UNIQUE VISITORS (FOUNDATIONAL)
Customer
retention is super important to any business, of course, but gaining those new
prospects, leads, or purchasing customers is top of mind as well. So seeking
the best methods, techniques and tools to bring those unique visitors to the
website is a metric that should be given attention on a very regular basis,
even daily for many companies, possibly even hourly for some.
When
pageview numbers go downhill, typically this means that in unison, the number
of unique visitors is going flat. Since most users are searching out product or
service needs via browsers, two areas in particular have huge impact on keeping
that unique visitor number heading uphill: content and search engine
optimization.
One
travel company noticed a big decline in unique visitors and the overall
economic health of the company was moving right alongside. This particular
company decided on Adobe Site Catalyst (a.k.a. Site Cat) to identify keyword
areas where content could be optimized (Axis41.com,
2014).
For
this travel industry client of Axis41, internet users seeking this type of
expertise seemed to primarily use the keywords ‘condo’ and ‘bedroom’ in their
searches. The company strived to add condo pages that included the word bedroom
as much as possible to provide a combination of the most desired and most used
keywords. Each page also had a call-to-action to directed the user to the
booking page.
Within
a month of the new page launch, page views increased by 191%, and unique visits
increased by 206% (Axis41.com,
2014). The company also added content relevant to the condominium property
itself, rather than an overload of information about the surrounding area and
the city. Initially, the company believed that content regarding the location
of the property would be of interest, and the metrics proved that prospective
customers were searching on qualities of the condominium itself. So, once
again, content (and accurately and frequently updated content), directs the
unique visitors to the site.
Using
an analytics tool to determine the number of unique visitors clicking through
to the website shows the number of actual people that visit, and which, in
turn, can provide another metric, a relative denominator for determining how
many of these visitors actually equal a conversion. Does the unique visitor
browse around and leave? Do they come back again later, or even repeatedly? How
many visits does it take to convert to a purchase or a sales lead? The unique
visitor is the beginning, and there is no end without the beginning, which
makes that unique visitor so critical to the success of the website.
Another
company that blew unique visitors through the roof with content marketing is
Upworthy.com. As of March of 2014, they were the ‘Fastest Growing Media Company
of All Time (Yazamoinsights.com,
2014).
Just
check out this comparison to others like Huffington Post and Business Insider.
(Courtesy
of Yazamoinsights.com, 2014)
Wow, right? Crazy growth, all due
to attention in the detail of content. They focus on what they consider to be
meaningful content (nothing empty or without a message), and have managed to obtain
over 53 million unique visitors. Initially, their primary directive was to
share a landing page that could be easily shared on social media platforms. The
content also led to capturing an email address (retention!). There was
call-to-action all over the place, whether it be to share, or join, or provide
an email.
(Courtesy
of Yazamoinsights.com, 2014)
Upworthy.com
believes in the testing, and learning what they can to implement the best
content and design to encourage engagement, and sharing. They are constantly
testing, suggesting content based on visitor’s preferences, and kill it on
social media sharing.
Upworthy.com
is a probably the best example I could find of a company that kept analysis at
the forefront of all online decisions, and knew that they could never just kick
back and watch it all happen, because it would be constantly changing, and to
increase those unique visitors, they would have to keep up, keeping the content
fresh and relevant, and test, test, test.
References:
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