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.
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.
Subscribe to Podcast
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.
Want to get Brian’s For Further Study posts delivered right to your inbox? Click HERE to sign up.
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]
Last Call for ebook Special – Business Video Through The Eyes of Your Prospects
Conversion-Centered DesignThe big brains in the Conversion Sciences lab have been working around the clock to bring you an interactive ebook about the science behind business video. Business Video Through the Eyes of Your Prospects is a must read for any business looking to invest in video.
While we can’t promise that this book will tell your future, make your hair thicker, or cure the common cold, we can promise the following:
* An explanation of how video works in the brain
* Results of our split test to maximize conversion
* Results of a post test to measure comprehension
* Over 30 minutes of video so you can see for yourself
* And so much more!
To make a long story short (too late!), you will absolutely want a copy of this book. Before you invest in business video, read this book, watch the videos, and create a video strategy based on what will really work. Get the most out of your video budget by focusing on the video that’s going to have the best ROI.
Download Business Video Through the Eyes of Your Prospects.
Conversion Optimization Maturity Model [Infograph]
Conversion OptimizationMaturity Models were all the rage at Conversion Conference Chicago 2013, but they can make you feel like you’re living with your marketing parents — immature.
Don’t feel bad. We didn’t get a perfect score and we do this for a living (see below for how we score).
Maturity models aren’t a way to judge you and your inadequacies. Maturity models are ways to identify your strengths and plan to build on them.
Both Tim Ash of Sitetuners and Michael Parizek of avast! put forward maturity models for us, and I was on hand to capture Michael’s presentation using my innovative Instagraph (instant infograph) technique.
So, how does Conversion Sciences score on the model? Parizek identified seven criteria in his maturity model.
People
This is an area that we feel strongly about at Conversion Sciences. We have an experienced Conversion Scientist doing the work for every business that hires us. We like to say, “You’ll be working with ‘The Guys’.” We would benefit from some more formal methods as we grow our lab staff, both in number and in capabilities.
Score: 4 out of 5
Tools
It is a golden age of conversion tools. There are lots of ways to measure sites, complete tests, and even spy on your competitors. We score highly on this because these tools exist for us to build on.
Score: 4 out of 5
Knowledge
How you manage what you learn from your testing is perhaps the biggest challenge. For most of us, means it stays in the heads of our optimization team. But what happens when there is turnover? Maintaining personas as a living representative of what you know about your customers is a great way to preserve knowledge.
Score: 3 out of 5
Activities
What do you do first? We generate a list of hypotheses based on your analytics, chat transcripts, reviews and interviews with customer-facing employees. Then we rank them in a similar way to Parizek’s model, but with more endices. You may like his simple graph of Impact vs. Feasibility for prioritizing ideas.
Score: 5 out of 5
Processes
Our Conversion Catalyst process that works for businesses in almost any industry. It is a thorough front-end evaluation followed by a fast-test process. Our goal is to find winners on your site within 120 days.
However, this process isn’t effective in slower-moving environments and in situations where wins on the website aren’t closely tied to bottom-line revenue.
Score: 4 out of 5
Testing
We use a test cycle approach. If one of our test hypotheses is a winner, we do another set of tests to see if we can get it even better. If a test is a loser, we can test something else.
This cycle gives us the freedom to find promising rabbit holes and follow them all the way to Wonderland.
Score: 4 out of 5
Sponsors
The key to success is always having a strong internal sponsor at our clients with the authority to get things done. We know how to make this individual a hero. We don’t move forward without this commitment from our clients.
Score: It depends
How do you score on each of these?
Which ones are you working on next?
Let us know in the comments.
[bookpromo]
Business Video Through The Eyes of Your Prospects [New eBook]
Conversion-Centered DesignEveryone is excited about “whiteboard” video, in which concepts are drawn at super-high speed on a whiteboard to explain or sell what you offer.
First, we used an eye-tracking camera to see how people watch whiteboard video. Watch the incredible video we made that tracks viewers’ eyes as the watch whiteboard video right in the interactive eBook.
But, we didn’t stop there.
We did the same for “talking head” video and for “webinar” or “slide” video. These are the three most common forms of business video.
You’re going to be surprised at what we discovered.
We also did a split test of these kinds of videos to see which would generate the most conversions in a business setting.
Don’t invest in video until you’ve read Business Video Through the Eyes of Your Prospects.
This interactive PDF book includes all of the eye-tracking videos and more.
* An explanation of how video works in the brain
* Results of our split test to maximize conversion
* Results of a post test to measure comprehension
* Over 30 minutes of video so you can see for yourself
This extraordinary ebook will save you from investing $5000, $10,000 or more in the wrong video. Get instant access to the Business Video Through the Eyes of Your Prospects.
