| |
| |
|
Web Development Information |
|
|
|
How One Word Or Even One Letter Can Boost Conversion Rates By Over 400%!
Recently I was reviewing the keyword specific conversion rate data of a consulting client of mine. I have been working with this client for a few months now, helping her improve the sales conversion rate of her website and we have had very good results, taking average conversion rates at her site from below 1% to just over 4.3%. (Your sales conversion rate is simply the number of unique visitors your site receives vs. the number of sales you make. If you have 3 sales for every 100 visits your conversion rate is 3%.) Now, one of the keys to improving conversion rates is to continually test and measure every detail of your website, marketing and traffic. While reviewing the data from one of her Google Adwords campaigns I stumbled across a few hard to explain results that perfectly illustrate the very large effect small differences can have on conversion rates. The keyword "piano lessons" had a conversion rate over the last 30 days of 5.09%. The keyword "piano lesson" had a conversion rate of only 1.64%. Both of these keywords had the exact same Adwords title and description, the same average position in the search results and the exact same landing page on my clients website. The only variable is one letter in the keyword? an "s". Lesson vs. Lessons. That's it! Yet the plural version of the keyword (piano lessons) out sold the singular version (piano lesson) by over 300%! Another key phrase that had an even larger variation was "how to play the piano" vs. "how to play a piano". Common sense would say that these two phrases would convert almost identically? Wrong. Again, with identical titles, descriptions and landing pages, "How to play the piano" converted at 5.92%, while "How to play a piano" only converted at 1.42%. That is a whopping 417% difference between "a" and "the"! Short-term variations and fluctuations in the conversion rates of individual keywords or landing pages are common. However, the data on both of these keyword pairs was measured over a full 30 days and several thousand clicks for each keyword. I don't have any easy answers why adding an "s" to a key phrase or changing an "a" to "the" caused such a difference in conversion rates. Sure, you can guess at it and draw a few conclusions such as "plural keywords convert better than singular keywords" or "using 'the' in a key phrase is more specific and targeted than using 'a'". However, these conclusions are just guesses. The only real conclusion you can draw from this case study is that you have to test EVERYTHING! If one word or one letter can have that big of an impact in an Adwords campaign, then a similar change in your main headline or guarantee can have an equally significant impact. The lesson here is to test, test, test. What should you test?
Now, when you are testing a change, only test one item at a time. This part is critical. Testing only one change will help keep your results as accurate as possible. If you change 4 items at once and see a 1% boost in conversion rate, it is possible 3 items are helping and 1 is hurting, so your conversion rate boost would have been greater with just the 3 changes. The bottom line is this? If you really want to take your website's sales conversion rate to the next level, you must absolutely commit to a focused and long-term campaign of testing and optimizing every aspect of your site. You never know when a small change is going to give you huge results! Copyright 2004 Eric Graham Want to improve your conversion rates? Eric Graham is the CEO of several successful online companies. A top authority on eCommerce & Internet Marketing, he's an in-demand speaker & consultant. Visit http://www.web-site-evaluations.com today for an in-depth evaluation to boost YOUR websites conversion rate! About The Author Eric Graham is the CEO of several successful online companies. A top authority on eCommerce & Internet Marketing, he's an in-demand speaker & consultant. Visit www.web-site-evaluations.com for a FREE subscription to his eCommerce Mastery newsletter.
MORE RESOURCES:
Web-Development - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Things to Consider Before Starting a Website In the time that I have been using the Internet, (since 1996) I have seen a lot of websites. I have seen a lot of good websites and I have seen a lot that were just plain awful. Thinking Of Taking Money Online? Whats Best For Merchants? PayPal, WorldPay or Something Else? It's now easier than ever to take payments on the web. As people selling their wares take pot shots at eCommerce providers in an ever-increasing battle to sabotage their "competitors'" success it gets harder and harder to find an honest unbiased opinion. 12 Tips To Great Websites Why do some sites succeed while the vast majority of others fail? More and more website owners are asking themselves these questions. The answers are often more obvious than you may think. Three Things Every Website Should Do When I started my company in 2002, I knew I needed to have a website. Why? To provide credibility! How can a company be "real" in this day and age if it doesn't have a website? So, like many companies, I published an informational website that explained "here's who we are, and here's what we do". The Evolution Of Search There have been many significant changes to the face of search over the last several years with engines becoming more intelligent than ever before. Today's users expect mainly fast, easy, relevant and satisfactory search results. Tips to Protect Your Downloads or Products 1. Upload robots. Improving Usability for Screen Reader Users Simply ensuring your website is accessible to screen reader users is unfortunately not enough to ensure these users can find what they're looking for in a reasonably quick and efficient manner. Even if your site is accessible to screen reader users, its usability could be so incredibly poor that they needn't have bothered coming to your site. 10 Tips For Running A Profitable Web Site 1. Address your targeted audience on your business site. Build a Strong Foundation for Creating Your First Online Identity - Notes for Beginners If you are looking for creating your online presence you should follow some of the basic requirements so that your new website will have a strong foundation. Today internet is a growing media which can provide you maximum results, which no other media can do for you. How to Draw Icons or Images on a Mapserver Generated Map In this example I have used the map of the Itasca demo of the Mapserver. I have done only small changes to the map file. 2 Key Ways to Make Your Site a Success If one more business owner tells me their website sucks because they're just "too darn busy to deal with it", I'm gonna hurl. That's like saying, "I'm doing business in my dirty underwear because I'm too busy to get dressed. Building eCommerce Websites that Work - Part 3 An interesting eCommerce success factor that isn't precisely overlooked, but which is often thought about more in terms of being a way of feeding the search engine spiders has to do with providing content. In a very real sense the customer's job is to consume. How Does Your Website Make Me Feel? When people think about the Internet, they think about technology. When people hear that I am a Website strategy expert, they see me as a "techy type". Free Isnt Always Good - 5 Reasons Why You Need Your Own Website Often time I've browsed sites and seen the same thing - general rep websites or free hosted sites. Pop ups irritate me from the free sites as does the blatant ads getting in the way of the text, and if you have seen one rep site you literally have seen them all. Website Conversion Rate: More Keywords Equals More Sales Your website conversion rate should concern you. This simply refers to how many visitors to your website it takes before you make a sale. Business Website Building Do's and Don'ts First, using a lot of web graphics, flash, banners and pictures on your home page may make it look fancy or cool; but it will slow down the loading time extensively. And lets be real here, most people that look at your web page will leave if it doesn't load in 3 seconds or less. The Most Important Aspect of Writing Web Copy There is an ongoing debate about web copy. Some say that it should be similar to direct mail copy. Are You Overlooking the Benefits of Using Sub-Domains within Your Web-hosting account? One of the most useful features offered by some web hosting companies, is the option of creating sub-domains in the same web hosting account. The problem is, most website owners are not aware of why and how to create sub-domains. Develop a Solid Website Presence Starting an internet business can be confusing to non-veterans. The internet is the new world of business and research. Learn to Build a Better Online Business Website Using Keywords and Content Are you aware that 90% of the websites on the Internet today are a waste of time and space. You have probably been on some of the sites I am referring to.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |