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I have a travel website for Vancouver visitors. It generates a reasonable amount of traffic (about 25,000 uniques a month) but very little revenue despite the fact that visitors can book hotels and tours on the site.
The site is basically a content site with 200+ pages of information. Now I want to design a sister site whose purpose is to make money from Vancouver and British Columbia visitors.
Does anyone know the principles of good site design if your goal is to generate revenue not simply provide information. Or does anyone know where I could find that information?
Thanks.
Then your design can support that message, and your COPY can support that message. Your Information Architecture, your navigation, your usability - all of it comes into play.
The biggest reason for a business to go bust, IMO, is for it to start with a goal of making money, rather than starting with the goal of filling a need. Making a proft is the natural and fair exchange for providing a product or service.
Theboyduck mentioned Jakob Nielsen. He's worth listening to. The reason he makes the big bucks is that his ideas are TESTED to work. Companies pay him because he improves their bottom line.
I'd also say to forget your preconcieved ideas, your likes and dislikes, and measure, measure, measure. Test every little thing. Use two versions of a point-of-sale page and see which one converts better. Then keep the better one and up the ante with a new split-run test. For ever.
If there is one rule I'd follow in a site where I want to make money - it would be don't innovate, expecially with page layout and navigation. Stay with the evolved web standards that the average visitor is likely to be comfortable with. Stay away from the DOM stuff and the fancy tech. Focus on your core competency - the need you can fill for your visitor.
And a MAJOR issue is to watch page weight and download time. If you design a site that only broadbanders are comfortable with, then you just cut off a huge portion of your prospective buyers.
I'll say it over and over again - 40kb is a very sweet spot. Most of your competition doesn't come anywhere NEAR that lean a page. Take the advantage - it's a big opening they've left you.
>Use two versions of a point-of-sale page and see which one converts better.
Could you elaborate on that a bit? How is that done? Does it involve making another site altogether?
I use something like that. I use a text link that uses a term that people in the south are familiar with, and the other page a term people use in the north.
It works quite well, and of course covers both keywords on SE's. (Obviously the text is slightly different...but either way the form get filled out!)
I don't know that design is the right place to start. The place to start is with finding a real need and then filling that need, and doing it well.
Maybe we need to start compiling Tedster's words of wisdom into a thread of their own - lots of insight here.
How are we defining a point of sale page here? How are there two? Are there two pages for the same product, each using different terminology?
One page may be more hard sell and the other more low key. Or, as Scott M described, they may use different vocabulary. There are a large number of ways to vary a page.
I love the idea of trying two entire sites - I could test entire color palettes - but I don't have that opportunity at present. However I do manage some sites where I create two different click paths, each to it's own POS page.
I've tested various selling points to see which one converts more. It's amazing the differences that surface.
As an example, on one site we have a POS page called New Products. The same products are also on their relative category page. We described a product as "elegant" on the new page and "classic" on its category page. Elegant had a higher conversion. We switched the words and "elegant" still had the best conversion.
Having done that test, we kept "elegant" and began to test another word. Etc.
There are lots of ways to execute - PPC campaigns are one fruitful area just begging for for split runs.
I once ran a Yahoo banner campaign where Yahoo was willing to alternate the clickthrough URL - that was an excellent test, especially because we also alternated banners, so we had a 2x2 results matrix. But the key is to do the testing and measure the success, constantly upgrading the materials/design to feature the winning version most heavily. In direct marketing, the top version is called the control.
This is an approach I picked up from my days in catalog sales, where split runs are often the rule. I learned that I'm TERRIBLE at guessing ahead of time which version will be the best.
So using that example of classic and elegance, the words could be interchanged and tested: timeless classics - classic elegance - subtle, striking simplicity - understated elegance - quiet simplicity - elegant flair {they're dresses) ;)
How about colors? Would the product determine the color scheme, would it be chosen to appeal to the target audience, or would the color scheme used present the products in one light or another, like using bold basic palette colors for depicting energy or delicate pastels for a quieter feel?
And if I ever start my own e-commerce site instead of tweaking them for other people, I will definitely be doing this.
you are right on time. I've been banging my head trying to come up with a way to test some new ideas for increasing conversions without doing a total revamp of the site.
Thanks this is a great post.
Use reassuring, everyday language. Make customers understand that you care about their security and privacy. Have a Privacy Policy written in plain, everyday English -- company lawyers may cringe, but they are paid zillions to formulate documents only other lawyers can understand. Take a look at the Plain English Campaign [plainenglish.co.uk] for some examples of how to write, er, plain English.
If your site is very large, people will inevitably make mistakes. Anticipate them as much as possible.
Think like a purchaser yourself. How do you choose a hotel? How do your friends choose their hotels? What criteria do they look for? Some people have a budget, some people want to stay in a particular area. Do you need a way to, for example, search for hotels with wheelchair access? What about special offers? What happens if a hotel is fully booked? How can you tell? Look at hotels' own websites: what's missing? Can you direct visitors to their hotels? How can you offer as much help as possible without making your site unwieldy and your pages cluttered?
I'm so deep into my first affiliate site adventure that I'm kind of neglecting WebmasterWorld :( at the moment. Shan't do that again!
