Traffic investments load the funnel.
There is a lot of focus on increasing traffic to websites when assessing online marketing tactics. This is for good reason: Without website visitors, no one is there to make a purchase or learn what your business is all about.

Website traffic tools are sold most often (likely) because it’s the easiest non-invasive marketing influencer a third-party can offer. Website traffic tools include a wide range, from offline to online: billboards to pay-per-click to social media will all grab some amount of website traffic.

Conversion investments widen the mouth.
The forgotten focus is on website conversions. Conversions include sales, downloads, contact form completions–any specific business goal on a website. Conversions are influenced by a number of on and off website considerations, some examples: qualified traffic, website design, website usability, images.

There is an extremely high amount of permutations a visitor can navigate through in order to make it to the actual conversion. This is where the analytics nerds love to play, with exciting results. (There’s a fantastic example beginning on slide 15 of Google Analytics Decision Making.)

Too many companies get lazy about making design updates or testing out interfaces. I get it–it’s not easy. Website interfaces and design require a balance of science and art. And it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it process. What you’ll learn from the results, however, are worth every investment made.

Consider the following example chart.*

There’s a reason not to be lazy about making conversion rate investments. Even if the average transaction value of each conversion was only a dollar you can still see significant impact across the board. So why are so many companies only focusing on increasing website traffic?

Website traffic is a clear necessity for business growth. Just make sure you test out ways to improve conversion rates regularly.

*Please note: Conversion rates are often low percentages on average. Even incremental changes at tenths of a percentage can make a significant difference (depending on website volume). This chart was kept simple for illustrative purposes.

Conversion is arguably the most important measurement for business website success. It is what defines whether your business actually benefits from the website.

Perhaps you realize you need a “good conversion rate,” but you may not understand exactly what that means. That’s okay. Here’s what you, as a business owner or marketing professional, need to know.

Definitions:
Conversion: A user of your website completes a desired task (such as making a purchase, initiating contact, signing up for an eNewsletter, leaving a blog comment, etc). The desired task is completely relative to your business website. Here’s an offline example: A customer walks into your store and makes a purchase.

Conversion rate: The percentage of ALL website users who complete the desired task. If your conversion rate is 5%, this means 5 out of every 100 website visitors have completed your desired task. You may have multiple desired tasks; each will have a unique conversion rate.

Bounce rate: The percentage of all website visitors who immediately leave your website once they arrive. If your bounce rate is 30%, this means 30 out of 100 website visitors saw your one page of your website and left immediately.
My favorite way to illustrate this concept is with the bouncy ball. A user is a bouncy ball. Your website is the wall. Unless your wall is permeable and friendly, the ball bounces right off.

How do I track conversion rates?
Your analytics tool (such as Google Analytics) must be set up to accurately track conversions. Website developers typically do this for you when installing the analytics tool, though you must define what counts as a “conversion.”

How do I impact my conversion rate?
Qualified traffic: Driving traffic is often a large part of the online marketing budget; it is completely for shame if the traffic being driven doesn’t convert. Ensuring your website visitors are actually relevant or interested in your business website’s content is critical to success. Do not waste time blindly pushing people to visit your website. Understand your target market, know where to find them, then work on traffic building.

Information architecture: The way the content on your website is organized needs to intuitively make sense to users. If it’s confusing, they’ll probably just leave. (As a bonus, your information architecture also impacts your search engine visibility.)

User experience: The way a user interacts with your website is essentially the “user experience.” Things are laid out and designed in such a way to create a seamless, easy interaction. An offline example is interior design.
Creating a product experience online isn’t easy. In fact, it takes a lot of work. Once a user has become aware of your website, they either bounce (leave) or consume information. If your user experience is planned and implemented well, they might progress into participating, converting or even advocating on your behalf.

A quick note on your website performance:

Focus on conversion rate and avoid getting lost in the details–just for a minute.

For all of you nerds out there: Video shot with an HTC Droid

Businesses may create their websites for a variety of reasons. That said, it’s safe to say all should have one thing in mind: converting website traffic to increase their business. Conversion can mean sales, registrations or anything that contributes to business success. However, a site’s conversion rate is often an afterthought. Today you’re being challenged to take a peek beneath the cover of your website’s analytics and focus on this key aspect of your web presence.

First, answer the following questions about your business goals and write out your answers:

1. Identify your ideal target consumer:
   • List the words or phrases that are most important to the type of customer that will produce the highest dollar amount for you?
   • List the words or phrases that are most important to the type of customer that will be the easiest to convert?
2. What is the primary task that you would like this consumer to complete before leaving your website (register, purchase, subscribe, etc.)?
   • On what pages of your site is this task referenced
   • On what pages of your site is the task itself facilitated?
3. Describe and number steps that are required for the visitor to complete primary task on your site?

