Part 3: Conversion Optimisation

30 November, 2011

Welcome to part 3 of the ‘How Can I Promote my Website?’ series.

In week 1, we looked at the difference between online and offline website marketing techniques. Part 2 examined email marketing tips and ideas, including some DO’s and DON’Ts of email marketing. This week, we’re going to look at Conversion Optimisation.

What is Conversion Optimisation?

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the collective name given to a range of techniques that maximise the number of website visitors who are ‘converted’ into customers.

A conversion happens when a prospect or website visitor becomes a customer. Having visited your website, received your email, joined in with your social media campaign or seen your advertisement, it’s that point at which they click the CONFIRM PURCHASE button or CONTACT US button.

There are many website marketing techniques that you can employ prior to that point that will:-

• get potential customers to your website in the first place,
• mean they are more likely to stay on your website for longer and feel more inclined to buy while they are there, and
• ensure they decide to go ahead and click that BUY NOW / CONTACT button.

How does conversion optimisation work?

Analysis

Analysing something like Google analytics gives us a great starting position to see what pages are working and what pages are not. By setting up goals we are able to see where customers/leads drop from the website and work on these pages

User research

“Look over the shoulder” of one of target customers using your website while they perform common tasks, and get to see where they get confused and frustrated.

Improve you website usability

We need to ensure we have the correct functionality in place for users to buy, browse, find, compare etc.

Improve your sales content/copy

Looking at the copy and content of the site we need to make sure everything is as clear and simple as it can be.

Tweak your buy / call to action process

The most important part, this is the conversion, we need to make as many people as possible follow the call to action, we need to make very clear call to actions.

Test different versions

The best bit, conversion optimisation is a science, we do all the research, we work out what needs changing, but instead of simply implementing it we serve different versions to different users across the site, and over a small period of time find out which are the winning versions and implement them.

Improve your website design

All of this will ultimately improve your overall design.

Conversion Optimisation and Email Marketing Campaigns

There are many ways of achieving a good conversion rate for your email marketing campaigns. For increasing conversion rate on email campaigns, this can include things like:

• ensuring relevant keywords are included in both the subject line and the subheading section (so people can see the first line of your email and know what it’s about)
• targeting your email campaigns to relevant customer groups (if people only ever receive emails that are relevant to them, they are more likely to open them every time)
• sending emails with timely special offers that are linked to their previous buying behaviour (this will show customers you know them well, make them feel special and – if targeted really well – will lead to them being excited about receiving your next email).
• See here for more tips and tricks to get people to open and read your emails

Following these rules for email marketing campaigns should dramatically increase your conversion rate in comparison to untargeted mass email campaigns, many of which simply get deleted without ever being opened.

Keeping Customers on Your Website for longer

When a customer clicks on to your website, there are many things you can do to make sure they stay there longer. Longer visits show higher levels of engagement and interest, which are more likely to result in a purchase, thus increasing your website’s conversion rate.

Techniques and ideas for keeping customers on your site include:

• Keeping your website updated with relevant content and useful advice and tips
• Making sure all product information and photos are detailed and up-to-date
• Pay attention to advice on writing good website product copy that will drive sales
• Providing links to other relevant products or services elsewhere on your website
• Ensuring your website is easy to navigate, keeping section headings visible at all time and ensuring customers can find the information they need quickly and easily

You should also perform regular checks using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics. This will give you valuable information about landing pages, exit pages, website hits, website visit length and click-troughs etc. which you can use to understand what is popular, and where you need to make improvements. Schedule in regular analytics checks and update your website accordingly. If you do this on a regular basis, you should see your conversion rate increase.

Conversion Optimisation at the Checkout

When your website visitors have decided to make a purchase, the final stage is making sure that the buying process is as quick and easy as possible.  If customers have difficulty buying a product on your site, you will lose them. And most of them won’t report problems with your checkout to you; they will simply go elsewhere. You therefore need to ensure that your website buying process is hassle-free to increase conversion optimisation at the checkout.

Here are some tips on conversion optimisation at the checkout:

• Feature reassurance and guarantees next to the checkout (positive product reviews, especially links to independent reviews, work very well here)
• Include shipping information at the checkout – better still, offer free shipping – and make this clearly visible at both the basket and checkout stages
• Make the ‘continue shopping’ and ‘add to basket’ icons visually appealing, but clearly distinct from one another
• And finally, include a pop-up or email survey for people who abandon checkout, asking them why they left – then use this information to make improvements to your website checkout.

I wish you every success with your conversion optimisation (CRO) planning and delivery. If you would like to discuss any of the above further, please give me a call on 011 33 20 21 21.

Have you found this information useful? I’d love to hear your comments. Please feel free to share this information with others and post your feedback in the comments box below.

Next week, we’ll be looking at SEO techniques for increasing website traffic.