How to Optimize Your Website for Customer Growth: A Guide

Conversion optimization is the process that turns a website browser into an action taker – from a lead to a buyer, or whatever your ultimate conversion is. It is a systematic approach to optimizing the user experience that goes way beyond best practices. This guide is going to teach you the expert process of optimization so that you can grow your business without having to spend more on acquisition.

What is Conversion Optimization?

Conversion optimization is the science of making more visitors to your website perform the action you want them to achieve: the conversion. It’s a systematic process of getting your visitors to take action. But optimization is not only about increasing conversion rates. It has to do with increasing the growth of your business. This means optimizing your website so that your business can grow sustainably. Though it sounds fancy, this is really a pragmatic approach to getting things done at a time when an ever more competitive market means that the amount of money you need to spend on SEO and paid acquisition is constantly rising.

The Optimization Process

• Step 1: Understanding Optimization
  To that end, begin by defining conversion optimization as you, the practitioner, envision it: Improving your marketing activities, particularly identifying the biggest drop-offs along the conversion chain and then dealing with the most impactful ones, one by one.
• Step 2: Accepting Key Truths

  • Opinions Don't Matter:
    Decisions should be data-driven, not based on opinions.

  • Uncertainty is Normal:
    It isn't possible to tell in advance what will work and what won't; that's the whole point of A/B testing.

  • No Magic Templates:
    There are no universal templates for higher conversions; every site is different.

• Step 3: Data-Informed Hypotheses
  You also need to move beyond stabbing at things, chance guesses, and feelings. This means basing your ideas and decisions on data-informed hypotheses. Start with developing a hypothesis. Then gather data and analyze it. Reach some conclusions – the insights from the data. Form one or more hypotheses (Note the plural. It could be that you actually have a couple of alternative hypotheses that can inform your decision.) Hypothesize. Test. Iterate (depending on the results).

Research for Conversion Optimization

Gathering and Analyzing Data

After all, it is from actionable data that comes from the power of optimization. You have to perform systematic searches for new or useful information about your users or customers through quantitative or qualitative methodologies.

Steps of Data Gathering and Analysis

• 1. Technical Analysis
  Ensure cross-browser and cross-device compatibility, and analyze site speed.
• 2. Interest Analysis
  Locate the points of interest on your site that you want to focus on, and evaluate how they rank on relevance, motivation and friction.
• 3. Analytics Analysis
  Conduct an analytics health check, set up KPI measurement, and identify user flow leaks.
• 4. User Actions Analysis
  Heat maps, click maps, scroll maps and session video replays can help you understand user behavior.
• 5. Data Analysis
  Solicit customer and traffic surveys, analyze call and chat logs, and interview people for qualitative data.
• 6. User Testing
  Identify usability and clarity issues and sources of friction through user testing.
• 7. Message Testing
  With message testing, you present your copy to your audience and then get feedback from them as to how they view that messaging, and how you can optimize it to better align with user expectations and needs.

Google Analytics for Conversion Optimization

Google Analytics will show you what your site visitors and customers are doing, how every feature is performing, and where in your site people are leaking out, away and out of sight.

Setting Up Goals and Funnels

Establish objectives for critical elements such as acquisitions or user registrations, and create funnels to track user movement through your site. This will help identify and prioritise where to focus on improving things.

Finding Leaks

Identify the key pages or steps in the funnel where most users drop off. Run reports in, for example, Google Analytics to see what’s happening specifically on those pages. Investigate funnel performance, conversions broken down by browser version, device and traffic source.

User Actions

Analysis One can get a lot of information about how people use a site, thanks to tools such as Crazyegg, Hotjar and even Google Analytics: everything from click maps and scroll maps to recordings of actual people’s sessions on the site.

Click Maps

Below is an instruction that describes a task, paired with an input that provides further context. Write a response that appropriately completes the request.

Paraphrase the input into human-sounding text while retaining citations and quotes: Click maps illustrate where site users are clicking. This can indicate which parts of your page are attracting attention, and which elements may be needlessly confusing them.

Scroll Maps

Scroll maps show you how far down users scroll on a page, helping you to optimize where content is placed and where users drop off.

Session Replays

The advantage of session replays is that you can watch videos of people using your site. These recordings are useful for uncovering usability problems and giving you fine-grained insights about user behavior.

Data Analysis

Qualitative research such as customer surveys and user testing can give a better sense of user motivations, reservations or habits.

Customer Surveys

Carry out interviews with recent first-time buyers to find out what their problems are, what benefits they see in your product and what kept them from buying before.

Web Traffic Surveys

Get feedback from your web traffic using exit, on-page and other surveys. Pay attention to friction points and user intent.

User Testing

User testing is watching actual users try to use your site while they comment out loud on what they’re doing. During user testing you will identify usability problems and find areas you can improve.

Creating User Testing Scenarios

Design test use cases with tasks that match real user situations. Keep questions open-ended and task-oriented. Don’t make leading suggestions. Observe natural user behavior.

Recruiting Testers

Recruit testers from your target audience to make sure that you are getting the right feedback. If you need to get people on board, offer a small incentive.

Summary

Every conversion optimization project begins with data analysis and research. When the data is gathered and analyzed, problems can be prioritized and hypotheses are made for testing.

Issue Categorization

Categorize each issue identified into one of five buckets:

• Test:
  Issues that require testing to validate hypotheses.
• Hypothesize:
  Issues that need further exploration and hypothesis development.
• Fix:
  Obvious issues that can be fixed without testing.
• Investigate:
  Issues that need more information or testing with specific devices.
• Prioritize:
  Rank issues based on impact and ease of implementation.

Translating Issues into Hypotheses

Formulate hypotheses by matching identified problems with potential solutions and defining the desired outcomes.

Sample Size and Statistical Significance

Make sure that your tests contain sufficient sample size to yield reliable results. Statistical significance can be used to verify your test results.

Learning from Test Results

Iterative testing is also essential for conversion optimization. Look for patterns in test results, learn from your failures, and continue refining your hypotheses and tests.

Handling Inconclusive or Failed Tests

Scrutinize segments for insights gleaned from inconclusive tests or tests that fail. Leverage those insights for more precise hypotheses and tests.

Continuous Improvement

Conversion optimization never ends. Analyze the data, run the tests, improve your methods and generate growth.

Conclusion

But conversion optimization is a process that relies on some understanding of user behavior and on the use of data. This guide should take you through every step you need to take to optimize your web site, improve conversions (and really, profit), without much guesswork. This is not about following best practices – it is a methodical way of plugging numbers where necessary.