The Big Picture of CRO

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

rand@seomoz.org

Basics of CRO

From my blog: http://moz.com/rand/

I want more people

who visit the site to

subscribe via email

A) More People

Visiting

B) Higher

Conversion Rate

Let’s Improve the Call to Action!

This must be

the problem!

A/B Testing

We’ll show half our visitors one and

half the other, and get a winner

Multivariate Testing

We’ll show each version to a

percentage of visitors and find a winner

Statistical Significance Testing

Most testing platforms have this built in. If you need a generic one and some tips on

statistical significance, Avinash’s post here has good stuff: http

://www.kaushik.net/avinash/excellent-analytics-tip1-statistical-significance/

We Can Test Everything!Location on Page

Display Width

Box Color

Address Verification

Loading After the Page

Different Versions Based

on User Behavior

Call-to-Action Copy

Social Proof Inclusion

Changing Messaging on

Different Types of Pages/Posts

That’s Not CRO

What if this isn’t the

problem?

What if this is?

What if this guy is?

Discovery

Testing

Consideration

Conversion

Subscriber for 3 Months

Subscriber for 6 Months

Subscriber for 12+ Months

CRO is about

getting your

customers from

here to here

Discovery

Testing

Consideration

Conversion

Subscriber for 3 Months

Subscriber for 6 Months

Subscriber for 12+ Months

Great CRO is

about moving

them here, too

What’s in a Conversion Decision?

Trust

Word of Mouth

LikabilityDesign

Associations

Word of Mouth

Amount of Pain

CTAs

UX

Effort Required

Process

Historical Experiences

Social Proof

Copywriting

CONVERSION DECISION(it’s a complex process)

TimingDiscovery Path

Branding

Price

How Do We Find Out What Needs Optimizing?

Segment Our Visitors & Survey Them

You can see a breakdown of our industry survey results here:

http://www.seomoz.org/seo-industry-survey

Ask Smart Questions to the Right People

Never Taken a

Free Trial

Took the Free Trial

But Left

Took the Free

Trial and Stayed

What are you seeking

from SEOmoz? What’s

brought you back?

What made you take

the free trial?

What initially made

you want SEOmoz?

What would make you

more likely to sign up?

What are your biggest

objections to signup?

What objections did

you have and how did

you overcome them?

What caused you to

cancel subscription?

What would have made

you stay a subscriber?

What objections did

you have and how did

you overcome them?

What’s been most

valuable to you?

Had success w/ Moz?

Can we share?

This is How the Pros Do It:

From Conversion Rate Experts’ case study (which is definitely worth a read):

http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/

Boom.

This is How the Pros Do It:

From Conversion Rate Experts’ case study (which is definitely worth a read):

http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/crazy-egg-case-study/

Boom.

And Shakalaka.

This process made SEOmoz $1mm in additional

revenue in 2009, when we desperately needed it.

CRE detailed their results with us here:

http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/

10 Tactical Tips for CRO

#1: Make Pages Load BLAZING FAST

http://www.slideshare.net/jcolman/web-performance-optimization-the-silver-bullet-of-seo-and-ux

Data from @jcolman of REI

From Avinash Kaushik’s post:

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/tips-for-improving-high-bounce-low-conversion-web-pages/

#2: Align Visitor Intent and Page Purpose

Good place to find great designers: http://dribbble.com

#3: Poor Design Negatively Impacts Everything

This excellent resource lists 15 tools that can help better understand your

visitors: http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/understanding-your-visitors/

#4: Know Your Tools

The $300mm button story is a great anecdotal piece on this:

http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

#5: Don’t Force Unnecessary Steps

From this excellent infographic:

http://www.zippycart.com/infographics/how-sales-messaging-affects-conversion-rates.html

#6: Concrete & Emotional > Abstract & Intellectual

#7: The Inclusion of “Free” Works

From this excellent infographic:

http://www.zippycart.com/infographics/how-sales-messaging-affects-conversion-rates.html

Zappos’ great videos and detailed images help make them a standout in the field of online

retailing: http://www.zappos.com/puma-future-cat-remix-2-ferrari-dandelion-black-high-risk-red

#8: More Product Detail + Better Presentation = WIN

http://www.commoncraft.com/common-craft-video-dropboxcom-effective

#9: Video Works

30.0% to 33.2%

increase in

conversion after

the video was

added. (10% lift)

Three must-read links on video for conversion: http://conversionxl.com/how-to-use-video-to-increase-conversions/,

and the case study data for eParty: http://

www.internetretailer.com/2011/02/22/videos-boost-online-profile-eparty-unlimited and for Premiere Game Tables:

http://blog.treepodia.com/2011/03/ecommerce-video-roi-a-case-study/.

I also highly recommend http://wistia.com which we use at Moz for video.

#9: But You Have to Optimize It

Great post on case studies and lessons learned:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lessons-learned-from-21-case-studies-in-conversion-rate-optimization-10585

#10: Don’t Fall Into the Trap of Copying Others’ Results

14% Increase in Sales 20% Increase in Sales

From Unbounce:

http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/544-conversion-rate-optimization-tips/

BONUS #11: More Tips Than You Can Imagine

The Big Picture of CRO

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

• Email: rand@seomoz.org

• Twitter: @randfish

• Blog: http://moz.com/rand and http://seomoz.org/blog