No, we aren’t talking about The Blob, or The Mist or even The Thing. We’re talking about “The Thing” that keeps visitors from taking action on your site and converting. Brian has a great post on Search Engine Land talking about The Thing and how do deal with it.
, what can you do to combat that concern and give your visitors the confidence to take action.
Brian walks you through each area and what changes you can make to reduce visitor concern. Think of it as your tools to fight The Thing.
There is an insidious voice speaking to your visitors from the moment they click through to your site. It camps in the back of their minds, setting up a tent and proceeding to talk your visitors out of taking action. While there are many angles this voice can work to fill visitors with doubt, there is likely one that is common to a large number of your visitors.
It’s “the thing.”
If you can discover and address the thing — the major concern shared by a significant number of your visitors — then you can make some major improvements in your conversion rates and revenue per click.
When testing, we have found that this thing will fall into one of five areas: risk reversal, value proposition/messaging, social proof, user interface/user experience, and credibility/authority. All of these nagging questions may be present to some degree, but one of them is more pressing than the others — and addressing it will give you wins early and often.
I recommend that you open a spreadsheet so you can capture the hypotheses that come to mind as you read these gems. Your hypotheses should read like this:
“If I [change something] then more visitors will [do something good or stop doing something bad] as measured by [some metric like revenue per visit or conversion rate].”
Let’s get started.
Risk Reversal
The thought camping at the back of your visitors’ heads may be, “What if I regret this purchase?”
- What if I don’t like it?
- What if it doesn’t fit?
- What if I didn’t consider something before buying?
- What if I feel tricked?
- Will you sell my contact info to a spammer?
- What is the likelihood that you waste my time?
- Will you protect my data?
Risk reversal tests start with the return policy. The most famous return policy of late is the Zappos “return within one year and we’ll pay shipping both ways” policy. It is clearly visible throughout the site, summarized in the header.
If you’re generating leads, the most important way to communicate risk reversal is your privacy policy and privacy statement. You could test link anchor text such as “We respect your privacy,” or “Your privacy is important to us,” or “We will never share or sell your contact information.”
Did you know that free shipping falls into the category of risk reversal? It means that I won’t be surprised by high shipping rates when I get into the shopping cart. Knowing what to expect is often more important than dollars saved — after all, we know shipping is factored into the pricesomehow. Test free or flat-rate shipping.
Value Proposition & Messaging
While munching on a blackened hot dog, the voice camped at the back of your visitors’ mind is whispering, “What’s in it for me?”
- What’s my payoff?
- Will you make me look better, smarter, cooler, more interesting?
- Are you low price, high quality or good service?
- Are you making an offer I can’t refuse?
- What is the one thing I need to know about your offering?
- Why would I put my career on the line by considering your solution?
- What is your story?
- Does that girl with the headset really work for you?
Communicating your value proposition and messaging is the job of the page content — this includes text, images, video, audio and almost any other media.
Headlines and calls-to-action are always important, and testing often starts there. The inevitable hero image should be tested, especially if it is a rotating banner style so prevalent today (and so often a bad idea).
Long-form versus short copy is another way to find out what your visitors prefer.
Test more detailed pictures of your products. Test getting rid of any stock photography you have on the site.
Never underestimate the power of the words on your site. Some of the most transformational tests we’ve seen involve honing in on the right words.
Social Proof
The voice camping at the back of searchers’ mind may start a fire, roast some marshmallows and whisper, “What would others think?”
- Am I being reckless?
- Does the rest of the herd approve of you?
- Has anyone had a really bad experience with your brand?
- Has anyone had a really good experience?
- Do others confirm what you say about yourself?
- What are other businesses in my industry doing?
We are social animals, and the herd mentality never really leaves us.
Ratings and reviews are a powerful addition and should be tested if you can get your customers to chime in with their opinion.
Test testimonials near your calls-to-action and in your shopping cart.
