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SQUEEZING THE LEMON M
any, many years ago, an old boss of mine cut me short saying “Assume makes an ass out of U and me!” Clichéd, I know, but it has stuck with me over the years and it is certainly relevant to this article! When you talk to most site owners, you quickly realise that most don’t suffer from a lack of traffic, they suffer from a lack of conversion. So why is it that the vast majority of visitors don’t convert in the way you want them to? There are a lot of potential reasons, but here are a couple which you really need to consider: CONTENT IS EVERYTHING Content is a curious beast. There is no magic formula to get it spot on, but you know when you’ve got it wrong! Think about who buys from you and why. The chances are you’ll have more than one role who you interact with. And when you’re in front of them you’ll use different language and different arguments as to why they should buy from you. So if you do that in the flesh, why don’t you do it online? Getting people to identify themselves allows you to deliver the most pertinent and relevant messages. And the more relevant messages, the higher your closure rate is likely to be. EASY ON THE EYE It’s not just getting the right content in front of the right person at the right time – although that’s a major step in the right direction! You can have the best sales pitch in the world, but if you turn up in a chicken suit, there are very few circumstances in which you’ll be taken seriously. There are a myriad of books written on what makes a good page, but you could do worst than follow our top five rules. TOP FIVE RULES FOR MAXIMISING CONVERSION 1.“Learn to hate the question mark” This was coined by Steve Krug in his fantastic web usability book Don’t Make Me Think. As soon as a visitor begins to think “what do I do next?”, your chances of losing them shoot through the roof. We all assume it’s obvious, but you are
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an expert in your field & know your site intimately. Don’t assume the same of your visitors. Make every next step obvious and unambiguous. 2.“Where’s the banana?” This comes from The Big Red Fez by Seth Godin. In it, he argues that web users are goal orientated. He argues that you can get a monkey to do anything so long as he can see the banana and that the same applies to your visitors. On each page, ask yourself what the banana should be, is it obvious and is it visible. Be bold! 3.“Visit Nebraska” Jacob Nielsen, a States based usability guru, conducted a study that measured 5 key metrics on a page promoting Nebraska tourism. He found that the effectiveness of the page was increased 2 ½ times by following three simple guides; keep your language objective, keep it concise and make it easily scannable through the use of bold and bullets. 4.“Make First Impressions Count” User expectations are rising and you have to deliver and deliver quickly. A recent study showed that you have 7 seconds to communicate to your visitor: a. Where they are b. What they can achieve there c. Why they should achieve it with you & d. Why they should achieve it now That’s no mean feat and takes a good deal of thinking about! 5.“Trust Nobody!” I know that’s a bit rich coming from someone writing an article about Conversion, but it’s true. It takes us back to the beginning of this piece – never make assumptions. Never accept opinion on it’s own, never follow anyone’s advice without doing one simple thing; test it. Here are three simple solutions you could implement today and you will see the benefits:
but set the destination URL to the two variants. Change the Campaign settings so that the adverts are rotated evenly. You should now receive an equal split of identical traffic so the pages can be easily analysed for conversion. b. Analytics MVT Google have migrated the old Website Optimizer to within Google Analytics. It’s good and it’s free. Simplistically, it’s like running multiple A/B tests concurrently allowing you to spot opportunities and take advantage more quickly. c. Get Real There is, however, nothing that comes close to getting a real person and watching them to do something on your site. Every time we do it, we are surprised. Our preconceptions are always challenged. The more test subjects the better, but one is better than none! That’s what I’d like to leave you with; make no assumptions and test. If you don’t, you’re simply making assumptions – “Making an ass of U and me”. It doesn’t need to be complicated and it doesn’t need to be costly unless, of course, you don’t do it.
Peter Clapperton Searchsmith Director Searchsmith is a team of digital marketing experts who work with clients across a range of sectors and sizes to expand their digital marketing horizons and increase their ROI
Contact:
searchsmith.co.uk sales@searchsmith.co.uk 08458726573
a. Adwords A/B Create a variation of an existing page but keep it off menu. Setup an Adwords Adgroup with two identical Adverts
27/03/2013 11:15