Group items tagged

Most interesting part of this article, is the way that people make up stories about why they do what they do. This is why self-reported data is always we use it for qualitative research, that is but never to find answers to questions. Humans are very good at making up stories about why they do, and these stories are usually lies.

 @Hubspot-One of the Unexpected Formulas from my new book is: "Choice is a conversion killer." How is that? Don't buyers want choice?

It turns out that choice requires us to delay our decision to say "yes." Tell your visitors which choice to make, why that is a good choice, and why you are the best company to supply that choice.

You get a definite unfair advantage with Google when you put video on your pages. Here's a quick explanation of why from the folks at Wistia.

"Enclose" the checkout process.

This means to create a distraction-free bubble when your visitor has decided to take that bold step and buy your product.

The psychological thing you're working against here is that, when asked to let go of something of value -- like our money -- we are more than happy to delay that decision.

Maybe we'll just shop a bit more. Maybe we'll check one other place for the right price.

That is why any distraction in your checkout process can be an out for a buyer, an out that they may never return from. I've seen checkout processes that have social media icons in them.

Really? Is this the right time to remind someone that they need to check Facebook?

Go buy something on your site and just look for all of the distractions you find. You might feel a bit embarrassed.

I recently went to a website to buy a new keyboard for a laptop. I found the site with the right price and delivery and put the keyboard in my cart.

When I went to checkout, the first question on the billing form was Gender.

Gender?

Why does an electronics part manufacturer need to know if I'm a man or woman?

It introduced enough doubt in my process that I left -- I abandoned my order.

The unfortunate statistic is that 86% of visitors abandon forms of all kinds. It's doubly heartbreaking when they do so in thei cart, because that costs you ready buyers.

The eleven recommendations made here will set you on a path to reduce your abandonment rates. My favorites are: 5. Use a title that explains why the user needs to sign up 6. Show them their password (who said invisible passwords was a good idea?) 12. Put errors in an obvious place and make them visible. Happy Converting!

If I was to rename this article, it would be, "20 Kinds of Best Practices and Why They Won't Work".

It is bad news to rely on best practices that are unsupported by data or testing. This article gives you 20 reasons why.

Why does Airbnb test? What are their challenges?

This article does a great job of explaining the thinking behind testing at Airbnb. Homeaway and other competitors better be doing this kind of work, too.

For those of you who are testing, this article gives a great overview why you should test longer before calling a winner.

The kind of traffic that comes to a "Click Bait" headline is often not well qualified. People come because of the headline's hook, not because they need a product or service.

Having said that, the psychology of these headlines can be used to draw a more qualified audience to a content piece or landing page. So I offer this little study of click-bait headlines. It's worth the read if only for the dog videos.

We believe that mobile traffic is every bit as important as desktop traffic. Many businesses walk away from their mobile traffic because it doesn't convert well. This is a mistake.

Two points found in this article drive the point home:
App and Mobile Functionality (sucks)Mobile Represents a Different Type of userSpend some time on your mobile site. Don't just create a responsive version of your desktop website.

I've always wondered why copywriters don't get involved in the visual presentation of their stories. I've not met one yet. Designing around Lorem ipsum copy, or writing copy without understanding the visual limitations of a page is crazy. So, yes. Please hire copywriters and start a new generation of writers that get the visual component of their craft.

If you're not familiar with the proper use of Landing Pages, let me guide you. This is part of a great series on copywriting for the Web. 

My partner is fond of saying that the best judge of your marketing is your accountant. This is relatively easy to do online, to measure your marketing results all the way to revenue. Plus the learnings can be tried in other parts of the marketing portfolio.

Marketing is always trying to get a seat at the executive table. This report shows why CMOs continue to struggle.

If color is your concern, here are some guidelines and some dazzling graphics. However, don't overthink color. The comments offer some sobering thoughts on the effect of color on success.

 @TheGrok (Bryan Eisenberg) is one of the founders of the performance marketing movement -- we've called it conversion marketing. He has the cred to ask the hard questions. In this very impactful article, he asks "Really, is this so hard to do?" of the email marketers whom he sees as "broken."

These examples should leave you with a feeling of, "Oh yes. I get it now."

That can be a very valuable feeling.

 @neilpatel While it may sound self-serving to share with you an article on why you should spend money with a company like ours, a conversion optimization company, I think you'll find the points made by Neil Patel are a great guide to choosing your conversion optimization strategy.

Yes, you need a conversion optimization strategy, even if you don't hire consultants.

Given Neil's background of creating companies in the online marketing optimization space (KISSmetrics and CrazyEgg), I hope we'll see some more from him in the form of tools.

While Data Scientists are in demand, the ability to manage them to productive ends and incentivize them to drive the company forward are skills that managers will need to develop before they see ROI.

Data scientist agencies, like Conversion Sciences will thrive until internal management gets up to speed on what to do with these new brainiacs.

This sentence summarizes why website optimization is hard: "But despite our intellect and like all earthly creatures, the mental circuitry of our biological ancestors had been optimized by evolution for a world where timeliness was more valuable than accuracy."

@_EricElliott makes a strong case for choosing Web apps for your mobile users over deploying native apps through the app stores. We can add to this that AB testing Web apps (Elliott calls them progressive web apps) is easier with the tools we have. Many advanced tools don't yet support native applications.

However, responsive web designs aren't enough. You should still put the effort in to craft a mobile-centric web app, as if you were developing a native app.

If these answers don't ring true with you, you're not ready for conversion optimization. "Why do [Designers] want to get bogged down in all of this marketing stuff? I like building websites - and that's what I want to do." There are two simple answers: Money. Money."

I geeked out a bit on this. It's a fascinating discussion of how online experimentation fits into the broader picture of business experimentation. Great references and links.