Getting More From Your Web Site

1. Getting More From YourWeb Site Prepared for The Graff Auto Group 4 February 2009

2. A Bit of Overview • Three main ways people will find you on the Web. • By typing your Web address and going directly to your site. • Generally only those who already know you and are interested in your product or service. • Through Web site referrals. • Visitors are sent from other sites, such as WNEM, WJRT, or AutoTrader. • People who want the product or service you sell, but don’t necessarily care who they do business with. • “Sniper Targets” • Through a Web search on Google, Yahoo, etc. • Generally, the least likely to know you. • They’re searching for what you do, not so much who you are.

3. Web Referrals: A Closer Look • Web referrals are great at getting people to your Web site. • They send you visitors who are likely to have an interest in your product or service. • Once they get the visitor to your site, their job is done. • It’s up to your Web site to “convert” the visit into a lead, a sale, etc. • Visits with no conversions are useless. More on that later.

4. Web Referrals: The Bear Hunter Web referrals are like two men who went bear hunting. One man stayed in the cabin, while the other went looking for a bear. Soon, he found a huge bear, shot it, but only wounded it. The enraged bear charged after him. He dropped his rifle and ran for his life all the way back to the cabin. Just as he reached the open cabin door, he tripped and fell flat on his face. Too close behind to stop, the bear tripped over him and went rolling into the cabin. The man jumped up, slammed the door shut and yelled to his friend inside…

5. You skin that one, I’m going for another!

6. Understanding Web Referrals • Most referrers will give you reports of how many “hits” they sent you in a given time frame. • As we’ll see in a minute, the number of hits a referrer sends is a usually a pretty meaningless figure. • A hit on your Web site is like an “up” on the lot or in the showroom. • Who cares if 10,000 people visit your showroom this month if you have no sales or leads to show for it? • Just like we need to manage “ups,” we need to manage “hits.”

7. Understanding Web Referrals, cont. • In order to get a clearer picture of what referrals are doing for you, it’s important to have your own measuring tool. • Google Analytics • It’s a great place to start, as it can give you a lot of good information. • I have other recommendations for better tools which I would happily discuss in another meeting. • An analytics package will help you see things like: • Absolute unique visitors • Traffic source comparisons (WEYI vs. WNEM vs. HankGraff.com) • Visitor loyalty statistics

8. Understanding Web Referrals, cont. • If it seems like you’re not getting the results you want from Web referrals, the referring site is rarely to blame. • Remember our story of the bear hunters. • All the referring site has to do is get the bear in the cabin. It’s up to you to kill it, dress it, and mount it above the fireplace. • If you’re not getting the desired results, the first place I would look is at your own Web site. • In order to learn why this may be, we need to talk about the concept of “conversions.”

9. Conversions 101 • What do you want a visitor to do once they come to your Web site? • Let’s talk about that for a minute within the context of your business. Can you list four things that you would like a visitor to do? Think about the different departments in your dealership. • When a visitor does what you want them to do, that’s called a “conversion.” • When a visitor converts, the Web site delivered results. • How many of your visitors convert?

10. Conversions 101, cont. • Go back to our illustration of the 10,000 ups. • Traffic, by itself, is not the best measure of Web site performance. • Conversions are a far better measure. • Traffic can be skewed by a number of factors. • Conversions show a more accurate picture, so they can give you a starting point from which to calculate ROI.

11. Conversions 201 • If a visitor fails to convert, it’s important to find out why. • Studies show that visitors to a web site form an impression of the company within seven tenths of a second, indicating that the very look and feel of a site may be an influencing factor. • Your Web site talks to prospects all day long. Is it bragging you up or talking trash behind your back? • Analytics tools are not crystal balls, but they can offer some useful insight as to why conversion rates might be low. • If you can figure out the why, then you’re half way to figuring out how to correct the problem.

12. A Case Study in Progress • While working with Graff Durand, we discovered that about 1 in 4 people leave their Web site after viewing only one page. We call this “Bounce Rate.” • That’s like 1 in 4 people coming into the showroom and then leaving before you can even greet them. • Why do people leave a Web site? • Can you think of some reasons why someone might walk out of your showroom without so much as a handshake?

13. A Case Study in Progress, cont. • We also saw that half of Durand’s Web traffic is “direct” traffic. • The other half is divided pretty evenly between referring sites and search engines. • Of the referring sites, almost half of those came from HankGraff.com. • This suggests that about 60-70% of Durand’s Web traffic is people who already know the Graff name.

14. A Look at Search Engine Traffic • Ideally, people should be able to find you online based on what you do, not just who you are. • This is where search engines come in. • Two kinds of search results. • Paid results, like Google AdWords and similar services which are based on keyword bidding. • Unpaid, or “organic” results, which are based solely on content. • According to industry surveys, most Web users favor organic results over paid results. • Because organic results are generally content-driven and therefore more likely to be relevant to the user’s search.

15. Paid Search Ranking (PSR) • PSR programs like AdWords, are generally based on a bidding system. • Whoever has the deepest pockets wins. • It is not a shortcut to success, however. • Bid amounts are influenced by a number of factors: • Competition. Supply and demand, folks. The more people bidding for a keyword or phrase, the higher the bids are likely to go. • LPQ (Landing Page Quality). When a person clicks on the ad, does the page it links to contain relevant content? • Here’s a biggie… • Organic search results.

16. Organic Search Ranking (OSR) • The reason OSR plays a role in keyword bidding is that a lot of the same factors that determine OSR are used to determine LPQ, which influences bid amounts. • This often frustrates those who think PSR is a way to short-cut the system. • Achieving good OSR will not only help your PSR bid amounts, but will probably increase site traffic in general. • Because users tend to favor organic results, traffic to your site resulting from OSR is more likely to convert than PSR-generated traffic.

17. Before and, well, during… • When I started working with Durand, pretty much the only way to find them on Google was to type in “Graff Durand.” • After making a few adjustments to their Web site, here are some samples of their Google OSR as of 2-3-09. • Durand Chevy: #2, #4, #5, #6, #7, and #8. • Durand Pontiac: #1 and #5. • Swartz Creek Chevrolet: #1. • Swartz Creek Pontiac: #1. • Flint Chevrolet: #9.Ranks above Al Serra. • Fenton Chevy: #11.

18. Moving Forward • These results are only a beginning and represent only a taste of what’s possible. • I am working with Durand on a comprehensive, ongoing plan to improve their Web site. • The plan has three main goals: • Improve organic search rankings. • Improve visitor loyalty and bounce rate statistics. • Establish clear conversion goals and develop strategies to get visitors to convert. • Discontinue Google AdWords for the foreseeable future until the challenges we have identified have been corrected.

19. Conclusions • First, having an analytics tool installed and understanding what it’s telling you is critical to getting the most out of your Web site. • Again, Google Analytics is great, but there are better tools out there that we can talk about in a future meeting. • Second, I recommend an evaluation of your Web sites to determine if there are any weaknesses which can prevent you from getting the most out of your Web advertising.

20. Thank you for your time.