How Do I Play Traffic Cop With This Site?
“How do I sell more hourly consultations?”, I asked. Unfortunately, all the answers failed miserably, despite some of them being so brilliant that I gave away links and consulting time (Vinh Nguyen and Michael Galbus, you can still claim your 1 hour of consulting each 
). Why?
1) All the answers assumed that the problem was with converting a sufficent supply of traffic visiting my seo consultations page.
2) I assumed that was the case myself, and didn’t bother looking at my analytics. Thus, I didn’t correct this widespread, but erroneous, assumption.
As it turns out, I got about 6900 visitors in the past 30 days, per Google Analytics (more per Sitemeter, which logs also visitors with Javascript disabled). Guess how many viewed my consultations page?
29.
Pathetic.
This isn’t just the shoemaker’s kids going barefoot. This is them having bloody feet that nearly need amputation! Similarly, my consulting services pages barely saw anyone go by, although there were more visitors than for my 1 hour consultations.
(Am I concerned about sharing this information? Will it hurt my credibility? Perhaps in the short run it might. In the medium term, I should hopefully be able to get more visitors to my money pages and make more money.
Also, I think this shows that I’m able to identify problems, and face reality. Those are much more valuable skills than the ability to ignore reality…)
So I’d like to redo that fun group brainstorm, and ask you guys:
1) How do I send more of my traffic to my SEO consultations page?
2) How do I send more of my traffic to my SEO services page?
Again, great answers will earn their authors dofollow links (you can pick the anchor text) and excellent answers will get free 1 hour consultations!
Here are some stats to help you guys out.
- Bounce rate sitewide is 67%, about average for blogs afaik.
- I get 1.73 pages a visit, and 1:44 average time on site per visit.
- 81% of visits were new
- My most viewed pages last month included forecasting seo roi, my Internal Link Building plugin, this page on measuring social media, my homepage, my blog and how to seo a splash page.
- 20% of my traffic was direct navigation (love you guys!), 36% was referring sites, and the rest was search traffic.
- Google sends more traffic than any other single source (blessing and a curse…)
- If you need other data and can explain why, I’ll try to share as much as possible.
Let me know what ideas you guys might have!
p.s. I’d love to hear what you guys think of these edited h2/h3 headers (smaller sizes and colors matching my theme).
Gabriel,
I understand your goal is to sell more hourly consultations by driving traffic to your SEO Consultations page. That’s a great strategy because it’s where you put your sales pitch and you are more likely to sell hours from that page.
As a business development manager, I train automotive salespeople how to make more money by selling appointments. We do this because we are more likely to close the deal in person rather than by phone or email.
Instead of trying to sell hours, maybe you should be shooting for an appointment or a phone call. Assuming you will close more leads in-person.
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
July 28th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
That’s possible, Bruce, and something to consider. I can’t test the idea until I send more traffic to that page, however!
Got any ideas for directing visitors to the page
?
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Comment by Bruce Wood — July 27, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
I’d suggest offering a ‘first hour free – min 2 hr consult’ somewhere above the fold of your pages.
This is something I intend to integrate into my own site in the near future.
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Matt Reply:
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 am
To expand on the idea: Mention a ‘unique consultation’ offer, above the fold.
What’s “unique” is the free hour of course, but mentioning only that the consulting offer is ‘unique’ or a ‘unique opportunity’ will inspire curiosity and push more traffic to the page.
Once they’re on the page, their curiosity is satisfied and you have your conversion opportunity.
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Hey Matt,
That’s an offer that I can see myself testing, but it doesn’t solve the problem I’m seeking help with. How do I drive more traffic to that page?
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
August 2nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Oh wait, you mean do that sitewide? Hmm, maybe. It’s worth a try. I’ll add it to the “To-Test” list
.
Comment by Matt — August 2, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Exactly, just how you have:
“Need SEO services or consulting? Call Montreal SEO Consultant Gab Goldenberg at…”
at the top. Instead, it would be worth mentioning the compelling ‘unique offer’ with a link to the consultation page. The unique offer being of course the ’1st hour free’ limited time offer.
Maybe run the offer from time to time, when you *have* the time for the generosity of the offer. This will also reinforce the fact that it’s a ‘once in a while’ offer.
The intermittent appearance of the offer will also allow you to measure the effectiveness of traffic as well as conversions on a regular basis.
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Cool, that makes sense, Matt. I’ll look to try that out sometime this fall. I’d test sooner, but I’ve got A LOT on my plate
.
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Comment by Matt — August 2, 2009 @ 3:33 pm
I’ve been meaning to test it for a while now – maybe we can compare notes on our findings
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:12 pm
My pleasure to do so, Matt. I wouldn’t wait on me though – it might be a while as I’m seriously looking at a full redesign soon.
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Comment by Matt — August 3, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
Gab, on your sidebar have an ongoing sort of ad, with a link to the consulting page. That current blue box at top of sidebar with your mugshot in it, the pic is an obvious draw for the eye, so below it, before the “testimonial” quote, include some more copy with a call to action linking to the consultations page. Maybe another line about SEO services linking to that page.
Then test your copy and layout in that box to see what improves clicks to the consulting and services pages.
Navigation to your consultation page is kind of hidden at the moment. I can’t seem to find how to get there unless I go to the services page first and hit one, of many, text links in the content of that page. So in your navigation menu in the header why not have the services link do a mouseover drop down list to each of the individual services. Then from anywhere on the site people can jump to the consulting page, or the link building page, a/b testing page, reputation management page, etc… without first going to the services page and hunting for a link buried in the text.
I have no comments on your pop-up ad as I’m deeply in the habit of closing those immediately after they appear
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
August 4th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I’ve just updated the navigation to the consultation page. That should have been an obvious fix, but I clearly am too close to the site to tell. I also like the mouseover drop down, and will aim for that with the next iteration! That’s an hour of time for you dude
.
I’m not sure what popup you’re referring to – do you mean 4Q surveys? They’re actually not ads – just an invitation to give me feedback
.
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Comment by Stever — August 4, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
I would garner a guess that the majority of your blog traffic audience are not always the same people who are in the market for your SEO Services. So converting your existing traffic might not be a reasonable goal. Instead, I’d focus on optimizing your SEO Consultation page as its own landing page and driving unique traffic to it, rather than the blog.
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Gabriel Goldenberg Reply:
August 12th, 2009 at 12:26 am
It’s a fair point, but the page is already fairly well optimized, and also there are readers who end up buying consultations.
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Comment by Amy — August 10, 2009 @ 2:38 pm