Saturday, August 3, 2013

How to optimize the Conversion Ratio (%) of the Website Conversions

As we have seen in earlier post, each website conversion funnel consists of a set of goals to be completed.

Isolating each goal in the conversion funnel and optimizing the actions needed to complete that specific goal is important. When each goal in the conversion funnel is optimized for improved user experiences, the user experience of the overall conversion funnel would improve.



In the given illustration, the first goal is get the user to view the product.

To complete this goal, some of following user actions are required.
  1. User will land directly at the product page (from some marketing campaigns or SEO).  
  2. User does a site search for the product using the search facility.
  3. User does an advanced search such as faceted search, assisted search etc.
  4. User clicks on the product listings in the search results pages.
  5. User clicks on the navigation links on the home page or other higher level pages. Navigation links are located in the top nav, left nav or right nav, mini nav, mega nav etc.
  6. User clicks on the banners or tiles or other display formats on the home page or other higher level pages.
  7. User clicks on the product listings in the product category pages.
  8. User clicks on the product listings in the product comparison pages.


Now we will look at each of these user actions and see what needs to be done to optimize the user experience for these actions.

User action
What is needed to optimize this user action?
User will land directly at the product page (from some marketing campaigns or SEO).  

  •         All the Product pages need be optimized with product specific keywords to facilitate high ranking in Google through SEO.  
  •         In the Paid Marketing Campaigns executed through Display Ad Networks, Email Marketing, or SEM ensure that product specific display Ads, product specific campaigns or product specific keywords respectively, always send the users to relevant product pages as landing pages.  

  • User does a site search for the product using the search facility.

  •         Site search box needs to be prominently visible and available on all pages in the website.  
  •         Site search should provide product suggestions as a drop down in the search box, when user inputs only a part of the keyword or only the model number of the product.
User does an advanced search such as faceted search, assisted search etc.

  •            Same as in site search.
  •           Additionally these advanced search functionality need to be user friendly proving relevant product suggestions.
User clicks on the product listings in the search results pages.

  •         Search results pages should show only product relevant listings for the product searched.
  •          Search results pages should never contain irrelevant listings or lead to pages outside the site. This would also include irrelevant Display Ads and paid links to be avoided.

  • User clicks on the navigation links on the home page or other higher level pages. Navigation links are located in the top nav, left nav or right nav, mini nav, mega nav etc.

  •         The correct positioning of the navigation on the site pages need to be identified by executing a series of user tests.
  •         The keywords used as linking text in the navigations links, need to be relevant to the products they link to.
  •         Navigation positioning needs to be consistent across all higher level pages.
User clicks on the banners or tiles or other display formats on the home page or other higher level pages.

  •         The correct positioning of the banners or other display formats on the site pages need to be identified by executing a series of user tests
  •     The displays like banners need to be relevant to the products they link to, and need to be tested through extensive user tests to increase the clicks.
User clicks on the product listings in the product category pages.

  •         The positioning and ordering of product listings in the product category pages need to be tested through user tests.
  •         The level of details provided in the product listings, images, videos etc. need to be user tested.
User clicks on the product listings in the product comparison pages.

  •         Same as in product category pages
  •         The product specs, images, videos etc. used for comparison need to be tested with user testing.

As seen above, we isolated one goal in the website conversion funnel, and defined the user actions that need to be optimized to complete that goal. After that we looked at what is needed to optimize each of the user actions. By taking these steps we ensure that the completion ratio of this goal by the users increases and is optimized.

Similarly, the completion rate of the other goals in the website conversion funnel need to be optimized which would increase and optimize the conversion ratio (%) of the website conversions.


Signature: Roopkumar T.V.

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