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?

2. Website Engagement

How engaging is the content on your site?  How can you use Google Analytics to measure the experience of your online audience?  Online engagement is difficult to measure using numbers alone.  It is a much broader, more subjective and more emotive concept which quantitative data often struggles to translate effectively.  There are many businesses out there with websites that exist for purposes other than Ecommerce.  And for these businesses, Google Analytics offers some interesting insights into the extent to which their content is captivating visitors and engendering loyalty.

Here are two key questions about the behaviour of visitors on your site and how Google Analytics can provide some enlightenment:

A – How often do people visit my site and how long has it been since their last visit?

A high number of multiple visits and the frequency with which they return to your site is a good indicator that your online community has established a strong connection with your brand.  You may want to measure whether visit frequency is going up over time to get an understanding of how successful your site is at nurturing this customer relationship.

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Visitors > Behaviour > Frequency & Recency

• Report Tab: Count of Visits

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Visitors > Behaviour > Frequency & Recency

• Report Tab: Days Since Last Visit

B – How long are people spending on your site and how many pages are they viewing?

Taking the time to understand this information will give you a good measure of visit quality and may even stimulate a conversation around improving the user experience on your site so as to drive more meaningful interactions with your audience over time.

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Visitors > Behaviour >Engagement

• Report Tab: Visit Duration

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Visitors > Behaviour >Engagement

• Report Tab: Page Depth

3. Market Penetration

The more you know about your customers, the better equipped you are to respond to changing market conditions. Enter the Google Analytics Map Overlay Report.  Knowing the geographical location of visitors to your site can provide invaluable insights for your business as well as inform your SEO campaigns.

Let’s say you are targeting specific geographic regions in your online marketing efforts.  The Map Overlay Report allows you to identify the number of visitors from that region and compare the trend over time.  Ideally there should be a strong correlation between the locations you are targeting in your SEO keywords and the actual geographic positioning of your visitors.

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Visitors >Demographics>Location

• Country/Territory: Australia
• Viewing: City
• Report View: Percentage

Further, understanding which regions are the most profitable in terms of revenue or conversions presents you with opportunities to:

• focus your SEO efforts on these regions and withdraw from other less profitable ones;
• fine-tune the content on your website to resonate with these markets; and
• maximise the chances of fostering viable prospects

4. The Paid Search Click

Paid search is an area where Google Analytics can greatly improve the success rate of your advertising campaigns.  When you’re paying for the click you want to ensure that this traffic is converting and generating revenue.

Analysing the following metrics gives you a good understanding of what keywords are delivering strong results in the campaign:

• Pages/Visit and Avg. Time on Site – Is your paid traffic behaving as you’d expect?  If you’re paying for the click that directs visitors to your site, you would expect that these visitors find what they are looking for and invest significant time digesting the content on your site
• % New Visits – Are you attracting the same old visitors?  Your marketing dollar should be working hard to chase new prospects, with the lion’s share of paid search traffic coming from new visitors
• Bounce Rate – If your paid keywords have high bounce rates this is a red flag that your landing page may not be resonating with users who are clicking the ad.  Consider improving the relevancy of the content on your landing page, strengthen your call to action and sharpen your ad targeting; all of which could immediately increase the ROI of your advertising dollar

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Traffic Sources >Sources>Search > Paid

• Viewing: Matched Search Query

5. User Interactivity

As business owners, we’d love to get into the minds of our customers.  With In-Page Analytics, Google Analytics has attempted to do just that.  This unique feature allows you to see a visual representation of how your visitors click and navigate their way through your site.  The mind explodes with the benefits this promises for onsite optimisation improvements and web design changes.

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Content>In-Page Analytics

Here are some questions to get you thinking about your site:

• Can your page layout be improved?
• Do your calls to action ‘pop’?  Are they exciting enough to convince customers to act?
• Did my visitors find what they were looking for?
• Can you hold the interest of your visitors for a longer period?  Can the % Clicks Below metric be improved by being creative with placement on your page?
• Does browsing behaviour differ significantly throughout my customer mix? (TIP: Utilise Advanced Segments to analyse click patterns of new or returning customers, paid or non-paid search traffic)

6. Going Mobile

Smartphone sales are gathering pace fast.  Mobile traffic is also on the increase.  What does this mean for your website and its performance? Google Analytics can provide you with some real data on how your current mobile traffic is performing and how well your site is handling these visitors.

Google Analytics Navigation (New):  Visitors>Mobile>Overview

• Advanced Segments: All Visits |Visits with Transactions

This report highlights key metrics for mobile visitors (‘Yes’) and non-mobile visitors (‘No’). Going further and segmenting this data by ‘Visits with Transactions’ you’re able to get a really good feel for the number of mobile users transacting on your site and the potential for revenue growth in this area.  This data should stimulate conversations around:

• Are mobile visitors having issues viewing your site?  Are they bouncing at a much higher rate than your desktop traffic?  If this is the case, then perhaps your current site doesn’t translate well on mobile devices?
• What is the purpose of your site?  Is it to drive sales, generate leads or increase memberships?  How can you improve your web design to help mobile visitors take the action you want?
• Is there enough traffic from mobile visitors to justify having a mobile site?  Is mobile activity on your site trending upwards over time?

Thinking about these questions in light of the data you’ve accessed in Google Analytics will help you to develop a sound strategy for tightening your site content for mobile visitors and driving further business growth through this new and exciting medium.

Are you ready to start thinking critically about your website and its performance?  It’s your turn now to explore these reports within Google Analytics.  You might be surprised at how insightful and constructive the data is to the success of your business.

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.

2. Your Website Can Give You A Competitive Advantage

Your website’s conversion rate is one of the most powerful competitive advantages you can gain against your competition. If your website converts 5% of website visitors into sales, and your competitors are only converting 1% of website visitors into sales, you can spend 20% of your competitors’ budget and still achieve the same result.

When you look at how the majority of online advertising works these days, you’re paying a cost-per-click for prospects to visit your website. If you can convert website visitors at 5x the rate of your competition, you can pay 20% of their cost-per-click and still achieve the same cost-per-acquisition (CPA).

But that’s not what usually happens… what usually happens is that you pay 2x or 3x per click to completely outbid them online, gain maximum exposure and capture the majority of the available market share, and still pay a lower CPA than your competition.

3. Your Website Affects The Quality of Clients You Attract

The quality of the design, structure and layout of your website directly affects the quality of clients you attract – the higher the quality of your website, the higher the quality of clients you will attract.

Think about it… how many times have you visited a website and instantly made an assumption on the type of company it is, how expensive the products or services would be and whether or not you wanted to contact them, just by how it looked and felt.

I’ve often been surprised at just how much the design of a website can affect the quality of leads and sales a website receives. If you want to attract larger companies with larger budgets to your company, then you need a website that reflects what those companies expect to see from a website. On the other hand, if you’re selling cheap products or services, then you don’t want your website to look too expensive.

4. Your Website Affects How Much Facebook Traffic You Receive

Facebook is now one of the largest sources of website referral traffic after Google… and when you consider that more than 10 million Australian are on Facebook, it makes sense. But to really maximise the traffic you receive from Facebook it’s important to understand how it works.

