“How can we improve our website conversion rate?”
I’ve heard this question asked many times before sitting in client-side meetings and there’s often a mixed response; for the website designer it’s a cleaner layout, for the marketer it’s a bigger call-to-action and for the owner it’s a kamakazi style pop-up box with a loud siren!
The truth is – if you really want to improve your website conversion rate, you’re going to have to put your guesswork aside and pay greater attention to your web analytics data.
When it comes to conversion rate optimisation, one of the hardest lessons to come to terms with is that your opinion doesn’t matter; your website data however does. By using intelligence gained from web analytics tools like Google Analytics, you’ll be responding to what visitors actually do on your site compared to what you think they do. And there’s often quite a disparity.
Here are some top Google Analytics reports which can help to increase your website conversion rate;
Goals/Ecommerce Tracking
Go to Conversions > Goals. As a minimum, you should be tracking successful goals (and ideally revenue) via a ‘payment/booking/enquiry’ completion page and comparing performance across multiple channels (e.g. organic, ppc, referral, affiliate). What is your conversion rate via each channel? Can your resources be refocused toward successful trends? What about your referral partners – is their subscription worth renewing?
Content Reports
Go to Content Reports > Landing pages. Now select ‘Sort Type: Weighted’ to prioritise the list. Why are people entering and immediately leaving the page (i.e. bounce rate)? Using the Secondary Dimension, cross-reference Landing Pages against Keywords – are the keywords relevant? Compare other data sets within this report gain insight and pinpoint errors.
Google Intelligence Alerts
Go to Home > Intelligence Events. This useful tool alerts you of any abnormal fluctuations on your website – for example, you can be notified of traffic spikes, a drop in conversion rate or overspend in your ppc campaign. You can then react quickly to errors that are damaging your conversion rate.
Multi-channel Funnels
Go to Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels. Here lies a treasure trove of information which reports popular touch points before the desired action was fulfilled.
Funnel Visualisation (Goal Funnels)
Every website with a shopping cart should have a goal funnel set up to measure abandonment. Think of it as a leaky pipe – why are people leaving at each stage?
Google Analytics is a free, sophisticated and user friendly tool that can offer significant insight into your website traffic- you’re not going to break it, so don’t be afraid to experiment!
As well as Google Analytics, you can test whole page variations (A/B Testing) or just components of a page (multivariant testing) using Google Website Optimizer.
If you need help improving your website conversion rate, contact Site Reach today.
by Tom Bennison