Login
Optimize It!
A Blog about Conversion Improvement

Which Should Come First – CRO or SEO?

Most online marketers work with limited budgets, so oftentimes they are forced to make a decision on how to best spend their resources in an effort to maximize their return on investment. This means that marketing managers are usually faced with a choice: either spend their resources on search engine optimization (SEO) services to generate more traffic to their e-commerce websites or invest in conversion rate optimization (CRO) services to help find the best way to close more business from the traffic that arrives at their websites. Should marketing managers choose one service over the other, or should they leverage both SEO and CRO? If both services should be used, which service should be used first? These are some of the many dilemmas faced by marketing managers on a daily basis, and we at Vertster have some thoughts to share about this topic.

Our view is that CRO service should be used first, and we don’t hold this view simply because CRO is our bread and butter that comes from being one of the top CRO service providers. We believe in SEO. We love SEO. Our roots are based in SEO (we were an SEO company before we launched our CRO services). We have many, many friends in the SEO space.

Our view comes from a simple real-world observation that can be applied to the online world. Have you ever seen a highway billboard ad with lettering too small to be read from your vantage point inside your car? I remember a recent billboard from a national wireless provider with a message too small to be made out. Imagine being a marketing manager who did not take the time to make sure that all marketing elements had been properly vetted out before all those billboards went up on a nationwide campaign to be displayed to millions of passing motorists. This particular marketing campaign certainly got the traffic, but the campaign was largely ineffective because the marketing message just wasn’t clear (nobody could even read it!). What if millions of new unique visitors came to your website and your message was muddled, your site was hard to navigate or your value proposition or order process was just not easy to understand?

We believe that your marketing message should be properly tested with CRO strategies first to make sure all elements are optimized: color, text size, graphics placement, page layout, price, order process, etc. Test for the best variations BEFORE you spend the money on SEO campaigns that will generate traffic to your website. Otherwise, your SEO marketing dollars may result in generating website bounces, not the website sales and profits you were expecting. SEO and CRO can generate positive results for you, and we certainly recommend that you rely on both to increase your conversion rates and sales. Just go with CRO first and then drive traffic with SEO for optimal results.

Remember: Always Be Testing!

Richard A. Cracroft
Vice President, Sales & Marketing
801.326.4807 Office
Skype: rich.at.vertster

Vertster.com
Linked-In Profile

Filed under: Internet Marketing —

Will Conversion Optimization Help My Site?

One of the most frequent questions I get from people is “Will Conversion Rate Optimization help my website?”

The answer is a resounding YES! Conversion Rate Optimization can help your website in many ways.

Any increase in your website’s conversion rate will positively impact the bottom line. If you operate a lead generation website, then you’ll obtain more/better data. If you operate an e-commerce website, then you’ll sell more and/or sell at a higher revenue-per-visitor rate. If you’re looking to add more subscribers to your online newsletter, then visitors to your website will subscribe at a higher rate.

By using Vertster to test your ideas in a scientific manner you will discover what makes your visitors convert at a higher rate! With Vertster, you can have several conversion goals per test, not just a single test to uncover whether or not visitors made it to a thank-you page. By increasing the variables to test, you can amplify your results to include if visitors to your website watched a video, clicked on a policy link, completed a form, and even which form fields they filled out. In short, Vertster lets you test whatever you want to measure!

There are a few simple things you can test on your first day with Vertster. For example, ask yourself or a few of your friends this question: “Does my landing/homepage adequately give visitors the impression that we are a trustworthy company?” Can your company enhance that level of trust by adding or moving trust badges (icons issued to reputable organizations that have had their website’s security and online practices fully vetted)???

Most websites already have a trust badge; however, it usually appears below the fold or in a non-prominent position. In many of the tests I have been looking at recently, companies usually get a quick increase in conversions simply by moving their trust badge closer to their shopping cart or checkout button. This also applies to shipping policies and return policies in an e-commerce setting. So there is your first test to try with Vertster: just move a trust badge or a link to one of your policies to a new place on your website and see what it does for your conversion rate.