Come up with some big numbers to describe your success. Rather than counting customers served, consider measuring your success in dollars saved, bites eaten, or seconds spent so that readers can relate to what you’ve done.
Test social media in moderation. It can be a distraction. Will your social customers post pictures of your products? Write reviews? Provide testimonials?
User Interface & User Experience
While carving a snake out of a stick with a pocket knife, the voice in the back of your visitors’ head may be saying, “Nice job. You’re lost.”
- Can I explore your offering the way I like to explore?
- I’m new here. Where do I start?
- I’m back again. Where do I go?
- What’s the next step for me?
- How many more steps do I have?
- How do I take action?
- Can I scan your site or do I have to (gasp) read?
- Where’s the discount you promised?
- What if I’m not ready to act?
- Where can I find your risk reversal, your value proposition, your social proof and evidence of your credibility?
How you present information on a page can have surprising effects on your bottom line. In general, your designer should be skilled at the use of white space, position, font, color, and proximity to guide the visitor through a page.
To start with, test making important things stand out, such as calls-to-action. Test the contrast and size of text to see if readability is an issue.
Test completely different layouts for pages to find the right ballpark to do more detailed tests. Simplify or complexify.
Never underestimate the power of ugly to add more dollars to your bottom line. Don’t get attached to your creative. Your opinion doesn’t matter.
Credibility & Authority
The voice at the back of your visitors’ head may be whispering, “Will I get duped?”
- Will I look stupid?
- Will the product be high-quality?
- Have I had a positive experience with you in the past?
- Would a reasonable person buy from you?
- Would a genius buy from you?
- Will you keep your promises to me?
- Are you good people?
- Do you care?
- Will you get me fired if I recommend you?
The first way to communicate credibility and authority is with your company logo. In general putting it in the upper left on your site does the trick. However, it may actually hurt you on targeted landing pages.
Borrowing authority is a favored strategy. Test the addition of client logos to key pages (landing pages, home page, etc.). If you take credit cards online, be sure to include Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and others, even if you take everything.
Test logos for associations you belong to. Test adding shields for certifications you’ve earned. Test the placement of site security logos, such as McAfee secure and VeriSign. Should they be at the bottom? In the header? Near the call to action button?
Test moving blog post titles to the home page to show your thought leadership (but don’t let them get stuck on your blog).
Picking A Direction For Your Testing
Hopefully, you’ve been jotting down hypotheses about your site as you’ve read this article. Now, you need to prioritize them.
Chris Goward offers PIE as prioritization criteria in his new book. Bryan Eisenberg uses a 5x5x5 model.
At Conversion Sciences, we use a Proof/Impact/Effort/Traffic model that doesn’t seem to spell anything clever. Please offer suggestions in the comments.
Those hypotheses that are supported by analytics, are expected to have a high impact, and require the least effort will bubble to the top of the list.
Now, pick one hypothesis from the top of the list that falls into each of our buckets: risk reversal, messaging, social proof, user experience and credibility. Test these first.
If and when one shows a significant win, you’ve got a good idea of what the voice in the back of your visitors’ mind is whispering to them. Try more hypotheses from this bucket.
Following The Rabbit All The Way Down The Hole
If a headline performs well (messaging), then test a hypothesis about copy length next. If a new layout provides a bottom-line boost (user experience), you might then test a hypothesis that says choices should be reordered.
What you’re doing is finding out what the biggest issue is for your visitors, and then diving in to see how far the rabbit hole goes.
When do you stop and look back at the others? When the wins become scarce and small. Switching to a new category can reinvigorate a testing schedule that needs some big news.
Test hypotheses from each of the five “buckets” to find the major concern of your visitors. This gives you the direction to take for early increases in conversion rate and revenue per click.
Is Conversion Science Sexy?
News & EventsSmart is sexy. Brains? Well maybe not.
