Conversion Rate Optimisation - advice before seeking out a specialist
-
Hello!
I have a site I've been working on for a lovely client, a small business start up since Christmas. The site has a very simple layout, is ranking well and maintaining its positions, has solid social media, is receiving enough traffic and ranking for a number of terms. The problem is - conversions! The site just isn't converting.
I have spoken with a few peers who have said advanced CRO will be too much for me to learn in terms of Psychology of Buying, learning about colors, fonts etc. I understand meta descriptions for example are something that I can do, I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on any other basic CRO techniques I could apply to the site before going to a specialist.
Any advice would be MUCH appreciated - the moz community is always so helpful!
Charlotte
-
Looks awesome! Thanks so much! I've just taken a look and can't see the process clearly - users upload their own content is that it then share effectively using the platform?
-
Came across a tool last week that gives you the ability to create Video Testimonials, it's part of a Video Marketing Suite.
I was amazed by the statistics that are available in the backend. You can see which testimonial has the most positive influence on visitors, so you can use the best testimonials on your page (and if you want you can reward the person who recorded that video)
So you get the tool, but also the insights in which type of testimonials work best for you...
You can try it at http://www.bubobox.com but they'll have to do some SEO as well in order to get found I think...
-
Wow - this looks like an awesome tool! Thanks for your help
-
Hello,
Sorry to take so long to reply! I've subscribed to their RSS and downloaded their free CRO tools from the site, I can't see the eNewsletter though, is there a sign up for this or will it all come under the RSS?
Your help and advice is massively appreciated, thank you!
Charlotte
-
Hello,
Sorry to take so long to reply! I've subscribed to their RSS and downloaded their free CRO tools from the site, I can't see the eNewsletter though, is there a sign up for this or will it all come under the RSS?
Your help and advice is massively appreciated, thank you!
Charlotte
-
You could also try this tool > http://bit.ly/HRNQiF, it lets you create A/B tests without doing any major page design changes, comes with its own visual editor.
-
I just signed up! Thanks!
-
Hi Charlotte,
Firstly, I'd suggest signing up to www.usertesting.com and running three tests on your site (costs approx $40 per test).
Secondly. I suggest signing up to the conversion rate experts newsletter, which will provide you a series of free case studies, tips and improvements.
And without seeing the site, my gut says;
- Prioritize key functionality to the front page (order form, email sign up, etc)
- Remove "create account/ sign up" process or include "checkout as guest"
- Increase the number of payment options (paypal, credit card, bank wire)
- Merge offline channels with online by including catalogue/ brochure search on web
- Ensure the site has accurate pricing, images and descriptions (easily overlooked)
By following the above, I managed to help a client increase their conversion rate by 125%.
Best of luck!
-
Wow - thanks so much for looking into this for me, yes its a brand new site so traffic is really low, have done a bit of (I'll admit not enough!) social media and social bookmarking, any other advice would be fab with regards to increasing traffic? I'm trying to get the client more active on Twitter reaching out to authority figures in the industry as that gets me loads of traffic, they have two companies though so its hard trying to juggle the two I think.
Someone else recommended hubspot too - I'll give that a go, and thanks so much for the advice about the slideshow. Its such a big space and I don't think we are using if effectively. The call to action is the contribute to the gaity of the nation and book Operalicious but we discussed it today and perhaps its not prominent enough.
Thanks again - its so appreciated!
-
Hi Charlotte,
Just had a quick glance at your site and unfortunately I couldn’t see any clear call-to-action message!? However, the good news is that I can see some low-hanging opportunities for immediate gain such as including a strong call-to-action headline on that slideshow. And just in case you need some further guide on creating effective call-to-action, check out this ebook from Hubspot (great resource for noob like us) http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-create-effective-calls-to-action/
Also if you decide to run a web experiment, I strongly suggest that you read this article http://conversionxl.com/what-to-test-first-second-third/ that explains what to test first, second and third (yep, the low-hanging opportunities again!)
Oh btw, I had a chance to check the site’s stats on semrush.com which apparently shows very low traffic volume?
