A change in search engine marketing priorities is yielding substantially higher traffic and sales conversions for Technobrands Inc., which operates FirstStreetOnline.com.
Previously, Technobrands, No. 357 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide to Retail Web Sites, used to bid primarily on product-oriented key words and phrases to drive traffic to very specific product pages.
But after web analytics revealed that more shoppers were searching by broader lifestyle terms and then landing and shopping on the company’s category pages, Technobrands began buying less key product phrases such as “Kool-Down Air Cooler” and “Fridge To Go” and began rebuilding its pay-per-click campaigns using broader lifestyle-oriented terms such as “staying cool” and “cool air products.”
The results so far are significant. On certain merchandising pages that used to only deliver a 1% sales conversion, the average now is closer to 2.5%, says Internet director of marketing Daniel Yonts. “We used to bid on very product-specific keywords that didn’t deliver the results we expected,” Yonts says. “Now we bid on broader category-related words and phrases and the return on investment has been very worthwhile.”
To coincide with its new search engine marketing strategy, Technobrands also is reorganizing its e-commerce site around its merchandise categories and adding several new ones that feature various reading, nostalgia and electronic gadget products.
“We have more new categories on the way,” Yonts says. “Rather than build our merchandising around specific products as we did before, we are now focusing on lifestyle-oriented categories.”
Today Technobrands has a keyword inventory that incorporates about 11,000 words and phrases, a big jump from the retailer’s earlier and more product-focused inventory of only about 400 words. “We now are building the paid search campaigns around customers using a search engine to find an answer or solution to a specific question,” Yonts says. “Our new search strategy is more needs-based to help the customer locate the merchandise they are looking for.”
With a new merchandising and search engine marketing strategy in place, Yonts says e-commerce sales are on track to grow by around 10% this year to about $12.7 million.
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