April 2009

Your Online Conversion Challenge
How to profit from the six
Web site conversion rate factors
By Chris Goward

Each month, marketers continue to increase their spending in online advertising. Even in this challenging economy, online marketing spending rose by 10.2 percent in 2009, while overall marketing spending remains flat.

Figure 1: WiderFunnel LIFT Model

 

With increasing competition online and tightening consumer and business wallets, your Web site needs to work harder than ever to convert your visitors into leads and customers.

Ask yourself:

• Do you know what your Web site and key landing page conversion rates are?
• Do you have a strategy for continuously improving your Web site conversion rates?
• Do you have tools and processes to critically evaluate your key conversion funnels and make measurable dramatic improvements?

Figure 2: WiderFunnel LIFT analysis of Rudder.com homepage

This article will introduce you to the WiderFunnel LIFT™ Model, which is part of the Conversion Rate Optimization process WiderFunnel Marketing uses to lift its clients’ conversion rates by between ten percent to 277 percent. The WiderFunnel LIFT Model (or Landing Page Influence Function for Tests™) is a framework for evaluating conversion pages and testing layout, content and design variations that deliver guaranteed improvement. Throughout this article, I will use the terms landing page and conversion page interchangeably.

The method is more valuable than tips
We are often asked to share tips or “best practices” on how to improve conversion rates on landing pages and Web site conversion funnels, and we’re happy to do so. Yet, while tips provide some value, their usefulness is limited outside of the appropriate context. You’re always left wanting more. Many of our clients come to us after running out of ideas on what to test. In each case, the structured methodology we use to evaluate pages and develop valid test hypotheses has played an important role in that conversion rate lift.

The WiderFunnel LIFT Model shows the six conversion factors that allow you to evaluate landing pages from the perspective of the page visitor. (See Fig. 1 for the conceptual graphic of the WiderFunnel LIFT Model.)

The six conversion rate factors
1. Value Proposition
The model shows that the vehicle that provides the potential for the conversion rate is the value proposition, making it the most important of the six conversion factors. The other five factors are either conversion drivers or inhibitors.

The conversion drivers are:

2. Relevance
Does the landing page relate to what the visitor thought they were going to see?The relevance of the value proposition and context of the source media are critical. Your page must use terms your visitor relates to and be consistent with the incoming link or your visitor will be disoriented and leave the page.

3. Clarity
Does the landing page clearly articulate the value proposition and call-to-action? Clarity is the most common of the six that we find marketers struggling with. The two aspects of clarity that must be analyzed are design and content. Designing for clarity creates an unimpeded “eyeflow.” Content clarity ensures images and text combine to minimize comprehension time.

4. Urgency
Is there an indication that the action needs to be taken now?Urgency has two components: internal (or how the visitor is feeling upon arrival) and external (or influences the marketer can introduce to the visitor). While internal urgency is generally pre-existing when the visitor arrives on the page; the tone of the presentation, offers and deadlines can all influence external urgency.

The conversion inhibitors are:

5. Anxiety
What are potential misgivings the visitor could have about undertaking the conversion action? Anxiety is a function of the credibility you have built with the visitor has and the trust you are asking them to have.

6. Distraction
Are there items on the page that could divert the visitor away from the goal? The more visual inputs and action options your visitor has to process, the less likely they are to make a conversion decision. Minimizing distractions like unnecessary product options, links and extraneous information will increase the conversion rate.

Within each of these six factors are the many tips and sub-factors that are used by the skilled conversion rate expert to develop hypotheses to be tested.

A landing page evaluation example
WiderFunnel recently began working with Rudder.com, a free personal financial management service. In our first experiment on their home page we ran a LIFT Model evaluation. Below are factors we identified as priorities for testing. (See Figure 2.,WiderFunnel LIFT Analysis of Rudder.com home page.)

We then selected several of these factors to turn into hypotheses to test against the original page. We ran an A/B/n test using Google Website Optimizer as the statistical testing tool. The result was a 45 percent increase in new customer registrations from the home page. For more details on the experiment methodology, you can read the case study at www.widerfunnel.com/proof/case-studies.
A professor at Eastern Michigan University, Bud Gibson, has developed a Conversion Optimization University course using the WiderFunnel LIFT Model to teach students how to improve Pay-per-click landing pages for non-profit organizations. The feedback and results so far have been overwhelmingly positive. Gibson is also running his own tests and is publishing his ongoing results at www.thecommunityengine.com (just search the blog for “WiderFunnel”).

In summary, there’s no reason not to test your conversion pages. Google Website Optimizer provides a free testing tool and you also have a WiderFunnel LIFT Model for creating an optimized conversion pages. Happy landing!

Chris Goward, co-founder and CEO of WiderFunnel Marketing, developed the Kaizen Method™ and LIFT Model™ for creating top-performing landing pages and conversion funnels. He has helped lift conversion rates for Epson, Google and SAP, among others. His work has been published in Marketing Sherpa, Search Engine Watch, the Google blog, Search Engine Marketing Journal and, of course, Direct Marketing. You'll find him on twitter at @chrisgoward.