All the best,
-Ashish
-
Hi Thomas,
Thank you so much for taking the time to give me all that detail and information! It is quite daunting at the moment but so was SEO initially and I'm always up for a challenge so I'm very keen to give it a go! The SEOmoz software helped me massively when I started so I'm very open to investing in some software also and luckily I've already got the site on my Google Analytics so I can use these more helpfully. The site does have a capture yes and I admit when I've seen the number ones I do prefer them to the traditional ones. What would you say is a good bounce rate or does this depend on industry and I should always be aiming to reduce this down?
Thanks again
Charlotte
-
Awesome resource - I'll go check this out! The help is much appreciated thanks
-
I would strongly suggest either Google analytics which is 100% free or my preference is free for 30 days and I feel gives you a better overall view using kiss metrics or HubSpot if you can https://www.kissmetrics.com/ http://HubSpot.com Analytics is a must with out it you are literally out to sea without a compass. You want to maybe look into HubSpot's CMS they allow for A/B testing as well as you must have a group of people judge the overall navigation ease of use if I am the customer can I see what I want to buy? If I do see where want buy is it is easy as clicking "buy now" if using google captcha please understand how many people like myself get sick of it and say forget this. If you must use a captcha style system to prevent spam please use the addition like what is 5+7=12 that would most likely boost some sales however it seems like if you're getting the traffic it's either not traffic intended for your site. Which if you used analytics you would be able to tell us what the bounce rate is. if this is in word press you can use the HubSpot plug-in after signing up for a 30 day trial for free no credit card is required on night either kiss metrics or HubSpot here is a link allowing you to do free A/B testing with Google analytics http://support.google.com/websiteoptimizer/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=14316
this is a business insider article about what colors impactor website and how
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-15/strategy/30011343_1_color-impulse-appeal
I am most certain you have what it takes to do this however show to your friends don't be afraid to use your resources like you have now. Run it through things like the campaign in SEOmoz as well as http://marketing.grader.com/ marketing greater will show you the complete close loop funnel. If the project is too daunting and I'm not saying that it isn't all you may want to request outside help and have them work with you say you benefit from their knowledge and they get something in return as well.
I hope there was help you.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Usability testing - are there any good online guides for learning more about this? Really appreciate your help thank you!
-
There is a website... http://whichtestwon.com/
They show the results of lots of testing. There you can look at two different versions of a page and find out which performed better.
If you view lots of their tests you will slowly start to get an idea of what types of change can be effective , although there will always be results that surprise you.
-
Perfect! This advice is exactly what I need - I'm stuck in that conundrum at the moment, I can get the rankings fine but its sales people are really paying me for that I'm struggling with! (I'm a newbie freelancer, been in industry only 3 years).
What are your thoughts on getting a conversion specialist? Would you suggest trying the above items first maybe?
Thanks so much - its really appreciated
-
Hi Charlotte,
Create a funnel, find out the drop off's, survey your customers, run some usability tests and this should be enough to get you started
Usability testing is good as it will show you onsite usability issues, bugs and errors. However it won't show you how to improve persuasive architecture hence why you would seek out a specialist for this.
I hope this helps
-
In Google Analytics > Standard Reporting you have on the left the tab Audience and in it you have Visitors Flow....
Click on that
Just saw your website.... To start You might consider making your text more readable (change color or bg or both) as I didn't bother reading anything
-
Hi Charlotte,
There's a lot to consider, but I'd say that colours/font aren't where you'd start. I'd also say that getting some CRO awareness can really benefit your SEO - after all, our customers want sales/leads not rankings!
It can be really hard, especially when you've worked closely with a website/business for some time, but the key is to try and take an external perspective and see the site through the eyes of your customers/visitors. Can you identify the kind of person who would be interested in the site's offerings? What are their needs/problems and how does the site address these.
What you want to establish:
Are you targeting the right keywords? What is the user intent behind the keyword - are people searching for that term really looking for the products/services you are offering. Are they really likely to be your customers?
If the offering being clearly explained - are you clearly expressing the benefits (to them). Do your pages answer the "What's in it for me?" question.
Is the purpose of each page (and it's position in the conversion funnel) understood?
Do you have clear, appealing calls to action. Is it obvious to visitors what to do next? Don't leave people hanging.
What are the objections that people may have before taking action. How can you address these objections (social proof/testimonials etc, guarantees, try before you buy etc)
Hope this helps!
-
I never thought of that! The site is www.operalicious.com the owner got a simple but limited template which they are now regretting as in terms of doing things to it it's very tough!
