Are online calculators useful for website?

[Bobxogn]

Hi! I recently read a couple of reviews on large and not-so-many sites, where they say that with the help of calculator widgets you can increase sales. The concept of “increasing sales” is, of course, too vague, but nevertheless there are enough articles about it, with reviews of all sorts of designers. Yes, and I saw that on the exchanges often customers are asked to develop calculators.
Everybody got used to the fact that they ride on the ears of all kinds of services there, consultants, chat rooms and other tools. And then we got to the calculators. I think, is this all nonsense?
I started flipping through various exchanges and websites, applications are enough. So freelancers do calculators.
It is useful to watch online services and the first thing that came across in the search is calculator constructor ucalc.pro/en , then constructor сalсuloid.com
Got to look further, do something like a web studio. It turned out that many of the studios make calculators. But the price tags are clearly inflated than the freelancers.
If the freelancers come out somewhere around $50, or even $70, then the studios start at $80 and even $250. When I found out the prices, I myself was in shock! Didn't it seem to me? That did not seem to be. Now imagine, this is only a calculator, and if you need more refinement and some changes? Damn, yes it costs more than a site or Lendos order! But the demand for this is clearly there. After all, then no one would provide these services. And obviously all this is bought well.
But this is not important, it is clear that calculators have found their niche. And the important thing is how these calculators will be able to increase sales on the website or online store? Everywhere they try to say that SEO and behavioral indicators will go up, that it’s beautiful and comfortable than chats, that it really works. Many are always faced with what? That's right, it is with the need to waste the budget on advertising and stuff. And then bang! Ordered a calculator and everything? Flooded sales! Nooo. I think that there is some kind of trick. Do not lie about it on the Internet in vain, gentlemen?

 

[jacobdeen]

Ok I'll try answer this one. If it keeps a user on your page for longer and encourages engagement on your website then certainly go ahead and do it, this will help your on page SEO. If it has a huge script and means your site takes longer to load then keep it off if you're not seeing an increase in sales or no tangible results.

 

[Community]

I'm not really sure what you are referring to in your original post to be honest, calculators in general will have the same effect as any other marketable material you put on a website, if its useful and provides a good user experience then people will return and share it. You would market it and build links to it in the normal fashion to get exposure.

But from your description and your mentions of SEO, I can't help thinking your actually talking about Calculators as widgets which can be used, shared and embedded on other websites with a backlink to the original source ? If that is the case, it was vastly used some years ago, but there has been a number of warnings about it over the years too. This being probably one of the most recent in 2016 :
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/09/a-reminder-about-widget-links.html

 

[olixnvbz]

Fine! This topic helped with the choice of the tool. Recently, I was also looking for a plug-in or online service where you can create a calculator without programming, chose the calculator builder uCalc.

An interesting suggestion is that calculators help improve SEO. As far as I understood from the topic, we are talking about improving behavioral factors - if a visitor has been on the site for a longer time and does not go back to the search, then the solution has proved useful to him. Hence the increase in behavioral factors. After all, the user came to the site and to use the calculator he needs some time to be there. And it turns out that if behavioral factors increase, then the site's rating in the search increases and this pleasantly affects the ranking. Of course, these are only guesses and assumptions, which is interesting for discussion.

 

[giantarticles]

It depends with the niche of the website.

 

[Brainzmaqmm]

Indeed, online calculators, like any other interactive widgets, solve several problems:
1) increase seo indicators, namely behavioral factors, when site visitors spend more time with a calculator.
2) allow you to increase the speed of receiving orders for several channels, for example, by email, sms, in CRM and elsewhere
3) make the pricing process more transparent and convenient for customers, the user enters data and receives the final price for the services or goods that are going to buy.

This information can be read in many articles and on forums. Even the online services themselves talk about this, for example, here stepform.io and on the sites mentioned in the first message. Interesting information can be found on websites and forums on SEO optimization.