Whenever I talk about good website design, I inevitably bring up sites like Craigslist and the Drudge Report. This is generally followed with gasps, a roll of the eyes, and complaints that the designs of those sites haven’t been updated in years. How can I use them as a good example of design?

Despite their “outdated” looks, both websites are one of the most popular online destinations in the world. The reason? Both websites make information easy to find. Enticed by well-written headlines, visitors are only a click away from reading a news story at the Drudge Report. With Craigslist, visitors are just a click or two away from finding and apartment to rent, a job, or selling something for free.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggested you mimic the look and feel of those sites. For the services those websites offer, the look and feel works for them. Your website design needs to speak to your target audience too. What I am suggesting is that you go over your website and see how easy it is for visitors find information about your products or services, enter your sales pipeline, and contact your company. Can they find what their looking for in one or two clicks or is it a hassle for them to find what they’re looking for?

The easier it is for people to find what they’re looking for, the higher your conversion rates will be.

When someone types in a product or service you offer in to a search engine, you want to appear the #1 position-or at the very least the first page. In a way, having high search engine placement is like a receiving a free but qualified endorsement. If Google or Yahoo! ranks your webpage high, people tend to assume it’s because it’s what they’re really looking for. That’s why companies spend thousands of dollars optimizing their websites, creating back links, and writing SEO friendly copy in hopes of capturing and retaining a high search engine ranking.

The problem is that sometimes companies become too focused on their SEO efforts and not their online conversion efforts.

The result? Decreased conversion rates.

When optimizing your site for search engines meta tags and backlinks that help improve your SEO rankings and website description. Because they’re invisible to your visitor (unless they search for them), they don’t affect website conversion rates. However, SEO wrong copy can dramatically decrease conversion rates if not done right.

Marketing and copywriters often make the mistake of writing content for search engines instead of people. When writing copy for your website it’s important to remember that search engines don’t read websites. People do. You can write all the great SEO copy in the world, but in the end if the copy isn’t selling your product or service, your high search engine ranking is worthless.

The solution is to write great copy that sells. Yes, it needs contains the key SEO phrases but it must also be very conversion centric. If visitors can’t understand your company, what it offers, and see a call to action in about 15 seconds, they’ll leave. And odds are they won’t be back.

When focusing on SEO and SEM strategies, don’t let your efforts get in the way of converting visitors in to sales and leads. Without customers, your business won’t last long-not matter how high it’s ranked in Google.

At Sapha, we work hard to increase your website’s conversion rates. So when it comes to evaluating ad campaigns, our main (but not sole) criteria is how well they get people talking about a product or service, deliver a clear call to actions, and turn eyeballs into customers.

And since the Super Bowl is the time most companies launch expensive advertising campaigns, there’s no better time to see how well their ads were focused on increasing the number of leads or customers in their sales pipeline.

This year’s winners.

Denny’s–The FREE Grand Slam is back-as long as the chickens produce the eggs. If Denny’s is packed on Tuesday their ad and promotion qualify as a smashing success. Let’s just hope all Denny’s franchises agree to uphold their end of the agreement this time. (Watch the ad here.)

Dockers–Can’t say it was fun to watch a group of guys walk around without pants, but they did encourage viewers to go win a free pair of Dockers on their website. Let’s see how many people give up their name and email address to become part of Dockers’ marketing machine for a chance to win free pants. (Watch the ad here.)

Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family–The controversial anti-abortion ad turned out to be nothing of the sort. In the end Tebow’s family and Focus on the Family got weeks of free press and millions in free advertising leading up to the game. And for those who want to know more, there was a clear call to action at the end. (Watch the ad here.)

Honorable Mention

Brett Farve/Hyundai–Using Farve was good as it fit in nicely with the Super Bowl audeince and made fun of something they’d understand. Also a nice way to tie in their 10-year warranty. The problem? No clear call to action where they could learn more. (Watch the ad here.)

Are Super Bowl ads worth the price? After two decades of advertising during the big game, Pepsi no longer things so.

Pepsi, which has spent an estimated $254.2 million in Super Bowl ads over the past 20 years, startled the industry a few weeks ago by announcing the cola for the next generation won’t participate in America’s national football marketing extravaganza. Instead, the soft drink company will pour millions of dollars into an online project meant to build connections over time by reaching consumers through blogging, Facebook and Twitter. It plans to distribute more than $20 million in community grants, voted on by Web users.

Pepsi’s doing the right thing. 

While Super Bowl ads can be a great way to launch a new product, service, or get your company’s name out there, they’re also very risky. Unless you have the commercial that everyone’s talking about after the game and can clearly explain your product combined with a great call to action in 30 seconds or less, there’s no guarantee you’ll see a positive ROI from your ad spend. Conversions, after all, are the name of the game.

Pepsi already has name and product recognition-something Super Bowl ads can help promote. What they need is more people drinking their products and telling their friends and neighbors how good those products are.

By funneling their money into online marketing efforts, not only will Pepsi be able to connect with its customers and better determine the ROI from their ad spend.

It remains to be seen how successful Pepsi finds its online marketing efforts. But given how online adverting is becoming more targeted and companies are finding ways to funnel people into their sales pipeline, Pepsi made the right decision.

