There are special visitors on your site right now. They blend in with all of the others in your analytics, but they behave differently from the others.
They visit more pages, spend more time, share more often and are more likely to buy from you.
These visitors are your account holders. Some have bought from you. Some have not.
Account holders should walk around your site in their socks on the plush red carpet you’ve laid out for them.
They’ve put forth more effort interacting with your site than your other non-buying site visitors because they’ve shown you buying intent. And that’s a big deal for you.
If you expect your entire business to be suddenly infinitely more profitable just because you spent a few hours on website optimization, you’re going to be disappointed: website optimization is an ongoing process that requires ongoing attention and effort.
Your four hours don’t have to be futile, however. You can look to experts for guidance prioritizing that precious time, and Angus Lynch from Rooster asked five experts what they would do with their four hours, and Conversion Scientist Brian Massey was among those weighing in.
Brian was initially – and hey, let’s be honest, still is – pretty incredulous that you can do much with that time.
If I had only four hours to optimize a website, I would spend 5 minutes making myself a coffee, then 3 hours 55 minutes looking for another job.
If I had only four hours to optimize a website, I would spend 5 minutes making myself a coffee, then 3 hours 55 minutes looking for another job.
But with a threat of bodily harm he relented and said he’d take a look at a landing page on his website that’s performing well and come up with several different headlines for it then create a page with each of those headlines.
There’s a pretty solid consensus among these five conversion optimization experts that website optimization takes commitment, not an afternoon, but they, too, shared some pretty practical advice.
Peep Laja of Markitekt and ConversionXL says, “I would check Google Analytics to find where the biggest drop-offs are happening, and would focus all my efforts on those pages” and Michael Aagaard of ContentVerve doesn’t disagree. He frames his thoughts by saying “Check analytics for areas with the biggest potential lift.”
I would go through Webmaster Tools and fix any of the basic errors that they are showing. @neilpatel
I would go through Webmaster Tools and fix any of the basic errors that they are showing. @neilpatel”
So we have four folks focusing squarely on the technology, which is clearly necessary given the topic, but the fifth expert, Angie Schottmuller of Three Deep Marketing and Search Engine Watch, would approach this quandary by “interviewing actual customers or prospects to learn why they DO and why they DON’T buy.”
Read the full post, then ask yourself: what would you do with four hours to spend on website optimization? Tell us what works and what was a waste of time.
Your clock starts now…get to it!
We’ve all seen the numbers. Visual content outperforms text-only content by a landslide.
Need a refresher?
Content generates up to 94% more views if combined with compelling visual elements and graphics. (MDG Advertising)
40% of people will respond better to visual information than to plain text. (Zabisco)
High quality infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than text articles. (Ansonalex)
While I’ve known these stats for some time, I didn’t feel like there was much I could do about it until recently. I would make sure to break my articles up with nice subheadings and insert quality stock photos or original photography when I had it, but that was about as visual as I got. “After all,” I thought, “I’m a writer—not a designer.”
How I Became More Visual
Things changed when I started writing a weekly column for a client whose company designs and builds custom homes. The column was to appear as sponsored content on a well-known luxury living blog. My goal was to conduct interviews and research on the latest trends in home design and present my findings in 500+ word articles along with some beautiful photography of the client’s work.
My logic was simple: The photography was already performing extremely well on social media. The pictures would be the hook, and people would stay for the insightful article.
The first article of the campaign. It goes on for over 600 words.
While this approach already seemed to be working on the client’s on-site blog, it didn’t have the effect I wanted it to on the sponsored column.
In fact, my first article performed pretty badly, despite all the effort I had put into conducting interviews, despite the great quotes and useful information I used—even despite the photos that had been shared thousands of times on social media. The first article—a piece that used anecdotes and advice from the client about finding inspiration for your home—received 84 views upon publication and continues to be one of the lowest performing posts of the campaign, with a total of 220 views.
The tiny blip made by my first article. We used tracking pixels to watch traffic on Google analytics. As you can see, traffic did not pick up after posting.
Then I started using Illustrator
I had been fumbling around with the program for several months, but never felt like I had time to use it properly. My approach had always been to write the best copy I could and to let a designer help out if they had time. But this time I was determined to do something—anything—different so that the column would prove worthwhile.
So I went ahead and designed some images for my next two posts—just some simple, vector-based elements to use as featured images and between subheadings. They weren’t great, but they were presentable, and the articles performed slightly better than the last.
I wasn’t sure if the slight increase in views warranted the extra time it took to create new visuals, but I decided to give it one more shot.
I’m glad I did.
Taking a cue from fashion magazine style collages, I cobbled together a collage using pieces of our original photography and used it as the central element of the next post. The post received 524 views on the first day of publication—over six times more views than my initial post. Even better, the post continues to rack up views, with 1,626 views to date.
My first post on the site to be primarily visual.
Since posting that article, I have continued to create similar content for this campaign (and others) that have performed just as well.
My next post also used a collage. It received 504 views on the first day of publication. Interestingly enough, this article was on the same topic as my initial failed article—how to find home design inspiration. The difference was all in how the information was presented.
Spikes in traffic from my first two collage posts done in Illustrator.
A few months later, new posts continue to create spikes in traffic, and we begin to gain a consistent viewership between postings.
While I don’t have all the answers to this change in performance, I attribute the success of the collage articles to two things: 1. their overall presentation, and 2. their particular appeal to my audience.
Overall Presentation
They stand out from surrounding posts in the blog roll.
In a sea of photographs, a small piece of graphic design can really stand out.
They look original.
Readers who are already engaged with the client’s brand may have already seen our best photography. These images made them brand new.
They look useful and cohesive.
A simple collage with numbered items promises practical, bite-sized content. Plus, people want to be shown how information relates. Sometimes, placing a great photo next to text isn’t enough.
