Bryan Eisenberg on Websites That Stink (in a Good Way)
Is it really such a bad thing to have a website that stinks?
In the second and final installment of Bryan’s interview with Ralph Wilson — recorded at February’s Search Engine Strategies conference in London — the two shift their focus from personas (as discussed in Part 1) to improving landing page conversion by creating better “scent” for the visitor.
In the video, Bryan talks about a study conducted by usability guru Jared Spool that shows, among other things, that…
- When visitors found the “trigger words” — keywords that either get stuck in their heads, either consciously or subconsciously, often from advertising — on the landing page they’re sent to, they were content with what they found a whopping 72% of the time.
- When these same visitors didn’t see their trigger words on the landing pages they found, their search was only successful 6% of the time.
(If video doesn’t load, click here.)
Despite all the heady research that analyzes how people actually search for — and find — things on the Internet, it’s so obvious that it’s almost funny: We sniff around for relevant info like animals on the hunt. We go where the scent takes us. If we find what we’re looking for, great. Game over. If not, we retreat to home base, regroup and go out on a slightly more refined path until we see it in the corner of our eye. Then we pounce.
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Want Bryan’s advice on how to make your website stink (in a good way)? Meet him at FutureNow’s Call to Action seminar on June 3rd in Manhattan.
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Written by:Robert Gorell
Excellent concept, I love the idea of Scent on how users are searching through our websites. I’m curious as to how to find the trigger keywords that our customers are using. I do understand that it would be easier if we had an ecommerce website and someone was searching for a model number. But how do you do this if you in an industry such as insurance?
Thanks,
BJ
BJ,
Great question. Actually, each website — B2B or B2C and regardless of industry — should have its own scent trails for visitors.
Scent is NOT for e-commerce alone. In fact, there’s often more opportunity to establish scent with B2B websites because the personas (visitor types) you’re trying to attract have their own unique trigger words. So what you do is plan what we call Persuasion Scenarios from the search level, through the landing page, through the lead form — assuming the insurance site’s goal is lead-generation.
Again, that would be the same process for ANY website; B2B, B2C, non-profit or otherwise. This is a planning methodology and is not confined by a given industry.
That said, if your insurance website has better scent than the competition, you’re more likely to stand out from the pack and convert well above the industry average.