Maximize ROI: Conversion Funnel Design & A/B Testing



    NetSuite SEO Phase 1.2


    When creating a strategy for NetSuite SEO you really need to anticipate everything. For instance, this website about Fireplaces was recently created by a different company. I assume they did not anticipate losing their search engine rankings and SEM web traffic. Some keywords they should be targeting: Fireplace Screen, Chimney Cleaning and Fireplace Glass Doors

    Previously the website was based on .asp so all of the urls across the website were indexed with the .asp extension. Now, as soon as they release the new Netsuite Web site all of the 2,190 pages that are indexed in google are broken. Wow that was helpful, natural search is now zero. Here is your new website and some loss in revenue to go with it.

    In this NetSuite SEO series I will show you how to prevent these problems and if needed, fix them as much as possible. Dont make these mistakes, contact me before you begin your NetSuite SEO website.

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    NetSuite SEO Phase 1


    This starts a formal series of Netsuite SEO articles to case study a new web store with NetSuite, optimizing it for search engines (SEO) and improving revenue with high conversion rates for PPC, Landing Pages and Lead Generation. Plus some secrets for my competitors! :-)

    Phase #1 - Never lose natural search rankings and traffic (SEO) when building a new site

    One of the most common NetSuite SEO mistakes is to not be proactive with your search engine strategy. You see it is pretty much guaranteed that when you develop an ecommerce website with NetSuite you are going to need to change every URL on your website. Changing all your URLs is basically starting your SEO efforts over from scratch. 2 reasons why this happens... #1 - The catalog, products and dynamic pages are all create with some funky URLS and #2 Netsuite does not allow you to put ANY file in root of the domain. You need to have all of your "hardcoded" pages in a directory called "/site/". #1 is not easy to fix but #2 has a solution...

    For example, this URL will not work with NetSuite:
    http://www.justpaperroses.com/testimonials.html
    All url's will need to look like this:
    http://www.justpaperroses.com/site/giftresources.html

    Now here is the solution:
    Plan & create new Netsuite ready pages on your "old" site at least 90 days before switch to the NetSuite web store. Add these pages to your site map of the "old" site and also add them to your Google Site Map too. This way your new pages that are in the "/site/" directory will start to get indexed way before you launch the new site. This is especially important because NetSuite has a really hard time with Google Site Maps in general.

    Plus, these new pages will be targeted can really be optimized for specific keywords. Like this URL, the entire page was created to target the Keyword First Anniversary Gift Idea . The URL has the keyword in it, the meta tags are optimized and the h1, h2 tags plus body tags are keyword rich. Standard SEO stuff.

    This is tricky stuff but once in practice you will make it part of your normal NetSuite SEO plan. And if you need help just contact me to transform your business.

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    SEO and SEM Stinks


    Future Now, Inc. had a great article today on developing the scent trail for your website. The article examples...

    Preserving and creating intentional scent trails on your site translates to improved ROI for your paid and organic search terms. How well does your site preserve the scent trails your visitors are following?

    What I found interesting is how the sent trail relates to your SEO and SEM efforts. There is no amazing secret to build traffic and get customers to your website. The difficult part is to create a persuasive sales funnel to maximize your conversion rates. My favorite line of the articles...

    The best SEO and SEM efforts mean nothing if you are attracting the traffic only to see them drop off for lack of a relevant scent trail.

    Know where your prospects are sniffing, and you'll be sniffing some profit yourself.

    Enjoy the full article here.

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    NetSuite Customization To Transform Your Business


    Recently I have re-evaluated the difference between my services and other companies who offer NetSuite Customization. When a potential clients asks me what the difference is from my services versus another NetSuite web design company. The answer is simple... I help you transform your business. Not only do I create great looking NetSuite Web Designs, but I also completely restructure your online marketing presence to Maximize ROI.

