Do you know how your website is performing? Or how much revenue it’s attributing to your company? Don’t feel embarrassed if you don’t know the answers to these questions—many business professionals and CEOs are in the same boat. But don’t wait any longer—start optimizing your website. Use conversion pages, setup Google Analytics, and start measuring!
Define Your Goals
Your website is an important business asset. It’s also an investment and should have its key performance indicators measured. In order to measure these, you must have pre-defined
and measurable goals. Some types of goals include:
Informational: You have a great product or service, but people don’t see its true value. You want people to
watch a five minute video and download the associated white paper.
Lead generation: You want visitors to call you for more information or request a quote.
Sign-ups: You have a website with a subscription fee. Getting more people to sign-up for your service is your goal.
E-commerce: You run an online store and want to sell more products online—pure and simple!
Optimize Your Website
Optimizing your site, especially the homepage and conversion page will help you reach your goals. The homepage should effectively drive visitors to the conversion
page, and once there they should be enticed to complete the desired action (goal).
TIPS
• First impressions come in the first few seconds. Use aesthetically pleasing designs to ensure these first impressions are positive.
• Make the navigation and layouts intuitive to increase the chance of your visitor finding the conversion pages. This may include drop-down menus and image sliders.
• Minimize the learning curve. Navigation, layout, and design should be consistent throughout your site so your visitor doesn’t get frustrated and leave before converting.
• Ensure quick loading time. If the homepage takes more than three seconds to load visitors will likely leave before visiting another page.
• Target internal links to conversion (goal) pages.
Optimize Your Conversion Page
Design to attract your target audience and convert visitors.
Some important elements include:
Headline: The headline is powerful wording with one task: to entice the user to stay on the page. Ask yourself if the headline is interesting enough. Does it make the visitor want to keep reading? Keep your headline short and direct while using relevant words.
Simplicity: The more complex landing pages are the smaller the chance users will go through with the desired action. Provide content in the simplest form. A short, entertaining
and informative video is ideal. Try reducing noise and distractions by adding white space.
Eye Flow: Good eye flow makes the consumption of the information being shared in the page quicker. Arrange web page components in a logical visual hierarchy, and stay “above the fold.”
Relevance: Make sure the page is relevant to its source. For example, if people visit your page from an ad promoting free estimates, the destination page for the ad must focus
on free estimates.
Reducing Risk: Try to reduce as many barriers as possible through commitment and quality of product/service. This may be accomplished by offering a compelling guarantee,
addressing concerns, and displaying trust elements (SSL certificates, business affiliations, etc.).
Scarcity: If the person feels that the product might run out of stock or a deal is ending, they may be compelled not to procrastinate and take action now. Use convincing copy that conveys a sense of urgency.
Measuring Performance
We recommend using Google Analytics to track user activity on your site and measure performance. It’s a very powerful and flexible system, and best of all, it’s free. You can also setup automatic email reports to ensure you’re in the loop on an ongoing basis.
At the end of the day, make sure that you’re defining and measuring your website goals.
Is Your Website Paying Off?
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