Facebook users share content from around the web, with more than 2 billion posts ‘liked’ and commented on every day. To drive the maximum amount of traffic from Facebook your website needs to include information that people want to share with their social network. The best type of information to share is news, helpful information, photos, videos and any type of information that really adds value to the lives of the people that consume it.

By integrating Facebook sharing functionality, such as Facebook ‘Likes’ and soon-to-be-released ‘Gestures’, you will align your website with how people share content on Facebook thereby maximising the traffic you receive.

5. Your Website Directly Affects Your SEO Rankings

The better your website is optimised for SEO, the higher the rankings you will achieve. Updating the Title Tags, Meta Tags and internal linking can be implemented on any website, but gaining maximum SEO performance from a website requires developing the optimum website structure from the ground up.

The key to really maximising your SEO rankings is to create a different web page for every top level keyword you want to rank for. Doing this will mean that you have the keyword in the Title Tags, Meta Tags, URL structure, Headings and body copy… and it will be integrated naturally. You’ll also have a page for each keyword which makes it easier to rank for each keyword. And the more pages you have on your website, targeted to specific keywords, the more rankings you will achieve.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

After reading this article my hope is that you fully understand the role that your website plays in the performance of your success online… the only thing left is making the decision not ‘if’ but ‘when’ you will invest in your website.

If you’re on a limited budget and you’re running advertising campaigns, my recommendation would be to place those advertising campaigns on hold and divert that budget to upgrading your website. When your website is ready and you reactivate your campaigns you’ll see an immediate boost in the sales and profits you earn online.

If you’ve got more of a budget to play with (but not too much) but you need your advertising to stay running, my recommendation would be to divert some (not all) of your budget to upgrading your website.

And if you can afford to keep your advertising campaigns running and still invest in your website, then do so right away.

Your website holds the keys to your online success… the better if performs, the more money you make… period.

So what are you waiting for?

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…

2. Red makes it go faster? Or… The power of split testing!

At the most basic level we simply test button colours (a button often being the primary call-to-action on your web page and the first point of call for conversions).

And yes, for the first time we can test if the age old saying holds true… does red make it go faster? Well not faster in terms of speed but driving higher conversions on your website? Absolutely.

There have been countless split-test results that have proved the power of red, from buttons and sales elements to individual navigation items, regardless of the general colour scheme of the design.

Red draws the eye and makes an impact. Everyone knows this and that alone is no revelation. But in web design you can’t simply make your entire website red and expect it to convert. Split-testing allows us to target elements specifically. Rather than leaving the result to an arbitrary ‘feeling’ we source specific data on ‘how’ to use the strength of red.

That’s the key.

And without the ability to test one page against another there’s simply no definable moment to use as a stepping-stone to improved understanding and execution of web design.

This is split-testing’s strength and the impact it’s having on what was always the arbitrary exercise of web design is ground breaking.

3. End result? Testing is redefining the way we think about design.

We are re-evaluating everything we think we know about web design and this has one overriding benefit – we’re expanding the concept of what’s possible on a daily basis rather than resting on what we simply believe to be true.

That is no small thing.

It’s an exciting time to be a web designer and even more so to be a business online.

But there’s one important caveat: Your website needs to be performing to some degree prior to split-testing. Split-testing an underperforming website with minor changes such as buttons or headlines is not where the real benefit of split-testing lies.

How well is your current website performing? If the answer is in the negative then talk to us about a free website health check. Let’s set you on the path to improving your website, improving your results and ultimately making your business a great success online!

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.

2. Split-Testing Is Used To Achieve Maximum Performance

Even though the website will be performing well, the Obama team know that the ultimate judge of what makes a good landing page is how people react to it. With that in mind, the Obama team is split-testing various designs of the landing page and measuring which one produces the best results.

And when you consider how much traffic his website will be receiving, an improvement in the conversion rate of just 1% can mean hundreds of thousands of additional voters subscribing to their database.

Action: Use Google Analytics to identify the highest visited and highest performing pages on your website. Then use Google Website Optimizer to split-test various elements on the page to improve performance.

3. An Offer Is Made On The ‘Thank You’ Page

As soon as you join the mailing list you are taken to a ‘thank you’ page that encourages you to make a donation. The ‘thank you’ page is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the website because it is the page that is displayed immediately after an action has been taken (in this case the submission of the form).

Notice how Barack Obama is looking at the form? Naturally, your eyes are taken to the top of the form as well… this isn’t a coincidence. The caption below an image is nearly always read by the visitor, and they have used that to sell the benefit of donating to their campaign.

The form also gives you options of how much you can donate, which means that people can donate as little as $10 or as much as $1,000 or more – it takes away any issue that people might face with how much they should donate.

Action: Review the ‘thank you’ page that visitors see after they take an action on your website. What else could you offer on that page to drive additional action?

4. Email Marketing Is Used To Build The Relationship

Once you subscribe, Barack Obama uses email marketing to build a relationship with you over time. He shares updates on what he has been up to, opinions on various issues and he educates you over time. His emails are written from the first person, from him to you, further building his credibility and trust.

At the end of every email is a call to action to ‘donate now’, although this isn’t pushed heavily. The main focus of every email is to communicate a clear message, which is done masterfully.

Action: Do you have a database of prospects or clients? Then implement an email marketing strategy that develops the relationship, builds trust, and establishes your business as the leader in the market.

5. Blogging Is Used To Connect With The Market

Barack Obama uses blogging to communicate with his visitors and supporters. He shares articles, commentary, YouTube videos and Twitter updates.

You’ll also notice that there’s a ‘Donate Now’ button on every page, to drive action (at the date of writing this article the button is blue, but in 2008 it was red and stood out a lot more, indicating that the donations component in 2011 may not be as important as it was in 2008… or maybe they’re just split-testing it).

Blogging aligns perfectly with social media, which I’ll cover shortly.

Action: Setup a blog on your website and use it to connect with your visitors. Sharing educational or informative articles works best when combined with email marketing and social media marketing.

6. Social Media Is Fully Integrated Into The Website

In 2008 Barack Obama had a presence on 16 different social media platforms, and promoted all of them on his website. In 2011 that number has been reduced to two… Facebook and Twitter, which reflects the growth and market share that these two websites have achieved in the last 3 years. Of course he still uses YouTube to stream his videos and Flickr to host his images, but he has limited his social networking to Facebook and Twitter.

Every post on his website lets you share that post on Facebook and Twitter, and you can invite your Facebook friends to the Barack Obama site right from the widget in the sidebar. This is where blogging aligns perfectly with social media, because people are much more likely to share a piece of information rather than an entire website.

The biggest point to take away from this is that if Barack Obama, with all the resources at his disposal, is only focusing on Facebook and Twitter then why would you spend any of your precious time on anything else.

Action: Integrate Facebook and Twitter with your website and, in particular, your blog. The better the information you share, the more people who will also share it.

7. Campaigns Are Segmented By Market

The website is segmented by state so that supporters can stay up to date with what is happening in their state. This allows Barack Obama to use the main website for his national messages and the state pages for state-based messages.

Segmentation drives engagement with his supporters because they only hear about what is related to them (and aren’t receiving updates about states they might not care about)… this is critical to the performance of his website and social media campaign.