For lead generation or subscription websites, make sure to be very clear as to what you are going to do with any customer information that you collect.  No one likes to wonder if they’re going to get buried in spam emails from third parties after signing up on your website. Just move your privacy statement or policy link around on your page and see what happens. It should only take you about 5-10 minutes using Vertster to test the effect of these changes.

Now sit back, launch a few tests with Vertster and observe the difference in what your customers do or tell you after making these simple changes to your website!

Remember: ABT: Always Be Testing!

Richard A. Cracroft

Vice President, Sales & Marketing

801.326.4807 Office

801.365.8662 Fax

Skype: rich.at.vertster

rich@vertster.com

Vertster.com

Linked-In Profile

Filed under: Testing 101 —

The 3 reasons why Amazon is a role-model for conversion optimization

If you are looking for a model for conversion optimization, Amazon is right up there with the best! However, you have to take a closer look to understand why this is so and exactly what features you should take as an example. A superficial assessment isn’t enough.

This article covers the three main reasons why Amazon is an absolute paragon for building and, in particular, optimizing a webshop. Please note that the use of the word “model” to describe Amazon doesn’t mean you should copy it! The point is to apply the methods used to create it in order to develop your own shop.

1) Because you can’t remember the last Amazon relaunch!

Amazon.de in 2001 (Source: Archive.org)

Amazon.de in 2001 (Source: Archive.org)

Do you remember the last relaunch of Amazon? It’s hard to believe but there has never been a relaunch of Amazon! In the last 10 years a lot has changed at Amazon, but there has never been a real relaunch. Archive.org is a good example of this approach.

However, the fact there has never been a relaunch doesn’t mean that the website hasn’t changed. In fact it’s probably fair to say that no other on-line store has changed as much as Amazon. However, instead of carrying out a complete relaunch, they prefer to optimize what they have and thus continually develop.

Amazon in 2008 (Source: Archive.org)

Amazon.de in 2008 (Source: Archive.org)

After all, there’s nothing worse than a relaunch! Rethinking everything is only necessary if the business model is fundamentally changed or if the initial set up was simply very poor. If you already have a successful store there is no reason to completely transform it. Changes must be made bit by bit.

Each change must be measurable so it can be assessed as to whether it is going in the right direction. Amazon thus continually develops the shop rather than turning everything upside down. It applies conversion Kaizen at its best!

2) Information before design

Do you think Amazon looks good? If so, you are one of the few people who think that Amazon’s design is attractive. However, although some people think that the aesthetic aspect of the site has been somewhat neglected, the store  functions fantastically well, probably better than any other. One of the main reasons for this is that Amazon pays attention to details which are criminally neglected by many other operators. This applies above all to information.

From the point of view of conversion, information is the most important element of most websites, far ahead of graphic design. Even if a  shop is attractively designed, it won’t function if key information is missing. The difficulty lies in the fact that for each shop and to some extent each product category, there is different information which is essential and cannot be omitted.

Amazon has invested a great deal of work in providing more in-depth information for potential buyers, particularly on the product pages (EPA). Always present are pictures of the products, the price, the delivery time and reviews. Depending on the product category, information on content and technical information is also provided. On top of this there is a product description of varying detail, including pictures and videos.

  • Have you ever seen product descriptions in another webshop which are as detailed as Amazon’s?
  • What other on-line store informs you so precisely how quickly the product can be delivered?
  • Where else will you find such extensive evaluations and discussions regarding products?

Of course information is not everything. The logical arrangement of the site, the individual design and the user guide are also important. In this respect Amazon takes a very simple approach which may appear somewhat confused at first glance but, as experience has shown, is very quickly understood by all users and highly rated by them.

However, it is important to remember that Amazon also invests heavily in trust. Although it is neither a member of TRUSTe nor bears similar trust seals, the shop is considered one of the most trustworthy operators around. The payments processing is faultless, the delivery times are very clear and exchanges can be made quickly and without complications. Amazon never tires of presenting these advantages in every possible place (“Order within the next two hours and you will receive your shipment tomorrow by 12.00 noon”).

3) Because Amazon tests, tests and tests again

All this was not conceived by someone at Amazon at the drawing board stage. In fact the opposite is true! Amazon constantly tests numerous ideas for changes and their effect on the conversion rate and revenues. There is nothing at Amazon which has not been tested. This has allowed the store to continually develop and tailor itself more and more closely to (ever-changing) customer needs, thus becoming the absolute market and innovation leader in the world of e-commerce.