Next, take a look at your web traffic via Google Analytics and answer the following questions:

1. Where is the majority of your website traffic coming from?
   • Which websites are you receiving referring the most links from?
   • Which keywords are producing the most referring links?
2. Which pages produce your highest bounce rate?
   • If you have set goals in your Google Analytics account, which pages have the highest conversion rates?
3. Which pages on your website have the most views?
   • How much time are they spending on these pages?

Now, based on the above, answer the following questions, giving yourself 1 point for every “yes” answer:

1. Have you defined a primary task for visitors of the site?
2. Is your bounce rate highest on your home page?
3. Your bounce rate is NOT highest on any of the pages where the primary task of your customer is to be completed?
4. Does more than one page link to or directly reference the page(s) that facilitates your primary task (not including the global navigation)?
5. Your primary task does NOT require viewing more than one page or executing more than three steps?
6. Does the page (or pages) that facilitates your primary task have the highest conversion rate?
7. Is the page that facilitates your primary task third place or higher among the pages with the most number of views?
8. Are any of the pages that promote your primary task third place or higher in most amount of time spent per page?
9. Did your list of words or phrases match three or more of the top performing keywords from your Google Analytics report?
10. Are less than half of your top referring sites paid advertisers for your brand?

Now add up your score:
10 = Excellent. Your site is best configured to achieve your core business conversion goals. Keep monitoring it’s performance and be prepared to engage in a few periodic tweaks to maintain its effectiveness.

9 – 6 = Almost there. Your site is doing some things well, but there is definitely room for improvement. Put some thought into how your site is set up to engage your target customer and facilitate your primary task. Some professional advice would be helpful.

5 or less = There’s work to be done. Roll up your sleeves. Your site is missing a number of key elements to facilitate effective conversion. Consult a web professional to review your call-to-action, navigation and your core conversion goals.

A Few Things to Remember

Generally speaking, your bounce rate should be low — particularly on the pages where your visitor conversion takes place. While there are a number of valid exceptions to this (such as ads or links that reference other sites), in general, this would mean that when a user lands on a page within your site, instead of leaving your site after viewing that single page (a bounce), they complete the primary task (a conversion) and potentially view additional pages.

Look at the pages that receive the most views. How much content is on the page? How easy is it to find and interpret the important links? Content and navigation design combined equal the “user experience.” While your website may have much in the way of visual and textual information and functionality, it’s most likely an individual user will only focus on 20% of it. Therefore, it’s important to maximize the user experience and time spent on the site by focusing primarily on that which allows the user to consume information most critical to conversion. Essentially, make sure your conversion has a clear, easily accessed call-to-action.

While this is a simple analysis utilizing only data gleaned from a Google Analytics integration, perhaps it has yielded some interesting insights on your website’s effectiveness in addressing your business goals and market needs. Identifying such correlations are important to determine your site’s productivity and identify its strengths and weaknesses. A comprehensive assessment of your website’s performance is an integral part of your business’ digital strategy. Without a clear idea of where you are and where you need to go, it’s impossible to achieve any measurable results. If you are not currently measuring your site’s conversion, speak to your digital team and put those wheels into motion today.

Original guest post at Module’s Digital Conversation Blog

Fair warning: This post is in-depth and a little longer than average, but very, very important.

As the dust begins to settle around the hype of social media, business are starting to take a closer look at the business case for using it. Clearly, without a return, no one (in their right mind) makes the investment. Take a look at what some in the industry are saying when it comes to failed social media campaigns:

“”(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won’t have a mutual purpose, and they’ll fail,” Sarner said. By a “mutual purpose,” he means a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it: finding that balance is not easy. The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don’t go over as well with the public.” Caroline McCarthy

“Most (social media campaigns) will fail for one of three reasons: (a) the strategy driving the idea sucks; (b) the execution sucks; or (c) the program provides no value to the end user.” Michael Lazerow

The worst thing we can do is to ignore this. Here’s how I take an approach to clients using buzzwords (ex: “I want a blog” or “I want my own Facebook”) to request our services:

1. Client Objectives. First and foremost we identify the client objectives. At the end of the day, they don’t want “a blog,” they want x number of identified prospects and $X in conversion rates.

2. Market Objectives. Next we take a look at the company’s target market, identify needs, and identify how we can meet these needs. (We don’t so much as discuss tools until after this meeting is completed.)

3. Value. Finally, we discuss what value the company has to provide. There needs to be a value in order to have subscribers. (Again, no discussion on how we’ll use the social media tools to deliver this value until after the meeting is complete!)

This is where the fun begins! This is when I get to go back to my office and create a proposal to knock their socks off. This is where I match some ambitious (but realistic) business plans to stellar social media tools and more!

But did you catch that? TOOLS COME LAST. They change all the time anyway! There is no sense in riding the hype and diving in eyes closed.