The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
November 2007, Volume 6, Issue 11

How Custom Pathways Can Boost Your Conversion Rate

by Matt Commins, Operations Analyst, iProspect

Most of us have done it, and have lived to regret it. We head to the mall to go to a particular store — thinking that we'll be in and out in no time — but end up spending an hour just trying to find it once we're there.

Imagine if there was a simple, direct path at the mall created just for you. In one quick step, you could go from the mall entrance directly to the store of your choice. Now how about if you could create a custom pathway for any mall customer that wanted to visit this store, regardless of where they were coming from and at what time, so they could quickly and easily find what they're looking for. Would you be interested? If so, you're not alone. Creating such custom pathways would be a mall marketer's dream come true.

Circular Website Navigation

Similar to their brick and mortar counterparts, Web marketers would love to provide every visitor with the simplest, most direct path to reach the information visitors are looking for. However, Web marketers need to do it in a way that would allow them to increase conversion rates by appealing to a variety of visitors. Fortunately there's a way to do just that.

What is it? How does it work? What can it do for me?

In short, circular website navigation is the creation of multiple paths of conversion within a website's navigation and internal linking structure.It is designed to precisely match a user's intent, provide tailored information, and move them through the conversion funnel as effectively as possible, with the end goal of increasing the conversion rate. The approach is persona specific, and is based on a number of factors, such as where a user came from before arriving at a website, what they first saw, and where they are in the buying process. Ultimately, the version a user sees depends on where they came from and what they are seeking. Overall, the method provides an effective means to create numerous conversion pathways for your site. However, marketers need to be mindful that this approach is not without its risks.

SEO Implications

If done improperly, circular website navigation can have a negative impact on your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. Unlike a standard website navigational architecture which contains unique Web pages within each directory, circular website navigation involves creating duplicate Web pages within various directories, resulting in the same content on different URLs. Having multiple pages with exactly the same content and meta data creates duplicate content which can limit your chances of achieving significant organic rankings. Why? Search engines view duplicate content as "spam," as a deceitful attempt to manipulate search results. Therefore, your pages could be penalized. If a search engine detects that you have duplicate content, they could respond in a variety of ways. Most often though, the engine will choose the page(s) it thinks is the most appropriate or is the "best" version of the content — thereby excluding the other pages from its index.

Below are some tips to help Web marketers maintain multiple conversion pathways while avoiding a potential loss in rankings from circular website navigation.

Tips for Doing Circular Website Navigation Right

Block Appropriately
Search engines will crawl and index any page they find unless you explicitly tell them not to. Rather than letting the search engines decide which version of a page is the best, choose the most appropriate page by blocking additional content from being crawled and indexed. The easiest way to indicate which page(s) of your website you do not want spiders to crawl is to include those URLs in the robots.txt file or a meta robots tag in the header of a page.

URL Rewriting
Update your URL naming structure so there is only one URL for each page of content. Make sure you 301 redirect the previous or "old" URLs to the corresponding URLs to redirect users and the search engines to the appropriate page. More importantly, the 301 redirects will remove the old URLs from the search engines indices, eliminating the instances of duplicate content.

Differentiate Content
Create unique content and meta data for every page to differentiate it from other pages. Doing so provides additional opportunities to rank on a wider range of keyword phrases. A rule of thumb that can be used to determine the uniqueness of content is the eyeball test. If you eyeball multiple pages and recognize content similarities, the spiders probably will too.

Web marketers today need to appeal to different users and to convert them by providing multiple navigation pathways throughout their website. Circular website navigation offers a means to do just that. The above guidelines should help you do it right. In the end, it should help improve your organic rankings.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: November 2007, Volume 6, Issue 11

How Custom Pathways Can Boost Your Conversion Rate

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
November 2007, Volume 6, Issue 11