When it comes to meeting the unique needs of the “visitor”, most websites fail miserably. One could easily attribute this poor performance to factors like having a high bounce rate and low opt-in rate, which would result in a much higher cost-per-acquisition, blah, blah, blah…

Aside from the obvious metrics, the real question at hand isn’t “Why does my conversion rate suck?” but rather “Where do I start to convert more visitors into sales or actions on my website?”

The truth is, to fully understand conversion optimization is to understand that it is as much a science as it is a creative art form. Allow me to elaborate:

The science

The involvement of controlled, quantitative testing to prove or debunk a hypothesis requires a scientific approach. The better the hypothesis or user scenario, the better your tests (and results) will be.

The creative

It’s just as important for your design team to recognize patterns and take a lateral, creative approach to visually solve the business challenges at hand with landing pages that convert.

Make sense?

Here are 3 easy steps to help you establish a solid conversion optimization strategy:

1.Determine the pages in your funnel

A conversion funnel consists of the steps or sequence of web pages which your visitor is required to view in order to complete the desired goal – resulting in a successful conversion. For example, an ecommerce site might have a funnel that looks something like this: Add to cart > Checkout > Review Order > Payment info > Submit order

2.Align your website and business goals

A great exercise for step 2 is to gather a handful of people within your organization and have them view the key pages within your funnel, jotting down the primary goal or objective along the way. If you come to discover that their answers are all over the map, just imagine how confused your visitor is. Use this feedback to define and refine.

3.Come up with awesome hypotheses

Remember the old saying if you put crap in, you’ll get crap out? Well it’s extremely relevant when running conversion tests. The more time you dedicate to creating a killer hypothesis, the better results your tests will yield. Bust out your user experience chops and throw every potential user scenario at the wall, then tweak and tickle until you’re left with the most relevant plots.

When it’s time to start testing, be sure to test more than once! Many marketers make the mistake of running a single test, making some user experience and design changes and never testing again.

This is a big no-no!

Conversion optimization is a continuous cycle and repeated testing is often the greatest contributing factor to the success of any revenue-focused campaign. Learn from the mistakes of others and don’t be afraid to ask a colleague for their non-objective opinion – every little bit helps.

Tools of the trade

Now it might not be obvious to some of you, but using a reputable testing platform (or multiple) is highly recommended when trying to improve your website conversions. Here’s a list of some of the tools I’ve played with in the last 12 months:

Visual Website Optimizer

Probably one of the more popular A/B testing tools around. Visual Website Optimizer allows users to easily set up conversion tests on multiple page designs with a point-and-click visual editor. You can define your conversion goals, split your traffic and preview design changes instantly. Plans range from a free trial to $249/month for large agencies.

Google Website Optimizer

Google’s very own conversion optimization tool, Website Optimizer, is a free testing tool that enables users to better optimize their content and designs with split testing and monitoring the results over a set time period. If you’re just starting out, this is a great way to get your feet wet. As with all Google products, the interface design and reporting capabilities are pretty straightforward.

KISSmetrics

Definitely one of the sexiest tools around, KISSmetrics is an online analytics and event tracking utility that’s used by corporations like eBay and Amazon to track people (not pageviews) and the actions they are completing on a website. The interface is intuitive and the data this thing generates is out of this world. Plans range from $29/month to $300/month.

usabilla

More geared towards usability testing, usabilla makes it easy to improve your website design, conversion rate and overall user experience via real-life participants. They visit your site, answer questions and provide detailed, visual feedback as it pertains to your test. Plans range from a free trial to $199/month for 10 active tests and 250 participants.

Elijah Vieau is an Internet Marketing Specialist at Climax Media, a Toronto Web Development company who specializes in web design, strategy, development and digital marketing for fortune 500 clients across Canada and the United States.

Elijah Vieau is an Internet Marketing Specialist at http://www.climaxmedia.com/company Climax Media, a http://www.climaxmedia.com/ Toronto Web Development company who specializes in web design, strategy, development and digital marketing for fortune 500 clients across Canada and the United States.

Author Bio: Elijah Vieau is an Internet Marketing Specialist at Climax Media, a Toronto Web Development company who specializes in web design, strategy, development and digital marketing for fortune 500 clients across Canada and the United States.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: toronto,web development,web design,internet marketing,strategy,seo,conversion,optimization