Optimizing for Conversion (Part 1 of 5) – The Sales Funnel
In this 5 part series we will discuss the sales funnel and how it can be used to increase Web site conversion. First we look at the sales funnel itself.
All consumers go through a thought process when they buy anything whether walking into a store or shopping online. We must consider this with SEO, Web site design and content creation. To do this our site and its content is written to guide and direct a consumer to a sale. We direct traffic through the sales funnel by using keyword-rich marketing content that influences the conversion from search engines. Here are the steps to the sales funnel:
Category Awareness > Brand Awareness > Brand Consideration > Purchase Intent > Purchase > Customer Retention > Advocates
Now let’s explain how all these steps apply to Web site and search engine marketing.
- Category Awareness – Someone does a Google search for a keyword phrase such as “Hotel in LA”. This is the category that our consumer is looking for options within.
- Brand Awareness – Google will display a list of results that include organic listings and local listings with a map when available. Many different brands, or options, are displayed by Google. The searcher is now aware of them and reading them.
- Brand Consideration – The searcher is influenced by ads and meta descriptions, and he or she starts to consider and browse multiple sites. Some of the local listings will contain reviews; these reviews are read and taken into consideration. The consumer also considers prices, discounts and packages, unique selling points and other strengths/weakness.
- Brand Preference – Consumer chooses the “hotel in la” he or she likes most, having been influenced to believe that one brand/option offers the most fitting solution.
- Purchase Intent – Consumer decides to purchase a weekend stay at the hotel. He or she searches for a weekend, it’s available and the price is true to the advertisement. The consumer intends to purchase at some point.
- Purchase – A sale is made.
- Customer Retention – The customer stayed at your hotel, enjoyed the experience and expectations were met. The customer decides to come back instead of considering another brand.
- Advocates – Customer repeat buys and tells everyone about the benefits of your hotel.
Above you will notice that the sales funnel has 5 steps to a purchase. Our job with SEM is to make sure that a searcher is easily guided from a search phrase to a sale and back to another sale. This is done with call-to-actions at every stage of the funnel, guiding the consumer from one phase to the next. We cannot go from a home page entrance straight to booking without a consumer considering all the steps in the buying funnel.
In our next post we will look at each step of the funnel and learn how to apply call to actions.
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