Forum Moderators: phranque
1. Bring more traffic to your site
2. Improve your site’s performance so that it converts at a higher percentage
We all spend a great deal of our time on #1 – bring in more traffic (my god, 555 posts on the October Google update in 3 days!). But there’s much less conversation on conversion; what can I do to improve my site’s performance?
Maybe there’s less conversation because we don’t think that it’s such a big lever. How big can it be, right?
Looking at an example with real numbers in it will show you just what a big pop you can get out of a small improvement in conversion.
Let’s say your site has 100,000 visitors a day, and that, on average, 3% of those visitors will convert to become customers. That gives you a site that produces 3000 customers a day.
What if you could increase your conversion by .5% - to 3.5%? That would give you an extra 500 customers a day – an overall customer acquisition increase of 17% a day!
Well, I’m sold! I could do endless tweaks to my site(s) for SEO purposes over the course of a month and I won’t get that kind of pop in traffic.
“But how do you know you can affect conversion that much? Maybe what you’re getting is as good as you can get. And just how sensitive are sites to changes?”
Well, sure, every site has its ultimate peak-performance conversion rate. But unless you’ve spent the time and effort and done some measurement, how are you going to know when you’re approaching that rate?
From personal experience, I know that making one change to a site can TANK conversion rates. I removed one piece of information from my site (a totally gratuitous piece of information that has NO bearing on my product whatsoever) and my conversion rate plummeted by 50% in the course of a day.
Do I think I can turn the spigot the other way – *add* one piece of information to the site and get a 50% increase? No, probably not. But if conversion is that sensitive in the negative sense, then I’m willing to bet it’s somewhat sensitive in the positive sense, too.
To that point, I’m starting a series of site changes designed to improve conversion. I’m going to attempt to turn the spigot the other way – more customers.
My next steps ...figure out what changes to make and what tools I need to measure the changes.
Any thoughts?
you are absolutely right.
I did some changes on my "feedback/contact us" form.
Made it absolutely crispy clean/clear with just the minimum of fields to fill in and it increased the amount of requests a lot.
Maybe lurking a bit more on super commercial sites such as Amazon etc will give you some more ideas.
In the end, your site has to provide what people are looking for. Give it to them, then go for the sale. (Granted, life is good if you've got a "sale" based page and people are coming in already looking to buy - then it's just a matter of price and confidence).
G.
Hawkgirl, were you able to identify what there was about that piece of information that was spurring conversions? Like what kind of effect or impession it conveyed? Did it instill confidence, create enthusism, give them warm fuzzies or have emotional appeal?
My next steps ...figure out what changes to make and what tools I need to measure the changes.
You can do split run testing using a cgi script and server side includes to test each individual element on your site.
Just had a discussion about this 2 days ago...
How to do split run testing without incurring a penalty [webmasterworld.com]
How about this for a testing tool:
Two servers are running the site. Create a new version of the page you want to test and put it up on one server. Leave the original page on the other server. Assign visitors to the site to one or the other server in a round-robin fashion (user 1 goes to server A, user 2 goes to server B, user 3 goes to server A, etc.).
Look at the difference in conversion between the two pages over a set period of time.
Always amazes me that they will make a comment which is probably obvious to the end user, but us as Webmasters will take for granted.
The best modification we saw in conversion rates was when we changed the expiry date for Credit Crads from a dropdown box, to a field where you have to enter this information in (previously we were getting 8-10% of people moving the mouse/cursor after choosing their expiry dat, and in effect this would mean their transaction was declined)
The other major improvement was when we started highlighting in RED what fields had been missed out when filling purchase forms, previously I would have people phoning up absolutely convinced that they had filled out the form, when in fact 1 field may have been missed)
I absolutely agree with Hawkgirl, that getting conversion rate up is the Key between us and our competition.
Having an automated support system has done wonders, and become a lot more manageable than before where the same questions would always get different answers.
Shak
Shakil, I agree that user testing is one of the best ways to find things that are wrong on the site. I've done user testing after almost every new site release - this definitely has helped me fix some serious problems.