Appeal to the Audience
They mimic the look of luxury magazine and blog articles.
In researching our audience, I checked out several sites that our demographic enjoys. (Facebook’s recent expansion of its search function is great for this task.) They gave me examples of the kind of short-form blog posts that our target audience typically reads.
They account for the audience’s browsing behavior.
If your prospective customers are visually inclined, too much text is a nuisance. By creating visual content, I was able to provide the kind of bite-sized articles that that my audience expected in that context.
Growing your capabilities will make you more perceptive.
There are probably several lessons to be learned from this incident, including one about knowing your audience. But the one I want to stress is this: learning how to design will make you a better writer.
How do I know? I’m not just basing this claim on the spike in traffic that came after I started creating visuals. I’m also basing it on the fact that now, when I set out to create content, I don’t ask myself, “How can I best express this idea through copy?” I ask, “What is the best way to express this idea? Period.”
I am also better able to take into account the browsing behavior of my audience. I wouldn’t be writing this out as a 1,000+ word article if I didn’t think that the audience of The Conversion Scientist was willing to read longer articles. Similarly, the content you create should cohere with the browsing behavior of the people you want to reach. No matter how great your writing is, you will never convince a non-reader to read—at least, not through a piece of content marketing.
Because I can now create a broader variety of content I also think much more about the behavior of my audience. That’s why learning Illustrator has not only made me more versatile—it has also made me more perceptive. If copy is only a small part of the equation, I can combine my strengths as a writer with my (developing) ability to design to create content that is cohesive, concise, and valuable. Colleen Ahern is a copywriter and content marketing strategist at Page Agency. She created the Page Agency Blog, where she writes about the rapidly evolving world of content marketing and social media. Follow her on Twitter @ColleenAhern.
Tim Ash coined the term “Big fat bouncers in your brain” during an interview on his Landing Page Optimization podcast that he and I were on.
I love the image that phrase draws to mind, because it’s true.
The bottom line is this: If you want your message to affect and influence your readers and listeners, you must get past the big fat bouncers in their brains.
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Writing Killer Copy: Getting Past the Bouncers in Your Brian
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I’ve introduced you to these two bouncers and telling you how to write copy that gets past them.
Why register now? Find out how Betabrand achieved 432% growth for products nobody was looking for. Get my real definition of “copy”. See revealing brain scans. We all love brain scans. Discover my fool-proof method for great copy. Find out what business porn is and how to create compelling images. As always, we have FUN doing these.
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Writing Killer Copy: Getting Past the Bouncers in Your Brian
In Austin, March is just another way of saying “SXSW season” – however, this year, there’s another conference that you might want to consider attending.
The first annual ConversionXL Live is taking place from March 11-13 in the hill country just outside of Austin. We like to think of this conference as a form of what SXSW used to be like – a small, intimate gathering of people looking to share ideas, make connections, and innovate.
Make no mistake – if you want to learn everything there is to know about conversion optimization in 2015, this is the conference you’ll want to attend.
This will be no ordinary conference – you’ll have easy access to one-on-one discussions with the speakers, presenters, and your peers in conversion rate optimization. Even better, it’s all-inclusive. With your ticket, you get:
Three days of brilliant seminars from the likes of Peep Laja, Yuan Wright, Craig Sullivan, and…yours truly.
You’ve read the blog posts and you’ve heard from the vendors. A/B testing is a lot more difficult than you can imagine, and you can unintentionally wreak havoc on your online business if you aren’t careful.
Fortunately, you can learn how to avoid these awful A/B testing mistakes from 10 CRO experts. Here’s a quick look at some of their greatest pitfalls:
Joel Harvey, Conversion Sciences Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“Because of a QA breakdown we didn’t notice that the last 4-digits of one of the variation phone numbers displayed to visitors was 3576 when it should have been 3567. In the short time that the offending variation was live, we lost at least 100 phone calls.”
Peep Laja, ConversionXL Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“Ending tests too early is the #1 mistake I see. You can’t “spot a trend”, that’s total bullshit.”
Craig Sullivan, Optimise or Die Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“When it comes to split testing, the most dangerous mistakes are the ones you don’t realise you’re making.”
“I had been allocated a designer and developer to get the job done, with the expectation of delivering at least a 20% increase in leads. Alas, the test went terribly and I was left with few insights.”
Andre Morys, WebArts.de Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“I recommend everybody to do a cohort analysis after you test things in ecommerce with high contrast – there could be some differences…”
Ton Wesseling, Online Dialogue Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“People tend to say: I’ve tested that idea – and it had no effect. YOU CAN NOT SAY THAT! You can only say – we were not able to tell if the variation was better. BUT in reality it can still be better!”
John Ekman, Conversionista Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“AB-testing is not a game for nervous business people, (maybe that’s why so few people do it?!). You will come up with bad hypotheses that reduce conversions!! And you will mess up the testing software and tracking.”
Paul Rouke, PRWD Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“One of the biggest lessons I have learnt is making sure we fully engage, and build relationships with the people responsible for the technical delivery of a website, right from the start of any project.”
Matt Gershoff, Conductrics Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“One of the traps of testing is that if you aren’t careful, you can get hung up on just seeing what you DID in the past, but not finding out anything useful about what you can DO in the future.”
Michael Aagaard, ContentVerve.com Worst A/B Testing Mistakes
“After years of trial and error, it finally dawned on me that that the most successful tests were the ones based on data, insight and solid hypotheses – not impulse, personal preference or pure guesswork.”
A new survey of 1,000 business owners and executives of small businesses has revealed their attitudes as we go into 2015.
Dallas-based Wasp Barcode is a small business and took it upon themselves to survey their colleagues, finding out how small businesses felt about the coming year.
As a small business, we took an interest in the findings of this report. Here is what we divined from the numbers.
