WebProNews focuses a great deal on how to get people to your site, but that's really only part of the "getting paid" equation. Michael Grover of CMP noted that redesigned landing pages for ads have been measured to bring in 400% improvements on return. If you're optimizing the pages on your site for different keywords have you analyzed those pages and rebuilt them based on what actions you want visitors to take on that page?
A recent AD:TECH session, "Conversions- Mapping the Buy Funnel," opened with a brief speech from moderator Guy Creese on web analytics tools. He noted that there are over 40 viable solutions available right now.
Douglas K van Duyne of Keynote Systems brought some interesting design concepts to the table that may help you increase your sales.
First he suggested creating what he called "high visibility action buttons." If there's only one action you want someone to do on a page then you need to both strip out all the other buttons except the one that leads to your action and emphasize that button with color, location and size.
As your visitor gets closer to the moment where they actually type in their credit card number consider stripping away tab rows and impulse buys. Leave only the navigation on the page that relates to the next step you want your visitors to take. Eliminating distractions in this manner ensures a higher conversion rate.
What are the deal breakers for your products? Consider addressing these along this sales stream. Douglas suggested pop ups activated by clicks (not automatic pop ups).
Be sure to minimize or eliminate unpleasant surprises such as high priced shipping too. Unpleasant surprises are definite deal breakers.
Shopping.com representative Iggy Fanlo offered one fascinating tidbit that could really help some of you, especially those of you selling products. They found that increasing the size of their product pictures by 50% increased their conversions by 30%.
This may work for you service providers too - try putting bigger pictures of your self on your site and see what happens.
Michael Behrens of WebMetro came up to bat next, and offered a fantastic list of important issues to track on your site.
- Exit rates.
- Conversion rates for advertisers and keywords.
- Most traveled paths vs. desired paths.
- Use of the back button.
He emphasized the use of the back button as a red flag to website owners. He said to address the pages "off the back," meaning that you look at the pages people clicked back to and understand why they clicked back to them.
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