward the latter one to the former one automatically. You’ll see if you type in the second version it will automatically redirect you to the hyphenated version. This is also a correct use of domain forwarding and the correct server redirection technique to use (not META refresh or similar).

The only time it gets spammy is if you are deliberately redirecting people from one domain to another in a direct attempt to mislead them and trick search engines, for example if you click on a domain in the search results that looks like www.baby-strollers.com and it takes you instead to a porn domain or something. Also the redirection of hundreds or thousands of domains to a single domain is likely very dodgy.

Popularity: 21%

Dear Kalena

I am a marketing person and have been working for over 10 years. I love the IT side of marketing and considering to take some of your courses to become specialized.

My concern is that it might just be a little too much on coding and I am concerned that I might find it too dry. Will this be the case or can you expect some coding but not too much with further focus and learning on picking the right key words for companies etc?. I look forward to your reply. Note, I already get your newsletter.

Thanks
Natalie

Dear Natalie

There is only a minimal amount of coding discussed in our SEO courses. SEO101 assumes zero knowledge of the topic and teaches students how to optimize a web site from start to finish, with emphasis on a holistic approach rather than just coding and design.

There are links to further HTML and coding resources if you are interested, but they are not compulsory for completion of the course. Take a look at the full lesson detail for SEO101.

My background is also marketing (I’m not a programmer) and I have written the course from this perspective, so you should find it both interesting and enjoyable. I think your idea to specialize in search engine marketing is a good one, particularly with your background. May I suggest you read my article: 11 Reasons Why You Should Consider a Job in Search Engine Marketing.

More questions? Check out our FAQs or chat to our staff via Live Help.

If you do decide to enroll with us, simply go to our order form when you’re ready.

Hope to see you in class!

Popularity: 22%

Dear Kalena…

I have just discovered your site and have read your article on Blogging. I am a realtor in Whistler, BC Canada and my question is: Do you think blogging is a good thing for a realtor, and if so what do you think the topics should be? Please note, I have just discovered your site, and a friend built my site, but he can’t do it any more so I have turned to SEO101 to find out what on earth I need to do. Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Marion

Dear Marion,

Maintaining a blog for almost any site is usually a good thing. However, it takes consistency, time, and of course, commitment. There are several benefits to having a blog on your site.

Blogs provide rich content that the search engines just love. They are usually updated on a regular basis which also helps to keep the search engine spiders coming back for more. For your purpose, you need to focus your blog to attract whomever you are looking to get to your site.

Assuming your goal is to bring in folks looking to buy real estate in Whistler, BC, I would write about Whistler! You could blog about great restaurants, interesting places to visit, or happenings in the town. Whatever news and information you think your visitors would find helpful.

Try not to talk about your own business, but rather offer information that is useful and unbiased, so your visitors will keep coming back, and also see you as a trusted source of information.

Lastly, research and build a list of important keywords that you need to optimize your site for. Use those keywords to link to your main site where appropriate. That will all help to pass the relevance of your blog onto your business site.

Oh, one last tip. If you’re going to start a blog it is worth the time and effort to install and host the blog on your domain instead of using a hosted version from a third party. WordPress is easy to install and administer.

Good luck! Nick
www.TheSmallMerchant.com

Popularity: 35%

Dear Kalena…

I have been in the top three positions for the keyword ‘motivation’ for five years and just last month dropped to 16. A block of my once-ranked pages has simply disappeared. My business is sinking as a result. I haven’t changed a word on my site for months - perhaps even a year - because I’ve been writing a new book. Could this be the issue? My site is: Motivation123.com

Jason

Dear Jason

The advertiser competition for this keyword is very high resulting in a near saturated market.
The position change for your site could be as a direct result in a downturn in the number of searches for the single keyword “motivation”.

If your site content and meta-data has remained static for a period of a year or so then Google may have decided that your site is not as relevant in this search as it once was, resulting in placing your competitors higher in the Search Engine Results Page for the search term “motivation”.
Detailed analysis of your competitors may reveal more readily updated content and SEO work being carried out on a scheduled basis.

A positive move may be to restructure your keywords for a less saturated keyword phrase still related to motivation, it is important not to lose the keyword “motivation” altogether so add keywords rather than delete them.

Take a look at your site content and be sure to include any new keyword phrases in the body text two or three times and also consider looking at your description tag to reflect this new content.

Plan strategic SEO by using different related keyword phrases as opposed to single keywords and you could see your site rise in the SERPs again.

best regards
Andy Watson
Wildcat SEO

Popularity: 29%