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Buyers - What e-Commerce Website Owners Want

E-Commerce website owners are in business to make a profit. If this article were about why e-Commerce websites existed we could end right now and you would not need to read any more.

Huge volumes of traffic are important but pre-qualified visitors are more important because they are easier to turn into buyers. Think of this like a brick and mortar store would. When they open their doors in the morning are they looking for people to come to the store to walk around or are they looking for that person who is looking for a specific item and has the money to buy it when they find it?

True, the browser might stumble across something that they want and will make a purchase. This is called an impulse purchase and does matter to the retailer. All types of retailers love impulse buys and present their store in such a way as to inspire these types of purchases.

However, all types of retailers both brick and mortar and e-Commerce want a pre-qualified buyer more than any other type. The are not looking for mass crowds to wander the store as much as they are looking for that pre-qualified buyer who is responding to an ad about a specific item, who has a need that the store can fill or grabs 2 buggies on the way in because they plan to do all of their shopping at this store.

Optimized Landing Pages Bring Pre-Qualified Visitors to the Site

Landing pages are a term used to describe a page or series of pages that focus on a specific keyword phrase. This keyword phrase should be something that your visitor is interested in and something they want to buy.

Some great sources of keyword phrases for your landing pages are:

• Google Analytics. If you have installed Google's free analytics tool this is a great source of information about what visitors to your site are looking for. Keywords and keyword phrases are reported.
• Google Webmaster Tools. This tool has a section that reports how your site ranks on keywords and keyword phrases as well as how many visitors clicked on each of these phrases.
• Google AdWords. If you are an AdWords customer you really need to pay attention to the reports to see which keyword phrases are attracting visitors. These keyword phrases need to become landing pages so you can use AdWords to attract buyers not naturally coming to your site.
• Frequently asked questions. If your visitors are asking questions maybe the best place to answer them is through an landing page. Create the FAQ and be sure to link it to the landing page. This way you cover all your bases.
• Your niche market keyword phrases. You know your niche market. Use this knowledge to come up with the keyword phrases important to your own niche vertical market.
• Free shipping. Internet buyers love free shipping. More and more of them are searching for the product name and then putting free shipping at the end of the search. Is your site optimized to attract this pre-qualified visitor?

Creating an Optimized Landing Page

Your optimized landing page should have the following items:

• Page title with the keyword phrase as the first thing in the title. You should also have variations of the keyword phrase in the page title.
• The first section heading should have the keyword phrase at the beginning. Be sure to use h1 tags in your section heading.
• Use the keyword phrase throughout the page content. Make it readable to humans and do not repeat the keyword phrase right after each other. Not sure how to do this? Keep reading.
• Use bold text to emphasize the keyword phrase.
• Use hyperlinks with the keyword phrase in it to move visitors to other parts of your website.
• If possible, use the keyword phrase in the footer of the page. Many times I use the text, "Your Internet source for" and then the keyword phrase for that page. Come up with your own text that best fits your site.

Keep in mind that the purpose of this landing page is to attract pre-qualified visitors to your site. Once there, this page should be filled with useful information about the keyword phrase. If not, you are going to anger the visitor. They will leave and probably not come back.

Give them what they are looking for and you will have won the first part of the battle. Be sure that your landing page has plenty of hyperlinks to other parts of your site, specifically to the types of products these pre-qualified visitors are looking for. Make their shopping easier and you will win them over.

Optimizing Page Content

How much is enough? How many times should I use the keyword phrase?

I mentioned earlier some things you should do to create your landing page. One of these things was to use the keyword phrases in the content, but not to overdue it or repeat it.

When I created this article I optimized it for "keyword phrase". I did this to make a point about keyword page saturation. You were reading an article about creating and optimizing a landing page. You were also proving the point of using the keyword phrase in your page content to make it readable.

The following keyword phrases were used in this article.

Optimized landing page. Mentioned 5 times, once in the title. .05% Saturation Keyword phrase. Mentioned 25 times. Is first in the title. 2.6% Saturation

A saturation level of .05% is not nearly enough. The search engines will not see your page as important enough for the keyword phrase.

However, a saturation of 2% - 3% is probably going to raise a search engine eyebrow. Your page is going to be seen as more important and obtain a higher ranking, have increased impressions on the search engines and definitely more pre-qualified visitors to your site.

Nathan Lewis has over 25 years of experience applying technology to solve complex small business problems.

Mr. Lewis is the Sales and Marketing Manager for CJ Internet Sales, an Internet retailer with sites such as:

• CJ Gift Baskets
• CJ Picnic Baskets
• CJ Outdoor World