    The majority of NetSuite Customization companies are completing their websites in the latest technologies like CSS / xHTML and advanced Javascript. But there is one problem... all of the NetSuite websites are start to look the same. First of all, they are outsourcing a lot of the development (possibly design also) to other countries to cut the costs and make them more profit. Now each of the design that are create are very much the same. All they do is change the default template colors of NetSuite add one image to the homepage voila, they say you have a customized NetSuite web design.

    I know this process well, because some of my biggest clients previous used one of the NetSuite Customization companies and their websites had no traffic, did not convert users and did not make any money. I always say "I wish I met you before your decision", but by trying to cut your inital invest you caused yourself more work. The websites needs a complete revamping of the brand, a organic SEO strategy and a target marketing campign to increase the leads and double business over time.

    I choose to design NetSuite Web Sites because of the growing demand. Now I realize that there are so many thign to take into account to build the online business. NetSuite is just the tool, but really the entire concept is about building the business. Each factor must be taking into consideration: SEO, Marketing, Conversion rate Optimizationm, Lead Building, Brand Identity, Newsletter Deliver, PPC, Cross promotion and much more. This year, I see a big leap with NetSuite using Ajax too.

    This year I will display NetSuite Customization that will differentiate me from all the other competition. In short my website will transform your business in one-twentieth of a second.

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    In Pittsburgh Airport


    Was in Pittsburg for the evening so if I havent answered your email. I will shortly. Later, A

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    Landing Page A/B Testing


    One of the advantages that I have as a web designer / marketer is that I have been doing Landing Page A/B Testing for the last 6 years. Now I am benefiting from learning from (literally) thousands of landing pages tests. Some winners and some losers. I learned a lot. Any what you really think is going to win... may very well not win. Sometimes the "ugly" designs actually convert better.

    Now there are many companies doing landing page designs and homepage A/B tests. Today I opened my email to find an article on how How E-LOAN Improves Search Marketing ROI by Testing Landing Pages. It was a great read and very timely. The article focuses on how paid search marketing ads have become almost insanely competitive in the home mortgage industry.

    This is an exact conversion that I had with client several days ago. They are contemplating would have the better ROI: Buying Phone leads or PPC. I recommended the later. PPC is completely trackable to maximize your ROI. Its simple, instead of paying $15 per phone lead that is shared among many mortgage brokers, create your own real estate landing page to gather your own leads. This way potential clients are coming to you with their info and possible get 5-10 leads for that same $15.

    Then start to perform some Landing Page A/B Testing. The Marketing Shepra article explains it here:


    Eloan A/B tested landing pages on keywords that saw a high number of searches but that had conversion problems. By testing and optimizing elements such as button color, image (happy couples vs. a picture of a house), layout, and headline, Eloan saw conversions jump as high as 165%.

    People coming from a search engine are very impatient, and they know they have other options. "They can click the back button and go to the next search result." Don't make them make too many decisions right on the landing page.


    Some take always from the articles:


    • Grab their attention in first 30 seconds

    • Headline should reflect ad copy

    • Start application forms with easy questions

    • Sometimes the idea that looks like it won't work is the one that actually works

    • Offline media doesn't work very well. Don't try to use your slogan or other offline approaches.



    Read the Landing Page A/B Testing article.

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    Microsoft Improves Demand For NetSuite Websites


    On Thursdays, I receive my laundry list of Google alerts. Today I saw one come over that titled "Microsoft Plans to Focus on Small Business Software" and it was categorized in a NetSuite alert. I use the NetSuite ecommerce software to create complete website for small business. So when I see Netsuite in the same article as Microsoft it raises an eyebrow.

    This CRM Buyer article talks about how Microsoft is attempting (again) to move into the small business space. Then the CEO of NetSuite is quoted as saying...


    As growth has dried up in the enterprise segment, almost all software companies have launched a small-business initiative, according to Zach Nelson, chief executive officer of NetSuite in San Mateo, Calif. "However, taking products designed for large companies and then retrofitting them to work for smaller businesses is a recipe for failure," Nelson said.