While I think we look smashing in our lab coats, I can’t say that I’ve ever thought of what we do as “Sexy.” Conversion Science is exciting, challenging and perplexing, a perfect combination for the trained and curious person drawn to this kind of work.
But sexy?
Writing in The Harvard Business Review authors Thomas H. Davenport and D.J. Patil think that the Data Scientist is the “Sexiest Job of the 21st Century.” Hmmm.
Are Conversion Scientists actually Data Scientists? Yes, they are — with a few important differences.
The HBR calls them “high-ranking professionals with the training and curiosity to make discoveries in the world of big data.” I hate the phrase “big data” because it implies that mortal humans can’t get their heads around it. Trust me. We can.
The two terms are relatively new. The term “Data Scientist” has only been around since 2008 when it was coined by the analytics brainiacs at LinkedIn and Facebook. “Conversion Scientists” was coined in 2006 by yours truly.
There is no degree program for either one of these professions.
Like Data Scientists, Conversion Scientists are hard to come by and we hope you will kindly send us a note if you’ve seen one in the wild. We’re hiring.
Davenport and Patil nail it when they say:
Oh yah. That is a Conversion Scientist.
The Differences
The authors of the HBR article state that “More than anything, what data scientists do is make discoveries while swimming in data.” This would not be sufficient for a Conversion Scientist. Sure we wade, snorkel and Slip ‘n’ Slide through data. But we must also create our own targeted data. This is most commonly done with testing.
We design creative tests for web pages, paid search campaigns, emails, and shopping carts.
It is important to both professions that we be able to communicate effectively. Discovering things is only helpful when those discoveries result in “new business directions.”
For the Conversion Scientist, these new business directions must head toward more leads and more revenue. We’re the capitalists of the Data Scientist community.
That’s basically how you afford your Conversion Scientists: They produce measurable upsides in business results.
Are You a Conversion Scientist?
Since there is no degree program, Conversion Scientists come from the worlds of search optimization, online advertising and performance marketing. They choose positions based on how interesting the data challenges they will be working with are and how much of an impact they will have.
Conversion Scientists are fascinated with the things we learn about human behavior through testing and analysis. So are businesses, as it turns out.
The authors also state that, “…the data scientists we’ve spoken with say they want to build things, not just give advice to a decision maker.” This is true of Conversion Scientists. They want to see the fruits of their labor, not just present reports on their discoveries.
Does this sound like you? Yes, we are looking for our next Conversion Scientist and this quiz will help both of us understand if there’s a fit.
Use On-screen Markup to Make Webinars More Effective
Conversion Marketing StrategyOn-screen Markup can increase engagement and keep viewers around longer.
My online landing page webinars are quite different from most you’ve seen. Why is that?
Because I do live on-screen critiques of the landing pages. You can see me in action on August 21 during my webinar The Chemistry of the B2B Landing Page with Live Critiques.
Why not mark them up ahead of time and just present my findings? Here’s why:
1. It’s boooring. I mean webinars can be pretty uneventful, unless you’ve got a really talented presenter. This adds some pizzazz to the presentation.
2. It’s more fun for me to do. I like to do interactive events like this.
3. If I didn’t, then the critiques wouldn’t really be “live”.
4. It keeps your audience engaged longer, and we have some data to support that.
Why Online Markup is an Awesome Webinar Tool
You should consider online markup if you really want to deliver a captivating presentation that keeps the audience engaged for your entire message.
The interactivity helps people stay tuned into your presentation. There is something about drawings that just captivates the viewer and keeps their attention. We found this to be true in video.
Not only did the “whiteboard-style” video keep the eye on the video, it provided a higher conversion rate on a landing page than two other kinds of business video.
The on-screen drawing gives you a unique angle in a sea of “me too” webinars. Drop-off rates in my previous webinars have been significantly lower than in webinars I’ve done without the critiques. People hang around longer.
Less “multi-thrashing” by the audience. The myth of multi-tasking is alive and well in the webinar world. You may call this multi-bashing, but at any time, most of your viewers are checking email and social media while listening to your presentation.
