Click thoughs - an indicator of trends

Website click through can answer a lot of marketers' questions about their customers and purchase trends. It also can help a marketer/business predict and plan for future purchases - not a revolutionary idea but one that should be a strong contributor to purchase and production plans. 

First, what is a "click through" action on a website? 

In it's most basic definition, a click through is a user clicking on a link. However, the most useful metric to marketers and business owners is the amount of times a link was clicked, clicking on advertisement and how many links were clicked on a specific website. 

(Marketing Terms, 2015) 

How can the metrics of click through help businesses plan for future purchases or production? 

Of course everyone knows past trends CAN predict future trends, however this is not what I mean by "future purchases". Instead, I want to show how click through can help businesses with purchasing or production timing. This data will help the business with its advance demand information, dictating when they should begin ordering or production before actual demand so that the product is ready to go before the customer wants the item. The company can infer from click through future demand. 

A company could use the strategy of a "pre-order", however this creates a situation where a customer must wait for their product. It gives a company more value to have a product appear without the prompting of a customer. It shows the company more in-line with the customer's needs. Also, "pre-ordering" may show that the company has a weak demand for the product and only wants to product the amount needed versus showing confidence in it's product that it will sell well. 

Click through is a type of technology that can really match supply with demand. 

(Huang & Mieghem, 2013) 

An example of this would be a clothing store. A clothing store could monitor it's customers click throughs and notice there is more attention to more spring like clothes, even though it is only December. However, this could be a changing trend and without the prompting of their customers the clothing store could roll out their spring collection a few weeks earlier. This means going into production earlier in order to meet this changing trend. 

Obviously, this is a big decision to make and should not be made off of click throughs. Instead click throughs should be seen as one of the many indicators for marketing and production plans. 

Huang, T. and Van Mieghem, J. A. (2013), The Promise of Strategic Customer Behavior: On the Value of Click Tracking. Production and Operations Management, 22: 489–502. 

Marketing Terms. (2015). Click Through. Retrieved on January 25,2015 from:  http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/clickthrough/ 

Landing Pages: How to Optimize with SEO

I'd like to delve into the topic of landing pages and discuss how to optimize a landing page in order for it to compatible with SEO and create a higher conversion rate. 

First, what is a landing page?  

Landing pages, often times referred to "home pages" are designed as a separate but still related webpage to the website. It is a page that gives an overarching view of the website in its entirety and makes it an easy jumping off point for the viewer/user. (DeMers, 2015). 

Why should someone optimize their landing pages for SEO? 

The landing page is usually the first introduction for a user to a website from the search engine results page (SERP). Research has discovered that a user may only view three websites from a SERP and if the first three websites aren't what the user is looking for, then the user returns to the search engine and refines their keywords. So, it is important for the landing page to be as accurate and precise about it's content, and  to be as user friendly as possible. If the individual does not find the information needed on the first page or at least an indication of having the information needed, most likely the user will move on from the website. This is viewed as a bounce, which is a negative indication for those keywords for the website visited.  

Optimizing landing pages =higher ranking on the SERP = higher user conversion 

How does a landing page achieve optimal content? 

This question is a bit tricky! 

Ideally, each webpage within a website's hierarchy should be content heavy with targeted keywords or phrases. Within the website the linking structure among the different webpages should link back to the landing page with all the targeted keywords or phrases emphasized. Also, any inbound links or backlinks from other websites should utilize the targeted keywords and phrases, but only to link to the landing page unless the information needs greater specificity. 

  

What about a great user friendly landing page? 

Just a quick note on a landing page having greater user friendly or website usability. It is important for a viewer to be able to extract information quickly from that website. If the user is not successful in extracting the information it is highly unlikely they revisit that website. So, it is important for a website to be easily navigable that showcases it's content into a digestible format. The mechanics in order to create a user-friendly landing page is an entirely different post, but wanted to reinforce the important of a user-friendly landing page.

 (Visser & Weideman, 2014) 

DeMers, J. (2015, January 7). How To Build The Perfect Landing Page For SEO Or PPC. Forbes. Retrieved on January 25, 2015 from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/01/07/how-to-build-the-perfect-landing-page-for-seo-or-ppc/ 

Visser, E. B., & Weideman, M. (2014). Fusing website usability and search engine optimisation. South African Journal of Information Management, 16(1), 1-9