Website Conversions
Conversion Rate Optimisation Tools
It’s the stuff that makes online marketers toss and turn at night: what combination of product, service and content will compel as many visitors as possible to click and buy? Smart marketers know that testing these combinations through split and multivariate testing is always going to drive better results over ‘best guess’ efforts.
While you’re probably familiar with Google’s free tool, Website Optimizer, there is a raft of new premium services that give you unheard of control over any and every aspect of your website. Here is an overview of some of the best conversion rate optimisation tools, from the quick and easy to enterprise-level heavy-lifters.
Ninja Button
A simple tool for the web marketer who doesn’t want to bother with complex A/B testing or multivariate optimisation set-ups, Ninja Button lets you create any number of combinations of button colour, text and shape and automatically tracks how successfully each compels users to click on them.
There’s no need to ask your developer to create the buttons or insert tracking codes – it’s easy to create the combinations and just check in a few weeks to see the results. Does a white “View plans and pricing” button work better than a solid one saying “See plans and pricing”? This tool will tell you. Pricing ranges from free to US$99 per month.
6 Google Analytics Insights for Improving Website Performance
Your website probably has Google Analytics tracking code installed. But are you using the data available to improve the performance of your site?
Begin by critically questioning what information you need to help drive your business strategy. Google Analytics contains some fantastic data to help you understand the experience of visitors on your site, their motivations and behaviour. And by monitoring the trends in this data you will be equipped with the knowledge to expand your audience reach and drive growth.
Here are 6 insights Google Analytics can yield about your site:
1. Buying Behaviour
It’s great to know that your total visits are increasing over time, but what does this really say about your website? Let’s assume you have an Ecommerce site. A more valuable insight into the performance of your site is gleaned from analysing those keywords that are motivating your customers’ decision to buy. Taking this even further, we can look at the different buying patterns exhibited by new and returning visitors.
Google Analytics Navigation (New): Traffic Sources > Sources > All Traffic
- Viewing: Keyword
- Report Tab: Ecommerce
- Report View: Pivot Table
- Pivot by: Visitor Type
- Pivot Metrics: Transactions | Revenue
Armed with this data you are now able to consider the following:
- What keywords are generating the most revenue for your business? Can you redesign your homepage to focus on those keywords that are enticing your visitors to make a purchase?
- Are new visitors to your site behaving differently to returning visitors? Are your SEO efforts successfully driving traffic to your site? Is your site effectively converting this traffic into sales?
5 Reasons Why You Should Invest In Website Performance
Investing in the performance of a website is usually the last thing most companies consider when deciding how they will invest their marketing budgets. Most companies allocate budgets to advertise their website using Google Adwords, SEO, online advertising, offline advertising and social media but few companies think about how important their website is to their overall success.
Your website is the single most important component of your online marketing strategy – it will literally make or break your success online. Here’s why…
1. Your Website Determines How Many Sales You Achieve From Your Advertising Budget
When you run advertising online, or offline for that matter, you’re driving prospects directly to your website. You might be spending $2,000 per month on advertising, or you might be spending $100,000. In either case, the number of sales you achieve from your advertising is directly related to the performance of your website.
Let’s take a quick look at the numbers… if your website converts 1% of website visitors into customers you will generate 10 new customers from 1,000 visitors. But if you can increase the performance of your website to convert 5% of website visitors, you’re generating 50 new customers from the same advertising budget, or 5x as many sales without spending a cent more on advertising.
Many companies we speak to are happy to spend $10,000 per month on advertising but baulk when we suggest investing $10,000 one-time on improving the performance of their website – this is one of the biggest mistakes a company can make… just take a look at the numbers.
The Science of Performance Website Design
There are myriad of tools available that help improve the performance of your website. Today, the No.1 technique that’s changing the way we think about web design is split-testing.
1. What is split testing?
Split-testing is the process by which we create two different versions of the same web page and, utilising Google’s Website Optimizer tool, we present one version to half of your website visitors and the other version to the other half. We then analyse the performance of each web page by tracking the conversions each version produced, be it a product purchase, a newsletter sign-up or any other measurable action.
We then collate the data, align it with the variations in the design of the two web pages and learn something new about what produces a higher level of performance. Doesn’t sound very designy though does it?
But this is the paradox of web design as an art form. It’s a sym-biotic relationship with the linear world of code and analytics.
This is how it works…
10 Lessons From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy
In 2008 Barack Obama won the presidency of the United States on the back of one of the most successful online marketing campaigns in history.
The time has now come again… with the upcoming U.S. elections in November, Barack Obama has re-launched his online marketing campaign with the hope of achieving similar, if not better, results than in 2008 (of course this time he has the benefit of already being the President).
In this article I’ll cover 10 areas of his 2011 strategy, as well as explaining how you might apply them in your business.
1. A High Performance Website Is Used To Drive Action
When you go to www.barackobama.com the first page you see is a landing page that is focused on one thing… to get your email address and zip code. The main call to action is red so it stands out. It is obvious what they want you to do. They also use the words “I’m In!” in the button to encourage people to follow through.
Barack Obama’s people know that the key to gaining maximum leverage from those who visit his site is to capture their details and stay in touch with them on a regular basis through email marketing… the entire website is geared to drive email subscriptions and donations.
Action: What is the main action that you want your visitors to take? Are you capturing the email addresses of people who visit your website? Think about the best free offer you can make and integrate that offer into your website to drive action.
