Most organizations spend more time and money promoting their websites through acquisition channels such as search or affiliate marketing than they do optimizing existing conversion rates.
We often overlook applying marketing fundamentals such as identifying and defining profiles that comprise our larger target audience,
developing the right offer and corresponding message,
and delivering it to them at the right time in their purchase cycle. This can all be summed up with one word: relevancy.
Organize and Optimize Site Structure:
There are fundamental differences in choosing which principles to use in optimizing the home page vs. landing pages. We’ll address both with the following basic principles:
- Ensure that your site is both visually appealing as well as functional. How does your site flow and look in relation to your competitors?
- Ensure that your pages load quickly—within eight seconds. Research shows that if your page is too heavy with imagery or has a poorly devel-
- Ensure that key message isn’t, “rotating,” or animated.
- Keep the first paragraph short—no more than two lines.
- Alter paragraph lengths and use no more than four to five lines.
- Users prefer to scroll on a page as opposed to clicking to a new page.
- Test both short-form and long-form copy pages.
Let’s now address the more complicated part: developing a compelling message.Motivating prospective leads and customers has much to do with theirpsychographic make- up. Accessing research that identifies the interests,
attitudes, and opinions allows us to understand the motivations of our multiple target profiles. We can also rely heavily on the fact that most people are motivated by love, fear, and pain (either physical, mental, or emotional).
Understanding these key elements, utilize the following guidelines:- Talk about the customer, “pain,” and address it in the form of your solution and benefits.
- Develop a sense of urgency by using deadline sensitive promotions with time sensitive words such as, “now,” within the messaging.
- Use customer testimonials to credibly prove that others have found value in your products or services—and minimizes their pain in the process.
- Bottom line—Make it Relevant and develop unique messages to each of your profile segments within your audience.
Enhance Shopping Cart / Lead Capture Process:
A large fall-off percentage occurs within shopping carts and lead forms. As a result, several organizations stage the steps of the cart or lead form to enable the capture of contact information at different stages. if multiple steps exist as opposed to just one, these valuable names,
e-mails, phone numbers, and postal addresses can be used for re-marketing purposes if the cart or lead form is abandoned before completion. Below are several best practices related to shopping cart or lead form optimization.
- Develop, a “perpetual,” Shopping Cart that allows users to see products and totals on every page.
- Describe form fields and use examples (e.g. business e-mail, business phone).
- Test multiple shopping cart or lead form steps—some use one, some use five.
- Test the placement of form fields collection on different steps
While using Shopping Cart to measure conversion, you should also consider setting up conversion dashboards with engagement-specific KPIs that get emailed to you and other accountable parties on a daily or weekly basis.