Obama has also setup Facebook and Twitter pages for each state, to further drive engagement.

Action: How can you segment your market to drive engagement? Take a look at your website, database and email marketing and think about how you can refine your message for each segment.

8. Facebook Is Used To Communicate With Facebook Users

Barack Obama’s main Facebook page has more than 20 million Fans… and this doesn’t include the fans he has on his state-based Facebook pages. He uses Facebook to share updates on his campaign, ask his fans questions, share YouTube videos and drive engagement.

Importantly, he doesn’t try to sell anything through his status updates (ie he doesn’t ask for donations). He uses Facebook to drive engagement… and with feedback on his status updates regularly exceeding the 5,000 comments mark, he is doing it well.

Action: Setup a Facebook page for your business and start communicating with your market with the aim of driving engagement.

9. Twitter Is Used To Communicate With Twitter Users

Barack Obama’s main Twitter profile has more than 8 million Followers. He uses Twitter to share opinions, thoughts and updates on his campaign. Obama also uses hashtags to participate in conversations.

It’s a great way for Twitter users to stay up to date with the Obama campaign.

Action: Setup a Twitter profile for your business and join the discussion.

10. A Mobile-Friendly Website Connects With Users On The Go

Barack Obama has a mobile-friendly website for smart phones. With the growth of mobile Internet usage, having a mobile-friendly website is critical for delivering a great experience to mobile phone users.

When you visit the main website on your phone, it automatically redirects you to the mobile-friendly version of the site.

Mobile users can stay connected by sharing their phone number and receiving text alerts from the Obama campaign. They can also make a donation directly from their phone.

Action: Review Google Analytics and find out how many people are accessing your website via a mobile phone. If it is higher than 5% then consider building a mobile-friendly website for your business.

The Strategy

Barack Obama’s strategy hasn’t changed much since 2008… build up a database, grow social media followers, encourage donations, and build credibility and trust through ongoing and sincere communication. The main difference in his campaign this time around is that he is focusing only on Facebook and Twitter to connect with people through social media.

The most important thing to take away from this article is that the process of achieving success online is the same in every market… even when running for President! Here’s the strategy:

1. Develop an effective website that drives action
2. Drive visitors to your website using marketing and advertising
3. Build a relationship with your prospects through email marketing & social media
4. Expand your reach through mobile
5. Implementing all of these steps together is the key to success

We know this to be true because this is the exact strategy we use for ourselves and our clients to achieve success online.

Here are 3 simple tips you can use to improve the performance of your website’s home page…

1. It’s A Snapshot

What should someone understand from the first impression of your Home Page? Should they understand the entirety of your business in the blink of an eye?

Is this even possible?

The answer is, “Kind of.”

The trick is to provide a snapshot of your business by displaying a core message backed up by an exciting overview of your business, all the while utilising great imagery and strong messaging to draw the eye.

Technically, of course, the navigation is your access to the entirety of the site however there’s a limit to how exciting or descriptive navigation can be.

That being the case you need to use strong banner design in terms of imagery and message and follow that same theme and combination throughout the Home Page utilising icons, images, points of difference and success, to generate interest in a blink of an eye and tell a brief but compelling story about your business.

Which brings me to point two.

2. Get To The Point

Say what you do and say it as simply and clearly as possible.

What is often the case is that even when this is successfully enunciated it’s often in paragraph three of eight of far too much information for a Home Page.

When someone lands on your Home Page their eyes and brain go into full scan mode, zipping about the place in an attempt to understand where they are, what you do and why they should stay. The more complicated your message the harder it will be for them to make the decision to stay and delve deeper into your website.

Even three words that are compelling can do the trick.

For our purposes it might be – “Need A Website?”

If the answer’s “Yes” then in an instant your brain has answered two questions. The second being that very simple question that’s asked upon the arrival of every new web page – “Am I in the right place?”

You want the answer to be immediately – “Yes.”

3. A Picture Tells 1000 Words

The problem is the wrong picture tells a thousand words in the wrong direction or at worst debunks the old adage completely and says absolutely nothing at all.

The absence of strong imagery is just a wasted opportunity. And we don’t want to waste any opportunities when it comes to communicating your message.

The right imagery works in tandem with your clear and concise message (as above) and delivers your message on a number of levels instantaneously.

This approach and depth of communication is the basis of great design and is the reason why you must utilise design to enhance and deliver your message. Without it you’re at least 900 words short on impact.

The easy way to consider this approach is the way in which human beings process information as we read, literally, left to right and piece-by-piece. The way we process the depth of detail in an image is instantaneous hence the thousand word adage. Therefore the strength of great web design is the way in which we are able to take a literal message, form it into graphics, combine it with imagery and produce the same powerful result as the 1000 words adage.

In fact let’s start a new adage right here:

“A great design tells 1003 words.”

1. Where Is Your Phone Number?

We may be deep into the internet age but the age of the telephone has yet to go the way of the dinosaurs. So, where is your phone number positioned on your website? If you say anywhere other than top right and on every single page then your website is performing like a V-Dub rather than a Ferrari.

Let’s make it easy for people to contact you. Sounds simple doesn’t it? And hey, often a chat with a potential customer can make all the difference in the age of email… it’s been proven time and time again to be effective.

2. Navigation

How easy is it to navigate your website? At a glance does a potential customer know exactly what to do or what you do? How much thought is behind the words used in the navigation and how descriptive they are?

Navigation should never be a bland or a basic recitation of your available products or services and I mean that exactly. In today’s marketplace it is rarely acceptable to simply state ‘Products’ and ‘Services’ alongside ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact Us’.

Solutions vary from business to business but your navigation’s effectiveness derives from a concerted effort to enunciate the website’s goals via navigation. It is far more than a simple outline of available web pages.

Consider listing product or service types in the main navigation rather than under the dreaded ‘Product” or ‘Services’. If it is a large site define categories of products or services with product or service types under each category. Whatever the size of your site, speak to what your market is looking for.

3. Your Message

Why is your business better than another?

You know why, but how effectively are you communicating this to your customers?

If you aren’t effectively communicating this then how can you expect potential customers to differentiate you from your competitors?

The solution is to define your message.

• What is your market looking for?
• What are you offering?
• What are your competitors offering?
• What do you stand for?

There’s a myriad of solutions that can’t be fully explored here beyond a simple guide but you cannot leave such crucial communication to a lone paragraph buried in the content of your Home Page or any other page for that matter.

To start with review the current message on your Home Page and ask, “Does this represent who we are and what we offer?”

If it doesn’t then strive to discover what that message is and once you have it say it loud, say it clear and follow it with the all important…

4. Call To Action

How hard are you making it for potential customers to utilise your services or buy your products? Even if they understand your message what do they do next?

Do they have to delve and decipher through dense detail just to find what you have to offer? If so you need a clear call to action in the form of a strong, defined button with a clear and concise message.

Ill-defined content with no clear purpose is a labyrinth of lost conversions. The call to action provides the visitor with a clear path that leads them to becoming a customer or a sales lead.

Without it your clearly defined message is simply a statement rather than a sales pitch.

5. Sales Elements & The Free Offer

Are you burying the most saleable points of your business within general content?

Then don’t.