They are Optimistic
Overall, 57% of businesses are expecting revenue growth in 2015. Only 9% expect their revenue to be lower in 2015.
This is a rosy outlook, considering that the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy says that some 20% of businesses with employees will close shop within 5 years of starting. Optimism is a part of the job description for entrepreneurs, who create far more jobs than big companies in America.
They are Hiring, Or Trying
Of the biggest challenges facing small businesses, 42% cited hiring new employees. This was second only to growing revenue, and the two are intertwined for most businesses.
For companies above 51 employees, hiring was the most acute problem for 2015.
Government regulation and employee healthcare took the fourth and fifth slots on the list of challenges. Clearly, the changes in the national healthcare policies is on the mind of small businesses.
They are Local
It was somewhat surprising to find that 82% of small businesses had no plans to expand globally. In our experience, it is common to work with businesses who are utilizing highly-trained workers from outside of the US.
This statistic draws a bright circle around the fact that small business is local business.
They are Working to Keep You Happy
Of the small businesses surveyed, 56% said that they were focused on improving customer experience and retention. Small business has clearly gotten the message that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one.
This doesn’t mean that they’re not working to get new customers. The next most cited strategy was investing in new customer acquisition.
In 2015, we can expect to courted by small business.
Read the Full Report
You can read the entire small business report from Wasp Barcode and draw your own conclusions.
Disclosure: Wasp Barcode is a client of Conversion Sciences.
Why does the “online” marketer have to do something different from the “other” marketers at the beginning of a new year?
There are many reasons.
The online marketer is blind without accurate data.
The online marketer has wrested control from the grubby hands of IT.
The online marketer knows that
the seeds of holiday regret are planted in February procrastination.
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Don’t worry. We’ve prepared a list of seven things you should do now at the beginning of the new year.
Resolve to optimize the website before the next holidays
“If only” are the saddest two words in the English language.
If only we had a little higher conversion rate from all of that juicy holiday traffic.
If only Black Friday had put us a little more “in the black.”
If only our shopping cart had worked with Internet Explorer.
We know that the holidays are happier when we get more revenue under the Christmas Tree. This year let’s start getting more from the traffic we’re going to get next November and December.
Testing and optimizing does take time. Now is the time to start testing if you want your holidays to be merrier.
Change the passwords on your testing tools
The modern marketer has taken control of much of the website from the grubby hands of IT and the web developers. Today, tag managers give marketers an unparalleled ability to add measurements to a site without IT’s help. Split testing tools allow them to transform a website for a particular group of visitors at will.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Many marketing departments should adopt the best security practices of their IT brethren. If a malicious individual got the password to Optimizely or Visual Website Optimizer, they could wreak havoc on the site at will.
Go ahead, change your passwords. And make them good passwords. We use the program PassPack to store and share hard-to-crack passwords with our team.
Check that all your pages still have analytics and testing software
A website is a complex piece of software. New pages are added by different stakeholders. Changes are often undocumented. Not everyone is concerned that your analytics and testing tools need to be added to each page and then checked.
Before diving into a new year, run through the pages on your site and make sure they all have the right tools installed.
There are automated systems for checking your site, but taking some time to explore by hand is very helpful. Get ready to start a punch list.
I recommend installing two browser extensions for Chrome: Tag Assistant by Google and Ghostery. Tag Assistant tells you if your Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager installation is broken on any page, and offers helpful tips. Ghosterytells you every tag that is installed on the page, so you can check for things like Click Tracking tools, session-recording tools and more.
Consider moving to a tag manager, like Google Tag Manager. This centralizes analytics setup.
Make sure your site still works with all devices and browsers
Your analytics will tell you which browsers and devices your visitors are using on your site.
Your analytics will tell you which browsers and devices to check.
Make sure your site works on the top devices and browsers.
Year over year evaluation
The end of a year means another year of data. Woohoo!
This means we have an entire year to compare our progress against. When we compare year-over-year data, we eliminate differences that occurred due to market changes. For an online consumer retailer, comparing October performance to November performance wouldn’t be fair, since the holiday shopping season starts in November. Instead it’s better to compare October of this year to October of last year.
Here are some of the things we like to look at in our year-over-year data.
Depth of Troughs
It’s the off-season that kills us. It’s the winter months for bikini boutiques and the summer months for mitten makers. However, if we are making progress on our site, we should see less of a drop revenue during the off-peak weeks.
And with shallow troughs we often see higher spikes during prime selling or lead-gen seasons.
Increasing Revenue Per Visit or Conversion Rate
Even it you got more traffic to your website in 2014, you may not see the increase in revenue. By measuring the Revenue per Visit (RPV) and Conversion Rate (for lead generation) you can see how your efforts in 2014 added to the bottom line independent of traffic volume.
Average Order Value
When people buy from you, are they buying more or less? This is what average order value tells us. Even if your traffic was flat and your conversion rate didn’t move, you may be getting more from each customer.
Bounce Rate
If you saw an increase in traffic to the site, did you see an increase in bounce rate? The Bounce Rate measures visitors who came and didn’t stay long. They saw only one page or left before 15 seconds had passed.
Bounce rate is an indicator of traffic quality. If lots of visitors are bouncing, then you may not be bringing the right visitor to the site.
Review your idea list
Where do you keep your punch list of things to try on the site? Go find it and give it a look. You’ll find some great ideas you forgot about.
Where do you keep your ideas for a better website?
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
It’s unfortunate that I have to fly to Las Vegas to catch fellow Austinite Noah Kagan. However, I was glad to have caught his keynote at Affiliate Summit West 2015.
Mainly because he gave everyone in the audience $10. Real money.
Is he so desperate for attention that he has to buy an audience with cash? Maybe. But his little stunt was really to make a point. His question is, “Are your relationships in black and white, or full color?”
