Scenario
You’re two weeks into your new search engine and display advertising campaigns and your conversion rate is well below your expectations. You’ve carefully optimized both campaign settings and are seeing a high clickthrough rate. However, the traffic just isn’t converting.
Based on your campaign targeting settings and Web analytics analysis, you believe these visitors are in your target demographic. You’re becoming increasingly frustrated with your campaign and urgently need a solution.
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What is the best answer?
Best Answer: Develop a hypothesis about why traffic is not converting and test it with conversion rate optimization. [hr]
It sounds like you’ve taken careful steps to optimize your campaigns and are seeing the fruits of your campaign optimization by way of high clickthrough rates. Congratulations! That’s half the battle.
Your next goal is to optimize your campaign landing pages on your website for conversions. This is commonly referred to as conversion rate optimization, multivariate testing or A/B testing.
Your main objective here is to develop a hypothesis about why your traffic is not converting and then test the hypothesis by making changes to your website’s landing pages.
There are numerous best practices for designing webpages that convert. Some of the most common areas you can change on your website include the following:
- Create multiple versions of your webpage’s headline and test them for increased conversions and lower bounce rates
- Make your call to action (CTA) more prominent on your webpage by changing the size, location and style of it
- Improve your webpage’s Web copy by clearly and persuasively highlighting your product or service’s unique benefits and value
- Alleviate visitor reservations by offering clear trust and credibility signals on your webpage
- Make certain that your webpage loads fast and is optimized for speed and fast error free conversions
I recommend using A/B testing in the beginning. This allows you to test one variable against a control (your current layout) and see how well it performs.
A useful and free tool for A/B and multivariate testing is Google’s Website Optimizer.
Good luck, and happy testing!