The A-Z of conversion rate optimisation
E-commerce professionals tend to obsess about conversion rates and how to optimise them. Why? Because a tiny increase in conversion rates can generate millions in additional sales for large retailers, so it’s obviously worth throwing resources at ongoing optimisation strategies.
A lot of the basics are obvious. Selling online is about being relevant, removing distractions, and having a clear proposition. It’s about having a competitive price and a trustworthy brand. By testing and experimenting these things you can boost conversion rates.
What else is there? Well, I’ve compiled an A-to-Z of conversion rate optimisation for your viewing pleasure, along with a bunch of links to further reading. Hopefully this will help you to boost sales at your firm.
Charles Nicholls of SeeWhy on driving your web conversion with retargeting
Reach for your ecommerce buzzword bingo card and you'll see 'website optimisation' and 'conversion analysis' bang in the middle. Behind the industry buzz there is a genuine commercial challenge:how do you turn your visitors into customers and increase the profitability of your web channel? Retargeting is one technique to help deliver results.
Retargeting is the process by which a website owner contacts a customer who has abandoned their conversion (whatever that conversion might be) in order to continue the communication and encourage that customer to take further action. Retargeting is more popular in the US than the UK. However, UK companies are starting to wake up to the commercial value that retargeting via email can play in their website optimisation.
Having had the opportunity to work with and learn from the brains behind SeeWhy, I asked founder and conversion optimisation blogger Charles Nicholls to share his expertise on the value of retargeting for UK web owners.
Why I love Trendsmap.com (and you should too)
Earlier this week I came across a link to Trendsmap.com. On the surface, it's just another program that incorporates a function of Twitter into creating another service. But spend a few minutes with the site and you will quickly realise it is so much more.
Q&A: Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder of FutureNow
Back when dot-com mania was at its peak and marketers crowed about the number of "hits" they were able to attract to their web sites, a voice of reason came out of the darkness and said, in effect, that it's not about the traffic. It's about what you do with the traffic, and -- hello? -- more important, whether that traffic makes money.
That voice was Bryan Eisenberg who's gone on to become a noted speaker, columnist, blogger, co-founder of the Web Analytics Association and author of a string of best-selling books. A new one is in the works: Trim the Fat will draw analogies between what's needed to improve website conversion and the author's recent shedding of 50 (!) pounds.
And Bryan will share those insights at Econsultancy's inaugural U.S. event in New York on Oct. 8, the Peer Summit, as both a keynote speaker and a moderator. We caught up with him for a preview of what he'll be sharing with attendees.
Anatomy of a re-branding: The Economist
Back in July I wrote about the planned re-branding of The Economist. It was a risky move because The Economist is a magazine with a sterling reputation and an affluent readership. Two months on, the full strategy behind the re-branding has appeared online.
The workaround: technology strikes back
People have been finding workarounds for poorly designed systems for many years. Although both the technology and the workarounds have become more sophisticated, the problem, and its solution, remains the same.
Many years ago, before web-based interfaces, we were asked to investigate why an online ordering system wasn’t delivering the promised productivity benefits. Our research, which involved videoing staff dealing with telephone orders and then interviewing them about the process, soon revealed the problem.
Take five seconds to test your call to action and USP
You may be focused on improving the conversion rate for your website, or simply wanting to ensure that your visitors can quickly get an idea of what you do and offer.
Whatever your goals, having a clear proposition and call to action are two areas that can have a positive impact on your business performance.
In this post I will be talking about a web application that you can use to help you and your business gain invaluable insights from end users.
Q&A: Paul Cook on his new tag optimisation research
TagMan’s Paul Cook recently asked if he could borrow a popular entertainment blog I own for the purposes of running an experiment. I said yes and promptly handed over the keys to Hecklerspray.com.
Paul wanted to figure out how the placement of tags on web pages affects performance. Turns out that the results of the research are a bit of an eye opener.
I've interviewed him to find out more about the issues. A link to the research can be found at the foot of this Q&A...
The $65 billion hole in the online advertising business
Online publishers and ad networks are struggling to come up with ad formats that increase the effectiveness — and price — of advertising online. But there's a possibility that analog ad dollars turn into digital dimes because advertisers are getting better value elsewhere.
According to Outsell Inc., a media research and advisory company, marketers will spend $66 billion on TV advertising and $42 billion on newspaper advertising this year.
But they're also going to spend another $65 billion on their brands outside of traditional advertising. And online publishers won't be seeing any of that money. It will be spent on other places — like companies' own websites, search engine optimization and social media.
A/B split and multivariate testing: don't forget your most important page
I'm a huge fan of A/B split and multivariate testing. It simply works. And that means more money at the end of the day.
But because this can be a complicated undertaking depending on the scope of your testing strategy, there are often pages that get left behind.
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
