Many goals of being online
An online presence can take several forms with multiple objectives. I.e. an e-commerce website aims to sell goods or services. As a run-up to a possible future sale it may wish to hook site visitors into a loyalty programme, or get them to register no matter what the reason.
Others might simply aim to visitors into newsletter subscribers, whereas a Facebook page may wish to drum up awareness of a brand or campaign, which may involve a product.
Different complexities
Depending on your objective, you require different levels of persuasiveness. Getting a newsletter subscriber is different to buying a product.
In addition, some products are more complex to sell than others. An insurance policy requires buyers to complete several fields of information versus buying a computer game or a music CD.
Widening the conversion funnel
According to Wikipedia, you lose visitors the more information they have to fill in. To achieve a high percentage of conversions, the site must ‘funnel’ as many visitors as possible towards the end-goal. Knowledge has emerged surrounding ‘conversion funnels’ or best practices of converting online visitors (which has a direct impact on increasing profitability).
In e-commerce, for example, visitors enter a landing page with banner ads confronting them. The goal is to firstly get the visitor to click through, for instance to a product page. Once achieved, visitors will be asked to add a product to their shopping cart, register and check out. But as each step is taken, more visitors leave the process. In the end, only a miniscule percentage of visitors are left.
Tricks of the trade
– Psychology:
* Understand what potential customers want and provide them with it. A buyer of CDs may want to see different tracks of the desired album, as well as the album cover. So provide good quality images and a means for them to share the visitor’s preferred social medium.
* Do not spring surprises, like lengthy registration or login upon clicking “Buy”. If a high percentage of site visitors leave at this point, it points to a need to re-think the conversion path.
* When asking for registration, keep this minimal and confine it to the start of the process, filling in gaps later. Subtle badgering for extra details may be in order.
– User interface design:
* Click-through rates (CTR) rates are often low, but can be increased with subtle variations in link positioning, text, size and even colour. This is known as ad optimisation.
* Provide a good, solid call-to-action (unambiguous, visibly positioned and colourful without being off-putting).
– Logic:
* Don’t do silly things like over-price your products or sell sub-standard fare, or no-one will buy them.
* Provide consistent messaging and look-and-feel in all marketing. Promising one thing on the side of a bus while not integrating the offer online can be fatal.
* You can not manage what you can not measure — Google analytics can give insight into successful or failed conversion. For example, ‘exit pages’ give an indication whether visitors leave the process prematurely. Over time, this will give a good indication of possible improvements.
* When requiring customer details, make sure the appropriate fields are pre-populated with information you already have.
Subtle science
Conversion is a subtle science that applies online as well as in the real world. It is also a shifting landscape, and website owners can never assume they have arrived, as new technologies continue to offer new possibilities and present new challenges.
Considering the difference it can make to profits, it is crucial to get the right consulting partner that will optimise the site experience and allow you to get the jump on the competition.
Simon Bestbier, Realmdigital Account Director