Sales elements are there to sell. From the Home Page to every page they work to continually back up your message and open up the site by providing reasons to browse and investigate why you’re better than ‘X’.

How else are they going to know if you don’t tell them?

And while we’re at it let’s provide a point of differentiation by offering a portion of our service for free in order to generate a sales lead. This can be achieved by utilising a ‘Free Report’ a ‘Free Quote’ or any number of offers that can gain you that lead while backing up your main message. This also allows you to continue that all important dialogue with the customer after they leave your site.

6. Brilliant Design

If your web presence is dated or dull what do you think your market thinks of you? Forward thinking? Dynamic? Not likely.

The world of design is an ever-evolving beast and never more so than within the creative sphere of Web Design.

Web Designers must not only contend with a constantly evolving arena of ideas and approaches but must also do so within a constantly evolving framework of technology. Our job is to constantly and consistently keep up with or stay ahead of the pack. We must be aware, focused and forward thinking.

How this relates to your website is that the above creates a verifiable web standard consciously or even unconsciously identified by your market. You will be judged almost solely on appearance and whether you measure up is made in an instant. How can you speak to your market when you’re making your pitch in the equivalent of bell bottoms and a purple paisley shirt?

And this is where we come in.

If you’re looking for a website that is a veritable sales machine with brilliant website design including all of the above then call us now on 1800 932 776 or click the button below for a Free Website Analysis and discover how your website stacks up.

There are 6 factors that define what a good conversion rate is:

1. Source of the traffic
2. Cost of the traffic
3. Type of conversion you are measuring
4. Maximum amount you can afford to spend for a conversion
5. Sales conversion rate
6. Number of sales you want

Now let’s take a look at each of these factors in a little more detail…

1. Source of the Traffic

Different traffic sources produce different types of traffic. One source may produce higher quality traffic than another. And the higher the quality of the traffic, the higher the conversion rate. For example, running a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign on Google Adwords is one of the highest converting advertising channels because you can choose to only show your ad when somebody is actively searching for your product or service. Banner advertising, on the the other hand, is a much lower converting advertising channel because you are advertising to prospects that are not actively searching for your product or service.

2. Cost of the Traffic

Different traffic sources have different cost structures. Using the same example as before, Google Adwords is a high converting traffic source but it also has a high cost-per-click for keywords that produce conversions. As banner advertising is a lower converting traffic source, it has much lower cost-per-clicks as the traffic is much less qualified. In any form of PPC advertising the higher the quality of traffic, the higher the cost. Vice versa, the lower the quality of the traffic, the lower the cost.

3. Type of Conversion You Are Measuring

Different offers have different conversion rates. A free report will have a higher conversion rate than a form submission for a free consultation. A free consultation form will have a higher conversion rate than an online sale from an ecommerce store. The higher the commitment required from your visitor, the highest the quality of the lead, but the lower the conversion rate. The easier you make it to take action, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Think about it… if somebody requests a free report they’re probably still in the research stage of their buying decision. If somebody submits a form for a free consultation they are closer to making a buying decision than the person who requested a free report. And the person who makes a purchase online is ready to buy now, and is the highest quality visitor.

4. Maximum Amount You Can Afford To Spend For A Conversion

Your cost-per-action (CPA) is the amount it costs you for the conversion on your website. If 100 people visit your site at a total advertising cost of $100 and 5 people download a free report your CPA for ‘free report downloads’ is $20 (ie $100 / 5 = $20). On the other hand, if nobody downloads a free report but one person submits a form for a free consultation your CPA for ‘free consultations’ is $100 (ie $100 / 1 = $100). The most you can afford to spend for a conversion depends on how many conversions it takes for you to make an actual sale. Which leads me to my next point…

5. Sales Conversion Rate

If you have an ecommerce store, then this point does not apply as your sales are made online. But if you don’t have an ecommerce store then this point is critical. Your sales conversion rate is the rate at which you convert your website leads into sales (which is where you earn a profit). The better you are at converting your website leads into sales, the more you will be able to spend for a website conversion. This is where it gets a little more complicated.

As we discussed earlier, different conversion types have different levels of quality. A ‘free report’ lead is of lower quality than a ‘free consultation’ lead… and quality is defined by the conversion rate required to make a sale. The CPA for a ‘free report’ lead may be 20% of the cost of a ‘free consultation’ lead, but the sales conversion rate of a ‘free consultation’ lead is 10 times higher. This means that it’s actually more cost-effective to focus on getting as many ‘free consultation’ leads as possible. Make sense?

6. Number of Sales You Want

At the end of the day the reason we market online is to drive more sales, right? So the ultimate goal of any online marketing campaign is to drive the maximum number of sales within the current marketing budget. As your business grows online, so will your marketing budget. And the bigger your marketing budget is the more traffic sources you’ll need to invest in to maximise your sales.

In the early stages you’ll probably be focusing on higher converting traffic sources like PPC and SEO, but as your business grows and you start to maximise the traffic available from these sources you’ll need to start investing in other sources, such as banner advertising. Because these sources produce lower quality traffic the conversion rate will be lower, but because they cost less as well the CPA for a website conversion may be the same (or even lower) than the higher quality sources.

So What Is A Good Conversion Rate?

A good conversion rate will always be determined by your competition and the most you can afford to pay for a conversion (while still making a profit). The better their website and sales conversion rates are, the higher yours will need to be just to compete. And if you have 10 really strong competitors then you’ll need a really strong website and sales conversion rate to be able to succeed online. On the other hand, if you’re in a market where the competition doesn’t really know what they’re doing online (and there are a lot of these markets) then a low conversion rate will suffice.

Two Quick Examples

Here are two quick examples to give you a better understanding of what a good conversion rate is. In one market we’ve been involved in the conversion rate of ‘free consultations’ was over 10% from 2,000 Google Adwords visitors per month. In another market, the ecommerce conversion rate was 0.5% from 1 million banner advertising visitors per day (this same site converted at 28% from Google Adwords visitors). Importantly, in both examples the client was very happy as the conversions were achieved within their target CPA range.

How To Assess Your Conversion Rate

Before you can assess your conversion rate you’ll first need qualified prospects visiting your site. When that is happening, the best way to assess how good your conversion rate is to ask yourself ‘am I generating a profit from my website visitors?’. If you are then your conversion rate is good, if you aren’t then your conversion rate isn’t good. And if you aren’t then you need to work at improving your conversion rate through either a complete overhaul of your website design or through ongoing split-testing.

Over the years we have tested many different areas for improving the performance of a website – some of them easy to implement, some of them difficult. Here are 10 easy ways to improve the performance of your website…

1. Write better headlines - you would be surprised at how many websites still say ‘Welcome to XYZ company’. When a prospect visits your website for the first time they are looking for something specific so make sure to say what you offer in the headline of each page. Write in terms of the benefits to your prospects.

2. Write more sales copy - many website owners get stuck into writing less words so that their visitors don’t have to scroll to read all the wording on the page. The outcome is usually not enough wording to sell the prospect into taking action. It is far better to write more sales copy than less, as long as you ensure that your copy is concise. You can use sub-headings and bullets to make longer copy easier to read.