I just got off of the phone with someone I'm bringing in to do a heuristic evaluation of the site. I'm slowly becoming immune to our site - I've simply looked at it too often over too many revisions. So I'm bringing in an expert to help me identify some of the things we can do to make it better.
I'm going to start testing site changes on a regular basis - run two different versions of a page for a length of time, measure, and then either keep the change or roll back the page to the previous version.
I'm trying to identify (with the help of my designer, the usability expert I talked about above, and feedback from our customer care organization) which page elements to experiment with.
I've heard tales (unsubstantiated rumors, so I'll call them tales) of websites that change the color of a button and get a 30% increase in conversion. I don't think that's really possible (unless the button starts out as transparent or the page is so freaking cluttered you can't make heads or tails of it). But given my 800 number folly and some other anecdotal data, I think playing with small changes may yield really interesting results.
I can't substanciate that, but I know of supermarket chains that changed the 'tones' 'and relative possitions' of colours in their stores to bring about more comfort for the customer and more sales for them.
Perhaps the same can be done with a web page¿
Perhaps the same can be done with a web page
That's what I'm hoping. And in a test environment we can take some risks and, if they don't work, there's no ego in the way and we can roll back to previous versions without too much hassle.
To improve conversions, try putting action statements bluntly pointing to what you want them to do. You may have 50 pages of great content or product write-ups, but don't be afraid to use what you know and short-circuit the site's usual navigation. If you're renting cottages in Myrtle Beach and that's what the referrals show they're searching on, then right there smack in the top, middle, and bottom of that beautiful 700-word treatise on the beauty of the beach, the gentle music of the waves, and the rest of the syrupy ad-copy, put a great big, ugly link that says "Renting a cottage? -Click HERE!"
[edited by: rcjordan at 11:40 pm (utc) on Nov. 8, 2002]
With one color conversions were weak at best, with the other the conversions were excellent. The only difference was the color.
The predominating color choice for a site isn't minor, it can sometimes mean a whole different design and presentation concept from the ground up. I'm trying to decide now whether to go with bright primary colors or calm pastels for a site. There would be an entirely different look and feel - "flavah" to borrow Tedster's word. One is peaceful and serene, while the bright primaries would be conveying an energetic feel.
A related point with a subtle difference (maybe not so subtle): should site design be geared toward the demographics of the expected audience, or be more dependent on the nature of the service or product?
This thread is dynamite! Thanks Hawkgirl..
As one new to online sales I have little to offer other than a small observattion from my first affiliate venture (too broad but making enough not to ditsh ;)):
I introduced a 'get free personal advice' link prominantly on every page and the resuluts are great. I have a stock of responses I edit for eash individual and I make mre from those emails than I do my site ;)
Trust: Big issue!
Love the idea of color testing, off to try it....
Nick
With one color conversions were weak at best, with the other the conversions were excellent. The only difference was the color.
The mind boggles.
Partly because that's something that you really can't gauge in user testing. When I'm doing user testing I'm seeing where the user's eyes are looking, where they're clicking, where they're finding or not finding what they need.
You just can't get to the behavioral convert vs. not because of the subtleties of color. Or at least, not easily.
So most of us design a site - we pick colors we think will work and then we're off to the races ... never thinking, "Hey, this light blue might not work as well as a peach tone."
Wow.
Page load speed - A faster site keeps people around who have dial up. Unstressed servers, fast database, and small page size all contribute.
Contact Info - Your toll free number, contact us forms, and even better live chat all help. Also order tracking is a big help. You would not believe how often people track their orders with us. Is it here yet? Is it shipped yet? I want my Stuff!
Site Navigation - This bugs me more than anything. Keep your site simple. Navigation on the top and left bars. Where do you naturally look for subcategories? On the left side of the page. Where do you look for company info? On the top and bottom of the page.
Shipping Charges - People abandon carts when they see big shipping charges or are unsure of what the charge will be. Let people know what shipping will be. Don't scare them.
International Orders - If you ship to other countries let people know it! This can really help you increase sales. I know of several U.S. sites that do 30-40% in foriegn orders. I have 1 U.S. site that does about 15% just to England. You'd be surprised that some common items in the U.S. cost a small fortune in other countries, or are impossible to get.
Product Info - You can't give people enough info about your products. The higher the price the more text you need.
