ISEdb.COM

Many companies make the mistake of spending money in areas where it’s
not necessary. Take, for example, companies pumping marketing dollars
into increasing traffic on the website. It’s great to get more traffic,
but that is just the first step. Now you need that traffic to do
something.

Website Conversion Defined

The percentage of total visitors who come to the website, follow
through after clicking on the company’s desired point of action (POA)
and submit information, download a demo, make a purchase, etc. is the
definition of website conversion. In an e-commerce application,
multiple visitors will add items to their shopping carts, but a smaller
percentage will actually make the purchase. The percentage of visitors
that completes the transaction signifies the conversion rate for the
website. In a lead-generating application, multiple visitors will
follow a path that you desire for them to follow (at first), but will
not complete the form, download, etc. The percentage that does
signifies the conversion rate.

In order to boost the website conversion rate, companies need to
determine why potential customers drop out at certain points in the
process and eliminate these roadblocks in order to increase sales.
Clearly defined POAs, intuitive navigation, and simple checkout
processes all make it easier for potential customers to buy, contact,
download, or whatever else it is that you want them to do that will
lead to a sale.

Point of Action

Basically, the POA on your website is what you want visitors to do
initially. Many websites will have more than one POA, so POAs are
further broken down into primary, secondary, and even tertiary POAs. A
primary POA (usually the most profitable action for a user to take)
might be completing a purchase on the site while a secondary POA might
be signing up for the site’s email newsletter announcing weekly
specials. As a general rule, the marketing department (not the web
designers) in consultation with sales should decide what the primary
and secondary POAs will be.

Some websites have no clear POA and mainly serve as ‘brochure-ware.’ If
a website doesn’t have clear POAs that guide users toward taking
specific, valuable actions, those users are of course less likely to
become purchasers.

Take Rate

The number (or percentage) of visitors who show interest in your POA
(i.e. click on a link to visit the site’s contact form), comprise your
take rate. Say a B2B website is highlighting its downloadable demo as
its POA; a visitor might click on that link to get to a download page.
Whether or not they actually follow through with the download has no
bearing on the take rate – the take rate merely demonstrates that there
was enough interest for them to take the POA.

On an e-commerce site, for instance, a visitor who adds a product to
his shopping basket has taken the first step toward the company’s
desired POA, but the potential purchaser may not complete the
transaction.

There are many ways to improve the take rate of a website. One of the
biggest ways is to simply make it very clear to visitors, on every page
of your site, what you want them to do. Whether this is to purchase, to
contact, to download, to sign up, or any number of other actions, make
it clear and prominent for the visitor. No matter where they are on
your site when they decide they are ready to take that POA, your site
should make it easy for them to do so.

Website Conversion Rate

The actual website conversion rate is the ratio equal to the number of
people who actually convert on the site versus the overall number of
visitors to the site for a given period. If, for example, 3 out of
every 100 visitors to your B2B site filled out a contact form (and that
form was your only POA) your website conversion rate would be 3%.

Obviously, improving your take rate will also improve your conversion
rate, since more people will be coming to the form, download page,
purchase page, etc. But there are many things you can do to increase
the likelihood that people will convert after they have taken the
initial POA. Keeping contact forms short and only asking for the
minimal information you need is one way. Having a prominent and clear
privacy policy or encryption policy can also help. The important thing
to recognize is that a large number of people who demonstrate an
interest in your products or services by clicking on your POA may not
follow thorough, and it is important to determine why and to remove
those obstacles.

Putting it Together

There are literally thousands of elements you can change on your
website to increase both your take rate and website conversion rate.
A/B testing has long been used to determine how changing certain
variables affects the conversion and take rates. However, this method
is limited to testing one variable at a time if you want to gather the
granular metrics from each slight modification. Today, with more
sophisticated testing software packages available, multivariate
testing, which enables you to test many variables at the same time
while still seeing granular results, is becoming more common. Common
tests include changing color schemes, tweaking various aspects of
navigation, copy, and POAs have all been proven to maximize the take
rate, website conversion rate, and subsequently, your revenue and
bottom line. Website conversion is all about your visitors – appeal to
their needs and desires in a logical, concise way, and you’ll see your
rates improve.