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I just wanted to share an experience that I've recently had.
I've had a website running for a business of mine that has proven successful (profitable for over 10 years). Once I got the website fine-tuned I turned my attenton to marketing the website (getting links, building credibility, ppc, seo, etc). So, for the past two years or so, I hadn't paid much attention to conversion rates, thinking that my site was well tuned. Well, strangely enough I ran across a blog of a competitor where they laid out their web design strategy and discussed THEIR conversion rates, which were considerably higher than mine.
So...I began to think about how to increase my rates. I used Google's website optimizer to do simple A/B testing and kept refining things. Thanks to this, I have increased my conversion rate over 40% over a 4 month period.
So..here are some lessons that I hope to share with you.
1. Always test. Don't get complacent with your website - always be testing your ads, testing landing pages (keep in mind, on most sites, every page is a landing page).
2. Don't assume what will work. I have factual data to support changes (thru Google) that often surprise me - changing a sentence, moving credibility marks (BBB etc) can make dramatic improvements.
3. More often that not - less is more. Less text, less choices generally, in my case, created more action.
4. Affiliations/Secure logos can sometimes help. I added a McAfee secure logo and gained about 5% conversion. That said, my customers appreciate security - I'd imagine there are industries where the logo wouldn't help at all.
Here are some of the resources that I used:
www.google.com/websiteoptimizer - free tool for testing pages
www.clicktale.com - heatmaps, literally watch what users do. Has a free version that will get you started.
www.sensible.com - Great book on web usability.
Hope this helps - it certainly makes marketing expenses more reasonable when you convert much more.
Care to share any success stories on converting users?
I've had a website running for a business of mine that has proven successful (profitable for over 10 years). Once I got the website fine-tuned I turned my attenton to marketing the website (getting links, building credibility, ppc, seo, etc). So, for the past two years or so, I hadn't paid much attention to conversion rates, thinking that my site was well tuned. Well, strangely enough I ran across a blog of a competitor where they laid out their web design strategy and discussed THEIR conversion rates, which were considerably higher than mine.
So...I began to think about how to increase my rates. I used Google's website optimizer to do simple A/B testing and kept refining things. Thanks to this, I have increased my conversion rate over 40% over a 4 month period.
So..here are some lessons that I hope to share with you.
1. Always test. Don't get complacent with your website - always be testing your ads, testing landing pages (keep in mind, on most sites, every page is a landing page).
2. Don't assume what will work. I have factual data to support changes (thru Google) that often surprise me - changing a sentence, moving credibility marks (BBB etc) can make dramatic improvements.
3. More often that not - less is more. Less text, less choices generally, in my case, created more action.
4. Affiliations/Secure logos can sometimes help. I added a McAfee secure logo and gained about 5% conversion. That said, my customers appreciate security - I'd imagine there are industries where the logo wouldn't help at all.
Here are some of the resources that I used:
www.google.com/websiteoptimizer - free tool for testing pages
www.clicktale.com - heatmaps, literally watch what users do. Has a free version that will get you started.
www.sensible.com - Great book on web usability.
Hope this helps - it certainly makes marketing expenses more reasonable when you convert much more.
Care to share any success stories on converting users?
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