Will a Web Site Spokesperson Affect SEO?

[MedSoft]

Hello All,

We have been contemplating the idea of adding one of those Web Site Spokerspersons to a few pages on some of our sites. If you are not familiar with it, just search for "website spokesperson" and you'll see a few listed.

Can anyone tell me how this will affect SEO? Will our rankings suffer as a result of this added tool? It looks like it is embedded using some type of script and most start automatically once the page is loaded.

I look forward to your feedback.

Thank you all in advance!

[dzine]

WHY oh WHY are you concerned about this? Unless of course if this is a covert ad. You have 24h to convince me that it is not.

[MedSoft]

WHY oh WHY are you concerned about this? Unless of course if this is a covert ad. You have 24h to convince me that it is not.

Hi Dzine,

I am not sure I understand your question? However, I do understand that my question could be suspect since I am a new member to this forum. I purposely didn't put any companies we were considering because of that. That is why I said just "search" for it.

The reason I am concerned about this is because we have a few pages that rank fairly well. However, we have found that the bounce rate is high and/or people are not finding what they are looking for on these pages. Our products can be a bit complicated because of the many combinations that are availalble. We would like to have something like this to explain to the visitor about the various software combos we have since many of them don't stay long.

This idea came from a brainstorming meeting that we had recently and everyone seems onboard with it. That being said, I do not want to sacrafice our rankings because of this.

That leads me back to my original question... Will a service like this affect our rankings or SEO progress in any way?

Thanks again in advance!

[jsteele823]

Without knowing the specifics, it sounds to me like a quick fix for a larger problem, in that your site sounds overly complicated for your target users.

Would an annoying talking lady work? Maybe.

Would it be another reason for bounces? It will for some visitors.

Is there a better solution for the issue at hand? Most likely.

Will developing & implementing a better solution require a great deal of effort? Yes, yes it will.

Another thing to take into consideration before spending the time on this - are you absolutely sure that the reason people are bouncing is due to a misunderstanding of the navigation, and not simply that these users are not your target market?

[terriwells]

MedSoft, I've seen the kind of thing you're talking about. Without looking at your site, I can't tell you if it will fit, but I do think jsteele has raised some valid points -- the kind of things you might want to consider before making such a major change to your website.

Sadly, I have no idea how this will affect your SEO. But I would suggest you remember to look at your website through the eyes of your target market, and consider running some A/B split testing before you make any permanent changes.

[NathanielB]

I don't know about others but I hate those annoying videos of people talking when I hit a page and will either close it straight away or simply hit my back button because I wasn't looking for a video, I was looking for a product or service not some woman telling me what I should already know if I have hit your page to buy something!

Then again, as noted above, without seeing the site/page/full reason for maybe wanting this, I could be wrong so don't take my response above as being correct without me known the full story etc!

For your bounce rate problem and lack of conversion, do you think maybe this could be for other reasons? Again without seeing the site and access to your analytics I can't say and nor could anyone else for sure!

This is again some more guess work, but in general if we have a page that's not converting (a product page for example), we would make the product description and details as informative as possible so people can find and see what they want as soon as they hit the page we want them on - which should be the page ranking on google, ie if someone searches for blue widget, they would land on the blue widget page, not a category page for widgets in general.

Next we would check pricing to make sure we are the cheapest or at least competitive with others in the market! IE if your competitors are selling the same product for half the price and your visitors can't see an extremely positive reason to pay the extra from you, why would they?!

The list of tests and things to change could go on without knowing more about what your selling, the pages your having problems with and not seeing the analytics data! I would recommend you hire a professional to help you work out what's wrong, do some AB testing and work on a proper solution rather then slap a (what I consider) annoying video of some random woman telling me what I should be able to clearly see as soon as I land on your page!

@Dzine, I think you might have been a little trigger happy on this one mate, seems like a genuine question to me from someone that's not quite sure how to work on conversion and possible not having their pages see as well as they could

[DarrenHaye]

Man I hate them.. so annoying.

Anything with auto-playing sound I do not like at all, at alll.

[dzine]

I just wonder how a "usability" thing - and an icky one at that - can have any direct influence on SEO. And then I wonder why anyone would be concerned. The next step would be, of course, to share with us all which particular talking head software we are talking about

I'm sorry - medsoft - if I sounded sceptical, but that's just how I perceive things when it comes to modding forums...

[MedSoft]

Thank you all for the feedback. No worries Dzine.

I should clarify that we really just want to try a service like this and see if it helps. It is not going to be the "end all be all" to our changes.

We serve a niche market and have for years. Bounce rates aside, we have several product options that are tiered... For instance... Package A and Package B can be purchased together or indvidually. Alternatively, we have a maintenance plan that can be added that has several added benefits. A service like this might help explain the options to some higher tiered customers. For years we have tweaked and changed as we have seen fit and this is just another thing we are willing to try.

I do appreciate your feedback on the "annoyances" of this type of service. That being said, there are people in-house that are ready to move forward. I just need to find out if it will hurt our rankings or seo gains that we have made?

Can anyone tell me (based on your educated opnions) if the script or flash over (however it is implemented) would hurt us?

Thanks again!

[KernelPanic]

With talking spokeswomen you will get no extra sales and a higher bounce rate.

Unless with every click she removes an article of clothing! You could stretch that out to 15 clicks or more!

I get to interview the models since it was my idea