3. Add a call-to-action above the fold – with a well written headline and a good opening paragraph many of your visitors will have enough information to take action right away. By adding a call-to-action above the fold (ie before your visitor has to scroll) you make it as easy for them to take action as soon as possible… and they do!

4. Include a testimonial – establishing your credibility so that your visitors believe what you say is difficult. One of the best ways of doing this is to add testimonials of past clients on your site. The more information you can provide about the client giving the testimonial (eg name, company, website etc.) the more believable it will be.

5. Include a relevant image – using the right image on the page can make it easier for your visitors to understand what you offer. The best type of image is one that is relevant to your offering and relates to your sales copy. Using the wrong image won’t help at all and can actually hurt your website’s performance.

6. Include a form on the same page – each time you ask a visitor to go to a different page on your site there is the possibility that they will leave – maybe the page doesn’t load or maybe they change their mind. By including a form at the bottom of each page you make it as easy as possible for your visitors to contact you. Importantly, the call-to-action above the fold should link directly to the form at the bottom of the page.

7. Add a phone number at the top of the page – many of your visitors would prefer to call you, and these are usually the prospects that are in a hurry to buy. By adding a phone number to the top of each page you make it as easy as possible for your visitors to contact you. Even if they don’t call you they will feel more confident in using your site as you are saying that you are a real business that is available to talk by phone.

8. Make every page a landing page – if you are running SEO and PPC campaigns effectively, you won’t be driving all of your prospects to your home page… you will be driving them to the most relevant page on your site that matches their search query, which is most likely one of your internal pages. By ensuring that every page on your site has all the information a visitor needs to make a decision (ie points 1 to 7 above) you will make it as easy as possible for any of your visitors to take action on your offer.

9. Use Google Analytics – Google Analytics will show you how your visitors are interacting with your website. Find pages on your website with a high bounce rate or a low conversion rate and use split-testing to start improving them.

10. Start split-testing – Google’s website optimizer is one of the best split-testing software applications on the market. Use this software to continually improve the performance of your website over time.

You can improve your website’s performance by implementing just one of these suggestions, but the best results will be achieved by implementing all of the suggestions above.

The businesses that make the most money online know how much it costs them to make a sale and they are continually working to improve the performance of every part of their online marketing strategy to reduce this cost.

When performance goes up it costs less to drive sales, which means more money in your pocket and more sales from the same advertising budget.

Let’s walk through an example…

Say you have an e-commerce store that sell basketballs online. You buy a basketball for $30 from your supplier and sell it on your website for $55. This means you have $25 to play with to make the sale of the basketball, or a $25 margin.

Marketing the product to get targeted consumer traffic to the website will bring your costs up and reduce your margin, but so long as the cost to get one sale does not exceed your margin of $25, you’re making money.

What Do You Need To Know?

You need to know what your CPA is.

CPA stands for ‘Cost Per Acquisition’ or ‘Cost Per Action’ and is a business metric that measures the advertising cost to acquire one new sale.

CPA is calculated by taking your advertising costs and dividing them by the number of sales you’ve made, providing you with a cost per sale amount (ie CPA). The aim is to lower your CPA while simultaneously increasing the number of sales from the same advertising budget.

To work out what your CPA is you will first need to install website analytics to track the number of people that visit your site and how many of them buy – this will give you your website’s conversion rate as a percentage.

For example, if 1,000 people visited your website and 30 of them bought something, your website’s conversion rate would be 3% (ie 30 sales divided by 1,000 visitors multiplied by 100, to get a percentage).

Note: Google Analytics is a free analytics solution that provides a wealth of valuable data including where your visitors are coming from and which ones are buying. If you don’t have it installed on your website, get it done as a priority.

Let’s get back to the basketball store…

You buy one basketball from the supplier for $30, and sell it for $55, leaving you with a $25 margin. Next you go out and spend $1,000 on advertising to drive targeted people to your website, resulting in 2,000 people visiting it.

And let’s say that your website has a 2% conversion rate…

The advertising cost you $1,000, you got 2,000 people to the website, the website converted at 2%, and you sold 40 basketballs.

The question is… did you make any money?

No, you broke even.

The CPA, or cost to acquire one new sale, was $25 (ie $1,000 cost divided by 40 sales).

You only had $25 to play with to get the sale and it cost you the entire amount, which means that you broke even.

So What Can You Do To Lower Your CPA?

You can lower CPA by improving the performance of any part of your marketing strategy.

Campaign Performance

You could increase number of qualified prospects to your site from the same $1,000 advertising budget by using better strategies. As long as your website conversion rate stays the same you will be earning more profit from the same budget.

For example, if you can drive 2,500 prospects to your website for the same $1,000 spend and maintain your website conversion rate you will make 50 sales instead of 40 for the same advertising budget (ie 2,500 people x 2% website design conversion).

Your CPA is now $20 (ie $1,000 divided by 50 sales)…

And from 50 sales, with a CPA of $20 and a margin of $25, you have made $5 per sale and $250 in total (ie $5 x 50 sales).

Great!

Now what else can you improve to reduce your CPA?

Website Performance

Your website converts 2% of your visitors into sales. What happens if you improve your website’s conversion rate to 5%?

Now you’re getting 125 sales from 2,500 people! (2,500 people x 5%)

Advertising costs remained the same at $1,000, but because the campaign performed better you were able to drive more people to the site for the same budget. And because the website sold better you were able to make more sales from the people that visited your site.

The result?

125 sales, a CPA of $8, and a profit of $17 per sale (ie $25 margin minus $8 of advertising cost).

Which means you just made $2,125 profit in total ($17 x 125 sales).

That’s much better than breaking even, right?

Because each part of your marketing strategy performed better you were able to actually make a profit, rather than breaking even.

And this mindset is what separates the businesses that make money online, and those that don’t.

Only once you know what it costs you acquire a new sale will you be able to work at improving performance, lowering your CPA and increasing sales and profits.

So get to it!

Before you can really start making money online you will need to know what your CPA is and how much you can afford to spend and still make a profit.

The beauty of online business is the wealth of analytical performance data that is available. Know what your marketing costs are, know your traffic volumes, know which keywords make you money, and know how well your website converts. Only after you have all this data in hand can you calculate your CPA.

And now I’ll leave you with a question

What is your CPA?

Reply in the comments please.

Don’t let the fact that the software is free to install and easy to use detract from the level of reporting that is available. Used correctly, Google Analytics can provide you with the information you need to take your website from ordinary to extraordinary.

While Google Analytics has an astonishing number of reports available, you can use the following reports to increase the performance of your website and, in turn, your sales and profits.

Setting Up Google Analytics

To receive the best website statistics you must setup Google Analytics correctly, as follows:

• If you don’t already have a Google Analytics account click here to sign up

• Add your website when prompted and then paste the tracking script provided on every page on your website, right before the </body> tag. If you are confident with this get your web designer or webmaster to set this up – it is relatively easy.

• Go to the Analytics Settings, edit the website profile and setup Goals for your site. Add the ‘thank you’ pages that visitors are taken to after they complete a form or purchase something online. This is a critical step that provides a higher level of reporting detail.

With tracking code on every page and conversion goals setup you can now start to analyse your website to improve its performance.

