LATEST: Conversion Optimisation – Tactics & Tools
Why Conversion Optimisation Matters
Conversion optimisation involves tweaks you can make to your website (optimising it) in order to get more visitors to become actual paying customers (converting them).
After all, it’s important not just to put together a pretty site – you need money to survive and thrive! Conversion optimisation can help you to do things like:
- Better meet the needs of your clients (enabling them to use your website easier)
- Become more profitable
- Gain a competitive edge
- Make the maximum amount of money for each transaction
- Successfully up sell to customers
- Get your visitors to explore more of your site
Keep in mind, each website is different and there is no right way. But there are certain tactics and tools that you can use to find the optimum solution for your site.
Define Your Objectives
The first thing is to define the goals of your site. Hopefully this is something you did before you created your website, but if not, this is a perfect time to do it. Do you have a physical product to sell? A service? Is the content itself your product and you plan to make money via advertising? Decide what your main objectives are, then go from there.
Keeping your objectives in mind, then look at the tactics and tools below.
Tactics and Tools
Your data can tell you what needs to improve.
Every business website needs to be following their analytics data regularly. Using it, you can see how many people are visiting your site, where they are visiting from, how long they are staying, and more. This is important because you need to know if certain pages seem to be working better than others. If everyone gets to a specific page and then leaves your site, then this may indicate a problem on that page. Analytics can also help you to set up a “conversion funnel” that will track your sales and contact process. Are you meeting your goals? Which months or weeks have been better than others? What was different about those times?
Brag.
Okay, “brag” may be a bit much, but your site should clearly tell your audience why they should choose you over other options. If you’re better, more unique, faster, easier, cheaper, more reliable – then let your customers know. This is your value proposition and it should be upfront and very clear as soon as someone comes to your website.
Source: http://www.systemoptimizationsolutions.com/
Prove it.
Talking yourself up is one thing, but it’s great to show proof too. Instead of trying to make the sale right away, go for a slower build. If you have them, provide testimonials and case studies that show why you or your product are worth buying into. Few things are more convincing than the words of other customers.
Companies too small or new to have this information can offer alternative forms of “proof” such as showing people you know what you’re talking about by giving them free information via your blog or newsletter, or even incredibly simple-seeming things like making a site that’s helpful, easy-to-use, and error-free – in other words, professional.
The Biggest Loser Club does this very well with a dedicated success stories section on their website.
Source: http://biggestloserclub.com.au/
Increase your product’s perceived value.
Most of us probably aren’t selling something so unique that our site is the only place to get it. (If you are, then great! I’d let your customers know this). However, there are other ways to increase a product’s value. One is to make yourself an authority in your area or with your product. If you have worked with well-known brands or people, seek their permission and see if you can put this on your website. Immediately it will increase people’s desire to want your product or service.
Get feedback.
Still not sure what’s working and what isn’t on your site? Ask friends and family to surf around your website and tell you what they think. Create a survey for potential customers to fill out asking for their impressions. It should include things like:
- What product or service does this site offer?
- Was information easy to understand and quick to find?
- Did the design and content of the site encourage or discourage you from becoming a customer?
- Did you feel you could trust the information on this site? Why?
- Are the prices too high? Too low? Just right? How do they compare with similar businesses?
- Does the site have too little information? Too much? Just enough?
- Were there too many options? Too few?
- What can be changed to make you want to become a paying customer?
Remove barriers.
Don’t you hate it when you Google an article only to realize that the site won’t let you read it unless you’re a member? It’s like they’re teasing you by waving what you want in front of your face and telling you that you can’t have it. This can be frustrating! Obviously you don’t want to do anything like this on your site, because your goal is to make their experience at your site as smooth and easy as possible. To this end, make sure that the way to contact you is simple and clear, and keep any forms that customers need to fill out as simple as you can. Remove any unnecessary block from people connecting with you and your content.
Eliminate risk.
One of the best ways to get someone to try your product is make it a no-risk proposition. This means including things like money back guarantees (feel free to put a time limit on them), ensuring you have security put on forms and promote this via an image of a padlock on your form, having product warranties and free customer service, and offering free trials of your product.
Have a look at Red Balloon Days price match guarantee on their website.
Source: http://www.redballoon.com.au
Trial and error – get testing!
Determine the specifics of what’s working and what isn’t on pages of your website by conducting A/B testing. This means that you make two different versions of the same page – often with only a single change – and send half of your visitors to one page and half to the other. Whichever page gets more people to convert is the winner. What things can you change?
- Your headline
- Your layout
- Your navigation
- Your offer
- Your size – of text and graphics
- Your wording
- Your calls-to-action
- Your media
It’s important only to change one thing on a page at a time, then you can get a better understanding of what impact this change will have.
Some common A/B testing tools you can use include:
- Google Optimiser https://www.google.com/analytics/siteopt/splash?hl=en
- Visual Website Optimiser https://www.visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/
- Adobe Test & Target http://www.omniture.com/en/products/conversion/test-and-target
- Crazy Egg http://www.crazyegg.com/
- Kiss Metrics http://www.kissmetrics.com/
- Optimizely http://www.optimizely.com/
Have you optimised your site recently? What are the things you’ve done that’s made a big impact to your website? We’d love to hear from you!