As a webinar attendee, you can probably remember a time when you wished you could rewind a webinar. The presenter finally said something that caught your attention as you typed out an email reply, but you had no idea of what he said before that.
Since we don’t have Webinar DVRs yet, you want to minimize multi-trashing of your message. On-screen markup works.
Implementing Online Markup in Your Webinars
Most webinar software such as GotoWebinar and WebEx give you tools to markup your screens. However, I find the mouse to be an insufficient tool for writing and drawing. It takes too much concentration.
However, if it’s all you’ve got, you should use it.
My “rig” is a bit more sophisticated. That’s OK because I like toys.
This is my presentation setup. Click to enlarge.
This setup provides the following:
My webinar setup
or
Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphone
(Amazon.com)
The downside of Live Markup
There are some things you need to be aware of if you choose to do one of these.
It requires switching screens from your presentation monitor, where static slides are shown to the tablet screen where you can do the markup. Most webinar services handle this pretty well, but it is another point of failure.
It requires some coordination. If you can’t talk and draw at the same time, you may find your train of thought leaving the tracks.
All of this tech means more points of failure. You have to work hard to have alternative solutions should any of these technologies fail.
See It in Action
Reachforce has asked me to put my rig in action again and you can see the results.
Join me for The Chemistry of the B2B Landing Page, Volume 2 — with Live Critiques from The Conversion Scientist on August 21, 2103 at 1:00pm central time.
I’ll be doing a brief training on how to create effective landing pages backwards and then doing some B2B critiques.
Your page can be one that I critique. You can submit the URL when you register.
I hope to see you there.
Eye Tracking Conversion Lessons and Shopping Cart Abandonment – For Further Study
Ecommerce CRO7 Conversion Lessons Learned From Eye Tracking
@neilpatel collects some of the most interesting eye-tracking images available and provides seven insights that can help you design your pages and choose images. We have done our own eye-tracking study of business video and you can get the full report now. The report offers similar conclusions for the use of video in a landing page. It includes over 30 minutes of embedded video that you can watch yourself.
Neil’s conclusions include:
Enjoy the images he provides.
Shopping Cart Abandonment: Why It Happens & How To Recover Baskets Of Money
@peeplaja offers a great post on shopping cart abandonment
In my book I say that abandonment is like cholesterol: There is a good kind and a bad kind. For each there is a strategy for reducing the impact of abandonment on your business.
Good abandoners leave because they aren’t done with their shopping process. The challenge is to get them to come back and buy when they are done. There are several strategies here for retargeting the visitor who abandons using email and ads.
Bad abandoners leave because you surprised them or didn’t provide the information they were looking for. This kind of abandonment can be treated by improving the checkout process and by using pricing and shipping strategies.
Abandonment is the most heartbreaking of conversion killers. it is also a fertile place to increase the performance of your website.
I want to talk to that developer you know
News & EventsPerhaps you can help me. It turns out that optimizing websites has “caught on” so to speak. There’s reason to believe that applying science to the “art” of creating effective websites is going to be a big thing.
Our business is certainly growing and profitable.
Now, we are ready to grow our development team.
Do you know a Web Developer who fits this very special profile? If so, please forward this to them or have them call me.
* They make online apps and websites dance like puppets on strings. They may say things like “Javascript”, “JQuery” and “CSS” and something about a train named “Ruby” that runs on rails.
* They like puzzles. They can become a bit obsessed with understanding how things work. They are curious.
* They work with data. They use words like “analytics”. You might tune out when they talk about analytics. Most people do.
* When you ask them why they are in such a good mood, they say that they found and fixed a tough bug. You may wonder if they are moonlighting as an exterminator.
* They plan for the future. They are always working on their skills, making themselves more valuable. You suspect that they should get out more.
