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Does Your Web Site Stink?
How well does your site preserve the scent trails visitors follow?
Creating and preserving intentional scent trails on your site translates to improved ROI (define) for your paid and organic search terms.
Hot on a Scent
Every scent trail starts with a search.
A prospect types into the search box the search term she believes will give her the desired result. Then, she willfully follows the scent trail of that specific term from the starting point, usually the search results page, seeking a specific answer. She frequently returns to the starting point for orientation. If she doesn’t find the answer after several clicks, she starts a new scent trail. She repeats this process until she finds her answer.
People hunting for online data behave remarkably like animals sniffing out prey. It’s the most effective means of finding a teensy-weensy squirrel in awfully big forest.
Understanding this process allows you to measure and optimize the scent trails people follow, both on your site and in marketing campaigns. Losing the trail is one reason 80 percent of visitors leave a site after three pages.
Most SEM (define) is about getting found. Problem is, most SEM does little more than put signs on every tree that read, “Squirrels in the forest.” Though true, the signs don’t help the hunter a lot in the quest to actually find the squirrels in the forest.
About the author
Bryan Eisenberg, founder of FutureNow, is a professional marketing speaker and the co-author of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books Call to Action and Waiting For Your Cat to Bark and Always Be Testing. You can friend him on Facebook or Twitter.
More articles from Bryan Eisenberg
- Nobody wants to read your sh**!September 21st, 2009
- Redesign? Ask The Right Questions!September 18th, 2009
- Cross-post: How to Improve a Product Page, Part 1September 15th, 2009
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- Capterra: The Conference Sept 13-15, Wash., DC
- "Recession Marketing: From Pre-click to Post-click" (webinar) Sept 16, 12pm EDT / 9am PDT
- "Securing the Sale: Turn Your Site's Browsers Into Buyers" (webinar) Sept 17, 2pm EDT / 11am PDT
- Excellence and Innovation conference Sept 28-30, Orlando
- The SEM Conference
Sept 23-24, Oslo, Norway - eConsultancy Peer Summit Oct 8, New York City
- The Bolo Conference Oct 12-14, Scotsdale, AZ
- Google GAAC/WOAC annual meetings
Oct 13-16, Googleplex California - eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit Oct 19-23, Wash., DC
April 8th, 2009
9:15 am
[...] Don’t waste hyperlink words on non-descriptive or generic words. Make links keyword rich and ensure that customers can predict where the link will take them. Plan and link for maximum “scent” [...]
April 22nd, 2009
2:25 pm
[...] your headlines answer your customer’s question? Bryan Eisenberg talks about how sites fail the “scent test.” Do your headlines pass that test? Customers most likely to bounce quickly look to the headline to [...]
April 27th, 2009
12:01 pm
[...] still, Dell’s landing page really fails Bryan Eisenberg’s “scent test.” Where on the page do they talk about this offer? It’s a mystery to [...]
August 6th, 2009
4:33 pm
[...] The best in the business just direct the traffic somewhere equally useful to continue to pass the “scent test.” Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your [...]
October 8th, 2009
9:55 pm
I agree with you.
October 8th, 2009
10:59 pm
OK Eisenberg I will trust site.
October 12th, 2009
4:18 am
I thought about this concept very interesting.
December 31st, 2009
11:13 am
A very insightful article, bookmarked for further inspection