Leads went UP 63% For Solar Company

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seOverflow is a full-service SEO firm located in Denver, Colorado who uses ConversionIQ to add value to its clients and complement its own search marketing services.

Real Goods Solar is part of the Real Goods family of companies and a pioneering leader in providing solar & renewable energy solutions to Residential & Commercial Markets in California & Colorado. Their website is RealGoodsSolar.com.

The Business Need

Real Goods Solar was receiving a decent level of Organic Search Traffic from it’s target states of California and Colorado, but the site was not converting organic traffic into leads. With a new Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program beginning, their new SEO Agency, seOverflow of Denver, Colorado recognized the need for the site to be optimized, not only to get more traffic, but to also convert traffic better.

Converting SEO traffic was very important because it was Real Goods Solar’s main source of traffic, and is typically the best quality traffic. For Real Goods Solar’s target demographic (Generation X, Younger Boomers & Older Boomers), Search Engines are the #1 way those target demographics reach websites.

Challenges

Real Good Solar just weeks into its website conversion optimization program, decided to change the company it outsourced web development to, and changed internal contacts twice before deciding to change content management systems from Joomla to WordPress. Due to all this change, conversion rate optimization recommendations had to be limited to content and imagery changes. No site templates could be modified.

Solution

From our standardized set-up process, ConversionIQ Revenue Engineers immediately recognized many of the obstacles that users faced in their site experience, and quickly issued recommendations around the following:

1. Navigation Cues.
2. Trust Factors (Elements that lead visitors to trust the site such as BBB badges etc).
3. Call to Action Buttons.
4. Content Readability.

In response to the client’s need and request, ConversionIQ issued an extra amount of initial recommendations that could be implemented immediately to improve website lead conversion rate in three steps:

Step 1

ConversionIQ Revenue Engineers delivered detailed requirements for each recommendation.

Step 2

The ConversionIQ team met with Real Goods Solar stakeholders, web development resources, and seOverflow to explain each recommendation in detail, and to plan implementation.

Step 3

ConversionIQ Revenue Engineers supported the Real Goods Solar web development resources in implementing the recommendations.

Results

Conversion Rates

Due to its Website Conversion Rate Optimization Program, Real Goods Solar saw major success in converting more organic search engine traffic and return visitors*.

Organic Search Conversion Rate Increase: 167%

With organic search results being the major source of traffic for the website, this is where our Revenue Engineers placed this attention initially, not only for 1st time visitors but also return visitors using search to get back to the site.

Return Visitor Conversion Rate Increase: 74%

Due to the excellent design of the website, people interested in solar energy often looked at the site quickly to qualify the site with the intention to return later and make their decisions, typical behavior for such complex and significant purchases. Upon returning to the site as a “qualified visitor” showing higher intentions and in the later stages of their decision process, users rarely became leads. As a results of “late stage analysis” and recommendations made and implemented, return visitors now are 242% more likely to request a quote for solar than before.

• Conversion Rate BEFORE: 0.89%
• Conversion Rate AFTER: 1.56%

New Visitor Conversion Rate Increase: 72%

New Visitors to the site also started to convert at a higher rate. This happened separately from the increase in conversion rate for return users, as a result of navigational recommendations.

• Conversion Rate BEFORE: 1.65%
• Conversion Rate AFTER: 2.85%

Overall Conversion Rate Increase: 63%

The overall conversion rate when volatile and low quality traffic was removed increased 62%. Most of this increase can be attributed to increases in converting natural search traffic and return visitors however significant conversion rate increases were also seen for new visitors (

• Conversion Rate BEFORE: 1.41%
• Conversion Rate AFTER: 2.30%

Return Visitors

Not only did return visitors to the site start converting better, but people were 67% more likely to come back to the site after visiting.

Phone Leads Increase 97%

The client wanted more people calling. Real Goods Solar felt their phone call leads were better quality than web form leads, so ConversionIQ focused on transitioning &  increasing leads into this channel specifically.  During the first 6 months of tracking calls; Phone Leads increase 97%,  Form Leads decreased just 14%, with an overall conversion rate increase of 33%.  This means not only were leads transitioned to a more effective channel, but they also increased greatly at the same time.

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