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Your most valuable visitors are ones who type in your web address
March 4, 2008

Visitors who arrive at a website by typing in the URL (web address) or by clicking on their bookmark are the most valuable visitors according to a new study by Engine Ready (PPC vs. SEO - The Final Battle study).  What I wanted to find out was: is there a demonstrable and consistent relationship between how a visitor arrives at your site and their likelihood to buy?  It turns out there is.

There are 4 types of site visitors to a website:

1. direct access [accomplished via branding] - visit your site by typing in your web address or clicking on a bookmark
2. referrals [accomplished via inbound linking] - visit via a link from another website or an email they received (coupon, newsletter, etc.)
3. paid search [accomplished via paid per click, etc.] - visit your site by clicking on a link you paid to have appear on search engines and content sites
4. organic search [accomplished via search engine optimization]- visit your site by clicking on a link that appears after they perform a search in Google, Yahoo, etc.

Engine Ready discovered, during their 2 year study, that visitors who arrived via direct access:

• stay longer (312 seconds per visit or 5.2 minutes)
• view more pages (6 pages on average)
• more likely to purchase (3.3% conversion rate - I am assuming this is because they already trust you as a brand)
• more likely to spend a higher amount of money (spending just over $170.32 per order)
• had the lowest bounce rate at 42.3%.  This means the visitor leaves a site without viewing any other pages, or before a very short specified timeframe (example: 10 seconds)
• value per visit (approximately) is $5.69 (making it 4x more valuable than one arriving from organic search)

In comparison:

Referred traffic are the 2nd most important type of visitors who:

• stayed, on average, 246 seconds or 4.1 minutes each visit
• viewed 4 pages
• has a 3% conversion rate for purchases
• spends approximately $168.45 per order
• has the highest bounce rate out of the 4 types of visitors. 
• bounced off a landing page 48.7% of the time (According to Brian Lewis, VP of marketing for Engine Ready, this could be because there was an incorrect offer in the referral email or there was a disconnect between the way the verbiage on the referral page and the actual content.  Lesson:  don't try to trick visitors into visiting your site in hopes they stick around for something else.)
• value per visit is $5.01

Paid search are the 3rd most important visitors:

• stayed, on average, 259 seconds or 4.3 minutes each visit
• viewed 3.8 pages. The study found that visitors from paid traffic sources viewed the fewest pages due to the use of optimized landing pages that prompt a quick action from the visitor within the fewest number of pages.
• has a 1.4% conversion rate for purchases
• spends approximately $138.04 per order (18% more than organic visitors)
• has a 44% bounce rate. They study found that paid traffic was slightly less likely to bounce than organic traffic reflecting efforts by eRetailers to create specific landing pages based on keyword and ad creative in their paid campaigns.
• value per visit is $1.91

Organic search ranks 4th:

• stayed, on average, 214 seconds or 3.6 minutes each visit
• viewed just under 5 pages (ranks second in this category)
• has a 1.2% conversion rate for purchases
• spends approximately $117.09 per order
• has a 44.8% bounce rate
• value per visit is $1.35

How does this study effect you?

1. Repeat customers are more important than trying to acquire new ones (something you already know, but it's worth repeating)
2. It's wise to invest in branding and building trust.
3. Ensure your landing pages are concise and have a good call-to-action.
4. Don't exaggerate to get people to visit your site (advertising FREE GOODS when they have to buy something over $100 first, etc.).  It makes them mad and they're bounce off your site quickly.
5. What I found to be an important note: As a benchmark, though, the results of our study would suggest that allocating a higher proportion of your marketing budget to PPC versus SEO would be advised.

Posted by Suze Bragg on March 4, 2008 | Comments (0)