Should I concentrate on improving number of visits or conversion rate?

[tbow50]

I know I should always be working on both, but at the moment we have quite a good visit rate I think (about 200 unique per day) but a low conversion rate. So should I be looking to get more hits and therefore increae sales that way, or should I concentrate my efforts on trying to convert more of the visitors we already get?

I often try different things like sales etc and tweaks to the layout but nothing seems to have much of an effect on conversions, so if anyone has any top tips I'm all ears!

[webpromoterservice]

definitely first try and improve your conversion rate.getting more visitors to your site will cost you more but there is no guarantee that the conversion rate will be good.
what promotion methods are you using?
If you are using PPC,then you should optimise your ads to include the search keywords and also relevant landing pages.

[tbow50]

At the moment almost all of our traffic comes from the search engines. I started a PPC campaign the other day as I had a voucher from Google so I'm just starting to figure that out.

[fisicx]

Don't run the PPC until you have sorted your conversion rate otherwise you will just get a load of visitors who don't buy anything. And as suggested you may need to set up some specilist PPC landing pages rather than just use your exisiting content.

[tbow50]

That makes sense, I've paused Adwords. Now to improve the conversion rate then...

[Spock]

What is your website url?

[TheAlbear]

I agree, work on the getting your conversion rate up before you spend any money on increasing your traffic levels

[tbow50]

I'd only started the PPC campaign as I found an Adwords voucher that expired soon so thought I'd have a go with it, but see your point that it's not much use until I have increased the conversion rate.

The website address is www.wonderfulwraps.com, any advice is greatly received.

Cheers.

[Peter Bowen]

I thought that your front page copy could be a little more appealing. I've only been an accessory at a wedding (the groom) but from the little I know it's all about the bride but the words are all about you. I've italacised the stuff that talks about how wonderful you are (and I'm sure you are wonderful but the bride is probably more interested in what you can do for her).

"Wonderful Wraps is one of the only companies specialising in wraps, capes, throws and stoles for the bride to be, mother of the bride and bridesmaids."

Offering the most beautiful and sophisticated bridal / wedding capes, faux fur wraps, stoles and shrugs, marabou wraps, stoles and boleros, velvets, silks and satins, Wonderful Wraps are proud to be at the forefront of the wedding accessories market.

We are very happy to discuss variations on our styles. Most of our wraps are made to order, so that the fabric is at its best.

We try to cover every possible requirement from light summer organzas and silks, to warm velvets and faux furs for winter. Many of our wraps are so versatile that they can be worn at all sorts of occasions with different outfits.
I'd bet you'd get a better conversion if you talked around the problems that your wraps solve (freezing shoulders, inclement weather etc) and how it's the one item (perhaps excluding whatever is underneath the wedding dress ;) ) that can be worn again to always remind you of that special day.

PS. those cloaks look absolutely wonderful, but who wants to be reminded of Scottish Widows when you're planning a wedding? I'll bet that you feel like a medieval princess or an Eowen (I think that was the name of the gorgeous Elf princess from the Lord of the Rings) in one of these. Doesn't every girl want to be a princess at her wedding?

[yankee candleman]

Website looks good but I think your conversion rate will always be low with that type of product due to the nature of the competition.

[tbow50]

Thanks Peter, I definitely see what you're saying, but there lies another of my problems... the homepage text has been the same for a long time (which probably isn't a good thing, fresh content and all that) and so I'm wary of changing it in case it has an adverse affect on our search engine rankings. Our conversion rate isn't amazing, but we do have one and I don't want to loose the visits we do get.

Is it best to make small changes to the content or is it ok to just do a big change but keeping some of the keywords in there?

[Peter Bowen]

I think you can write copy that sells without harming your search engine ratings. I think you have to do it.

Why don't you test it. Set up a landing page/product page for a wedding cloak and write some exciting copy on it and then direct PPC traffic to that page and see if it converts.

If it works, move onto the next product - leave the existing ones as they are and just put up a new product/landing page for each adgroup. Then, once you've got your PPC traffic converting you can look at converting visitors who arrive at your site through natural search.

[fisicx]

Using FF here and none of the prices show up. If it's not just me then this needs to be investigated as that's a big chunk of your potential customers who can't buy anything.

Since you potential customers are going to be (mainly) women you need loads more images. The homepage should show all the product categories, the product pages should have images of the next product and so on. The lightshow images could be much bigger.

You aren't selling the products, all you have done is display them on a website.

[Alicatt]

Hi,

My first impression was that the site design isn't very inviting - the colour scheme is more business than wedding/fashion and you don't really sell the products as well as you could.

For a start your home page text talks about you - not the customer and what the product can do for them.

You only have wedding wraps on your home page so people looking for evening wraps may not be aware you do them and the different colours available.

You have some lovely products but I don't think the site does them justice. Sort this out and your conversion should increase - then you can look at increasing traffic.

All the best

Alison

[tbow50]

Thanks, I have looked in FF here and all seems to be displaying correctly, if anyone else wouldn't mind checking I'd be very grateful.

Thanks for the good points too, I've never really looked at it from that point of view. Definitely something to think about and I will get working on it sharpish.

[tbow50]

Thanks Alison, it's funny because I was kind of thinking the same thing about the layout/colours last night. Looks like my todo list is getting longer!

[freshpurple]

Thanks, I have looked in FF here and all seems to be displaying correctly, if anyone else wouldn't mind checking I'd be very grateful.

Showing up fine with Firefox from my computer

[eventdomain]

definitely first try and improve your conversion rate.getting more visitors to your site will cost you more but there is no guarantee that the conversion rate will be good.


I see what you mean, but as conversions are based more on numbers (websites are a numbers game), without the large numbers of visitors, there's little to convert anyway.

On the average web site, probably less than 3% will convert into a sale - it's different for large companies bcos they can afford £30k and blow it on their website - most can't, especially start-ups/young biz's in first few years of trading.

Obviously you need a bit of sales pitch, but yup, get the traffic and it will take care of itself. Just get out there and contact more.

[regencychess]

I wrote a blog post on conversion rates:-
http://www.etailerdiary.co.uk/2009/06/03/conversion-rate-obsession/

As part of your overall focus on increasing conversions you should also conduct some structured website testing. Use a video capture program to review how your visitors navigate your site and checkout process (you will need a scenario and test subjects) ...