There’s a great article in the January 18 issue of The New Yorker on how entrepreneurs like Ted Turner, John Paulson, and others made their fortunes. Instead of being the risk takers, successful entrepreneurs are risk adverse. Instead of throwing stuff to the wall to see what sticks, they see a problem, do their homework, solve the problem, and make a boatload of money in the process. (Note: A free, online version of the article is unavailable. You can read a summary of it here.)

Paulson, for example, made a fortune in the housing bubble collapse by buying credit-default swaps. But he didn’t just run out there and blindly buy credit-default swaps. Instead, he had someone do research that showed that a bubble was about to burst and made his investments accordingly. The result? His company made $15 billion in profits.

So what does this have to do with filling your sales pipeline with high quality leads?

To get the most from your marketing efforts, you need the right information about your visitors and an easy way on your website for them to enter your sales pipeline. The more you know about their behavior and the more ways you have of turning them into leads, you can better target your online marketing efforts.

Instead of wasting your marketing dollars throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, learn everything you can about your current marketing efforts and what kind of people their bringing to your website. A good conversion analytics program can give you this insight.

You may not earn $15 billion in profits, but you will see more results from your marketing efforts and a fatter bottom line.

As mentioned in my January Conversion Tip, 2009 was the year social media became the must do thing for businesses and marketers. Sites like Twitter and Facebook became mainstream. Businesses and marketers jumped on board hoping to ride the social media wave into profitable heights.

If done right, social media sites can be a boon for your business. They’re a great way to connect with your target audience and current customers, as well as good way to know what people think about your product or service and how many of them are repeating and spreading your message.

But marketing is more than broadcasting a message to your target audience; it’s about getting them to heed your call to action. You want them to enter your sales pipeline and become customers or for those who already have already purchased your product and service to become repeat customers.

What good are 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 Facebook fans or Twitter followers if they aren’t entering your sales pipeline or enticing others to do the same? Like all marketing efforts, social media success is measured by how well they turn prospects into clients or existing customers into repeat business. It’s a nice compliment when someone (re)tweets something of you wrote or posts it on their Facebook page. But it’s even better when that person buys your product or service and then uses social media to tell their friends, family, and businesses colleges how much better you’ve made their lives and they need to have the same thing too.

So what’s the best way to get increased conversions and customers from your social media efforts? I’ll discuss that in my next post. (Hint: It involves using existing online marketing best practices.)

We’ve long become accustomed to people loudly talking on the cell phones, firing off emails during a meeting, or twittering minute details of their lives, but sometimes it seems that behavior that was once considered rude is not only becoming acceptable but in many cases supersedes more personal communication.

In The Wall Street Journal Rachel Mardsen writes:

Too many people seem to be grasping for ways to connect with others while rarely actually connecting in a way that has true value or significance. What so many people end up with is something that looks like a connection from the outside as they text each other a million times a day, or sign notes with “much love.” Sadly, that’s the new standard of personal value in this technological era.

Last year there was a big push for business to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with prospects and existing customers. And, if done right, these sites can be great tools to connect with those interested in your product or service. But often when businesses use social media sites, they often mistake this form of communication for the personal touch that it often takes to get someone to enter the sales pipeline or become a customer.

To increase conversions this year, resolve to be more personal in your marketing efforts. Whether it’s picking up the phone, taking someone to lunch, or sending a personalized (not mass mailed) email, be sure your marketing and sales efforts includes efforts that let your prospects and customers know that their more than a Twitter follower or Facebook fans.

That added personal touch can go a long way to filling your sales pipeline and getting many more loyal customers. 

Install and Use Site-Wide, Conversion Centric Analytics

Most companies have analytics that provide lots of information about website visitors. However, making sense of all the data can be a nightmare. To boost your online conversion rate, it’s best to go with a conversion-centric analytics platform that 1) shows your website’s lead generation rate at a glance, 2) provides you with individual per-visitor, lead reports, and 3) generates macro behavior reports on visitor and website trends so you can recognize patters and make adjustments to your marketing efforts and website.

It’s also important that the analytics package lets you define what a conversion is.  Does the visitor buy your product? Enter your sales pipeline? Sign up for a free trial? Since the definition of a website conversion will differ from business to business, it’s important that your analytics tool is flexible enough that you can define the call to action as you see fit.

Build Trust by Touting Your Success

Anyone can throw together a website and claim their product and service the next big thing. In order to get quality leads into your sales pipeline, visitors have to trust your organization. The best way to build trust is through third-party validation. This can include positive media stories from websites and publications your audience cares about and customer-approved success stories.

If you don’t have anything right now, start by thinking of customers that have told you in the past they love your product or service.  Work with them to write a case study or put their logo on your website. Showing credibility and authority in a particular area is an important step to getting prospects to take that leap of faith and enter your sales pipeline.

Give Your Audience Something They’ll Value for FREE

A great way to entice prospects to enter your sales pipeline is by giving them something they’ll value for free. This involves knowing your audience well enough to understand what will lure them into your sales pipeline. A more tech-savvy audience might enjoy a well researched white paper while a more consumer audience may respond more favorably to a coupon. Some audiences might enjoy a podcast. Others an e-book. They key is to know what your audience values and give it to them in exchange for their contact information. The right giveaway can give you more qualified leads then you know what to do with.

Keep in mind that your giveaway should drive more qualified leads to your sales pipeline. Drawings for free prizes tend to generate a lot of leads but their overall quality tends to be poor. Offer free drawings only if you’re selling a broad-based consumer product. Even then, you’ll probably have to sift through a lot of coal to find the occasional diamond.