Small Steps to Success

“Improve 1,000 little things by 1%…”

Dollar Sign

A few months ago, I was referred to a new customer by a colleague of another customer. Since most of my new business is referral based, I spent extra time getting to know the business of the new customer and understanding how we could help. As is quite common in the Digital Marketing industry, the project as described originally by the client turned into something a lot more extensive. What started as SEO consulting for an eCommerce site, blossomed into social media marketing, being the webmaster, blogger and web marketing analyst. Needless to say it has been a blast learning a new industry, business and making a new relationship with my client. I am also grateful for the opportunity to share a small success story about it.

What’s the biggest indicator of digital marketing success?
Dollar signs of course! And we saw a significant increase in the number of sales in Q4 2013 compared with all previous sales on the website. We started optimizing the website in August and adding the other responsibilities in September. As you can see from the chart below, the numbers speak for themselves.

Chart Showing Success with large increase in sales in Q4 2013

“You cannot improve one thing by 1000% but you can improve 1000 little things by 1%” – Jan Carlzon Former President & CEO of the Scandinavian Airlines Group (SAS)

What are your favorite success stories from 2013? Please share in the comments below.

Success with Google AdWords

One of the services we offer at Susby Internet Strategy is Google AdWords search marketing. We have worked with several clients to improve their eCommerce business and web traffic with this tool.

Recently we compiled a case study chronicling the progress of one of our eCommerce clients.  We increased conversions and lowered cost-per-click for our client, who now has a thriving online business. Have a look!

Google AdWords Case Study: Improving Conversions and Lowering Cost

Challenge
Decrease monthly spend and cost-per-click for client’s Google AdWords advertising initiatives while increasing clicks and conversions.

Results
In 2010, our client never received more than 18 many-per-click conversions in a month. In 2011 the lowest amount of many-per-click conversions received was 35, with the highest being 123.

AdWords Conversions Graph

The chart below shows the improvement in click-through rate for our client:

Click Through Rate Graph

Our client’s click-through rate increased tremendously once we took over the campaign. It is important to experiment with new advertising ideas from time to time, however, and this practice is reflected in the lower click-through rate seen in September 2011.

We have also significantly reduced our client’s cost-per-click:

Cost Per Click Graph

Our client had a 40% reduction in cost-per-click in 2011, with an average 2010 cost-per-click of $2.19 and a 2011 average of $1.32.

Success Summary:
In a nine-month period we drastically increased our client’s click-through rate and number of conversions while significantly reducing their cost-per-click to make their Google AdWords advertising efforts remarkably more effective.

AdWords statistics

We are Google AdWords Qualified and are available to help your business achieve eCommerce and web visibility successes like this one. Give us a call today at 415.305.6403. We look forward to working with you!

Website Redesign: A Before and After

For the past few months, I have been fortunate to work with D’Layna Huguez-Dixon, Founder and President of Vocal Downloads for the redesign of the Vocal Downloads website.  We were a small team with D’Layna doing a lot of the heavy lifting, I consulting on the project specifications, testing, some Flash animation, graphics optimization and requirements documentation, and one programmer to do all the code changes.

It has been quite a journey and we have finally reached destination number one: Phase 1 launch.

D’Layna’s emails all end with a quote which helps me understand her drive and also why I admire her so much.  The quote is:

“If your vision is not your obsession, it will never be in your possession.”

Here’s a picture of before, and be sure to check out the after too.

Vocal Downloads Previously
Vocal Downloads Previously
New Vocal Downloads Design
New Vocal Downloads Design

There are many new features including an annual subscription product, enhanced display of samples with expand and collapse options, new member profile and login functionality and the ability to save samples to your crate for purchasing and downloading later. Oh, and right out of the gate the site has a great website grade in terms of SEO as well.

I am so proud of D’Layna for her persistence and courage on this project. It is a labor of love and D’Layna has shown both the labor and the love in great abundance.

Please check out the redesigned website and let us know if you have any suggestions, observations or recommendations.

A Beneficial Merger

Client site A was competing with site B for traffic about a similar topic. The two sites were competing for search results and traffic to promote a similar physical location. Site B was a bit out of date, but had been on the Internet a lot longer than site A. The information on site B complements the information on site A. Client A had a good relationship with the owner of site B, so we decided to pursue merging the two sites into one. The final merged site is still in development, but the immediate result after setting up a redirect from site B’s domain to site A’s domain is a good increase in traffic to site A. Client A is happy, which means we are happy and more importantly people looking for information on this topic will only need to go to one site instead of two.

Additional traffic in 2009 compared to 2008 as a result of redirect
Traffic in 2009 compared to 2008

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Daily visits doubled and tripled after redirect
Daily visits doubled and tripled after June 19th

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Monitor your analytics and statistics log files to see the impact of any significant changes you make to your site, marketing plans and overall online presence. Sometimes you may be surprised by the result. (Hint: Results are not always good, but mistakes will help you learn.)