* They deserve to be part of a profitable young company in Austin, Texas that is loved by its clients because we do what no other agency can do: We find more revenue in their websites, and we have the data to prove it.
My search isn’t going to be easy, but you may be the person who knows this individual. If you would be so kind as to pass this on to anyone fitting this description, they will thank you and I’ll reward you for your generosity.
We have just the place for them.
Please have them read our job description. It’s boring but helpful.
We are also looking for the next Conversion Scientist to lead our optimization efforts. They are even stranger, but very very valuable to us.
My direct contact information is below. I’m waiting.
Best regards,
Brian Massey, Conversion Scientist
Conversion Sciences LLC
Austin, Texas
512-961-6604
Brian@ConversionSciences.com
P. S. I’m still waiting.
Content Marketing Traps You Can Avoid
Conversion Marketing StrategyBrittney Stephenson at Powered by Search gives you content marketing traps you can easily avoid.
Content marketing can help your business capture leads and convert them into customers. In fact, after analyzing data from thousands of their software users, HubSpot found that organizations that blog just one or two times a month generate 70% more leads than businesses that don’t blog at all.
It’s therefore no surprise that so many companies have jumped on the content marketing bandwagon, and are churning out blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, info-graphics, webinars and more, all in the name of lead generation. But there are two common traps that marketers can fall into. The first is focusing exclusively on the content itself. The second is thinking that strong CTAs and landing pages will make up for mediocre content.
If you’re not thinking about a visitor’s overall experience with your content, then you’re not getting the most out of it. A recent Marketing Profs study of B2B marketers revealed that only 36% of respondents believe their organization is using content marketing effectively. This means that there’s a lot of room for improvement, and learning how to hit the right balance between content and conversion will make you stand out as a content marketing champ!
Content Marketing Trap #1 – ‘Content is King!’
Yes, it’s been said a thousand times, content is king. But don’t misinterpret this popular phrase to mean that content is the only thing you need to achieve marketing success. Even top notch content needs a little help if you want it to prompt site visitors to complete a specific action. Otherwise your content marketing strategy will be great for driving site traffic and building industry authority, but not for directly generating leads.
Having a company blog is one of the most popular content marketing tactics, but it’s also one that can easily take up a lot of your energy with little result if you’re not careful. Forgetting to optimize your blog for conversions is a common oversight. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to remedy this.
One of the best methods to turn casual blog readers into leads is including calls to action (CTAs) directly on your blog. CTAs make it easy for site visitors to become leads by asking readers to act, and creating a clear path to do so. Marketing software provider HubSpot has done an excellent job of optimizing their blog for conversions in this way. Any given HubSpot blog post will include four CTAs, just like the images below. (Some readers may find this number of CTAs too distracting, so make sure to test what number works best with your own blog audience.)
Calls to action are just one way to optimize your blog for lead conversion. To really maximize conversions, you should also test your overall blog layout and design, use of images and colors, as well as your posting frequency.
Some of these tips may sound obvious, but the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report shows the grim reality is that 45% of marketers do not test their marketing efforts, and 21% don’t know whether they test or not.
Just think of all the opportunities to optimize their marketing they’re missing out on!
Does your content marketing strategy include creating high-value content, such as whitepapers or eBooks, that are only accessible after site visitors fill out a form?
If so, these forms may be holding back the conversion potential of your content. A CMO Council study asked consumers what their biggest point of frustration is when it comes to content, and 50% of respondents cited long registrations before accessing content as one of their ‘top three turnoffs.’
If you’re getting lots of clicks on your CTAs, but few conversions, try using progressive profiling on your landing pages. This works by asking consumers only a few questions the first time they fill out a form, and then subsequently asking different questions each time they download a piece of content.
Keeping these CRO tips in mind will help take your content to the next level!