Quality Pictures - Invest in a good digital camera plus get a tripod. And learn Corel (which is much easier to learn and use) or Photoshop. Too many manufacturers supply poor pictures or none at all.
1. Contact Info- They want phone numbers, addresses, email addresses. Make sure that info is highly visible.
2. Price. Sounds simple, but many sites don't let you see the price until you click through to the cart. Some of the highest conversion rates I've seen come from products that list the price in the SERPS, even if that price is higher than sites that carry the same product, but don't have the price clearly visible.
I think that too often people confuse overselling with selling and end up trying to hide the fact that they are selling something, or tone down the language to the point where it appears that they aren't really interested in selling the product, but it would be nice if you would consider purchasing... :)
The overall design is a contributing factor. Professional is the word that comes to mind and by professional I don't mean jaw dropping artwork and Flash presentations. Clean, crisp design with easy navigation, with succint content that sells the product. Keep the important content above the fold.
Images for products. People like to see what they are buying, even if it is a CD or book.
Build the trust factor. This means making sure there are no broken links, missing images, scripts that malfunction, pages that won't load, etc. Pay attention to detail.
I stress the importance of conversion rates all the time, it only takes about a month for people to realize the benefits of converting more sales rather than gaining more traffic. Sure, it's nice to do both, but if you have top rankings for all your keyphrases, tweaking those conversion rates yield a much better ROI.
Finally, COPY. Compelling copy will entice people to buy. If you can't write good copy, hire someone that can. For some reason, most webmasters assume they are writers too. Simply isn't so but getting them to admit that their prose belongs at the bottom of a bird cage is a sensitive issue. Then you have writers than can write, but can't write ad copy, (don't kid yourself, if you're selling something it is ad copy). Then when you're all finished, test several money phrases and weed out the duds. Ad Words is great for testing money phrases. They force you to use short descriptions and action words and you can get a good idea about what gets the most clicks. (Click Conversion) versus (sale conversion).
Okay, enough, I'm in a hurry but I have quite a bit more info on conversions and how to increase them. I'll visit this thread again.
Boy, I can train my AdWords ads to sing. But with my site, it's just trial and error. And unless the change has a dramatic impact, good or bad, (usually bad) it's hard to know what impact it had at all.
Great thread!
80% percent of Americans prefer to buy in the USA, and are very leary shopping ourside of the country.
We had all our prices in Canadian Dollars, and gave the information on how you would save 35% on the Currency conversion rate. We promised no duties or taxes (or we pay the duty and taxes). All our items were NAFTA or zero rated so we never got burned on this. Our shipping costs were conparable to US domestic rates.
What did this get us. Average conversion rate Canada = 2.4% but only 0.4% in the USA.
We Americanized our website. We now have a US mailing address (real address, not a PO Box. Mail is then redirected back to Canada as part of a Mail Forwarding Service). Prices in US dollars (giving a conversion rate does not work, many people are bad at math).
And Oh yeah, a link for our Canadian Customers, back to our Canadian Website with Canadian Prices.
Now our conversion rates are identical between US and Canada. Since the USA has 10 times the population, this has been a real windfall.
Don't think that just because most Canadians would not think twice about shopping in the USA, it works the other way around.
We learned this the hard way.
Originally we served up 10 products per page with small thumbnail pictures (96x48 pixels). When we increased this to 15 photos per page and increased the size of the photos to 320x200, we found our conversion rate jumped 15%.
While we were happy with this, I have since just started running a poll of visitors to our site & am finding that approx 70% say they are accessing our site via dial-up connection which must be excruciatingly painfully slow given that our average page including images is 170k.
With this new data that 70% are dialup, I am looking into solutions to detect browser speed & have come up with a low bandwidth version of our site that loads 3 times faster on a dial up modem. I have not perfected the back-end speed detection, but I'm curious if anyone has an experience with conversion rates for dial-up visitors vs high speed & how much affect having a low bandwidth/high bandwidth site for each type of visitor affects conversion rates.
Thanks!
Rob Chadwick
Marcia:
With one color conversions were weak at best, with the other the conversions were excellent.
Any chance you could tell us which color worked? :)