Valuable Analytics Reports

The following reports are extremely valuable in your understand of where your traffic is coming from and how it interacts with your website. Importantly, you should always click the ‘Goal Conversion’ tab next to ‘Site Usage’ to see the conversion rate for each item in each report (just press CTRL+F to search for ‘goal conversion’ on the report page)

• Top Traffic Sources – this report is accessed at TRAFFIC SOURCES -> ALL TRAFFIC SOURCES and shows you where your visitors are coming from. It shows you search engines, referring sites, paid advertising and so on. By having a strong understanding of where your traffic is coming from you can decide where to invest your resources for maximum leverage.

• Keywords – this report is accessed at TRAFFIC SOURCES -> KEYWORDS and shows you the keywords that people are typing into the search engines to land on your site. You can separate this report into Paid (ie Adwords) and Non-Paid (ie SEO) to further analyse your results. By understanding which keywords are producing website conversions you can focus and re-align your SEO to those keywords that are producing results.

• Search Engines – this report is accessed at TRAFFIC SOURCES -> SEARCH ENGINES and shows you which search engines are sending you traffic. If you are optimising for Google you will most likely see that Google sends you the most traffic by far. This report shows you which search engine you should be focusing your SEO efforts on.

• Top Content - this report is accessed at CONTENT -> TOP CONTENT and shows you the most popular pages on your site. You will usually see the home page at the top, but the most important information to garner from this report is the pages that your visitors browse to after visiting your home page. These are the pages which you should be split-testing using the Google Website Optimizer.

• Top Landing Pages – this report is accessed at CONTENT -> TOP LANDING PAGES and shows you the pages where people first land on and interact with your site. Most people think that their home page is the first page that people land on, but when you have SEO rankings people can enter your site from any page. By understanding which pages people are landing on you can ensure that those pages are worded and designed to give the visitors a great user experience, which then leads to conversions.

• Top Exit Pages – this report is accessed at CONTENT -> TOP EXIT PAGES and shows you the pages where people are leaving your site from. Find the top exit pages and look for reasons why people are leaving from this page and identify solutions to fix this problem.

• Goals – this report is accessed at GOALS. If you have more than one goal setup you can see the results you have achieved for each goal. While this report is good it is far better to click on Goal Conversion on each of the reports within Google Analytics.

• New vs Returning Visitors – this report is accessed at VISITORS -> NEW VS RETURNING and shows you how many new and returning visitors you are receiving each month. If your site is a lead generation or ecommerce site you want to make sure that you have a high number of new visitors each month.

• Browsers – this report is accessed at VISITORS -> BROWSER CAPABILITIES -> BROWSERS and shows you which Internet Browsers (eg Firefox, Internet Explorer) people are using to visit your site. It is critical to ensure that your site functions correctly in all browsers to ensure a good user experience – you would be surprised at how many sites do not work in Firefox!

Dimensions

Dimensions provide more advanced reporting within any of the reports listed above and throughout the Analytics package. By using dimensions you can drill down within reports and get additional insights which you can use to improve your website.

While there are dozens of dimensions available, here are some helpful dimensions to get you started.

• Keywords with Landing Pages – after opening the Keyword report (outlined above), select ‘non-paid’ keywords (so you can see the SEO traffic you are receiving) and then click on your most popular keyword. Once you are in this report click on the drop down menu ‘dimensions’ below the main ‘visits’ statistic and select ‘landing page’. This report shows you the pages that users land on your website after typing in that keyword phrase. To ensure a good user experience, and maximum conversions, ensure your web page is customised to the words that people are typing to land on that page.

• Search Engines with Country – after opening up the Search Engines report (outlined above) click on the search engine (eg Google) and then select ‘country’ or ‘city’ from the ‘dimensions’ drop down menu. This report shows you where your visitors are coming from within each search engine. With this information in hand you can further customise your website to appeal to the locations where most of your visitors are coming from.

Dimensions are available with any Google Analytics report, so play around and see which reports provide you with the greatest insight.

Google Analytics Tips

The following tips will assist you when analysing Google analytics reports:

• Always use the Goal Conversion tab when reviewing reports so you can see which keywords, search engines, referring sites etc. produce the highest number of conversions.

• Conversion rate is better than bounce rate – if you are tracking conversions (and you should) the conversion rate is a much more important metric that the bounce rate. While the bounce rate is an important initial metric, the conversion rate is the metric that will make or break your business.

• Compare data to the past – if you want to compare how your website is doing between one date range and another, check the ‘compare to past’ checkbox at the top of the page (below the date).

• Use Google Tracking URLs for more accurate reporting – Google provides URL tracking that integrates with Google Analytics. By visiting this URL and creating a tracking URL you can get more accurate data from email campaigns, offline advertising, banner advertising, paid advertising and much more, which you can then review in Google Analytics using the same reports as outlined above.

• Add reports to your dashboard - once you have found some reports you really like, click on the ‘add to dashboard’ link at the top of the page, above the chart. This will add the report on your Google Analytics home page so you can see it when you first login. Add all the reports you use on a regular basis.

Google Analytics is a great tool for understanding how your website visitors are interacting with your site but the number of reports can sometimes be overwhelming. Use the reports outlined above and you will gain some great insights into how your website is performing.

With the ease of tracking on the Internet and the advent of low-cost or free software programs, split-testing is something that all online business owners should be implementing each month. It is an ongoing process.

What Is Split-Testing?

Split-testing is the process of creating two separate variations of anything that a visitor or a prospect is exposed to which requires them to take an action, such as a web page, a PPC ad or a banner ad. An action required for measuring a split-test can include the click-through-rate on a PPC ad, submitting a form to request a free consultation or purchasing a product online. Splitting traffic between the two variations of the same element shows you which one produces the best response rate.

Split-testing allows you to remove the guesswork from your marketing campaign by showing you the difference in response rates each variation produces. The first time that you design your web page and set up a PPC campaign, you’ll of course have to use your “best guess” and experience helps a lot here. However, once a page or an ad is activated and you start achieving results you can use split-testing to continually and incrementally improve these results over time.

Essentially, split-testing allows you to identify the combination of factors that produces the highest conversion rate and, in turn, the highest return on investment (ROI) from your advertising budget.

Why Is Split-Testing Important?

Split-testing is the fastest way to increase your conversion rate and lower your cost-per-action, which increases profitability. But more than this, it allows you to be more competitive in your marketplace by allowing you to spend more on advertising than your competition, yet still achieve higher levels of sales and growth at a lower Cost-Per-Action (CPA).

Split-testing also allows you to test what your competition is implementing on their site and to see how it affects your own conversion rates. Over time, split-testing allows you to capture a larger share of your online market.

Let’s Take A Look At The Numbers

Your competition is spending $2 per click and has a 1% conversion rate. That means it costs $200 to drive 100 website visitors. At a 1% conversion rate they are getting 2 conversions (ie sales or sales leads) for every $200, which means their CPA is $100 per action.

If through split-testing you were able to increase your conversion rate to 3% that means for the same $200 spend you would get the same website traffic, but instead of getting just 2 conversions, you would get 6. This means that your CPA is $33, rather than the $100 your competition is achieving…all from the same advertising budget.

What this really means is that you can afford to spend 3 x what your competition is spending and achieve the same CPA, which means that you will dominate the top positions on the search engines and capture the lion’s share of the online market. Convinced yet?