    "It would be like a bus manufacturer changing the color of the bus from yellow to black, and then calling it a car. Those companies that will be successful are designing solutions specifically for the needs of smaller companies, and then delivering the software as a service."

    NetSuite     provides companies with a single, integrated, Web-based system. It includes customer relationship management Latest News about customer relationship management (CRM), order management and fulfillment, inventory management, finance management, Web-site management and employment productivity management.

    Nelson said Microsoft's effort to attract small to mid-sized firms, however, would bring credibility to the idea of an integrated suite. "We are excited by what Microsoft is promoting, because it will create an enormous amount of demand for a product like NetSuite," he said.


    This is interesting for me. If Microsoft does move into the small business space then it would definitely bring more attention for NetSuite. Thus leading to more businesses needing NetSuite Websites. And here I am perfectly positioned to Fill The Demand For NetSuite Website Customization.

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    Time management for web projects


    One of my new years resolution is to work smarter and not harder. Easy to say and hard to do.

    I have always been a hard worker and orangized my priorities correctly. now I have created a time management system for all my web projects. The basis is only working on certain projects on specified days. This allows me to concentrate better on delivering a better result.

    Previously I was working very scatter and working on to many things at one time. This ia beyond multitasking. This is project overload. So far it been seeming to work and my turnaround time has actually improved along with better quality work. So it seems like I am improving my time managment. After all it is midnight and I am walking my dog and blogging!!!

    Email sent via Blackberry:
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    Alex Harris
    AlexDesigns.com
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    NetSuite Web Sites HTML


    This past week I made some changes to the NetSuite Web Site HTML for a client that sells Natural Protein Powder. The HTML had several bugs that were causing the right column of the homepage to expand (too wide) when the browser was larger than 1024x768.

    This started happening when I changed the homepage from a "web hosted file" to a "tab". That is NetSuite lingo for one is a hardcoded page and one is a dynamically create NetSuite page. The change was specifically to improve the Natural SEO traffic. More to come on NetSuite SEO as I have made a lot of progress here.

    In web development, you become custom to making changes to one thing and it causes problems somewhere else on the website (without even knowing it). In this case I made the NetSuite Web design in 1024 resolution and because I later change it to a tab caused bugs. Now this one wasn't that big of a deal because the target audience doesn't use a higher resolution monitor that goes above 1024 but turns out the CEO of the company does and the homepage looked messed up and he email me about the problem.

    So it sounded like a quick fix. I will adjust the table size, fix the CSS or just hack it together. Wrong! I had an easy fix for it by just setting the div size to a set width. That worked but then that caused bigger more problems. The shopping cart was stretched out at 995 pixels wide making the "CHECKOUT" button out of the view of 800x600 users. That was a big problem as it was certain there could be revenue loss if I left it that way.

    In the end I needed to hack together a fix to set the width of the shopping to 778 pixels so it was perfectly viewable in 800x600. It was a super pain as I spent too much time chasing down NetSuite HTML Bugs the past few weeks. That is something I am used to when clients ask me for NetSuite Web Design Help.

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Conversion Funnel?

When internet users (surfers) click on web banner ads and PPC they arrive at a conversion funnel. It is also called a sales funnel, marketing pipeline, or Checkout Process.

This could be made up of landing pages, shopping carts or lead generation pages.

The conversion rate optimization process helps you understand your web site visitors and personalize their shopping experience.

Conversion funnels are essential to maximize your ROI on online advertising (PPC), affiliate programs or SEO.

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Alex Harris - Landing Page Designer, NetSuite Web Designer, and NetSuite SEO Expert.
Conversion Funnel A/B Testing and Design includes optimizing conversion rates, ppc landing page designs and improving banner click rates to maximize the ROI of online subscription services and eCommerce. The knowledge you receive from conversion funnels and A/B testing will help you learn more about your visitors and increase the value of your products. Conversion Funnel testing involves direct marketing, creative services and web development.