Conversion Optimization. Google ... Get More Visitors via Google Search. 3. .... Useful tools: Google Analytics, KISSMet
Conversion Optimization
Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tripadvisor, Yelp: The online world
changing continuously and faster. This makes it difficult to determine where you, as a local entrepreneur, should target your efforts. In this mini-course, provide practical tips that will help you make your business even more successful!
All eBooks from this series: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Get More Visitors via Google Maps Get More Visitors via Google Search Facebook Tips for Businesses Mobile First Conversion Optimization
Conversion Basics By “conversion” we mean every step/action/task which your website visitors perform because you wanted them to. A conversion could be: -
sharing their email with you
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downloading your white paper/ebook/report
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booking a meeting/flight/room/table
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making a purchase
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downloading your app
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starting a trial period of a product or service
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etc.
These are exactly the actions you should be focused on improving. Tracking the numbers behind each one is crucial for your business but knowing how to improve them is even better. Before start exploring the topic, let’s define few key terms beforehand. Call-To-Action (CTA) - that’s every actionable block of your website which asks the users to take an action, think about links and buttons Conversion Funnel - it’s the pathway/journey your current visitors take from A to Z so they finally can become paying customers A/B Testing - it’s the activity of measuring various changes to your website and how they affect the conversion results of your visitors Tracking What’s Important Conversion is all about tracking your visitors’ behaviour - what part of the customer journey they join at, where do they come from, what are they doing when on your website, what do they do prior to following your CTA, why are they not clicking on the CTA, etc.
There are two main and four secondary metrics you should be following so you can gain actionable data on your visitors’ behaviour. Total Conversions - that’s the total number of visitors converted into trials or paying customers Conversion Rate - that’s the % of total number of visitors who converted; it’s estimated by dividing the total number of conversions by the total number of visitors of your website & Bounce Rate - that’s the % of total number of visitors who exited after seeing only one page of your website; as a rule of a thumb, try to keep it low Exit Rate - that’s the % of total number of visitors who left your website after visiting a particular page of your website; that’s a rate applied to all of your webpages individually; if you spot a big chunk of people leaving your website at a particular webpage, take a deeper look there and find out Why Average Time on Site - that’s the time your visitors spend on average at your website Average Page Views - that’s the average number of web pages your visitors visit Barriers = Opportunities There’s a set of few key elements of your website which you should consider to take a deeper look at. In case few of these key elements are not taken care of they might act as a barrier to having a well-performing conversion funnel. Of course, even just identifying them is highly beneficial because it will show you where to put more efforts in to be successful. Value Proposition - it’s highly important to communicate the value your business creates in the most correct way - short, concise, clear. What’s the problem/issue your product or service solves? Is it well-presented, with detail and to the point?
CTA - is your call-to-action clear? But before that, are there any CTA’s at all? If the visitors read/listen to/watch a clear Value Proposition, can they find where to take an action so they can become your customers? Graphics - are you using any visuals at all? Images? Videos? Good. Now the question is - are they actually helpful to your business? Do they help to get the Value Prop message across? Usability - this one concerns the “findability” of the content on your website. Is it easy for the visitors to get what they want? Can they easily find what they are looking for? Security - there are special certificates which your website should have so it can be reliable to you, to your visitors, to Google, etc. Having a secure website is a main ingredient when building trust with your audience. Social Proof - having customer testimonials on your website will add an additional layer of credibility to your business. Is it easy for new visitors to see/read the success stories of your previous customers? Take a look at them again, read them again. Now, think about how each one of these topics is represented on your website. You can evaluate them using a simple framework of: -
Don’t Have It (so, you have to include it)
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Have It But It’s Not Good Enough (fix the parts which are missing or broken)
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Have It And Works Well (try to find new ways of improving it further)
The truth is that most likely you don’t have few of these items present on your website or if you do they lack something. That all is a very good news for you. Seriously! Now, you have the chance to improve it and benefit more in the future.
Tools Instead of doing all the work yourself, you can play it smart and use some “robotic” help. We are talking about different tools, of course. Tools are always very nice to use since they are built around a core problem they actually solve. Here, we will present you with three big groups and the tools they represent: -
Analytics: from super simple to extremely complicated, there are numerous tools giving you feedback about your website performance. Nowadays, with easily-accessible technology and very affordable pricing schemes, you can get the best out of your website, both on macro- and micro-level. Useful tools: Google Analytics, KISSMetrics, Mixpanel, Segment.io, Chartbeat, Clicky, Hotjar, and many more
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User Surveys: the data you can get from the analytics tools is already a historic one, it’s based on some past event. It would be way more helpful to gather data 1st person in real-time, right? That’s what User Surveys tools are for. You can chat with your users or send them a survey and then plan improvements on your website, based on their responses. Useful tools: Qualaroo, Survey Monkey, SurveyGizmo, PollDaddy, Survey.io, more
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User
Testing:
and
what
if
they
don’t
describe
their
issues
(problems/frustrations) in the best possible way. Then, you can just start observing them in real-time and decide for yourself. There are plenty of tools where you can just sit back and watch carefully who is doing (or not doing) what, where, how, when, for how long, etc. Useful tools: CrazyEgg, Click Tale, Balsamiq, Cacoo, more
Common Conversion Issues Provide Proper Navigation - A scrollable website has its pitfalls: don’t over do it by putting your complete website on an endless single page. Besides the fact this sucks for SEO it is terrible for your visitors because it’s just too much scrolling. Especially without proper navigation and using a mobile phone. The mobile websites of our clients at Zitecraft have the following: -
A hamburger menu that stays on top when scrolling down.
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An arrow up appearing on scrolling down to being able to go to the top of a page instantly.
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The menu structure of a local business website should have one or two levels. Besides that, all links should always be visible via the menu so your potential clients can never get lost.
Don’t Hide Contact Details & Calls To Action - This point is related to poor navigation but let’s mention it separately: don’t hide your contact details or calls to action. That sounds like a no-brainer but it still happens, unfortunately. The contact details should be reachable with a maximum of two clicks and no manual scrolling. A Menu Or Price List In HTML (Instead Of PDF!) - Nothing more annoying than reading a PDF document on a smartphone. Many restaurants and gastropubs present their menus via PDF documents. Making an HTML version of any type of document could be very frustrating (especially if you don’t know what you are doing). However, having the mobile readability in mind is very important from a usability point of view. Unattractive Website - Friction is the number 1 killer of conversion. The ways you create friction is by welcoming your website visitors with pop-up ads, old infographics, not clear layout, and more. The resolution is presenting a clean, easy-to-navigate website with clear CTA's and features/perks explained.
Technical Quality - maybe not all links work or maybe just few of them (either way, that's very bad for user experience). Maybe your website experience some technical errors and issues. Maybe the loading time of your website is too long. Too Many CTA's - yep, that's also possible! Overloading your visitors with offers from any nature might be too difficult for them to cope with. Distraction is another big item on the list of your visitors - if they see it, they will hit the Back button. Questions Do you have questions about this subject or do you have any suggestions for another subject to treat? Please send an email to
[email protected], we'll answer instantly! Sharing = Caring Do you know fellow entrepreneurs for whom this series of eBooks might also be interesting to? You can send them this link where they can subscribe: http://learning.zitecraft.com/ebooks-success-local-businesses-en/.