Can you explain drop off page? Is it how many people only visit the home page?
I didn't even think about getting people to review - thanks so much for the advice
-
Thanks very much - I've heard about using Analytics a lot, would you suggest finding the pages people drop out of and changing them or putting in different pages? What would be your process?
Thanks!
-
I would advise in getting your website reviewed by 10-15 people(regular people/friends that could be a customer) with good questions about your website/product.
That will get you a step closer to how a client looks at your website.
Personally (as you did not offer any link to review)... I think most websites have a huge conversion problem because of their poor design, and the client's trust of the website/busienss/product QUALITY is lost because of that.
Of course Google Analytics have a huge role in fixing the pages that show up as having the highest drop off.
Hope it helps...
Just for my own curiosity what is the drop off rate for the home page of your website.
-
Hi Charlotte,
I would begin with by analysing your analytics and seeing where people are dropping out of the conversion funnel and find out the missing links/barriers to conversion.
Hope that helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
GG webmaster tool crawl rate
Hello, I just redid my website and suddenly saw a spike in the crawl rate for about 2 weeks and I am now back to where I was on average. Is it normal ? My guess it that this increase was due to the change in site and new links ? However,I just want to make sure it is normal that it is back to a "normal rate" now that it has discovered all the links. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
We 410'ed URLs to decrease URLs submitted and increase crawl rate, but dynamically generated sub URLs from pagination are showing as 404s. Should we 410 these sub URLs?
Hi everyone! We recently 410'ed some URLs to decrease the URLs submitted and hopefully increase our crawl rate. We had some dynamically generated sub-URLs for pagination that are shown as 404s in google. These sub-URLs were canonical to the main URLs and not included in our sitemap. Ex: We assumed that if we 410'ed example.com/url, then the dynamically generated example.com/url/page1 would also 410, but instead it 404’ed. Does it make sense to go through and 410 these dynamically generated sub-URLs or is it not worth it? Thanks in advice for your help! Jeff
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jeffchen0 -
Huge drop in rankings for specialist life insurance site
I work with a site who specialise in life insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions - http://goo.gl/Drwre6. The site has ranked really well historically, but was hit hard on 16th June when we saw an almost 100% drop in rankings overnight. We picked up on quite a few issues straight away and rectified these. A list of steps we've taken so far are below: removed CSS & JS files from robots.txt changed hosting provider back, as it had recently been moved somewhere new updated copy on main landing pages to remove small amounts that were duplicated requested removal of some suspicious looking backlinks and submitted a disavow found and removed a test site that was live and indexable found an external site that had scraped copy from our site - requested removal (this site is no longer live) cleaned up any 404 and ensured all redirects are working correctly updated the diabetes page to include more valuable info - including linking out to authority sites After taking all these steps, we have still seen no improvement. It could be that Google just hasn't yet re-crawled the site to take the changes into account...? We're aware of one other site in our industry that has noticed a drop in rankings in the last couple of months, but a number of our competitors are still ranking well for our target terms. We wonder if the site was caught up in the Payday Loans update, as the timings almost line up. Other sites with spammy medical content seem to have been hit, so we wonder if the "medical" type content on our site could have been penalised? Incredibly frustrating if so, as it's a valid, genuine service being offered! Really at a bit of a loss as to what to do next, so any help would be hugely appreciated! Katie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Digirank0 -
Customer Experience vs Search Result Optimisation
Yes, I know customer experience is king, however, I have a dilema, my site has been live since June 2013 & we get good feedback on site design & easy to follow navigation, however, our rankings arent as good as they could be? For example, the following 2 pages share v similar URLs, but the pages do 2 different jobs & when you get to the site that is easy to see, but my largest Keyword "Over 50 Life Insurance" becomes difficult to target as google sees both pages and splits the results, so I think i must be losing ranking positions? http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Over-50-Life-Insurance.aspx http://www.over50choices.co.uk/Funeral-Planning/Over-50-Life-Insurance/Compare-Over-50s-Life-Insurance.aspx The first page explains the product(s) and the 2nd is the Quote & Compare page, which generates the income. I am currently playing with meta tags, but as yet havent found the right combination! Originally the 2nd page meta tags were focussing on "compare over 50s life insurance" but google still sees "over 50 life insurance" in this phrase, so the results get split. I also had internal anchor text supporting this. What do you think is the best strategy for optimising both pages? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Advice on Link Building?