This process has not made Amazon a particularly attractive webshop in terms of appearance, but one which is precisely tailored to the needs of the visitors. Naturally, it has grown beyond pure testing and also uses the findings for pinpoint targeting. This applies not only to products (“Visitors who purchased X also purchased Y”), but also to the presentation of the shop for individual user groups, whether it be “coarse” targeting where, for example, each product category is individually constructed, or more intensive individual targeting for individual visitors.

The author

Joerg Dennis Krueger is responsible for the business unit “Conversion Optimization” at QUISMA – A GroupM company, an international network for performance marketing headquartered in Munich, Germany. He is author of the book “Conversion Boosting” and blogs at http://conversionboosting.com/blog/.

.

Filed under: A/B Testing,Conversion,e Commerce,Internet Marketing —

Mima Summit Presentation

Vertster was fortunate enough to be invited to travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota this week for the annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (Mima) Summit.  This event was held in downtown Minneapolis at the Hilton and featured speakers from around the country as well as local content experts.  Vertster CEO Scott Miller was a panelist on the “Click to Conversion” panel.

Slides from the session appear below:

Mima Summit 2010 Presentation:

View more presentations from Vertster.com.
Filed under: Case Studies,Conversion,Landing Page Optimization,Multivariate Testing —

Great testing idea to retain newsletter subscribers

I went to unsubscribe from a opt-in list and spotted a great test idea.  This particular advertiser, was clever enough to add an option for staying on the list.

I would love to see a test of this and find out how much this second option actually reduced list unsubscriptions.

Filed under: A/B Testing,Test Design,Testing Ideas —

Blog Repairs Underway

If you have tried unsuccessfully to access this blog in the last couple days, we have an unknown problem, which is currently being addressed.  Please check back soon.

Filed under: Test Design —

More efficient and streamlined companies emerge

After going through this horrible economic downturn (which we’ll be feeling the effects of for some time) companies have learned different ways to survive.

The companies making it through the economic crisis are going to be more efficient and more streamlined as they have learned to do more with much less, to squeeze more out of areas that they did not focus on before. Corporate resources are called upon to deliver more and work harder.

Budgets have been cut back and marketing spend has been reduced, so savvy companies are learning that their websites need to deliver the goods. It used to be that if you wanted more leads or sales, you just turn up the dial on the adspend and get more.

Now there are ways to increase leads and sales from your website even amidst the budget crunch and ad spend cutbacks.

1. A/B and Multivariate Testing – If you have not done this, then you are not putting your best foot forward or at least you are not putting your best website forward. Why settle for a poor performing website when you can tweak it for maximum performance.

2. Segment optimization- Not every visitor to your site is the same. There are questions you should be asking yourself about your visitors. Where do they come from? What keyword brought them in? What time of day do they visit the site? Are they coming from your advertising? Once you know this information, you can take action that will increase the performance of your website. Find the right combinations that work for everyone coming from Google for example. Closely related to Personalization below.

3.Personalization- Almost all websites are showing one message for every visitor. But what if you could show the right message for every visitor? Blue widgets for the people who found the site through a blue widget keyword, red widgets for the red, North American widgets for those who came in from Seattle and glow in the dark widgets for those who came to the site in the middle of the night. Well you can and you should, this increases conversion rates above and beyond what testing can do.

Living through the furnace of economic trials will make stronger companies who are smarter with what they have. Don’t be surprised if your competition has a website that doesn’t seem to rank well or they don’t spend much to promote it, but it seems to be kicking your butt. They’ve probably figured out how to make the site work for them.

Filed under: Test Design —

8 New Years Testing Resolutions for better A/B and Multivariate Results

1. Put the shotgun down, website testing is not turkey hunt!

If one thing was made apparent by the WhichTestWon testing awards this year, its that most web marketers are toting around a shutgun, rather than a sniper rifle when it comes to testing. Very few of the entries provided meaningful learnings, beyond “one page is better than the other.”  If we had asked people WHY Recipe C beat the control, not many would have had a definitive answer.

