Peep Laja of ConversionXL gave a talk at Inbound 2016 explaining a framework for increasing conversion rates. The first half of the talk, however, really interested me because a lot of clients have come to No Bounds Digital having already tried to increase conversion in house without luck. Why is it after doing all of the conversion optimization tactics that you are supposed to do that they still weren't getting results? But first, please note that we're writing this from the conference and wanted to get it into your hands as quickly as possible. This post hasn't gone through our normal editing process, so our apologies for any spelling and grammar errors. It's because all of the typical processes that a business undergoes to increase conversions don't work. Let me, well Peep, explain.
Completing a List of Tactics That Will Increase Conversion Rates
Even ConversionXL isn't immune to writing a list post of ways to increase conversion rates. That said, if you implemented all 53, chances are your website would be a mess and not convert well at all. We've all seen busy websites that might check all of tactical conversion rate optimization boxes, but don't convert and look just plain ugly.
Methodically Testing Conversion Rate Optimization Tactics
Split testing sounds great in theory, but without a framework to identify the most important things to test you'll be spending a lot of time optimizing for conversion. By a lot of time, I meant years and years. Imagine that you can get through an A/B split test every 60 days based upon the amount of traffic that you have going to your website. It would take 8.83 years to get through the 53 ways to increase conversion rates that ConversionXL lists on the aforementioned blog post!
Copying Competitors
We think that our competitors are thoughtfully testing their websites, identifying bottlenecks to more leads and sales, and otherwise making a killing online, but guess what, they're not. Modeling your website after your competitors' is more often than a mistake because. They are going to take you down the wrong road because they aren't doing conversion optimization right either.
Copying the Market Leaders
The same goes with market leaders. There are companies that are effectively implementing a conversion optimization, but chances are it doesn't apply to your products and services specifically.
Implementing Best Practices
I'm sure that Kissmetrics did double conversions with changes to a form but have you ever tried implemented those tactics not to see a twofold increase in conversions? Sure, because there is a lot more going on in terms of your sales cycle or lead generation process online than that one piece.
Adopt a Conversion Rate Optimization Framework Instead
In sum, if you've only tried the following to increase conversions you're leaking money from your website:
- Implementing a number of conversion rate tactics all at once
- Split testing without a set of priorities
- Copying competitors or market leaders
- Implementing best practices only
A better way is to adopt a conversion rate optimization framework that allows you to identify what the problem is, where the problem is, and then ultimately directs to possibilities to resolve it. There's no need to reinvent the wheel in terms of a conversion rate optimization framework, Peep has already put one together that works.
The time to get started with this conversion framework is now. Schedule a no obligation site assessment with No Bounds to identify areas of interest for your conversion optimization strategy.
