Consistently changing and testing your website is essential to enhance your digital marketing campaign’s effectiveness. This continuous cycle is called conversion optimization.
Successful conversion optimization requires proper planning. You’ll gain many insights no matter how your test turns out. Like most projects, conversion optimization requires the following:
- Gather data.
- Analyze the data.
- Repair anything that’s broken.
- Develop the tests.
- Run the tests.
- Report your findings, then repeat.
You can test any digital campaign with these steps. Try email marketing, display and search advertising, social media, and landing pages. Find out how to perform the following steps below.
Gather Data
First, you need to gather information regarding the website you’re testing. Doing so will help you create wiser decisions on what aspects to try and how you’ll perform it. So many sources are available for use, and it all depends on the site’s nature. You also want to ask, what is the business you’re testing? To which industry does it belong? Most importantly, what do you wish the site guests would do when they check your site?
Analytics Data
Try using web analytics to identify which pages you need to test on your site. Or collect information on particular pages on your website with tools like ClickTale or Crazy Egg.
User Data
Another helpful tool for conversion is a simple survey on the site. You can easily create one on kissmetrics.com. Gathering user data will help include qualitative information to the quantitative details you gathered from web analytics.
Customer Service Data
Gather data about the website from your own customer service representatives. This action is doable for conversion optimization if the site requires users to speak to customer service. Make sure you give data about why visitors often make phone calls. The CRM system may also carry essential information.
Analyze
Data does not stand on its own since it requires experts’ interpretation. Some key questions to consider when performing analysis include:
- What should the visitors do on your website?
- Which kind of people is coming to the site?
- What is their reason or purpose for going to your website?
- What are the users actually performing on your site?
Let’s deconstruct these guide questions.
What Should the Visitors do on Your Website?
This first question is crucial because it also answers where you should look at the actual conversion. It’s the action taken by a user that can improve the business’s profit. Some obvious conversions include completing a form, subscribing to the newsletter, and making a purchase. But there are also micro-conversions, which are less noticeable.
Consider running a test to check the factors that would reduce the page’s bounce rate. An online bookstore’s goal, for example, is to sell books. However, some mini conversions may include signing up for newsletters, which could help sell books. Another type of micro-conversion is one that refers to the path toward conversion. Conversion optimization can analyze this path through the Visitor Flow report.
Which Kind of People Are Coming to the Site?
Take a look at the information that offers data about the visitors, such as user data. This information will help you learn who is coming to your site. The visitor’s location, demographic information, and gender are vital things to look at. You might also consider the device they are using, such as desktop, mobile phone, or tablet.
What is Their Reason or Purpose for Going to Your Website?
Look at the sources of your traffic to get to know your visitors. Where are these users coming from? What search keywords are they using? The answers to these inquiries shall give you a glimpse of the guests’ intent.
What Are the Users Actually Performing on Your Site?
Then, understand what the visitors are performing on your site. Ask yourself why they’re not performing what you want them to do. Consider metrics like exit rate and bounce rate for the crucial pages. Then, analyze the overall conversion rate and every step in the process.
Find out which webpage is the most seen. Usually, it’s not the home page. Which ones are exit pages? Should those actually be the exit pages? Use the information on internal site search to check if visitors are trying to find specific information on your website.
Repair Anything That’s Broken.
Now that you’ve done a complete analysis, you already know which areas need improvement. So before developing and running the tests, fix anything that’s broken. Part of repairing is checking if irrelevant traffic is arriving your site. Then, remove that traffic from your research.
For example, your aesthetically pleasing website sells custom couches but is featured in a web design gallery. That may entail that you’re getting a lot of traffic from people who only want to see your site.
Develop the Tests.
After making the necessary repairs, you should know which parts of your website you should be testing. Now, design your tests. Formulate your null hypothesis or starting point of your test. It would help if you started establishing your expected outcomes for this test.
Run the Tests.
Once you’re done developing the test, implement them using the tracking code you need. Try cookies since most testing software already uses them. Cookies guarantee that return visitors will get the same version of the test they initially visited. Make sure you also have tracking codes on your conversion page.
Before the full implementation, check to see if the tracking codes are working. They should not be conflicting with the other codes on your site. If everything is set, there’s nothing else to do but take your test live.
Wait for the right time to collect and analyze the data to produce statistically significant results. But always check how the test is going.
Report Your Findings, then Repeat.
Once you’re done testing and have the results, report them by going back to your null hypothesis. Check if you expected such an outcome to occur. Then, include why it wet as you expected or why not. Then, go back to step one to create better solutions for your site. Even if the results are desirable, there is always something you can improve next.
© Image credits to Anni Roenkae
Posted in Conversion Optimization