Content Marketing Trap # 2 – Thinking of Your Content as a ‘Lead Generating Machine’
Content marketing isn’t a simple mechanical process — you can’t combine a handful of attractive CTAs and optimized landing pages with low quality content and expect customers to come pouring in. Even if you are able to generate leads in this way, imagine their disappointment after they’ve filled out your form and downloaded your offer, only to find a piece of lackluster content. These leads won’t convert into customers, and will sit indefinitely at the top of your sales funnel.
Not concerned yet? You might be surprised to learn the cost of bad content. An IGD Connect survey found that if buyers perceive your content to be “low value,” your business is 27% less likely to be considered in the decision making process, and 40% less likely to ultimately make the sale!
Think about the last time you downloaded a whitepaper or checked out a company’s blog. How did the quality of the content affect your opinion of that company?
One sure fire way of producing content that people find valuable is by writing with your target audience in mind.
Tailor your content to your ideal buyer persona by brainstorming topics they’d be most interested in, or tips that they’d find beneficial. Don’t spend time and energy creating general content if your goal is to reach a specific audience.
Being more strategic about the type of content you produce will not only raise its value, but it can also help you gain more qualified leads.
Plus, leads that are satisfied with your content are more likely to come back for more. That’s why it’s also important to create different types of content for different stages of the buying process. For instance, a small business owner exploring their marketing options may come to an agency’s site and download a free guide or tip sheet. Once they feel more prepared to make a decision, this lead may return to attend a webinar or read through a case study.
There’s no way around it: if you want to have a successful content marketing strategy, you have to invest in the content itself.
The best way to ensure you end up with qualified leads is to first think about your buyer persona, then start writing. And don’t count on poorly researched articles or typo-riddled guides to convince your leads to convert into customers.
Remember to devote time to both the quality of your content, as well as improving its ability to generate leads — otherwise your work will only be half done!
Image Credit: David Goehring
Do you have any tips for producing engaging content, or optimizing content to generate leads? Share your experience in the comments below!
About the Author: Brittney Stephenson is a Marketing Assistant at Powered by Search, an SEO and inbound marketing agency based in Toronto, Canada. She has a passion for marketing strategy, content marketing, and all things digital. Feel free to connect with Brittney on Google+.
Email Marketing Domination, and Millennials Forge the Future – For Further Study
Conversion Marketing StrategyEmail Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online | Wired Business | Wired.com
If you’re a frequent reader of our blogs, you won’t be surprised by this report from Custora stating that email is a more effective marketing channel than social networks.
In fact, I say in my book that email is the biggest social network on the planet. Business people plan their days by their inbox. They program audible notifications when new items come into their inbox. It’s not smart, but it’s true.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should send self-promotional crap. That won’t work in email, mail or social media. But certainly don’t eliminate email from your marketing mix.
MediaPost Publications Millennials Forge The Future (Depending on Life Stage) 07/01/2013
If you like to study the steady march of the generations, you’ll find this study of Millennials fascinating. Basically, Millennials are here to frustrate the retiring Boomer generation. They are the revenge of GenX. I think you can see from this article that Millennials will baffle Boomers (and GenX) with their attitudes.
Want to get Brian’s For Further Study posts delivered right to your inbox? Click HERE to sign up.
Conversion Conference 2013 Wrap-Up – Better Late Than Never
News & EventsTime flies in Conversion Sciences world. It seems like just a few days ago that Brian was wowing the crowds at Conversion Conference in Chicago, but it was actually a couple of weeks ago! Our brains must be getting old…..
Brian with a presumably young and capable brain.
Brian’s presentation “Everything I Needed to Know about CRO, I Learned From Direct Response Marketers,” was a big draw at this year’s Conversion Conference. He and Dr. Debra Zahey (also known as ‘The Professor’) wow the crowd with their special blend of wit, hard data, case studies, and fashionably professional attire.
I don’t want to give away all of the secrets of this great presentation, so you can check out the slides here, and listen to the audio below. Enjoy!
And maybe just a few more pictures…..
The Professor and The Conversion Scientist.