I captured the highlights of his presentation in this instagraph infographic drawn in real time. Share it with someone.
Affiliate marketers get conversion optimization.
I was gratified at how sophisticated the folks at Affiliate Summit were. Affiliate marketers understand that conversion optimization is a big lever that increases CPA payouts, makes advertisers happy and sets OPMs apart from the competition.
And it’s all we do at Conversion Sciences.
Learn the best practices for using exit-intent popups to engage visitors who are leaving your site and increase conversion rates.
Imagine that your website could detect when a visitor was just about to leave. What could your business do with that information? Would you beg them to stay? Would you sweeten the deal? Would you ask them why they are leaving?
Right now, exit-intent technologies can detect when your visitors are about to hit the back button, close their browser, or navigate away. Then popup dialog is presented to them, a last-ditch message to get their business. They are a powerful tool for any in-house team or CRO Agency to use to recover abandoning visitors either through an incentive or survey.
Are you using exit-intent popups? If not, you are leaving money on the table—quite a lot of money, actually. Exit-intent popups are known for several years now but it’s still a hot topic and heavily used component of conversion rate optimization services.
In case you haven’t heard of them before, let’s summarize quickly what are they.
They are the popups that appear the very moment you move your mouse to leave a page. They are “overlay popups,” and cannot be blocked by popup blockers.
Here is an example:
This exit-intent popup teases a free eBook.
Why Should You Use Exit-Intent Popups?
Exit-intent popups give you a “second chance” at communicating something important to your visitors before they leave your site. According to data, 10 to 15 percent of lost visitors can be “saved” by using exit-intent popups. In other words, between 10 to 15 percent of visitors leaving your site will respond to a well-crafted message.
Exit-intent popups are the most customer-friendly approach to communicate a special message to your visitors. They are superior to normal popups because they don’t interrupt your visitors while browsing or scanning your site; they only appear when your visitors start to leave your site altogether or switch to another window.
So how can you maximize the ROI of your exit-intent popups?
One of their most effective uses is to grab email addresses by offering an incentive to subscribe. Naturally, the conversion success of email collecting popups depends upon the effectiveness of the copy and the offer.
Exit-intent popups can be used to grow your email list.
According to data from OptiMonk, a simple popup like this converts between three and five percent on an average content or ecommerce site. To achieve this level of performance requires no preparation, and you can install the popup on any page.
You can increase a popup’s effectiveness significantly by offering an eBook or other “hook” as an incentive. In such cases, a popup can easily convert up to 15 percent:
Informational offers can turn 15 percent of abandoners into leads.
You can also boost your results by gamifying your message. A lucky wheel popup can not only increase your conversion rate and coupon usage rate, but it also enhances your user experience: everyone loves to win, and it will give shoppers a reason to remember your store.
A lucky wheel can create a new, fun and interactive subscription experience on your site.
2. Recover Abandoned Cart Instantly
E-commerce sites should use exit-intent popups for instant cart-recovery. Since cart abandonment is about 70 percent, exit-intent popups can potentially save a lot of lost revenue. The best method of conversion during checkout is to offer visitors an incentive to finish the order on the spot, such as a price discount or free shipping.
Exit-intent popups can sweeten an offer and save a sale.
This type of popup usually converts around 15 percent, especially if you turn off the email capture, though you should follow up with these users later by email, since only about 5 to 15 percent will use their coupons immediately.
3. Redirect Traffic to Other Content
The most common usage of exit-intent popups is to redirect traffic to other content on your site. In effect, it responds to your visitors attempts to leave by saying, “You find this content boring or irrelevant? No problem. Check this out, instead.”
You can even use it on landing pages, to give yourself a second chance to hook visitors who are not converting on your landing page.
In this example, the site owner promotes a webinar on his site:
Redirect visitors who are about to leave to something that may be more relevant.
E-commerce sites can use this method by showing alternative offers to visitors not interested in buying the current products. Content sites can use it to promote other content the reader may prefer.
Content redirection popups can convert up to 25 percent.
4. Keep It Simple
The most important rule of every exit-intent popup is to keep it simple. Don’t try to stuff too much content into one popup. Less is more. People leaving your site are often already overwhelmed by its contents; they may be unable (or unwilling) to understand complex messages. So, make sure your headline tells your visitors immediately what benefit they will receive.
The look of your popup is also important. Try to use a simple and clear design that matches to your website. Since you only have a few seconds to get visitors attention, you should always use readable fonts.
One large tagline, one sub-headline, and some visual reinforcement of the offer should be enough, 99 percent of the time.
Don’t forget that the look of your popup is just one thing, but if your offer is not good enough, you won’t succeed. Always add a relevant offer and try to focus on pain points. Adding a sense of urgency always makes popup more effective since it helps to overcome procrastination. Here’s an article if you want to learn more about creating a good exit-intent popup.
5. Speed Matters
When we say that an exit-intent popup appears at the very moment the visitor moves the mouse out of the window, this means that the popup appears a few milliseconds later—and the amount of time, no matter how miniscule, does matter. You have less than 200 milliseconds to show the visitors your message before they actually click on the X button. In fact, you should decrease this lag to less than 50 milliseconds.
How can your popup respond so quickly? First, it is important to preload the popup content. Loading in real-time takes longer than 200 milliseconds. Preloading takes technical know-how, but the best exit-intent popup software has already solved this issue.
You should refrain from using special effects on these types of popups. Such displays look cool, but they increase the amount of time required to display the popup, as well as the time needed for visitors to comprehend the message.
6. Always Test Copy
The same rules apply to exit-intent popups as to any other webpage or landing page—always test the copy. For example, in this test, changing only the tagline of the offer resulted in a 47 percent increase in conversions.
Test your copy to get even more lift from exit-intent popups.