So I implore you to stop testing lots of things at the same time (shotgun approach) and instead, pick and isolate variables carefully and deliberately (sniper rifle.)  When the test is done, you’ll be able to proudly say, Recipe C beat the control, and the reason WHY is that a medium button that is red and includes the word FREE gets more clicks.

Why does this matter?  Because you can take this learning and apply to your next test-

2. Test, Learn, Change, Test, Learn, Change, Test Learn… Iterate More!

Iteration is the secret to delivering the best possible product.  Picture what it would be like if car manufacturers did not iterate on their designs?  We would all be driving around in clunkers that were no more reliable than they were in the early 1900s.  Luckily, this is not the case!

The same is true with testing your sites, landing pages, and other online creative.  Rather than using the shotgun approach by testing repeated wildly differing designs- put on your white lab coat and treat your web optimization campaign like a real scientific experiment.  Run focused, controlled, carefully designed experiments- varying only one thing for an AB test or a handful of things in a multivariate test.

This approach may not be quite as exciting as the former, but in the end, you will learn more, and have a better likelihood of success.  Once you have completed one test, be immediately ready to run the next, iterating (or building) on what you have learned.

3. Add the word OFAT to Your Testing Vocabulary

Just because OFAT sounds horrible (old and fat?) it is neither bad, old nor fat.  OFAT stands for One Factor At a Time- in other words one variable at a time.  Google erroneously took the term ‘AB test’ and popularized it to mean testing wildly differing designs (in fact different web addresses.)  AB testing was originally synonymous with OFAT- meaning in a split test, you isolate one variable and change it to measure the effect of the change.

4. Take a Class or Read a Book

In my job, I get to observe the testing practices of a great number of marketers and agencies. I can say with a degree of certainty that many of them (including those “certified by Google”) would benefit by taking the time to study testing best practices.  Even though they are technical and not specifically geared towards web testing reading up on experimental design and design of experiments can help you create better tests with more reliable results.  A side benefit is that they will possibly require less traffic to get statistical validity as well.  There are a set of well understood principals from offline testing which can be ported over to the online world with great success!

6. Learn from example

Lately,  a number of inspiring sites have popped up with examples of real test results, expert commentary, and other resources.  One of my favorites is Anne Hollands “WhichTestWon” which hosts a weekly blog asking their namesake question.  Marketers submit two versions of a prior test, and visitors to the site are given the opportunity to pick which they thought won!  These sites can help you in two ways- 1.) You get a view into the mind of other marketers and how they chose to design experiments, and 2.) They can be a great source of ideas for testing on your own site!

7. Take a walk offline

Some businesses count as many as 70% or more of their conversions from offline sources (telephone orders.)  The simple fact is you cannot afford to ignore these when you are running a test.  Would you drive a car with the windshield 70% obscured??  Sadly, many many marketers do the equivalent testing online.  If you get a lot of orders by phone, you need to hook some phone conversion tracking capabilities to your test.  I am not sure how many testing vendors support phone tracking integration, but I know at least one that does (wink).

As for the phone tracking vendors, a search of Google will illuminate many- varying widely in cost.  Most will work for testing purposes.  The important thing is to make sure that each unique recipe tested is correctly assigned to a unique phone number.  Then when a call comes in, the phone system needs to be told to report a conversion for that page version.  It sounds confusing because it is.  Luckily, all of this complexity happens in the background.

8. Pay Attention to Segments to Maximize Testing Satisfaction

Ask yourself what would happen if Santa Clause delivered the same present to every child, regardless of age, nationality, or gender.  Would most kids be happy with their gifts?  I doubt it!  Instead, Santa segments his audience, making sure little boys get toy cars, action figures, and the like, and little girls get dolls, stuffed animals, jewelry, etc.

Don’t make a mistake by assuming all of your website visitors are going to respond to test options in the same way.  Many marketers are running tests with darkened glasses on here, blindly ignoring the nuances that commonly exist amongst different traffic segments.  Make a goal in 2010 to invest in a testing platform that can show you how visitors from Google performed compared to visitors from Facebook, and which version of the test won for each group.

