I remember visiting my grandfather’s fruit shop after school when I was a kid. He seemed to have eyes everywhere – making sure that customers were being served quickly… checking that displays were topped up… that the cold drinks fridge was full… that the price signs were sitting up nicely and the whole place was appealing, friendly and tidy.
And you know what?
He never rested on his laurels. There was always a new display to try. Or a different presentation. Or a special offer. Or different wording on the blackboard out front.
He knew that every person who walked in was a valuable opportunity – and he was making sure he did everything he could to convert that precious foot traffic into sales.
Which brings me to today, and your website’s role in your business.
Whether you have an e-commerce site, or want to generate qualified leads and enquiries, you can never sit on your laurels with your website.
It is ALWAYS a work in progress, as you analyse, test and improve the user experience so as to convert more visitors into leads and sales. This is called conversion optimisation.
The key to getting results is to have a clearly defined process. Otherwise, you can find yourself missing opportunities of improvement, or worse, losing precious gains you have already made.
It is always tempting to start by looking at the content and design of a page. The problem is, that is subjective, and decisions are going to be made based on opinion rather than on solid facts.
When we improve a website’s conversion performance here at our marketing agency, the first place we look ISN’T the design or content. We go to the numbers in the website’s Analytics.
Look for problem areas:
Look for opportunities where lessons can be learned
Armed with this data, select the pages that are likely to give the best improvement. For example, if you find a page with a high exit rate compared to others, then that is the page that should probably be singled out for close attention.
Not to try and confuse you, but you must look at the page in context before deciding it needs to be changed. For example, if page with a high exit rate has an enquiry form with a high completion rate, then it may be fine for people to exit. After all, they filled out the form. You got the enquiry. They will have their needs met when you follow them up. So the page is actually fulfilling its role on your website.
On the other hand, if there is no form and people are exiting, then it is time to apply specialist knowledge to improve it.
One of my greatest pleasures in the work we do is watching the team discussing a web page and the things that can be done to improve its performance.
Each person has marketing expertise, and looks at the problem through a different lens.
The website copywriter looks at the tone, manner, voice and appeal of the content.
These insights are exciting. It brings every issue on the website up for review and dissection, and ensures that no opportunities to improve conversions are missed.
Once decisions are made, you should log the changes. Be sure to note the dates they were made so you have a reference point.
Then, as time goes by and fresh data is gathered, you can measure the improvement, (or in some cases, the losses), and move through the process again to optimise other pages on the website.
I can’t stress enough the importance of this work. As my grandfather taught me, traffic is precious. It costs time, effort and money to create it, and you want to squeeze every last drop from the opportunity it presents. By converting more visitors into either paying customers or real, solid enquiries, you will see a higher ROI from your website.