7. Start Today
My last piece of advice is to start NOW. You are losing customers every minute.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
Tracking Your Most Valuable Visitors with Google Analytics [AUDIO]
Web AnalyticsThere are special visitors on your site right now. They blend in with all of the others in your analytics, but they behave differently from the others.
They visit more pages, spend more time, share more often and are more likely to buy from you.
Would you like to know them better?
Would you like to know how to treat them better?
Would you like to have more of them?
Subscribe to Podcast
Transcript
These visitors are your account holders. Some have bought from you. Some have not.
They’ve put forth more effort interacting with your site than your other non-buying site visitors because they’ve shown you buying intent. And that’s a big deal for you.
In my Marketing Land column Use Google Analytics To Treat Your Account Holders Like Royalty I show you how to isolate these wonderful visitors and see how they behave.
What is tripping them up?
Where do they come from when they visit?
Do they respond to email?
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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How 5 Conversion Optimization Experts would Spend Four Hours
Conversion OptimizationIf you expect your entire business to be suddenly infinitely more profitable just because you spent a few hours on website optimization, you’re going to be disappointed: website optimization is an ongoing process that requires ongoing attention and effort.
If I had only four hours to optimize a website, I would spend 5 minutes making myself a coffee, then 3 hours 55 minutes looking for another job.Your four hours don’t have to be futile, however. You can look to experts for guidance prioritizing that precious time, and Angus Lynch from Rooster asked five experts what they would do with their four hours, and Conversion Scientist Brian Massey was among those weighing in.
Brian was initially – and hey, let’s be honest, still is – pretty incredulous that you can do much with that time.
But with a threat of bodily harm he relented and said he’d take a look at a landing page on his website that’s performing well and come up with several different headlines for it then create a page with each of those headlines.
There’s a pretty solid consensus among these five conversion optimization experts that website optimization takes commitment, not an afternoon, but they, too, shared some pretty practical advice.
Peep Laja of Markitekt and ConversionXL says, “I would check Google Analytics to find where the biggest drop-offs are happening, and would focus all my efforts on those pages” and Michael Aagaard of ContentVerve doesn’t disagree. He frames his thoughts by saying “Check analytics for areas with the biggest potential lift.”
Another tactic could be what Neil Patel of Quicksprout, KISSmetrics, and Crazy Egg suggests: “If I had only 4 hours, I would go through Webmaster Tools and fix any of the basic errors that they are showing. @neilpatel”
So we have four folks focusing squarely on the technology, which is clearly necessary given the topic, but the fifth expert, Angie Schottmuller of Three Deep Marketing and Search Engine Watch, would approach this quandary by “interviewing actual customers or prospects to learn why they DO and why they DON’T buy.”
Read the full post, then ask yourself: what would you do with four hours to spend on website optimization? Tell us what works and what was a waste of time.
Your clock starts now…get to it!
How I Became a Better Copywriter When I Learned Illustrator
Conversion-Centered DesignWe’ve all seen the numbers. Visual content outperforms text-only content by a landslide.
Need a refresher?
While I’ve known these stats for some time, I didn’t feel like there was much I could do about it until recently. I would make sure to break my articles up with nice subheadings and insert quality stock photos or original photography when I had it, but that was about as visual as I got. “After all,” I thought, “I’m a writer—not a designer.”
How I Became More Visual
Things changed when I started writing a weekly column for a client whose company designs and builds custom homes. The column was to appear as sponsored content on a well-known luxury living blog. My goal was to conduct interviews and research on the latest trends in home design and present my findings in 500+ word articles along with some beautiful photography of the client’s work.
My logic was simple: The photography was already performing extremely well on social media. The pictures would be the hook, and people would stay for the insightful article.
The first article of the campaign. It goes on for over 600 words.
While this approach already seemed to be working on the client’s on-site blog, it didn’t have the effect I wanted it to on the sponsored column.
In fact, my first article performed pretty badly, despite all the effort I had put into conducting interviews, despite the great quotes and useful information I used—even despite the photos that had been shared thousands of times on social media. The first article—a piece that used anecdotes and advice from the client about finding inspiration for your home—received 84 views upon publication and continues to be one of the lowest performing posts of the campaign, with a total of 220 views.
The tiny blip made by my first article. We used tracking pixels to watch traffic on Google analytics. As you can see, traffic did not pick up after posting.
Then I started using Illustrator
I had been fumbling around with the program for several months, but never felt like I had time to use it properly. My approach had always been to write the best copy I could and to let a designer help out if they had time. But this time I was determined to do something—anything—different so that the column would prove worthwhile.
So I went ahead and designed some images for my next two posts—just some simple, vector-based elements to use as featured images and between subheadings. They weren’t great, but they were presentable, and the articles performed slightly better than the last.
I wasn’t sure if the slight increase in views warranted the extra time it took to create new visuals, but I decided to give it one more shot.
I’m glad I did.
Taking a cue from fashion magazine style collages, I cobbled together a collage using pieces of our original photography and used it as the central element of the next post. The post received 524 views on the first day of publication—over six times more views than my initial post. Even better, the post continues to rack up views, with 1,626 views to date.
My first post on the site to be primarily visual.
Since posting that article, I have continued to create similar content for this campaign (and others) that have performed just as well.
My next post also used a collage. It received 504 views on the first day of publication. Interestingly enough, this article was on the same topic as my initial failed article—how to find home design inspiration. The difference was all in how the information was presented.
Spikes in traffic from my first two collage posts done in Illustrator.
A few months later, new posts continue to create spikes in traffic, and we begin to gain a consistent viewership between postings.
While I don’t have all the answers to this change in performance, I attribute the success of the collage articles to two things: 1. their overall presentation, and 2. their particular appeal to my audience.
