Have You Bought Your Own Cookies?

MoreVisibility - July 28, 2008

It’s a simple question but one that could increase your company’s profit when applied to your business.  I came up with this title as I sat in a company meeting the other day. Our EVP was telling a story about the cohesiveness that needs to occur between a website and a search engine marketing campaign. A past client in the cookie business wasn’t getting the kind of ROI on their cookie products that they were seeking. Their search engine marketing campaign was great but their cookie sales weren’t increasing. After some extensive research, my EVP pulled out her credit card and attempted to buy some cookies online. After attempting to buy cookies online for fifteen minutes and still not completing an order, she called the client and asked, “Have You Bought Your Own Cookies?”  The client was a little taken back, but went to their site and attempted to buy cookies. The client called back and said I understand.  The next step for them was optimizing their site’s usability.

 This is the same question that any company should ask themselves from time to time. Switch perspectives and become the consumer, the person checking out the internet. Would you sign up for a newsletter or buy products from yourself if you had never heard of your company? Some company’s aren’t realistic when it comes to this question. Their pages don’t load quickly, their site looks prehistoric, the content is too generic and not targeted to the audience, they have poor site navigation and the list can go on. If any of these issues sound familiar then you should look into optimizing the user friendliness of your site. Not only will it help your organic positions it will help your search engine marketing campaign. Optimization is a good for business.  Think about it, you can have the best ad copy in the world, have the best positions, and good keywords, but if people are appalled or confused by your site when they get there, they aren’t going to stay.  They are going hit the back button and find a competitors ad and get what they’re looking for in no time at all.

Optimization is a must for both good organic traffic and for a good search engine marketing campaign to perform at its’ best. The next time you’re looking to increase online productivity, go ahead and ask yourself the question. “Have I Bought My Own Cookies?” You may be surprised to find that your need to optimize your site’s usability.