Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is defined as the ratio of conversions over a relevant denominator, such as the number of visitors to a website (Web Analytics Association, 2008). The conversion rate of a website or landing page is arguably the most important metric a marketer has to analyze because a conversion is the goal of the website or landing page being achieved.

A conversion does not only mean a purchase; it can mean different things to different businesses with different types of websites. For an ecommerce website, a conversion would be a completed purchase, but for a website that does not sell anything, and instead generates leads for follow-up, a conversion would be a form submission.

According to a SEOmoz (Stephen, 2010) article, conversion rate optimization is finding out why visitors aren’t converting, and fixing it so they do convert. This means that optimizing conversion rates leads to increasing conversion rates.

There are numerous benefits that companies can gain from optimizing the conversion rates of their websites and landing pages. The most important benefit is sales increases from the higher percentage of people that purchase products or become a lead on the site. In addition to making more money, increasing the conversion rate makes your marketing spend more effective and increases the ROI of your marketing efforts. Higher conversion rates can lead to an increase in market share because more people are buying your products instead of the competition’s products.

Research & Analysis in Conversion Rate Optimization

There are five recommended steps for optimizing the conversion rates for websites and landing pages. They are research and analysis, solutions, development and testing, review and expand, and repeat (Stephen, 2010). Today I will discuss the first step, research and analysis of the website.

Step one, research and analysis, includes numerous ways to uncover hidden problems that could be keeping website visitors from converting. The writer advises to “become the customer” and actually buy your own product or service from your own ecommerce website (Stephen, 2010). Take screenshots along the way to document the process.

Goals and funnels should be set up in Google Analytics to show where you’re losing traffic and where the largest opportunities are. Other analytics packages should also be used to supplement Google Analytics, such as Crazy Egg, which generates heatmaps of the website, and ClickTale, which shows how far down the page users are scrolling and records videos of user sessions (Stephen, 2010).

The writer recommends doing five usability tests. There are numerous affordable usability testing companies including UserTesting.com, which only cost around $40 for a 15-minute usability test. You will get a video of their session and the voiceover as they navigate the website (Stephen, 2010).

Other suggested ways to find problems with a website is surveying customers to see if there are usability issues that make it so a user can’t buy, or if there are objections and users won’t buy. SurveyMonkey, Kampyle or a phone call to a customer will do the trick. Make sure customers can give open-ended answers to questions so they may tell you their opinions in their own words. Talking to sales staff can also be helpful. Ask them what questions and objections customers frequently come up with (Stephen, 2010).

References

Web Analytics Association. (22 September 2008). Web Analytics Definitions. Retrieved from eCampus.

Stephen. (26 April 2010). The Definitive How-To Guide for Conversion Rate Optimization. SEOmoz. Retrieved from http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-definitive-howto-for-conversion-rate-optimization