Conversely, if your competition is split-testing and you are not, they will get the lion’s share of the online market and you will miss out.

In the current economic climate, split-testing allows you to get the most out of your advertising budget and to continue growing your business during these tougher times.

What Should You Split-Test?

You should split-test anything shown to a visitor that requires an action. With PPC advertising you can split-test two separate ads and see which ad produces the lower CPA. With your website design you can split-test two separate pages and see which one produces the highest number of conversions. You can also split-test email campaigns, banner campaigns and other forms of paid advertising.

SEO listings (ie what displays in Google’s organic search) are harder to split-test because you don’t have full control over the information displayed in the listings. Saying that, you can split-test the page that prospects land on after they click on your SEO listing.

On your website, you should split-test the following items on your highest traffic web pages – which you can find through Google Analytics:

• Headlines
• Call to action
• Offer
• Sales copy
• Images
• Testimonials
• Button styles
• Navigation styles
• Background color
• Listing a phone number versus not listing a phone number
• And anything else which holds a prominent position on the page

For your PPC campaign, you should split-test the text ads, keywords and landing pages.

How To Split-Test

The most important metric to measure with split-testing is the CPA, which is measured with conversion tracking. If you don’t have a website form or shopping cart and all your website leads come via telephone or email, it will be much harder to split-test.

The easiest way to split-test is to use a form on your website for somebody to submit whenever they wish to contact your company. When somebody submits that form, they are taken to another page that is call the “thank you” page, which contains a short message saying something like, “Thank you for your enquiry, we will contact you shortly.”

With split-testing, a conversion code is placed on the ‘thank you’ page which then measures the results. If we were split-testing two landing pages using different headlines we would use split-testing software to rotate between those 2 pages so alternate visitors would see alternate versions of the landing page. After a reasonable amount of visits and because conversions are being tracked, one of the two versions will start producing a higher number of conversions than the other. This is then the better landing page, also referred to as the ‘control piece’. The goal with split-testing is always to try and beat the control piece.

To justify that a split-test is statistically correct you need enough visitors and conversions to make an informed decision– as a general rule you will need a minimum of 30 conversions before you can make a decision on which of the variations is best. Note that The difference between the conversions of each version has to be greater than the square root of the sum to ensure statistical integrity.

Split-Testing Software

The best software to use, at the moment, for split-testing web pages is Google’s Website Optimizer, which is available for use free of charge. With this software, you can split-test one or more pages on your website at the same time. It is a very robust system, and the software actually tells you when you have found a ‘winning combination’.

It’s relatively simple to setup and although it can be a little confusing the first time, it quickly becomes very easy to use. Setting up a new split-test can take as little as 15 minutes (after the two variations of the page have been designed).

Split-testing of PPC ads can be done directly through the Adwords interface by setting up a variation of an ad within the campaign. Just make sure to edit the campaign settings and select the ‘rotate ads evenly’ rather than ‘optimise ads based on performance’. Importantly, you will need to activate conversion tracking within the console and add the conversion pixel to the ‘thank you’ page.

Split-testing other forms of marketing is done in a similar way to split-testing PPC ads, that is, managed from within the administration console of the advertising channel and tracked by adding a conversion pixel to the ‘thank you’ page.

Additional Tips for Split-Testing

• You should always be split-testing : With split-testing you set up the test once and let it run for a few days, weeks or a month, depending on your level of traffic. We recommend that as a bare minimum you split-test all of your high traffic web pages and all your PPC campaigns at least once a month. This means that once a month you sit down and review the stats, stop the lower performing variations, and then setup another split-test to try to beat the control piece.
• Track your split-tests : It’s important that you track the changes that are made so you don’t end up split-testing the same thing over and over again, ensuring that you’re continually moving forward. Track changes with a simple spreadsheet, with columns for what is being split-tested, the date and the results.
• Watch what your competition is doing : Learn from them but don’t take what they are doing and implement it on your websites as is… split-test it and see if it improves conversions or not.
• Only make one change at a time : If something is working, only make one change and split-test that – for example the headline. The exception to this is where something’s not working, then you can split-test two very different sets of ads or web pages and see which one produces results.

Remember that split-testing is the key to ongoing success; it is very low cost compared to the benefits you can achieve. In some of our recent split-tests we were able to increase the conversion rate of a website by more than 30% by improving the design and layout of the home page. And this took us less than one-day to implement. Imagine getting 30% more sales from your existing advertising budget…

How is all this possible, you might ask?

It is simply recognition – the mind is able to recognise a combination of general human psychological and website design factors (which are not actually independent of one another) at extremely high rates of speed, in the same way that you are able to to recognise several letters jumbled together as a specific word and assign meaning to it.  Psychology has always played a part in internet usage, but we are only recently beginning to understand the depth of its effects.  When you break it down, web design is simply the manipulation of content and images on a website to appeal to the perceptions of a target audience.

How is this useful in your web design?

The psychology community has conducted studies since the early days of the internet.  I remember reading one years ago which showed that websites using shades of blue or brown as their colour themes tend to receive better user response than those with themes of other colours.  This could be for many reasons, but personally I think it is to do with the world around us and our natural instincts. For example, unrelated studies have shown that female babies have an instinctual attraction to the colour blue.  In addition, 70% of the earth’s surface is water, our most essential consumable, and our body is made of a similar percentage, not to mention the appeal to most people of a clear blue sky.  Take a look at the Barack Obama website – for me, the attraction was instant!  And I can’t see that website looking as good if it were in any other colour.

Another example of psychology affecting website perception is our accustomisation to reading black writing on a white background.  From the time we are infants we are trained to read books and papers that are black on white.  So it stands to reason that, until we begin teaching in other colours, we will always find it easier to read black writing on a white background.

What about website design factors?

Most people that aren’t web developers or designers (and even some that are) don’t really know why a site looks good to them, they just know that they like it.  There are, of course, the basic principles of web design that the majority of designers are aware of: clean layout, easy navigation, attractive and relevant images, etc.  But when you are trying to make a website that stands out among the rest, that has a high conversion rate and performs well, you need to get more specific with your design.  Here are some of the details you should remember when designing a website:

• What images suit the content best?

• What is the focus of the page? (i.e. Where is the eye drawn to on the page?)

• Is the focus on the correct section or item?  If not, how can you change the focus? (e.g. change the colour of a call-to-action button to stand out from the page)

• Where is the eyeline on the page? (the eyeline is the line of site that the eye follows on the page when scanning it quickly – e.g. top left to bottom right, right to top left then down the sidebar, etc.)

• What do other MAJOR websites in your industry look like?  This is especially important when looking at blue chip industries like medicine, law, news and education.  For these, and some others, there are generally accepted designs for particular website types, like journals, newspaper sites, encyclopedias, forums, etc, and if you are designing one of these sites then you MUST take into account what is perceived in the industry to be a credible website.

• Less is more – the simplest designs are often the best.  You don’t want to over-populate any one of your webpages with too much of anything (images, content, etc) and you certainly do not want to make your readers scroll down a page for 30 seconds to find what they are looking for.  Have a good balance, make sure everything is easy to access, and make sure your site looks neat.  When things have been laid out in a way that has some order to it, and is not just clustered together, it is more professional and is much easier to look at, both initially and for extended periods of time.

