Higher Serp Positions = Lower Conversions !!!

Well, I don't know if this is a question or informational thread, but I believe it will benefit most.

I got some very competitive keywords in very high converting niche ranking for position 7 most of the time. It has been like that for ages and I always got like 60% clicks on the CTA button which results in 20% conversion from the whole traffic. So far, so good

Now, what is the next step? pushing it up of course. I did some SEO and it took some time to rank and finally pushed this page top 3 for all of its keywords. Which resulted in more traffic and more Clicks.. Actually the number of clicks was 4x ... However, the conversion declined significantly (3 - 5%) !!!!!

Here is what I think is the only explanation for this. When people google a keyword, they open the top 6 - 7 results in automatically, and then they start browsing through tabs looking for the informations they need.

They click here and there and of course the last affiliate click gets the lead. This is why being lower in the Serps, resulted in higher conversion.

I guess I will be the first case in the history of the internet who deliberately tries to lower his rank

Unless someone, have any hack to over come this latest affiliate cookie gets the deal problem

If anyone faced similar scenario, please, share your thoughts

Never thought about it but your theory makes sense. Maybe something you can do on your page to grab the visitors attention more / make them feel like they don’t need to flick through the remaining tabs.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED IS RIGHT HERE.

Without actually saying that of course.

davids355 said:

Never thought about it but your theory makes sense. Maybe something you can do on your page to grab the visitors attention more / make them feel like they don’t need to flick through the remaining tabs.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED IS RIGHT HERE.

Without actually saying that of course.

Click to expand...

I am in the hunt for a solution and this a great input.. However, the type of the niche is all about hunting... So, it makes you eager to see more. Actually, I came to this conclusion because this is exactly what I would do searching for this type of keywords..

I will really think more about your solution, persuading the visitor to stop looking any further, emmmm

There must be something that prevent cookie override some how, this is what I am looking for right now.

KHer0 said:

I am in the hunt for a solution and this a great input.. However, the type of the niche is all about hunting... So, it makes you eager to see more. Actually, I came to this conclusion because this is exactly what I would do searching for this type of keywords..

I will really think more about your solution, persuading the visitor to stop looking any further, emmmm

There must be something that prevent cookie override some how, this is what I am looking for right now.

Click to expand...

I see what you mean. Maybe like some sort of popup with time delay clickthrough to your affiliate link.

davids355 said:

I see what you mean. Maybe like some sort of popup with time delay clickthrough to your affiliate link.

Click to expand...

Exactly, now you know what I am aiming that although the affiliate company I am working with is smart B**** ... Think something like amazon...

But this is exactly what I was thinking. Something that delays my cookie for a certain time to make sure it stays

BTW, how covert cookies working nowadays, I believe all websites can discover them now.

Haha interesting found, I think this is a very reasonable guess, at least in some niches, this may happen a lot, especially when people Google an unfamiliar word, he kinda like read a lot to learn it and boom lol, so the conclusion, at least rank on the first page lol.

Does the affiliate cookie gets put once the visitor opens your website? If so, try slowing down the page load speed or delay cookie somehow.

Also, maybe conversion rate is lower, but you get more users, so you get more sales? Always look at the bottom line, which is sales.

Try ranking some other sites to page 1, so that your competitor sites go down.

If you figure out the goal is to attract visitors attention, try making blinking site title, much like Facebook has "(1) Facebook", make something that changes in title every second, so it grabs visitor's attention.

Based on my personal experience, for some keywords that I have targeted in the past - it appears that some keywords work best on the number 2 spot - it has higher conversion ratio as compared to the 1st. No doubt there would be a lot of traffic from the first spot, but like you mention, some may just open up multiple websites altogether, and start going down the list.
I also find the number 10 spot to work well in certain circumstances. It must be at the number 10 (last) ranking, not 9 or 11, and for a certain keywords, it worked miracles.
But another thing to keep in mind that when my conversion ratio goes down, it must be something wrong with the offer. I would rework the deal to make it more enticing / not to be missed, or offer the visitors some ridiculous promotional deals that can't be refused - those normally close the sale and bump the conversion up, and would place the ranking a little lesser more important.

terrycody said:

Haha interesting found, I think this is a very reasonable guess, at least in some niches, this may happen a lot, especially when people Google an unfamiliar word, he kinda like read a lot to learn it and boom lol, so the conclusion, at least rank on the first page lol.

Click to expand...

Or searching for something where a lot of people offer it and they need to compare and see more than one source before making the final decision. Which is the case here.

seoguy0 said:

Does the affiliate cookie gets put once the visitor opens your website? If so, try slowing down the page load speed or delay cookie somehow.

Also, maybe conversion rate is lower, but you get more users, so you get more sales? Always look at the bottom line, which is sales.

Try ranking some other sites to page 1, so that your competitor sites go down.

If you figure out the goal is to attract visitors attention, try making blinking site title, much like Facebook has "(1) Facebook", make something that changes in title every second, so it grabs visitor's attention.

Click to expand...

From my experience and I am jumping across all position, number 7 (Latest result above the fold) seems to get the best results. Maybe I am comparing this month with the previous one, so its natural. But the CTA Button is very targeted ( Something like BUY NOW) ... So, if the person clicks it, he wants to buy.. And btw most of the visitors click. Like the CTR is really high. Conversion means the number of sales.

So, in higher position I got 4x CTR but lower conversions because he goes to next result (tab) and clicks and my cookie gets over write...

swords12 said:

Based on my personal experience, for some keywords that I have targeted in the past - it appears that some keywords work best on the number 2 spot - it has higher conversion ratio as compared to the 1st. No doubt there would be a lot of traffic from the first spot, but like you mention, some may just open up multiple websites altogether, and start going down the list.
I also find the number 10 spot to work well in certain circumstances. It must be at the number 10 (last) ranking, not 9 or 11, and for a certain keywords, it worked miracles.
But another thing to keep in mind that when my conversion ratio goes down, it must be something wrong with the offer. I would rework the deal to make it more enticing / not to be missed, or offer the visitors some ridiculous promotional deals that can't be refused - those normally close the sale and bump the conversion up, and would place the ranking a little lesser more important.

Click to expand...

I take mathematical approaches when testing. Everything is exactly the same and change only one element (variable).. Like I mentioned above, my CTR is very very very high, and I optimize my page all the time... of course, I am looking for better solution on page, but also looking for any solution to lock my cookie, something on the technical side..