This is by far the most common question I am asked when it comes to conversion tracking and testing. To put it as briefly as possible, it depends on your website.
There are hundreds if not thousands of different elements and factors that can have an impact on conversion rates and the tests that you should be performing depend highly on your individual website. By putting together a website conversion optimisation plan and doing some initial tracking, you will easily see a few areas that require looking at and further testing.
When you perform initial tracking and start carrying out your first tests, everything will begin to snowball. Soon, you will find yourself with many pages, elements, and other things to test.
This is known as A/B testing and three of the most commonly tested elements are:
1. Landing Page Copy
Your landing page’s copy is going to be the first thing potential customers see and it is important to get it right.
- Is it too long?
- Do you misspell words?
- Is it littered with bad grammar?
- Is it easy to read, or are there lots of big words?
- Is it superfluous?
Changing up your landing page copy to something that’s straightforward, easy to read, uses a plain font, and doesn’t try to be too clever will make the best impression.
2. Calls to Action (e.g. “Join our mailing list now!”)
Most successful sites have some form of call-to-action nestled towards the bottom of their landing page or in another key area such as the sidebar. Conversion tracking will reveal whether people are seeing and interacting with your CTA or ignoring it altogether.
- Is your CTA too small?
- Is it out of place?
- Does it encourage your visitor to do something, or does it just say, “Click Here!”?
- Is it designed in a way that complements your site?
With a CTA, you should be tracking the clickthrough rate—how many people are clicking your CTA—and the conversion rate—how many of those people end up making a sale—to truly understand whether it is suitable.
For CTAs, you can experiment with different colors, wording, fonts, whether the CTA is fixed on the page or slides in, its size, and where it is located, amongst other things.
3. Social Share Buttons
Social share buttons are great, but they can still be used incorrectly. Not littering your site with social share buttons, placing them in the right places, and excluding them from certain pages is a good start.
For example, it’s better to nestle your social share buttons in your landing page’s footer or at the top of the page, whereas on your blog it is more appropriate to place them in the sidebar next to a post. On your sales page, it’s often good to remove them completely. Why? Because when visitors are on your sales page, you don’t want them to be distracted by anything else.
Find What Works for You
Conversion rate optimisation and testing is a long-term process, it’s not something that can be done overnight. A huge part of this process is assessing your website, putting together a plan and finding out what works (and what doesn’t work) for your own site.
You may need to test five, six, seven or more different calls to action before you find the right one for you, for example.