ROI of Return on Investment is not hard to understand. It is simply the amount of revenue generated against how the amount invested. Knowing this figure provides an invaluable means to rate how successful one is at marketing or generating an income.
The calculation is as follows: Revenue divided by expenses.
The difficult comes in when one is practising SEO. It may be difficult to ascertain how much extra revenue is generated as a result of SEO as other sources may also have an impact on sales. Unless one is keeping careful records of the source of revenue, it is difficult to attribute the actual sales generated by SEO.
Using SEO to generate ROI
It is one thing to attract traffic to your website, quite another to turn them into customers. This is called conversion optimization. It entails a process of converting visitors into customers. It is usually shown as a percentage and is called the conversion rate.
1. For PPC marketers the calculation is showed as the number of people who take the desired action divided by the number of people who clicked on your advert multiplied by 100 to give the figure as a percentage.
2. The calculation used by online store traders is a simpler and is shown as the number of orders received divided by the number of visitors multiplied by 100 to give the figure as a percentage.
Boosting conversion rates means you can boost ROI with same amount of traffic. The precept is that as traffic volumes increase so do conversion rates and so does ROI.
Tips for increasing Conversion Rates
Most ideas for increasing conversion rates entail some type of investment. However it is good to remember that the aim is to recoup what has been spent with interest later on. It is not enough just to get your services or products noticed. Visitors need to be converted into sales. The only way to ascertain whether or not your efforts are fruitful is to set up a tracking mechanism.
• Offer multiple methods of payment options
o Many people don’t use credit cards today. If checkout and payment methods are easy it removes any obstacles to buying
• Offer or revisit return polices
o Return policies are often too ambiguous to understand, difficult to locate on a website or too strict. If visitors are fully informed upfront regarding your policies they are more likely to buy.
• Make your site super secure and make your visitors aware of it
• Provide easy access to exceptional customer services.
o Offer whatever support is needed when needed
o Offer more than your competitors
o Respond to any and all communications on time
• Make contact details highly visible, especially a toll free number
• Offer feedback forms and attend to complaints in an ethical way
o Provide email links or visitors
o Implement suggestions and offer rewards them
• Offer specials, giveaway or competitions and advocate them heavily
• Keep your eye on what your competitors are doing on their site.