The One Thing that Keeps Visitors from Converting (Audio)
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingNo, we aren’t talking about The Blob, or The Mist or even The Thing. We’re talking about “The Thing” that keeps visitors from taking action on your site and converting. Brian has a great post on Search Engine Land talking about The Thing and how do deal with it.
To be fair, The Blob is pretty fearsome as well.
That is this elusive Thing? According to Brian, the thing usually falls in one of five areas; risk reversal, value proposition/messaging, social proof, user interface/user experience, and credibility/authority.
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Once you identify The Thing, what can you do to combat that concern and give your visitors the confidence to take action.
Brian walks you through each area and what changes you can make to reduce visitor concern. Think of it as your tools to fight The Thing.
Read Brian’s entire post on Search Engine Land or listen to the audio below, and rid your site of The Thing today.
Transcript
There is an insidious voice speaking to your visitors from the moment they click through to your site. It camps in the back of their minds, setting up a tent and proceeding to talk your visitors out of taking action. While there are many angles this voice can work to fill visitors with doubt, there is likely one that is common to a large number of your visitors.
It’s “the thing.”
If you can discover and address the thing — the major concern shared by a significant number of your visitors — then you can make some major improvements in your conversion rates and revenue per click.
When testing, we have found that this thing will fall into one of five areas: risk reversal, value proposition/messaging, social proof, user interface/user experience, and credibility/authority. All of these nagging questions may be present to some degree, but one of them is more pressing than the others — and addressing it will give you wins early and often.
I recommend that you open a spreadsheet so you can capture the hypotheses that come to mind as you read these gems. Your hypotheses should read like this:
Let’s get started.
Risk Reversal
The thought camping at the back of your visitors’ heads may be, “What if I regret this purchase?”
Risk reversal tests start with the return policy. The most famous return policy of late is the Zappos “return within one year and we’ll pay shipping both ways” policy. It is clearly visible throughout the site, summarized in the header.
If you’re generating leads, the most important way to communicate risk reversal is your privacy policy and privacy statement. You could test link anchor text such as “We respect your privacy,” or “Your privacy is important to us,” or “We will never share or sell your contact information.”
Did you know that free shipping falls into the category of risk reversal? It means that I won’t be surprised by high shipping rates when I get into the shopping cart. Knowing what to expect is often more important than dollars saved — after all, we know shipping is factored into the pricesomehow. Test free or flat-rate shipping.
Value Proposition & Messaging
While munching on a blackened hot dog, the voice camped at the back of your visitors’ mind is whispering, “What’s in it for me?”
Communicating your value proposition and messaging is the job of the page content — this includes text, images, video, audio and almost any other media.
Headlines and calls-to-action are always important, and testing often starts there. The inevitable hero image should be tested, especially if it is a rotating banner style so prevalent today (and so often a bad idea).
Long-form versus short copy is another way to find out what your visitors prefer.
Test more detailed pictures of your products. Test getting rid of any stock photography you have on the site.
Never underestimate the power of the words on your site. Some of the most transformational tests we’ve seen involve honing in on the right words.
Social Proof
The voice camping at the back of searchers’ mind may start a fire, roast some marshmallows and whisper, “What would others think?”
We are social animals, and the herd mentality never really leaves us.
Ratings and reviews are a powerful addition and should be tested if you can get your customers to chime in with their opinion.
Test testimonials near your calls-to-action and in your shopping cart.
Come up with some big numbers to describe your success. Rather than counting customers served, consider measuring your success in dollars saved, bites eaten, or seconds spent so that readers can relate to what you’ve done.
Test social media in moderation. It can be a distraction. Will your social customers post pictures of your products? Write reviews? Provide testimonials?
User Interface & User Experience
While carving a snake out of a stick with a pocket knife, the voice in the back of your visitors’ head may be saying, “Nice job. You’re lost.”