Video can significantly improve your conversion rates and revenue. The wrong video can do the opposite. Avoid expensive video pitfalls with this interactive eBook.
Big Testing is Better Than Big Data – For Further Study
CRO Tests | Multivariate | AB TestingBig Data is Good—But Big Testing is Better | Chief Marketer
@chiefmartec “out of 12,000 experiments that Google ran in 2009, only about 10% of them resulted in adopted changes.” You are not Google. But you must realize that in every industry, an online leader is going to emerge, and it will be the company that adopts a testing culture.
Intuition is no longer your friend. Your intuition cannot comprehend the variety of ways our visitors are coming at us. Data and testing are your friends, or your online audience will continue to abandon you.
Get excited about testing and taking that leadership role in your marketplace.
Want to get Brian’s For Further Study posts delivered right to your inbox? Click HERE to sign up.
Critiquing a College Break Landing Page with CrazyEgg
Landing Page OptimizationIt’s graduation time and you know what that means; summer vacation! This is the perfect time for students to travel before getting back to school next semester or starting their careers. The big, bouncy brains over at CrazyEgg did a search for “best graduation getaway” and came up with this landing page to critique.
What do you think?
Brian is among the four conversion experts that were asked to give their thoughts on the good points of this page as well as the areas that could use improvement. What did he have to say? Well I won’t give it all away, but I will tell you this; college kids are lazy, and hassle-free is an attractive promise.
For Brian’s thoughts on this landing page, as well as the other three experts, check out the entire article on CrazyEgg.
Thanks to CrazyEgg for inviting Brian to be a part of this post!
Who Should Consider Crowdsourced Conversion Optimization?
Conversion Marketing StrategyThis is a guest post by Hagi Erez, Founder/COO Pluralis.
CMOs and CRO professionals all know the challenges and the extensive resources (both financial and human) that are involved in building the ultimate landing page — the one that doesn’t stop converting.
I said, “Why not build a community of professional optimizers, via the power of crowdsourcing, to work on these pages and optimize them? We can then gamify it by pitting the best copies in a contest-type scenario against each other and award a prize for the highest converting copy.”
It is statements like the one below that inspire me to continue building the Pluralis platform, making it as user friendly and intuitive as it can be.
US B2B ECOMMERCE SALES TO REACH $559 BILLION BY THE END OF 2013
– Forrester Research
Pluralis is crowdsourcing the art of conversion optimization through a network of global optimization experts. The platform provides these CRO aficionados with an intuitive and user friendly platform, whereby they can make changes as they see fit and the contest holders can provide feedback on the copies that have been submitted.
Pluralis is all about equal opportunities. For online businesses, it is a sure win because of the low risk and great benefits they receive by realizing higher conversion rates. It is a win for the creative optimizers in the Pluralis community who are granted a cash reward while lifting not only rates but their CRO confidence level.
By using their good eye and knowledge of what it takes to make a landing page convert, the creative optimizers in the Pluralis community can optimize the page as they see fit and be in the running to not only win large cash prizes. They can also use it as their own virtual conversion playground to hone skills and market themselves through hard work.
Small businesses might not have the resources (time or financial) to hire teams of copywriters and designers, go over revisions, approve drafts, make changes, test and then go through the entire process all over again. Sometimes, all it takes is a few small changes to boost conversion rates well above 20%. Upon conclusion of testing, the optimizer with the winning page would win a client-specified reward based on their page’ percentage level of lift over the control page (the baseline).
Testing is another area that can prove quite costly for a company and is based more on what a business thinks might work than what actually does. For companies that have many landing pages to test, this is also a huge cost to consider.
Via crowdsourcing CRO efforts, small and medium-sized businesses can now compete with the larger and richer companies to do professional LPO (Landing Page Optimization), and they can do it without paying tens of thousands of dollars. Moreover – they pay for results and not efforts. If there is no lift, businesses are not obliged to pay and can even relaunch the contest at no extra charge.
The entire crowdsourcing concept for businesses is so attractive as they now have access to the skills of global communities. It creates competition.
Successful companies such as 99designs are the perfect example of this trend. By creating a marketplace of those who need design work and those who can answer their needs, 99designs’ solution promotes competition, where anyone can join and be in the running for a prize.
The power of the crowd has the ability take your business higher whether it is for composing a jingle, building a website or optimizing your landing pages. Welcome to the New and Improved Internet Revolution.
Hagi Erez, Founder/COO Pluralis