Tedster
What's your opinion on 'slick 'aint sticky' and personal language promo (like "I really like this widget, it has everyithing you could want!")?
Nick
Instead, make it easy for them to buy. Your customer should be able to use whatever browser she wants and whatever setting he is using. For example, if she doesn't allow cookies use session IDs (appended to the URL). Give them a choice. Offer similar things. Help them (put don't overdo it).
However, all the useful content does NOT help the site generate revenue. People come to the site for free information; they don't want to pay for anything, even accommodations and tours. I've even tried adding pay services like custom itineraries and self-guided tours. No takers.
I've come to the conclusion that if a site has too much free information, people want everything to be free. If a site is designed to sell things primarily and only gives minimal information, it generates way more revenue.
So, finally, I would disagree with the notion that you shouldn't focus on revenue when designing a site. Just providing valuable content, something people really need and want, won't automatically morph into a money generating site. On the contrary. Free information seems to put people into a mood NOT to spend money.
Like: Set up a deal with a chain of local hotels to get visitors '20% off' when they print out your cupon and take it to the hotel. (hotel kicks back with a commision) or similar?
If you're information is really good then they should trust your judgement and everyone likes a bargain...and just to make it even more worthwhile: Do it with a few chains...
Nick
Other annoying messages to avoid:
Optimized for 1744x912 pixels, 4692-bit colour depth (*)
Under construction
You didn't fill out the form properly. Use your back button and scan all 342 text entry fields to see if you can spot the error and try to correct it.
Parse error in line 253: expecting ';'
HOT NEW DEALS!!!
Please wait... Loading... (21 of 574636838282 bytes)
To view this page, you will need to download this obscure font (approx. 23 hrs 12 mins on a 56k modem)
(*) My site has a note that says: "Best viewed with a browser"
I agree. So what's the relationship between info and revenue generation on a site? How much information should a travel site provide if its primary goal is to generate revenue, NOT provide as much free information as possible? What kind of information makes people want to book a hotel room or a tour?
And how should the site be structured to maximize revenue? How should it look? What does a successful revenue generating site LOOK like?
These are the questions I was trying, not very successfully, to ask at the beginning of this discussion.
What's your opinion on 'slick 'aint sticky' and personal language promo (like "I really like this widget, it has everyithing you could want!")?
Gee, I thought I invented the "slick ain't sticky" phrase.
I'm behind it 100%. I don't do incedibly trashy, downscale pages -- but I sure don't worry about "extremely clean" either. Except when I do an investment lawyer's site or something like that - and even then, I think it pays to let down your hair a bit.
Something to think about - look at the incredibly competitive market in @dult sites. Do they go for slick? Do they worry about clean? Not at all. But do they need to be sharply competitive? What do they know that the average business can't figure out?
The web can be such a personal medium and I think a big key is letting your visitors feel living breathing people behind the site, and not some big slick company - even if the site DOES belong to a big, slick company.
The thing is, it shouldn't be a gimmick. Gimmicky "personal language" is horrid in my book. It's got to be real -- real benefits described genuinely in plain, everyday language. When you find that voice, that tone, then a lot of gates open.
It's an art to write like that, and thankfully, I know a few pros who do it well. They've taught me a lot and I try to pass it on. The worst writing I've ever seen comes from someone who is TRYING to write formal business copy but doesn't have the necessary writer's chops. They'd be better off talking to a tape recorder and then transcribing it word for word.
I have one client who runs a 2 person web business. When they started they were total newbies, even to email. I got them to take off the cap lock when they write a newsletter, but that's as far as I went in the slick direction.
Beyond that I found that they get great results when they just let it fly, typos, bad grammar, you name it. At least this works in their niche market, and it works a lot better than the artificially formal stuff their competitors turn out.
It's so very OK to be human and slightly flawed (emphasis on "slightly"), just like your visitors already know they are. Slick is an attempt to pretend that you have your act together 100%, and I don't like that because I know it's NEVER true.
I have a credit card with a company (a big one) who has the slickest of online sites for sales and service. All kinds of interactive features, and the look! God, it could win design awards (can you tell where I'm going?) But I get so frustrated at their interface, and the words that they use to describe what services are available. I can't understand what the devil they're talking about a lot of the time, and I've been using the web since 1994 or so.
One key is ease of use. The fewer clicks it takes to make a purchase the better. There's a reason Amazon felt that one-click purchasing was worth a patent.
I had one client site where we eliminated just one screen from the shopping cart checkout process and sales immediately went up almost 20%
A second is ASK for the sale. It's amazing how a sentence like "Buy it now" or "Click here to purchase" can make a difference. You should only say it after you've given the motivation, but definitely, ask for the sale.
A third is to realize that some people are sold quickly, others take more time and info, and others are just looking. The web is great for accommodating that kind of situation, so make additional information an easy drill-down, but don't make the "already sold" customer wade through reams of blah-balh-blah.
[edited by: tedster at 8:45 pm (utc) on July 24, 2002]
Gee, I thought I invented the "slick ain't sticky" phrase.
You did. I just remember a thread where you mentioned it and it struck a chord ;)
So what about the personal, first person thing? I think for me (recommending prds on affilita site) it's the way to go. I'd be interested to know what you think though...
Nick