Filed under: A/B Testing,Landing Page Optimization,Multivariate Testing,Test Design —

Announcing the WhichTestWon 2009 Best Tests Award Webinar- Reserve your Seat Now!

I’m excited to announce our involvement in the 2009 WhichTestWon Awards!  Next week, I invite you to join me on Tuesday when I reveal the Best Tests of 2009 at WhichTestWon’s Awards.  These are not just Vertster tests, but come from many entries and many different testing systems!

I’m co-presenting the live webinar awards with Anne Holland.  Our fellow judges are Avinash Kaushik and Bob Bly. Plan to attend next week, on Tues Dec 8th, 2:30pm ET/11:30am PT

Reserve Your Seat Now(space is limited, so don’t wait)

What will you learn?

You’ll get to see samples — winning and losing test panels — plus data from the best tests of 2009 including:

  • Homepage tests
  • PPC landing page tests
  • Ecommerce tests
  • B2B lead generation tests
  • Email opt-in form tests
  • Advanced online tests

Space is limited, reserve your seat now!

If you love testing, this should be one of the most inspirational events of the year. The webinar is Next week, Tuesday Dec 8 at 2:30 PM EST.

Reserve your Seat Now

Filed under: Test Design —

Conversion Optimization and SEO – successful together

A high ranking in search engine results is critical for nearly all businesses. And rightly so: organic users are inexpensive, highly interested, and sustainable. But how should websites be designed so that they are easy to find with search engines?

Simply put, content and internal links are said to be the keys to success. How can websites be designed along these criteria without losing sight of conversions? From a usability (and conversion) point of view, a wall of text is just as undesirable as overhanging and unclear navigation menus. Are we stuck with the clash between SEO and conversion optimization?

To keep it short: no! Websites can be optimized for search engine crawlers as well as user conversion. Not only can they be optimized for both, but they should be. A full scope analysis, with both SEO and conversion optimization experts at the table, guarantees a user and search engine friendly website design. Conversion rate optimization is very important for a website’s success. The earlier this exchange takes place, the more time, stress, and unnecessary costs can be saved in the end.

Optimizing the conversion rate is crucial for a website’s success, because rather than taking the expensive and costly route of always buying more traffic, you can take advantage of streams of existing users. Reservations about conversion optimization are often heard, that tests influence Google rankings, or that changes can’t be made to the page without negatively influencing on-page optimization. This is somewhat short-sighted, since conversion optimization and SEO fit together very well.

Testing does not influence rankings

For Google and co., these tests are completely undetectable. All leading testing-tools work with JavaScript (AJAX) to replace the page’s original content with text content in the browser. Since the HTML source code is unchanged, the tests have no effect on search engine rankings. Furthermore, Google supports conversion optimization with its website optimizer and the Google Conversion Professionals program, and emphasizes somewhat that such JavaScript replacement are not interpreted as spamming.

On-page optimization for SEO and better conversion rates are not mutually exclusive

Websites with good conversion rates can be listed at the top of organic searches. When conversion specialists and experts work together for SEO, such as the case is with QUISMA, each new test variant allows for the best possible on-page optimization. Moreover, many SEO relevant adjustments can be made to conversion-optimized pages without affecting the conversion rate.

To take a closer look at overhanging  menus from the introduction: for usability and conversion, a compact and well-arranged menu could be placed at the top of the page. Further down on the page, all of the subcategories can be listed and linked. This achieves a compromise where both goals are compatible with each other.

Finally, all traffic should be measured well to see if it leads to a good conversion rate. If new users gained by SEO don’t generate any revenue due to bad usability, then the search engine optimization was for nothing. Accordingly, holistically thinking SEOs will keep conversion rate in mind, and use the conversion rate optimization to ensure that the client benefits from good results in the end.

(Original article was published in German at Twoqubes.com)

The author

Joerg Dennis Krueger is responsible for the business unit “Conversion Optimization” at QUISMA – A GroupM company, an international network for performance marketing headquartered in Munich, Germany. He is author of the book “Conversion Boosting” and blogs at http://conversionboosting.com/blog/.

.

Filed under: Conversion,Search Engine Optimisation — Tags: , , —
Older Posts »