Overall Presentation
Appeal to the Audience
Growing your capabilities will make you more perceptive.
There are probably several lessons to be learned from this incident, including one about knowing your audience. But the one I want to stress is this: learning how to design will make you a better writer.
Colleen Ahern is a copywriter and content marketing strategist at Page Agency. She created the Page Agency Blog, where she writes about the rapidly evolving world of content marketing and social media. Follow her on Twitter @ColleenAhern.
How do I know? I’m not just basing this claim on the spike in traffic that came after I started creating visuals. I’m also basing it on the fact that now, when I set out to create content, I don’t ask myself, “How can I best express this idea through copy?” I ask, “What is the best way to express this idea? Period.”
I am also better able to take into account the browsing behavior of my audience. I wouldn’t be writing this out as a 1,000+ word article if I didn’t think that the audience of The Conversion Scientist was willing to read longer articles. Similarly, the content you create should cohere with the browsing behavior of the people you want to reach. No matter how great your writing is, you will never convince a non-reader to read—at least, not through a piece of content marketing.
Because I can now create a broader variety of content I also think much more about the behavior of my audience. That’s why learning Illustrator has not only made me more versatile—it has also made me more perceptive. If copy is only a small part of the equation, I can combine my strengths as a writer with my (developing) ability to design to create content that is cohesive, concise, and valuable.
Copywriting: Getting Past the Bouncers in Your Brain [TODAY]
Persuasion ScienceTim Ash coined the term “Big fat bouncers in your brain” during an interview on his Landing Page Optimization podcast that he and I were on.
I love the image that phrase draws to mind, because it’s true.
The bottom line is this: If you want your message to affect and influence your readers and listeners, you must get past the big fat bouncers in their brains.
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Writing Killer Copy: Getting Past the Bouncers in Your Brian
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I’ve introduced you to these two bouncers and telling you how to write copy that gets past them.
Why register now?
Find out how Betabrand achieved 432% growth for products nobody was looking for.
Get my real definition of “copy”.
See revealing brain scans. We all love brain scans.
Discover my fool-proof method for great copy.
Find out what business porn is and how to create compelling images.
As always, we have FUN doing these.
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Writing Killer Copy: Getting Past the Bouncers in Your Brian
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Come Learn Conversion Optimization From the Experts
Conversion OptimizationIn Austin, March is just another way of saying “SXSW season” – however, this year, there’s another conference that you might want to consider attending.
The first annual ConversionXL Live is taking place from March 11-13 in the hill country just outside of Austin. We like to think of this conference as a form of what SXSW used to be like – a small, intimate gathering of people looking to share ideas, make connections, and innovate.
Make no mistake – if you want to learn everything there is to know about conversion optimization in 2015, this is the conference you’ll want to attend.
This will be no ordinary conference – you’ll have easy access to one-on-one discussions with the speakers, presenters, and your peers in conversion rate optimization. Even better, it’s all-inclusive. With your ticket, you get:
All you have to worry about is getting to Austin.
Register for the conference here – we’ll see you in March!
10 CRO Experts Reveal Their Worst A/B Testing Mistakes
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingFortunately, you can learn how to avoid these awful A/B testing mistakes from 10 CRO experts. Here’s a quick look at some of their greatest pitfalls:
Joel Harvey, Conversion Sciences Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“Because of a QA breakdown we didn’t notice that the last 4-digits of one of the variation phone numbers displayed to visitors was 3576 when it should have been 3567. In the short time that the offending variation was live, we lost at least 100 phone calls.”
Peep Laja, ConversionXL Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“Ending tests too early is the #1 mistake I see. You can’t “spot a trend”, that’s total bullshit.”
Craig Sullivan, Optimise or Die Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“When it comes to split testing, the most dangerous mistakes are the ones you don’t realise you’re making.”
Alhan Keser, Widerfunnel.com Worst A/B Testing Mistakes
“I had been allocated a designer and developer to get the job done, with the expectation of delivering at least a 20% increase in leads. Alas, the test went terribly and I was left with few insights.”
Andre Morys, WebArts.de Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“I recommend everybody to do a cohort analysis after you test things in ecommerce with high contrast – there could be some differences…”
Ton Wesseling, Online Dialogue Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“People tend to say: I’ve tested that idea – and it had no effect. YOU CAN NOT SAY THAT! You can only say – we were not able to tell if the variation was better. BUT in reality it can still be better!”
John Ekman, Conversionista Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“AB-testing is not a game for nervous business people, (maybe that’s why so few people do it?!). You will come up with bad hypotheses that reduce conversions!! And you will mess up the testing software and tracking.”
Paul Rouke, PRWD Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“One of the biggest lessons I have learnt is making sure we fully engage, and build relationships with the people responsible for the technical delivery of a website, right from the start of any project.”
Matt Gershoff, Conductrics Worst A/B Testing Mistake
“One of the traps of testing is that if you aren’t careful, you can get hung up on just seeing what you DID in the past, but not finding out anything useful about what you can DO in the future.”
Michael Aagaard, ContentVerve.com Worst A/B Testing Mistakes
“After years of trial and error, it finally dawned on me that that the most successful tests were the ones based on data, insight and solid hypotheses – not impulse, personal preference or pure guesswork.”
Don’t start your next search marketing campaign without the guidance of our free report. Click here to download How 20 Search Experts Beat Rising Costs.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
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4 Revelations About Small Business in 2015
Conversion Marketing StrategyDallas-based Wasp Barcode is a small business and took it upon themselves to survey their colleagues, finding out how small businesses felt about the coming year.
As a small business, we took an interest in the findings of this report. Here is what we divined from the numbers.
They are Optimistic
Overall, 57% of businesses are expecting revenue growth in 2015. Only 9% expect their revenue to be lower in 2015.
