Epic Idea!

[EpicGlobalWeb]

I wanted to share this thought with the forum - hopefully it might be of value.

After finishing up my own pretty cool CMS, I'm looking at way to make it better and always improve the code, its efficiency, and value. So I came up with this idea:

1. Collect IP / Browser information
2. Collect reference url (where did the user just come from?)

3. If the user came from a pre-defined list of websites, change the website layout and theme to match the appearance to where they came from.

For instance, if they came from Webmaster Sun, the CMS would automatically change to dark gray / white theme colors and replicate its fonts. If they came from Warrior, theme colors would become red. Blackhat, they'd become black and gold, etc.

Any thoughts on expanding on this? The goal is to increase conversion rates and / or reduce exit ratio.

 

[Rob Whisonant]

This would be pretty cool. At first I was thinking... Yes us programmers do actually think.. That this would be a major task to do. But, after a little thought it would not be that difficult to do.

You would create a CSS file for each referring website you want to define and then a general purpose (default) CSS for any other referrers.

Then you simply use a little PHP to load the CSS file that is assigned to the specific referring site.

BAM, you have consistency from one site to yours.

The only difficult part I can see is keeping the CSS file the same from page to page. But I guess you could use a cookie upon entry to record the css file to use for that surfers visit.

Cool idea EpicGlobalWeb.

 

[Mike001]

The look and feel could be matched, and is not that difficult at all, but would you really want to do that. It could lead to confusion by the user as to what site they were actually on. I am by no way a marketing expert but it seems that mimicking a site could actually cause a decrease in conversions for sales.

Just for the customers that I serve, I know that they want there sites to be unique. Now honestly that is getting harder and harder as we have all watched the web go through different style transitions over the years and it seems that when one takes hold everyone jumps on the band wagon. I am going to run this idea by my students and see what they think. It would be interesting to get a younger perspective on the idea.

I will keep you posted.

 

[SEOPub]

I honestly don't get what the advantage would be.

If you were just trying to sell something on this forum or WF, you could just make a single landing page for each that matches the look and feel if you really wanted to instead of bothering with any additional coding work.

 

[EpicGlobalWeb]

Pub, in my opinion the advantage could be conversion rates.

I'm sure you've noticed with new schema and rich snippets that you can usually view "popular" articles or images within Google itself without actually having to visit the page. Everything adheres to Google.

So my thought was along those lines. It would be able to adjust based on what you believe (or tested) the incoming traffic is from so the user feels s/he didn't leave the original site while viewing your content.

Like Ron said, dynamic CSS files wouldn't be too hard to implement.

Mike, you have a good point that I didn't think of - original branding. This idea still needs some refinery.

 

[Rob Whisonant]

To keep the consistency and not confuse some surfers you could also have a dynamic headline on the entry page. It could say something like... Welcome ________ visitor. Or Thank you for visiting from _________, etc.

 

[SamanthaBrey82]

I've always had my landing pages design/color scheme match the affiliate's page I was sending the visitors to, so I guess that's kind of the opposite of what you're talking about.

But this is a really neat idea, and I think it could really work if done properly.

 

[Ron Killian]

Think you meant Rob instead of Ron

But interesting idea. Be very curious what it did to conversions, if there was a big difference.

Wonder though how many visitors you couldn't get data from, those using privacy tools/extensions. No idea what percentage that would be. Just a thought. But you could have a default theme/layout for no the no data visits.

I do see what Mike is saying, the confusion. This is probably just me, but I don't like it when I am being tricked. I've seen people mimicking the WF for example, making it look just like the forum and I think that is wrong. But I don't think your talking about going that far.

Ideas are good!