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Cabela's Learns Valuable SEO Lesson
By David A. Utter - Thu, 05/03/2007 - 6:27pm.
Fewer clicks led to more conversions when outdoor outfitter Cabela's made a change that SEO pros should recognize, and businesses should employ.
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| Cabela's Learns Valuable SEO Lesson |
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Internet Retailer discussed the Cabela's change. Their report noted how Cabela's switched from sending people to a landing page on a proxy site run by their old SEO firm, to bringing them to a page when they can make a purchase.
Derek Fortna, marketing program manager for Cabela’s, described the difference in the two systems employed by Cabela's before and after the switch:
With the earlier system, he says, “If I’m a user searching for boat trailer parts, I can’t buy from that page, I have to make another click to go into the web site to make a purchase. With the GravityStream proxy, if I find what I want I can place the order right there.” Fortna says he also likes the ability to add text to the version of the web site maintained by Netconcepts without changing anything on the native web site.It's a valuable lesson to anyone involved in e-commerce. Never let anything stand between your customer and their desire to give you money.
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Comments
Fishing for Stories?
Just kidding. Sort of....
In this day and age I can't imagine anyone in their right mind would think that putting a page between a customer and a purchase would be a good idea. Especially a page hosted on someone else's site.
I've also seen scenarios where SEO firms will require that the phone number on these landing pages direct to a line they control and then they bill the customer pay per call for the leads. This is even happening on some folk's primary site.
I don't know how desperate people are for SEO advice, but letting your SEO firm get between you and your customer is extremely stupid.
My 2 cents.
re: Fishing for Stories?
Nope, just hooked on a topic that looked like it needed a little more coverage.
Many merchants are finding
Many merchants are finding that using a proxy site actually makes good sense because they struggle to make the SEO changes required due to IT platform constraints, lack of resources / knowledge etc.
This is a problem because many merchants have thousands of pages on their website, 90% of which produced no organic keyword traffic, and 85% of the organic traffic they do get is for their own brand name.
If they could get more of their pages yielding long-tail organic traffic, the incremental upside on the organic traffic and sales is too great to ignore.
The lesson for brand merchants: Make sure your proxy site enables prospects to buy from your pages without requiring additional clicks. You'll capture the long tail of organic traffic and sell more.
Brian Klais
VP Search
Netconcepts
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