This is a rosy outlook, considering that the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy says that some 20% of businesses with employees will close shop within 5 years of starting. Optimism is a part of the job description for entrepreneurs, who create far more jobs than big companies in America.
They are Hiring, Or Trying
Of the biggest challenges facing small businesses, 42% cited hiring new employees. This was second only to growing revenue, and the two are intertwined for most businesses.
For companies above 51 employees, hiring was the most acute problem for 2015.
Government regulation and employee healthcare took the fourth and fifth slots on the list of challenges. Clearly, the changes in the national healthcare policies is on the mind of small businesses.
They are Local
It was somewhat surprising to find that 82% of small businesses had no plans to expand globally. In our experience, it is common to work with businesses who are utilizing highly-trained workers from outside of the US.
This statistic draws a bright circle around the fact that small business is local business.
They are Working to Keep You Happy
Of the small businesses surveyed, 56% said that they were focused on improving customer experience and retention. Small business has clearly gotten the message that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one.
This doesn’t mean that they’re not working to get new customers. The next most cited strategy was investing in new customer acquisition.
In 2015, we can expect to courted by small business.
Read the Full Report
You can read the entire small business report from Wasp Barcode and draw your own conclusions.
Disclosure: Wasp Barcode is a client of Conversion Sciences.
7 Ways Online Marketing Pros Kick Off the New Year
Conversion OptimizationThere are many reasons.
The online marketer is blind without accurate data.
The online marketer has wrested control from the grubby hands of IT.
The online marketer knows that
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Don’t worry. We’ve prepared a list of seven things you should do now at the beginning of the new year.
Resolve to optimize the website before the next holidays
“If only” are the saddest two words in the English language.
If only we had a little higher conversion rate from all of that juicy holiday traffic.
If only Black Friday had put us a little more “in the black.”
If only our shopping cart had worked with Internet Explorer.
We know that the holidays are happier when we get more revenue under the Christmas Tree. This year let’s start getting more from the traffic we’re going to get next November and December.
Testing and optimizing does take time. Now is the time to start testing if you want your holidays to be merrier.
Change the passwords on your testing tools
The modern marketer has taken control of much of the website from the grubby hands of IT and the web developers. Today, tag managers give marketers an unparalleled ability to add measurements to a site without IT’s help. Split testing tools allow them to transform a website for a particular group of visitors at will.
With great power comes great responsibility.
Many marketing departments should adopt the best security practices of their IT brethren. If a malicious individual got the password to Optimizely or Visual Website Optimizer, they could wreak havoc on the site at will.
Go ahead, change your passwords. And make them good passwords. We use the program PassPack to store and share hard-to-crack passwords with our team.
Check that all your pages still have analytics and testing software
A website is a complex piece of software. New pages are added by different stakeholders. Changes are often undocumented. Not everyone is concerned that your analytics and testing tools need to be added to each page and then checked.
Before diving into a new year, run through the pages on your site and make sure they all have the right tools installed.
There are automated systems for checking your site, but taking some time to explore by hand is very helpful. Get ready to start a punch list.
I recommend installing two browser extensions for Chrome: Tag Assistant by Google and Ghostery. Tag Assistant tells you if your Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager installation is broken on any page, and offers helpful tips. Ghosterytells you every tag that is installed on the page, so you can check for things like Click Tracking tools, session-recording tools and more.
Consider moving to a tag manager, like Google Tag Manager. This centralizes analytics setup.
Make sure your site still works with all devices and browsers
Your analytics will tell you which browsers and devices your visitors are using on your site.
Your analytics will tell you which browsers and devices to check.
Make sure your site works on the top devices and browsers.
Year over year evaluation
The end of a year means another year of data. Woohoo!
This means we have an entire year to compare our progress against. When we compare year-over-year data, we eliminate differences that occurred due to market changes. For an online consumer retailer, comparing October performance to November performance wouldn’t be fair, since the holiday shopping season starts in November. Instead it’s better to compare October of this year to October of last year.
Here are some of the things we like to look at in our year-over-year data.
Depth of Troughs
It’s the off-season that kills us. It’s the winter months for bikini boutiques and the summer months for mitten makers. However, if we are making progress on our site, we should see less of a drop revenue during the off-peak weeks.
And with shallow troughs we often see higher spikes during prime selling or lead-gen seasons.
Increasing Revenue Per Visit or Conversion Rate
Even it you got more traffic to your website in 2014, you may not see the increase in revenue. By measuring the Revenue per Visit (RPV) and Conversion Rate (for lead generation) you can see how your efforts in 2014 added to the bottom line independent of traffic volume.
Average Order Value
When people buy from you, are they buying more or less? This is what average order value tells us. Even if your traffic was flat and your conversion rate didn’t move, you may be getting more from each customer.
Bounce Rate
If you saw an increase in traffic to the site, did you see an increase in bounce rate? The Bounce Rate measures visitors who came and didn’t stay long. They saw only one page or left before 15 seconds had passed.
Bounce rate is an indicator of traffic quality. If lots of visitors are bouncing, then you may not be bringing the right visitor to the site.
Review your idea list
Where do you keep your punch list of things to try on the site? Go find it and give it a look. You’ll find some great ideas you forgot about.
Where do you keep your ideas for a better website?
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
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Affiliate Marketing is about Relationships says Noah Kagan [INFOGRAPHIC]
Conversion Marketing StrategyIt’s unfortunate that I have to fly to Las Vegas to catch fellow Austinite Noah Kagan. However, I was glad to have caught his keynote at Affiliate Summit West 2015.
Mainly because he gave everyone in the audience $10. Real money.
Is he so desperate for attention that he has to buy an audience with cash? Maybe. But his little stunt was really to make a point. His question is, “Are your relationships in black and white, or full color?”
I captured the highlights of his presentation in this instagraph infographic drawn in real time. Share it with someone.
