When the Internet first came into being, web sites were all about disclosing information. The only interaction between a web site and a user was the reading the user did while on the site. Today, reading is still important. Users search for web sites to learn more about products, services, or topics. However, there’s much more to web sites today than just text on a screen.

We now live in the Interactive Age. Most of us want to interact with the web sites we’re visiting. That interaction might take the form of a poll, the ability to comment on a blog post, the downloading of a file, or even a game that relates to the site content. No matter what the type of interaction, users expect it, and search crawlers look for it.

Site interactivity is essential to achieving a high SEO ranking. Sure, you can garner a high ranking without interaction, but it won’t happen nearly as fast, and the ranking will likely be lower than that of a site that has some form of interaction with the user.

Why is interaction so important? Simple. If you can influence a user to interact with your site, you have more of a chance of gaining a goal conversion. Goal conversions are the completion of some form of activity designed to gather further information about your user. A goal conversion can be something as simple as enticing users to sign up for a newsletter, or it can be more specific, like persuading them to make purchases.

No matter what goal conversion you’re seeking, the way to achieve it is to create interactivity on your site. And the more frequently the user interacts with your site, the more likely it is that this person will reach that goal conversion page that you’re monitoring so closely.

Goal conversion is the purpose of many web sites. For example, the target goal conversion for an e-commerce web site might be for the user to make a $25 purchase. If you can entice a user to purchase from your site — that is, meet the goal conversion — you have more of a chance of getting them back to your site for a future purchase, to find additional information, or simply to interact with your site some more.

All of these are important aspects of your web site’s traffic patterns. And search engines will look for elements of interactivity to judge the value of your site to users. One goal of search engines is to provide value to users. Those users turn to the search engine for help in finding something specific.

Just as it’s important for your site to land high in the search results, it’s important for the search engine to provide the information that a user seeks within the first page or two. Making the user happy is one way search companies make their money. Another way is through the dollars that advertisers will pay to have their pages ranked high in the search results or their advertisements shown according to the keywords for which the user was searching.

In other words, search engine optimization is two-way street. It’s also a business, and search engine companies are always trying to find ways to improve their business. For that reason, these elements, and many others, are an essential part of search engine optimization techniques.

So what features do you have on your website which encourages interactivity? Allow yourself to get interactive now by leaving a comment with your thoughts on the topic.

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In part one of Increase Conversion’s by Decreasing Shopping Cart Abandonment, we shown you the first 10 top tips to increasing your conversion rates. In part 2, we conclude with our final 10 tips, and a conclusion. Read on for more top tips…

11. Give the visitors the option to call.

If visitors have a problem during the checkout or just feel uncomfortable using their credit card online, give them a phone number to call. Use a separate telephone number that is different from the one you use for the rest of your site. this will help you track, evaluate & understand shoppers’ needs and behaviors. While you are at it, give them a fax-order form so they can complete their order by fax if they prefer.

12. Make it always about your new customer.

Make the focus of the checkout process easier for your new visitor with whom you do not yet have a relationship with, than for your registered customer. It is much harder to acquire a new customer than to keep selling to loyal customers. Registered customer’s will find a way to sign in (if they don’t already have a cookie), but don’t make the registration and log-in a barrier in the way of the new visitors finding their way to check out. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 21% [?]

This isn’t simply how many people don’t complete the buying process. A Checkout process can be a number of steps, and each step is its own little mini-conversion. You really want to know where in the shopping cart process folks get frustrated enough to say goodbye, because thats the point where the carts conversion process is failing. So check your metrics. If you’ve got a tidy little cybershop and still want to improve your shopping cart abandonment rates, then here are some ideas on how to fix your cart:

1. Check how many steps are in your checkout process.

This is usually a prime “knee-jerk” target for results. But we have found that whether you have one step, or seven, it is not all that critical. We had one client whose checkout process we were able to bring down from six steps to one, but there was no correlation in reduction of the abandonment rate to the number of steps. Once people found what they came for, they found a way and the time to checkout no matter how many steps were involved. Should you change the number of steps? No. It may not be worth the time, effort, and expense of trying to reduce the steps in the checkout process. Try some of these other ideas first.

2. Include a “progress indicator” (e.g, “step 2 of 5″) on each checkout page.

No matter how many steps you have in your checkout process, keep shoppers oriented by letting them know exactly where they are in the checkout process by step number. Be sure to clearly label the task to be completed at each step. Always give them an opportunity to review what they did in the previous steps and a way to return to their current step if they do go back. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 23% [?]