Posts Tagged ‘traffic’

Current web design changes in Google search engine result pages, and more specifically the color used for the background of sponsored ad results, are both interesting and ingenious. The ongoing changes to Google’s home page design are more than a whim for entertainment value, and deserve closer study from a web design and marketing perspective.

The screenshot below taken on 30 Sep 2008 as placed in the background of this collage is being compared to another taken today and almost 2 years later on 3 Sep 2010, and displayed towards the front. You have to be impressed with the web design colors and Google ingenuity as they experiment with the layout of search results year after year. Some web design and layout changes are subtle and hardly noticed yet could have a dramatic impact on effectiveness generating revenue.

Search results appear near the center and down the entire length of the page. Sponsored results are the first 1 to 3 listings and people pay for those slots based on key words or phrases whenever a person clicks and follows those links. The rest of the search results are organic meaning they are selected naturally according to Google algorithms to represent the best and most relevant in importance. Sponsored results have a contrasting color for the background while the natural results match the white on the rest of the page.

The illustration displays 3 graphics in the collage: 2008 search results for “custom cms web designers”, 2010 search results for the same phrase “custom cms web designers”, and a small color chart of the hex codes for the 3 colors used in the page background. Why the phrase: custom cms web designers? That phrase summarizes my job description in 4 words, stats tracking confirms Google sends me traffic for that phrase, and I happened to have that 2 year old screenshot saved to allow this comparison.

In the 2008 results the sponsored ads (A) have a #FFFADD background which is obviously high contrast in a medium shade of yellow (B) compared to the rest of the page #FFFFFF white background (C). The 2010 sponsored ads have a #FBF0FA very light pink background (D) which may appear almost white depending on the viewing angle of your pc monitor. Let’s consider how a near white background of sponsored ads could affect user behavior.

The top natural search results (E) after sponsored ads happen to be my website at #1 and #2 worldwide both years for custom cms web designers. Comparing 2008 to 2010 and from personal experience, I tend to skip past the paid sponsor ads to the first natural results because those get listed based on merit and relevance. On my pc the 2008 background contrast is very obvious yet on the 2010 results the sponsored and natural results all appear to blend in with the overall white background which may make it difficult to tell if there’s 1, 2, or 3 paid sponsor ads.

The “pink” became apparent as my lcd monitor was tilted back and reached approximately 40 degrees, and then very apparent at 45 degrees. Maybe it’s just me, but I keep my monitor angle closer to 15 degrees. If it looks white on your screen use the tilt test to see the actual pink, yet use care you don’t break anything! Notice the contrast of the yellow becomes even more obvious when tilting the monitor, as well.

Google revenue from sponsored ads doesn’t come from simply listing advertisers at the top of search pages. Ad revenue is generated when visitors actually click through to the advertiser’s website. Will the current background color of sponsored ads affect traffic to your website if listed in the top 10 of natural results? It may. If you know seo and your page titles and descriptions are more interesting than paid ads, it may not matter.

Regardless, the ongoing testing of color and layout of their results pages is a fine example of web design colors and Google ingenuity. They could be getting more clicks and revenue from their experiment, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if the background color of Google sponsored ad results changed again, soon, or often.

Footnote: For those skeptics who wonder about my advice for online success with your custom cms web design, note that the #2 result worldwide in 2010 above is the blog post published yesterday revealing the web design secret to online success: add original quality related content often. The concept obviously worked for me. One day after it was published that blog post is #2 worldwide on Google page one for a phrase very important to my core business!

Forget the old time carnival barker yelling “Step right up…” when your goal is drawing a crowd to your website. There are other methods to keep visitor interest once they land on your website by providing value that is instantly recognized. A method that I use and recommend is valuable expert tips and advice written as a report or ebook in pdf format that your visitors can download.

People go online shopping for information. They bounce from site to site comparing notes before they stop shopping and decide to buy. The home page is the most frequent landing page on typical sites, so have a free download graphic and link there to share your expertise. The report or ebook topic of interest will likely be related to what brought them to your website, so quite often the pdf will be downloaded.

Unless you need to build a mailing list, my advice is allowing people to download without registering or revealing an email address. I am blessed and busy, so all the reports and ebooks on my website are grab it and go.

What makes this philosophy of sharing interesting is people will trust you and your motivation more if they can commit without worrying about being on a junk mail list forever. Provide quality, and many will forward your pdf report or ebook to business owners, peers, family, or friends.

One copy sent to two people who each send it to two more is like the snowball rolling downhill. In no time you can develop brand recognition and momentum by giving away quality information that others try to sell or at least trade for an email address. Thousands of my pdf reports, ebooks, and tutorials have been downloaded directly from my site. Email feedback from happy visitors promising to tell a friend confirms the value of paying forward.

One of the most popular is the 50 page ebook for people interested in diy seo and cms web design. You may download yours now or read it online, and then please tell a friend.

Bonus Tip: Do not ZIP your pdf report, ebook, or tutorial for download. As a raw pdf visitors may view it online including search engines. Yes, Google can index and send you traffic based on the quality of your pdf download. Win-win.

For readers who viewed my review of StatCounter and installed this free tool for analyzing website visitor stats, here are some tips for the evaluation of your weekly results. The following chart shows one week taken from December 2007 for my commercial site:

The average daily new visitors, first time visitors, and ratio of unique visitors to page loads is well within my expectations for my business. Unlike in the past when most new business was from client referrals, new traffic driven to my site by Google and Yahoo for custom small business website design is a bonus considering my work is sole proprietor. I do not have a large staff to support, so business is comfortable.

Some businesses could not survive with these numbers. If your site is new, it requires time and adding fresh content often to push numbers upward, so be patient. The results for my site are not inflated with overloaded traffic from disinterested casual visitors, but has attracted real prospects and new business worldwide. Unlike my business model, people selling low ticket items require high volume of traffic and sales to succeed.

Keep in mind a million visitors per day is meaningless if they stay less than 5 seconds and never convert to paying customers. The real measure of success is getting traffic from your target market and then conversion. Even then, you must accept that often a large majority of visitors have casual interest and are simply surfing for information without an immediate need.

If you do not track statistics, be careful of service providers who brag about the volume of traffic to your site. The difference between hits, page loads, and visitors needs to be understood. One visitor to a page with 10 graphics on it records 10 “hits” (10 requests sent to your server for each graphic) for just that page. If that one visitor goes to 5 similar pages, your hits become 50 just for the graphics, so ask for visitor and page load data instead. 50 hits does not mean 50 visitors.

In summary, consider these points as you evaluate my visitor statistics for comparison to your small business website.

1 The peaks are during the week, especially mid-week, and then less traffic on weekends
2 The average of unique visitors and return visitors converts and sustains my business
3 The ratio of page loads to visitors shows 2:1 so people go beyond the landing page

Return visitor numbers are a sure sign of interest. Most likely they were favorably impressed and bookmarked your site. It will be time to reevaluate your small business website design and content if you are not getting return visitors or new business through your website. Beyond the design, direct marketing and advertising may be required to help drive traffic to your site.

Use your stats to check trends, adjust product focus by revising content, and then look at search terms that brought people back to your site to determine if you need to emphasize a product or service. If you need advice or assistance installing StatCounter on your small business website or blog feel free to contact me.