Conversion Rate Optimization For ALL!

This is a guest post written by Kate Morris. Kate Morris is an SEO Consultant with Distilled Consulting. A regular speaker at PubCon and Affiliate Summit, she shows her passion when speaking of the balance between SEO, PPC, and all other parts of search marketing. She blogs regularly at SEOmoz.com and Search Engine Journal.

I’m here today to announce that every page, no matter it’s status in navigation or if it has a prime spot as a campaign landing page, deserves the attention of a conversion rate optimizer. Yes, I said it. Every page. I’m calling for no more discrimination based on class or status. The day has come and 2011 is the year that all pages focus on CONVERSIONS!

Step 1: Every Page is a Landing Page

There are no more classes of pages, it is time to teach your staff and customers that all pages are created equal. They all have a right to earn conversions and pull their own weight for the benefit of the entire site. Paid search landing pages, affiliate pages, and even marketing landing pages (highest class, we know) are now on the same level with the formerly considered lowly pages of the About Us page and News, plus many more forgotten pages. 

Step 2: A Chance to Prove their Worth

Give all pages a call to action. Think about what your visitors might want and need when and if they land on that page from a search engine, and then give them a way to do that. All pages, like all forms of marketing, deserve their chance to show how they can help the bottom line. 

Case and point: RateGenius Auto Loan Refinancing

They saw their conversions from their second tier GAP product page, which previously did not have a conversion point, quadruple in one month (yeah one to four, but still!!!). They are pioneers in this movement, and that secondary product page is now getting more love and attention than ever. 

Step Three: Leave No Conversion Untracked

Most importantly track what these pages and new conversion points are doing so that credit is given where it is due. Think about the old saying “if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, did it still fall?” If these pages are given calls to action but no way to track the action how are they ever going to earn their spurs. Track all actions, everything you see as a “win” in connecting with the end user. 

Step Four: There is No “War” with SEO

The entire site has seen the search engine optimization specialist, every page large and small that is publicly available. They might have missed the landing pages before, but are revisiting any of those that might benefit the site in the search engine indices. We all know that not all campaign pages need to be optimized or included in the engines, but all pages should have a once over from the conversion optimizer.

This ladies and gentlemen, pages great and small, is a day that will live in infamy (ok, maybe that is a stretch). The day that we make it known that all pages deserve attention from a conversion standpoint. The day that CRO and SEO are on the same page and the same level. No longer will we put one before the other. 

As webmasters and marketers, we stand up today and put an end to discrimination. Pages and optimizers unite!