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Conversion Rate Optimization Part 1, Google Takes the Leading Role
By Frederick Townes (c) 2007

Within the e-commerce sphere, the "mind games" between site
owners and search engine designers have focused on search engine
optimization (SEO). After all, you can't make a sale if
visitors aren't reaching your site. However, as the web
marketplace grows exponentially more competitive, attention
among webmasters and site owners has turned to conversion
optimization — converting site visitors to buyers.

Conversion optimization has nothing to do with SEO. SEO is
designed for spiders and bots. Conversion optimization is based
on two factors only: the needs and motivations of human site
visitors and persuasive site content and design to encourage
humans to make a purchase or perform some other action. Any
other considerations are sub-sets of these two factors in
conversion optimization strategies.

Measuring Human Motivations and Site Effectiveness

SEO is based on the development of numbers (metrics) that are
immutable. Numbers are numbers, there's no debating that. The
interpretation of site metrics, on the other hand, is a true
combination of art, science and testing.

Assessing conversion rate optimization must apply a completely
different approach to data gathering and the accurate,
actionable assessment of the cold hard facts (percentages and
such) that are the basis of SEO.

The Google Website Optimizer (GWO)
(http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/)

Google owns SEO (sorry Yahoo). It is now moving into eyeball
optimization (EBO) to help site owners improve conversion rates.
It's got lots of features, it's totally flexible in designing
useful tests for human reactions and it provides data using
simple to read and understand charts showing what's working and
what would work even better.

One key point here: after indexing billions and billions of web
pages, who is going to know better what works and doesn't work
for solid EBO? After all, all the Google gurus have to do is
evaluate their top performing sites to develop measurement
criteria and tools to improve conversion optimization. Google is
going to know what works.

One other point worth mentioning — it's free. A flexible,
user-designed test engine developed by Google and available
free. It's a must have for any site owner, site designer,
webmaster or SEO.

What Can Google Website Optimizer Do For Me & How Can It Do It
If I Don't Know the Difference Between a Statistical Mean and a
Statistical Average?

Multi-Variable Testing

Got to have it. When quantifying human motivations and the
effectiveness of a site page, you must have data to compare —
data based on site variables such as a different home page image
or revised site text. There are hundreds of variables within any
website. Color selections, type font, type color, navigation
tools, product images and descriptions — literally an endless
list of variables.

Google's Website Optimizer allows you to design tests to
compare variables to see which ones work best. Often called A/B
split tests, these simply compare a change or two to see which
performs best. For example, you might have a picture of your
product on test site A and a photo of the product in use by a
human on test site B. Simply by comparing visitors' reactions
to pages A and B, you can make refinements to your site.

Another useful A/B split test to check the success of your
Adwords placements is to create two identical ads with two
different destination URLs. You'll quickly discover which
placements pay for themselves and which should be dropped.

Easy Analytics

The information gathered by Google during testing is delivered
in an easy-to-understand format. You'll see, in graphic form,
where visitors go and where they don't go when on site. Taking
a good hard look at your bounce rates and possible
paths-thru-site are essential parts of your ongoing conversion
optimization diet.

Usability Testing

Real humans navigating your site. Get as many people as you can
to site down and click around — from your computer-whiz
12-year-old to mom and dad who still use dial-up. These tests
provide the reasons why visitors take specific actions — over
and over again.

Eyeball Optimization

GWO shows you what attracts eyeballs but doesn't generate a
click. It also shows what visitors miss entirely because it's
misplaced or mislabeled. Every page should undergo an "EBO" to
improve conversion rates.

Follow the Leaders

You can't copyright an idea so use the same features and
techniques employed by higher ranking competitor sites. Then,
conduct A/B split tests to see which changes show improvement in
conversion optimization.

People Are Still the Same

There's nothing new about direct response advertising, which is
what successful sites use. Infomercials, newspaper ads, TV
30-second spots — these are all examples of direct response
advertising and the same motivators that work in other media
will also work on your website. Once again, you can't copyright
an idea and the principles of direct response marketing haven't
changed one iota.

Determine and identify the buyer's needs; provide the solution
to meet those needs. It's worked for the past few millennia and
it'll work for you today.

Small Steps or One Giant Leap

Do you make incremental improvements or try to fix everything
all at once. It depends on where you are right now. If you've
optimized your site (or paid to have it optimized) a small step
here and there can make a huge difference, and a major revamping
of your site may actually set you back in the optimization
race.

On the other hand, if you're just launching, run a couple of
A/B splits and other analytics to see which site pages are hot
and which are not. Adjust accordingly. The point here? The more
optimized the site, the less optimization is needed so if
you've been at it for a while, take small steps and assess
improvements. If you're just starting out, launch, track and
adjust as needed — whether it be small steps or the proverbial
giant leap.

Create a Diagram of Your Marketing Funnel

Start with placed adverts (Adwords, paid links, etc.) Add your
home page, each product page, the checkout, automated order
conformation, customer care and order fulfillment. Each one of
these is a component of a sale and, from the list and with the
help of GWO, you'll be able to more clearly identify holes in
your marketing funnel — those areas most in need of improvement,
i.e., optimization.

Now, this is just the beginning. Conversion optimization is an
on-going process and there are additional steps you can take
based on test results delivered by Google's Web Optimizer —
steps that we'll look at more closely in part 2 of this
series.
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Frederick Townes is the CEO of W3 EDGE, a Boston-based
web design company (http://www.w3-edge.com/) specializing in web
standards and search engine friendly web design. Whether your
needs fall into the Web 2.0 (http://www.w3-edge.com/web-site-
design-articles/2006-01-15-web-2.0-the-next-big-thing-or-the-
evolution-of-a-technology.html) category or if you need an
attractive design that will convert your visitors into buyers,
W3 fills the need.
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