The best way to understand these design factors and uncover others is to spend some time analysing other websites in your own and similar industries to see what those designers have done right or wrong and learn from them.  Find ways to improve aspects of sites that you already use.

You mentioned web design and psychology not being independent?

Psychology and website design have always overlapped, even before the first study was conducted.  One factor to consider that is common to both fields, and is generally one of the most important factors in either, is security.  All humans have a psychological need to feel secure, and on the internet that need is multiplied considerably.  With more and more internet scams and fraudulent websites appearing all over the world, security is becoming the largest obstacle in the e-commerce industry.  Taking this into account, websites must incite a feeling of security within a visitor before they will take any action on your website.

There are many ways to accomplish this – disclaimers, privacy policies, brand-name security logos, etc – but the best way is to simply be upfront about all aspects of your website, product or business.  People are very good at picking up on misdirections and lack of information.  For example, putting important information in a difficult-to-find area or making unfavourable remarks in very small font gives the impression that you are trying to hide something.  If you have an honest and informative website, people will pick up on that too.

In terms of e-commerce, using a well-known merchant account (e.g. a bank, Paypal, SecurePay, ClickBank, etc) with secure ordering is usually enough to make people feel safe enough to follow through on the purchase.

These are just a few of the most obvious examples.  Take some time and have a look at some of the most successful websites you know. Pay attention in the first few seconds of visiting a new website and take note of why you like it and what they have done that is effective.  Notice how you feel when you are looking at a site and try to understand why you feel that way.  After a while you will begin to pick up smaller details that are useful in achieving certain reactions in your visitors, which is really what online marketing and web design is all about.

What do you think?

My name is Jason May, and I have been meaning to contribute in here for a while now, simply offering my own experiences and perspective on the big wild world of online business.

I consult for online business strategy here at Web Profits, and in general style up the place! I hope I can give some value, and I respect all feedback and welcome comments.

And so there is never a day that the Internet does not impress me these days…

And I know, that come 10.30pm in the evening, I should already have eaten dinner. Something nice, healthy, green. But I am male, I am single, and I do not like supermarkets.

So what can a guy do?

Yes I can cook the basics, and I can order all of my groceries online. Click, click and they deliver to my door for $10 no matter how little or how much I buy, but no…

The other night I felt like pizza. Have you ever been to Pizza Hut online?

Bang! You can open the Pizza Hut website, have your eyes closed, and you will still know that you are on the Pizza Hut website!

This website packs a visual punch. Hit and smacked down with the Pizza Hut redness right from the first second of opening the site. It is just so well done.

Select your country, and away you go. So what does the website want you to do?

Order. And order now. Check out the biggest, shiniest, coolest, most attractive button anyone has every seen, and it just hums there at the right top focal point on the page. And if you are still not sure, the text copy on the button gives added incentive… No credit card needed

How could anyone refuse to hit that thing!

Ah… Well, you may be checking out the large panel, fast rotation, dynamic specials graphics, showcasing whats on offer. But what does this achieve?

That’s right. Extra salivation. An elevation of your appetite to a fever pitch. You get hungry looking at this website.

Of course you are going to order, the website almost demands that you do!

The order process is a painless, it’s quick, easy, 4 steps. Fill in your delivery address, choose your pizza and sides, and then follow through to send the order.

The first time I did this I waited about 30 minutes and then called the Pizza Hut order phone number to check that they had actually received my order… At the time it just seemed too easy. I was looking for the catch.

“Yes Mr May, you have an order placed tonight which should be delivered soon, how can I help…”

Um.. Just as they finished the sentence, my door buzzer sounded. “Hello?” “Yes pizza?”

Clockwork automation.

So check out this website, even if you are eating healthier than me. The Pizza Hut website has been expertly crafted.

The flash overlay when you order is fantastic. So functional. The site delivers a true Pizza Hut restaurant experience… but online, from your sofa. Easy, straight forward, dynamic, intuitive, and attractive.

And notice how a new screen pops open when you start the order process. There is no way but forward through the order.

Well I guess pizza once in a while is ok, I mean, what chance do we stand against that type of website design?

But what about the graphics? How important are they to the overall success of a website?

Let’s look at an example. When you are surfing the internet and you come across a website, what makes you decide whether to stay or carry on surfing? If a website uses neon colors and flashing banners to try and catch your attention, the chances are you will click away quickly. But if that site is well presented, with a good mix of graphics and text, you may well stay for a closer look.

Content is important, but the graphics help to balance out the text, breaking it up and making it more readable. They also support the text – so they shouldn’t just be there for the sake of it. All good graphics have a purpose, which is to draw the casual surfer in and get them involved in the site – and preferably encourage them to order something.

Graphics can create a compelling image and persuade a surfer to buy your product. Think of ‘Buy it Now’ buttons, for example. These sometimes appear with the graphic of a mouse arrow over the top of the button, prompting the surfer to click onto the next page to make their payment.

Graphics can also make all the difference between a sale and a near miss, especially when it comes to products like e-books. Because e-books are downloaded straight to the buyer’s computer, there is no eye catching cover or real solid product to show the purchaser. This problem is solved by creating a graphic of a book which has a stunning cover to promote the product itself. The color of this graphic often matches the overall color tones of the whole website – especially if used on a so called ‘mini site’, which promotes a single product only.

Competent graphics can also help surfers navigate a website, as they can indicate pages of interest, drop down menus, new products and much more.

In short, even though text is important, a website with huge chunks of text and little or no graphics will not attract many visitors – at least not those who stay for any length of time. Conversely, an attractive looking website which has a nice balance of text broken up by graphics will keep people browsing for far longer – and the longer they stay on the site, the more likely it is that they’ll come back again.

It will have the greatest impact on website conversions, yet it is the one thing that most website owners neglect when designing their website.

The ‘call to action’…

All good websites have at least one (usually several) calls to action, and they generally prosper because of them.

In short, a call to action is something that asks website visitors to do something. It’s your job as a website owner to make the process of ordering a product, requesting more information or signing up for a free report as easy as possible, and providing a call to action is the most important part of that process.

Let’s suppose, for example, that you have a weekly newsletter that you send out by email to your database. You want to get more subscribers to this list so you include a box on the home page of your website asking people to fill in their details and click ‘Subscribe’ to start receiving the newsletter.

At the bottom of this box there will probably be a big button bearing the word ‘Subscribe!’ in big letters, with an arrow pointing to it. It may sound like you are holding the hands of your website visitors and leading them to take a specific action, and in reality you are, but this call to action makes it clear what they need to do to receive some kind of benefit – in this case a free newsletter.

But there is more to the call to action than directing people to press a button or click their mouse. You can also make it more enticing and add a certain urgency to the task you are encouraging them to perform.

Think about all the things you have ever ordered online. Did you ever order something because they told you it was in short supply, or that the price would go up in the next couple of hours if you didn’t order straightaway?

In this sense, a call to action can instil a sense of urgency in your customer. It’s worth spending some time figuring out how you can put a call to action to the best use on your own site, as it has the ability to make a real difference to your profits in both the short and the long term.