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Bounce rate has become one of the most talked about web metrics, and a lot has been written about what this metrics means and how it should be interpreted and used. I also wrote about Bounce Rate in my post called Bounce Rate Demystified.

Because the AdWords system rewards keywords with high click-through history (relative to competitors) with better ad positions and lower cost-per-click, click through rate is considered an important performance metric. Along with a keyword's relevance to ad text and landing page copy, click through rate influences a keyword's "Quality Score." Every PPC campaign is bound to have a few (or few thousand) keywords with low click through rates. You can identify them easily enough with web analytics and campaign reports, but what do you do with them?

Hanging out at SES Chicago last week, I spent some time with Stewart Quealy, VP of content development for SES, who told me that he enjoyed my last column about the power of a great unique value proposition. He suggested that as more new faces begin to adopt conversion rate optimization, some may not be as familiar with the fundamentals as many of us are. And of course, the end of the year is always a good time to talk the fundamentals. This week, I want to discuss another conversion rate optimization basic: the call to action (CTA).

Response rates are almost always higher for new subscribers to an email list. According to the "Email Marketing Benchmark Guide" by MarketingSherpa, subscribers click through at a 25 percent higher rate in their first month than in their second, and 67 percent higher in the first month than after the first year.

eKomi is a leading independent quality rating system for online businesses, similar to the rating systems of eBay and Amazon. With a authentic seal of approval you can boost trust of new customers and prove yourself to be a serious top-quality merchant. Give your customers the opportunity to independently give their feedback, help your visitors decide upon their purchase, collect highly valuable customer feedback information, and increase your revenues.

Trust in word-of-mouth recommendations is at an all-time high. Public relations firm Edleman says in its 2008 Trust Barometer study that "a person like me" is still the most trusted source for information about a company and its services or products.

Different traffic sources imply different reasons for why visitors might immediately leave your site. Design to keep deep-link followers engaged through additional pageviews.

Since its release in 2007, the last volume of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has garnered 3,286 reviews from Amazon.com customers. While response has been overwhelmingly positive for the book, several hundred Amazon customers rated the book as mediocre or worse. Because of a very subtle yet clever feature, Amazon makes the best of both the positive and negative reviews easy to find. And that feature, based on our calculations, is responsible for more than $2,700,000,000 of new revenue for Amazon every year. Not bad for what is essentially a simple question: "Was this review helpful to you?"

I've been a big fan of Crutchfield's marketing for a long time - I consider them to be one of the top retailers in that regard. Here's a perfect example of why: Crutchfield recently ran this email incorporating ratings and reviews (an effective and underused tactic for retail email), and includes content that speaks to various buying modes effectively.

Sender lines are important - perhaps even more important than subject lines - for better open rates in email marketing campaigns. The reputation of the sender (based on recognition of a brand/name and past experience with a sender's messages) determines whether the email recipient will even read and consider the subject line.

What are FUDDs? We're not talking about wabbit-hunters or the beer of choice in Shelbyville. FUDDs are fears, uncertainties, doubts and deal breakers that influence consumers' purchase decisions. How you address them can have a huge impact on your conversion rates. PayPal and ComScore recently conducted a study on shopping cart abandonment and discovered customers' top reasons were

The elements of persuasive architecture -- momentum, calls to action, credibility, trigger/keywords, AIDAS, WIIFM, and benefit-oriented copy -- depend on proper hyperlink use. Understanding what to hyperlink, when to do so, and why can turn mediocre conversion rates into superior ones.

Picking up where we left off in the Marketing Experiments Conversion Sequence C = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) -2a, the last couple posts covered "m" for Motivation discussing optimizing your ecommerce sites for "hunters" on home pages and search and navigation. Today I want to look at motivation from a different angle. I want you to choose a landing page that is top priority for you to optimize. For example, your most profitable product with the highest abandonment rate. I want to get you thinking about which customer motivations are most likely to match your business, your products, your typical customer and your landing page presentation.

Although there are many forms of Web Monetization (I've listed out nearly 15 forms), the newest iteration of web marketing: widgets, haven't yet fully cashed in. Widget, Gadgets, Applications, Canvas Pages, Embeds, it goes on and one. One thing is clear, the rate of widgets continues to increase, take for example Facebook's application platform has over 15,000, 20,000 applications in just about 9 months. Granted, many of those are slightly tweaked clones of each other, the top 100 widgets clearly has adoption. In some cases, there are sophisticated companies developing widgets, the RockYou's and Slides of the world can really zero in and focus, or take the garage developers such as the two Russian developers who created Scrabulouos, or lastly, the big corporations or interactive firms that are getting in on the action -often with limited success. Yet, how do we monetize widgets? There's only a few ways, some tied back to traditional methods, and some leaning on the new media.

E-mail marketing is one of the more effective and less expensive ways to retain and engage customers. In fact, early this year comScore found that e-mail had a 4.4% sales conversion rate in the US. In a survey by MarketingSherpa and ad:tech, 44% of marketers said that e-mails to house lists had "great ROI." CMOs told Epsilon researchers that e-mail was the marketing tactic that they would cut last-but that doesn't mean subscribers don't cut e-mail newsletters. According to an Epsilon and ROI Research study, 55% of e-mail subscribers in the US and Canada unsubscribe from opt-in e-mails occasionally-and 14% do so frequently.

'm often asked what I think the hottest trend in ecommerce is and I believe it's video content. So I'm excited to see more new technology emerge that can embed video right into retail email, and retailers experimenting with it. Anna Yeaman reports one retailer boasting a 20-27% click through rate without linking to video, and 51-65% with links to video. And Forrester Research reports video in email can increase click through by 2-3X.

Some of the most respected link building professionals have rated several link value related factors, which lead to the Link Value Factors.

Conversion Rate Marketing - Future Now persuades your prospects to take action

For many sites, visitors that find their way to your About Us page tend to have a somewhat higher conversion rate than those that don't. Potential customers that do visit this page are showing a bit more than a casual interest in what your site has to offer and are looking for additional signals of trust.