How you present information on a page can have surprising effects on your bottom line. In general, your designer should be skilled at the use of white space, position, font, color, and proximity to guide the visitor through a page.
To start with, test making important things stand out, such as calls-to-action. Test the contrast and size of text to see if readability is an issue.
Test completely different layouts for pages to find the right ballpark to do more detailed tests. Simplify or complexify.
Never underestimate the power of ugly to add more dollars to your bottom line. Don’t get attached to your creative. Your opinion doesn’t matter.
Credibility & Authority
The voice at the back of your visitors’ head may be whispering, “Will I get duped?”
The first way to communicate credibility and authority is with your company logo. In general putting it in the upper left on your site does the trick. However, it may actually hurt you on targeted landing pages.
Borrowing authority is a favored strategy. Test the addition of client logos to key pages (landing pages, home page, etc.). If you take credit cards online, be sure to include Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and others, even if you take everything.
Test logos for associations you belong to. Test adding shields for certifications you’ve earned. Test the placement of site security logos, such as McAfee secure and VeriSign. Should they be at the bottom? In the header? Near the call to action button?
Test moving blog post titles to the home page to show your thought leadership (but don’t let them get stuck on your blog).
Picking A Direction For Your Testing
Hopefully, you’ve been jotting down hypotheses about your site as you’ve read this article. Now, you need to prioritize them.
Chris Goward offers PIE as prioritization criteria in his new book. Bryan Eisenberg uses a 5x5x5 model.
At Conversion Sciences, we use a Proof/Impact/Effort/Traffic model that doesn’t seem to spell anything clever. Please offer suggestions in the comments.
Those hypotheses that are supported by analytics, are expected to have a high impact, and require the least effort will bubble to the top of the list.
Now, pick one hypothesis from the top of the list that falls into each of our buckets: risk reversal, messaging, social proof, user experience and credibility. Test these first.
If and when one shows a significant win, you’ve got a good idea of what the voice in the back of your visitors’ mind is whispering to them. Try more hypotheses from this bucket.
Following The Rabbit All The Way Down The Hole
If a headline performs well (messaging), then test a hypothesis about copy length next. If a new layout provides a bottom-line boost (user experience), you might then test a hypothesis that says choices should be reordered.
What you’re doing is finding out what the biggest issue is for your visitors, and then diving in to see how far the rabbit hole goes.
When do you stop and look back at the others? When the wins become scarce and small. Switching to a new category can reinvigorate a testing schedule that needs some big news.
Test hypotheses from each of the five “buckets” to find the major concern of your visitors. This gives you the direction to take for early increases in conversion rate and revenue per click.
21 Quick and Easy CRO Copywriting Hacks
Keep these proven copywriting hacks in mind to make your copy convert.
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Ten Ways to Convert More Customers and More – For Further Study
Conversion Optimization10 Ways to Convert More Customers | Infographic + eBook
If you enjoy studying the psychology of persuasion the way we do here at Conversion Sciences, you’ll love this infographic from the folks at Help Scout.
A Unique Home Page Split Test Experiment on TimeDoctor.com | Biz 3.0
In my book Your Customer Creation Equation I talk about the two conversions that online services have:
I recommend that online services find ways to get the visitor started as soon as possible. Online services have the advantage that we can try the product right there online.
This article is further proof that getting the visitor engaged with questions is a more effective way to find more tryers and buyers than the typical home page.
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Value Propositions: If you have to say it, it probably isn't true.
Persuasion ScienceApple has joined the posers.
“We love our customers!”
“We are the leader!”
“We start by asking, ‘How will it make you feel?'”
Apple was one of those brands that just didn’t have to say how they worked. They created products we didn’t expect and then showed us the products — with the same style that they built them.
This commercial is beautiful, a stylistic way to make an important point.
But it’s all about them. Not me.
I don’t think this bodes well for Apple.
If you can show how you’re different, remarkable or interesting don’t say it. If you have to say it, it probably isn’t true.
[bookpromo]