Website conversion

Website conversion is at once simple and also very complicated.

The idea is straightforward enough. If you get 1 sale (or whatever goal you set up for your site .. a comment maybe) per 100 visitors you have a 1% conversion rate. If you can get it to be 2% then you a) have happier visitors, and b) you're making twice as much money for the same traffic.

People often want more traffic, but fewer people concentrate on conversion. Actually, I think you're in the right place. Conversion affects traffic, so it's more important. Think of it this way. If you have an awesome website that converts everyone into a customer, the social, word-of-mouth publicity, the links you'll get from blogs and newspaper coverage, that would sort out any traffic problems you might have.

Also, Google knows your bounce rate and will downgrade you in the search results if it's poor (your bounce rate is the percentage of people who arrive at your site and leave immediately).

So in a game of conversion -v- traffic, conversion wins. The only time it doesn't is when you don't have much traffic at all.

Anyway. Partly, conversion is about the customer journey. When your prospect sits down to solve their problem: what do they do? Type a query into Google? What query? Do they refine their query after seeing the results? Which query do they enter that results in them finding you? And when they click through to you, what do they see? Is your page relevant to them .. remember they may land on a page deep inside your website, or on the homepage, it depends on their query.

Internet use is different to magazine browsing, it's goal oriented. So what is your visitor trying to achieve, is it clear to them that your page they have landed on will provide the answer, and is it clear what they have to do next?

If you pass that test and the visitor reaches the bit where they have to get their credit card out, does all that work properly, do they trust you, what's your aftersales service going to be like, how fast is delivery, will it work, have others trodden the same path and been satisfied, is this purchase going to be a mistake?

Are there ways to customise the purchase to suit the customer's individual needs .. upsells and downsells?

Having gotten the sale, how do you handle that? Are you fast, do you deliver or over-deliver? Does the client feel good? Will they come back for more? Recommend a friend?

So conversion is first of all about relevance. When someone arrives on your site for the first time, does your page look like it will solve their problem? That's about having specific pages for specific types of customer. It's about segmenting your market, knowing what problems people are trying to solve and how you can solve them: so people who want strawberries end up on the strawberry page, while people who want raspberries end up on the raspberry page.

You need a great, compelling headline. Spend more time writing the headline than you do writing all the rest of the copy on your page.

Next up is the copy. Do you talk about the customer? Address their concerns? Write about them and how you can help, not about you and your services.

Then there's navigation. Now is not the time to be innovative, people don't want to learn how to use your site, it has to be obvious what they should do next and how to get around.

There are lots of disciplines at play here: usability is what it says, how usable is your website? That can be tested relatively inexpensively .. I have a panel of testers and they'll provide great insight into how you can improve your site.

Usability incorporates accessibility and internationalisation, so, if someone is using an old browser, or is blind, or doesn't speak the language very well or is old or inexperienced or just very distracted today .. does your site still work for them? It also includes speed: a site isn't usable if it's too slow to use.

Writing great online sales copy is important. Information architecture (how to organise your information so people can use it), persuasive architecture and neuroscience (about how to guide people towards the purchase by, for instance, not confusing them with too many choices), layout and graphic design plays a part too.

Then there's the whole traditional sales and marketing world of pricing, value as perceived by the customer, unique selling points, clear benefits and so on.

Conversion improvements can be tested. In a split test, you pit your amended version against the original. Some visitors see one, others see the other. You measure the conversion rate for each version and see which wins, then you ditch the worst performer and try another improvement. This is a great way to let science guide the evolution of your website which will steadily get better and better.

So, website conversion incorporates a real mix of disciplines, from the technical depths of information design to human persuasion. From databases to psychology and everything inbetween. That's why this is my area, with my two decades in marketing and my degree in Internet computing, I combine them both.

Why not get in touch and let's see if we can work something out. After all, if I can improve your conversion, I'll make you money .. and conversion improvements stick around for the long term.