Existing visitor optimisation (EVO) is a discipline of optimising websites to maximise return from existing visitors rather than through search engine optimisation (SEO). While SEO is useful to gain more visitors, EVO looks at types of neuromarketing and psychology to optimise the language and layout elements of websites to maximise the benefits of the increased visitors.
Strategies that may be employed include asking "how many would you like" rather than offering an "add to cart" button on e-commerce sites. EVO is a concept that works closely with existing marketing concepts such as the utilisation of social media. Initially investigated by a PhD student from Exeter University and The University College Plymouth St Mark & St John to provide a solid foundation to making the most of existing websites and building on the work of Jakob Nielsen, EVO was first presented at York St. John University as part of a post-graduate conference in 2008.
In 2010, during the Second International NLP Research Conference (hosted by Cardiff University and co-organised by Paul Tosey of The University of Surrey in association with The association of NLP, ANLP), EVO was expanded to include email optimisation using the same psychological models.