How a focus on buyers doubled Web site traffic, increased Google positioning, and sold more product

Victor Konshin, the author of the #1 book on gout, Beating Gout: A Sufferer's Guide to Living Pain Free, shares with us his before and after experience of a new Web site design.

Read on to learn how he made the number one page for an important search term and how his new Web site is selling more books.

So many Web sites that I take a look at are just big online brochures. The people who create a product centric site really miss out on an opportunity to educate and inform. When visitors are provided with something of value, they become eager to do business with the company that helped them.

Victor's original site was a classic product-centric site designed to promote his book. The design and the copy were created in a style I call direct mail hype. (Click the image to enlarge.)

"I had been disappointed with the lack of attention that my site was getting both from customers and the media," Victor says.

So he completely transformed his site into what he says is the most accurate information about gout available anywhere on the Internet. Rather than re-work his existing site as many people do, Victor scrapped the entire thing and started from scratch, this time creating a site focused on his buyers.

His new site at BeatingGout.com is totally focused on providing detailed search engine friendly information on gout.

Victor says traffic has more than doubled and is increasing rapidly while the bounce rate (one page views) has decreased by about 60%. And the Amazon ranking for his book Beating Gout: A Sufferer's Guide to Living Pain Free has increased, meaning he is selling more books.

"But more importantly, my site has been coming up in much higher position in search results," Victor says. "For example, my site used to come up on the third or fourth search page for the phrase 'gout myths' but it is now at the top of the first page! In the past I was afraid to 'give away' content, now I realize customers reward you for it."

What about you? If you have a product-centric site, can you transform it into a buyer-centric site?

Comments

[Tony]

Great example. This is the same message I'm trying to get out to my audience, become a valued resource for your community.

[Jessica M]

Great post David! Thank you

[Amelia Vargo]

This is a great example of how useful content is rewarded by not only Google but the general public too.

[Jeremy Kossen]

Excellent case study David. It's great seeing before and after cases in which sites have achieved success by transforming themselves from company-centric product brochure to customer-centric educational resource.

Establish your site as a destination people want to visit because they can find valuable, relevant information and you will be rewarded with increased SERP visibility, more traffic and more customers.

[atul chatterjee]

The critical part appears be to to 'give away' information, besides being SEO friendly. This should be a lesson to all of us trying to sell books.
It goes without saying that he must be selling a reasonably good book.

[Jason Karpf]

I recently posted on my blog: "Information is the one thing you can give out freely without undermining your pricing or cheapening your brand." We're awash with free samples, discount coupons and "Employee Pricing Plus Plus" (goodbye, goodbye, Chrysler). There is only one giveaway that matters--our know-how, generously delivered in a manner that shows we understand the customer's needs and are dedicated to solving them.

[Seh]

Is there anywhere I can get this information in more detail? I've read a lot of information regarding high search rankings when posting video. Im not a guru or anything, but I think it's true. I started posting video to http://www.Adwido.com because they targeted specific keywords for higher search engine rankings. Plus the account was Free and it works.

[Mergen, WebGuru Co Ltd]

David, thank you for sharing. Please come visit us in Mongolia sometime. Cheers!