I know webmasters shouldn't focus on link building but unfortunately there are some types of content that doesn't get shared as much as other. And for content to go viral, it ain't that easy and it's almost impossible in some smaller niches where you don't have the volume to go "viral". That said I know about the common link building techniques. I know I can submit guest posts but when you're competing with websites that have over 10,000 backlinks, there is no way I'm going to get close to this with guest posting and commenting on other blogs. One way I found for getting backlinks is to publish interviews. Most of the time, people/businesses you interview like to link to this type of content. Publishing value-added content about other businesses' products or services may get some backlinks in return but not that often. So other than that, can some of you share some "out-of-the-box" link building strategies? Thank you in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrault740 -
Please help me with your advice
Hi all, Couple years ago I started to build my business based on EMD domain. The intention was to create the source with the rich unique content. After a year of hard work the site achieved top 10 in Google and started to generate good amount of leads. Then Google announced the EMD Update and site lost the 90% of traffic (after Pandas updates our SERP was steady ) “ a new filter that tries to ensure that low-quality sites don’t rise high in Google’s search results simply because they have search terms in their domain names. ” But I don’t consider my site low-quality site, every page, every post is 100% unique and has been created only to share the knowledge with others… The site has EXCELLENT content from industry point of view.... Since the “ EMD Update “ I read hundreds , hundreds of different articles and opinions related to EMD update and finally I am confused and lost. What should I do… • Kill the site and start new one
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webdeal
• Get more links, but what type of links and how I should get them
• Keep hoping and pray....
• Or do something else Please help me with your advice0 -
Hit by Google updates; Some good advice needed
Hi, Here`s my domain http://www.kent-website-designer.co.uk/. Registered in 2007. We have took a big hit from the updates in the last 6 months and its really affecting revenue. I know when you look at the site you may well think WOW this is 2007 SEO and youre right it hasnt been updated in some time as of last year we ranked very highly and it gave us enough business to concentrate on. However up until last year many of my competitors were using same onpage and offpage strategies....and probably a few of you were too! So now the inquiries and income is drying up. However, I provided myself with an income from my efforts, rather than be unemployed, so I want to get it back on track. I visited the Google webmaster forums to query a couple of webmaster account queries and basically got beat up by the rude and arrogant google forum admins. Basically they said I was a spam site who shouldnt be in business. How very nice! 1. I have EMD - but domain age should mean something? 2. I lost a few links from https://www.getsafeonline.org/partners-and-supporters/ in the last year which hasnt helped when they reorganised their content. Same with other trusted sites we lost links. We are left with low quality links. 3. Some CMS sites have replicated our footer links on a large scale, which wasnt intentional but may look as link spam, plus they arent no followed as G prefers. 4. Google seems to have become intelligent? Apparently it can detect content which is negative in outdated seo advice. How, can it understand context and meaning so older seo advice isdetected as spam content? 5. No pages are de indexed just a rank drop to 30 - 60 positions. 6. Over optimised H1`s? 7. Is Pipe command in titles now negative? So its sink or swim time I guess. The siteand domain is honest but neglected and probably should re align the business with what we can offer. We got away with that SEO but clearly things have changed. However with no grey or black hat at least we arent overly worried by removing links. Also looking for an SEO company who we can outsource with a white label solution in order to offer SEO. I dont need beating up, short and to the point critiques please. Pros and Cons Many thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xtopher661 -
Need advice re: selecting an Ecommerce platform
Hi. I am responsible for choosing an ecommerce platform and overseeing the implementation of a large ecommerce site. The site will have tens of thousands of products and will be fairly complex. Eventually the site will integrate with the suppliers back end inventory/order management system, which is some sort of custom Windows/.NET system. (I'm not very technical if you haven't noticed....) Primarily I want a platform that is SEO friendly, and I have to be sure that the site is developed properly from an SEO and usability perspective. I thought I would go with an asp.net solution (aspdotnetstorefront, specifically) to facilitate the future integration, but I am questioning this choice after reading some of the comments I have found here at SEOMoz. So is asp.net really a bad choice SEO-wise? I almost considered Magento, but was having trouble finding a good solution provider to work with. I also worried about integration issues down the road. I would appreciate any advice or input anyone may have. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbg7810