Affiliate marketers get conversion optimization.
I was gratified at how sophisticated the folks at Affiliate Summit were. Affiliate marketers understand that conversion optimization is a big lever that increases CPA payouts, makes advertisers happy and sets OPMs apart from the competition.
And it’s all we do at Conversion Sciences.
7 Best Practices for Using Exit-Intent Popovers, Popups
Conversion OptimizationImagine that your website could detect when a visitor was just about to leave. What could your business do with that information? Would you beg them to stay? Would you sweeten the deal? Would you ask them why they are leaving?
Right now, exit-intent technologies can detect when your visitors are about to hit the back button, close their browser, or navigate away. Then popup dialog is presented to them, a last-ditch message to get their business. They are a powerful tool for any in-house team or CRO Agency to use to recover abandoning visitors either through an incentive or survey.
Are you using exit-intent popups? If not, you are leaving money on the table—quite a lot of money, actually. Exit-intent popups are known for several years now but it’s still a hot topic and heavily used component of conversion rate optimization services.
In case you haven’t heard of them before, let’s summarize quickly what are they.
They are the popups that appear the very moment you move your mouse to leave a page. They are “overlay popups,” and cannot be blocked by popup blockers.
Here is an example:
This exit-intent popup teases a free eBook.
Why Should You Use Exit-Intent Popups?
Exit-intent popups give you a “second chance” at communicating something important to your visitors before they leave your site. According to data, 10 to 15 percent of lost visitors can be “saved” by using exit-intent popups. In other words, between 10 to 15 percent of visitors leaving your site will respond to a well-crafted message.
Exit-intent popups are the most customer-friendly approach to communicate a special message to your visitors. They are superior to normal popups because they don’t interrupt your visitors while browsing or scanning your site; they only appear when your visitors start to leave your site altogether or switch to another window.
So how can you maximize the ROI of your exit-intent popups?
1. Email List Generation
One of their most effective uses is to grab email addresses by offering an incentive to subscribe. Naturally, the conversion success of email collecting popups depends upon the effectiveness of the copy and the offer.
Exit-intent popups can be used to grow your email list.
According to data from OptiMonk, a simple popup like this converts between three and five percent on an average content or ecommerce site. To achieve this level of performance requires no preparation, and you can install the popup on any page.
You can increase a popup’s effectiveness significantly by offering an eBook or other “hook” as an incentive. In such cases, a popup can easily convert up to 15 percent:
Informational offers can turn 15 percent of abandoners into leads.
You can also boost your results by gamifying your message. A lucky wheel popup can not only increase your conversion rate and coupon usage rate, but it also enhances your user experience: everyone loves to win, and it will give shoppers a reason to remember your store.
A lucky wheel can create a new, fun and interactive subscription experience on your site.
2. Recover Abandoned Cart Instantly
E-commerce sites should use exit-intent popups for instant cart-recovery. Since cart abandonment is about 70 percent, exit-intent popups can potentially save a lot of lost revenue. The best method of conversion during checkout is to offer visitors an incentive to finish the order on the spot, such as a price discount or free shipping.
Exit-intent popups can sweeten an offer and save a sale.
This type of popup usually converts around 15 percent, especially if you turn off the email capture, though you should follow up with these users later by email, since only about 5 to 15 percent will use their coupons immediately.
3.
Redirect Traffic to Other ContentThe most common usage of exit-intent popups is to redirect traffic to other content on your site. In effect, it responds to your visitors attempts to leave by saying, “You find this content boring or irrelevant? No problem. Check this out, instead.”
You can even use it on landing pages, to give yourself a second chance to hook visitors who are not converting on your landing page.
In this example, the site owner promotes a webinar on his site:
Redirect visitors who are about to leave to something that may be more relevant.
E-commerce sites can use this method by showing alternative offers to visitors not interested in buying the current products. Content sites can use it to promote other content the reader may prefer.
Content redirection popups can convert up to 25 percent.
4. Keep It Simple
The most important rule of every exit-intent popup is to keep it simple. Don’t try to stuff too much content into one popup. Less is more. People leaving your site are often already overwhelmed by its contents; they may be unable (or unwilling) to understand complex messages. So, make sure your headline tells your visitors immediately what benefit they will receive.
The look of your popup is also important. Try to use a simple and clear design that matches to your website. Since you only have a few seconds to get visitors attention, you should always use readable fonts.
One large tagline, one sub-headline, and some visual reinforcement of the offer should be enough, 99 percent of the time.
Don’t forget that the look of your popup is just one thing, but if your offer is not good enough, you won’t succeed. Always add a relevant offer and try to focus on pain points. Adding a sense of urgency always makes popup more effective since it helps to overcome procrastination. Here’s an article if you want to learn more about creating a good exit-intent popup.
5. Speed Matters
When we say that an exit-intent popup appears at the very moment the visitor moves the mouse out of the window, this means that the popup appears a few milliseconds later—and the amount of time, no matter how miniscule, does matter. You have less than 200 milliseconds to show the visitors your message before they actually click on the X button. In fact, you should decrease this lag to less than 50 milliseconds.
How can your popup respond so quickly? First, it is important to preload the popup content. Loading in real-time takes longer than 200 milliseconds. Preloading takes technical know-how, but the best exit-intent popup software has already solved this issue.
You should refrain from using special effects on these types of popups. Such displays look cool, but they increase the amount of time required to display the popup, as well as the time needed for visitors to comprehend the message.
6. Always Test Copy
The same rules apply to exit-intent popups as to any other webpage or landing page—always test the copy. For example, in this test, changing only the tagline of the offer resulted in a 47 percent increase in conversions.
Test your copy to get even more lift from exit-intent popups.
7. Start Today
My last piece of advice is to start NOW. You are losing customers every minute.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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