Conversion Research — Review

Before we move forward one thing I want to make clear is that conversion optimization is for businesses which are already getting traffic to their website. Many new businesses focus on conversion optimization instead of customer development which is not right for them.

If you are struggling with website traffic and product consideration, go out of your office. Talk to your audience. And, build a better product.

Conversion Research

The first thing you need to do is forget everything that your gut feeling tells you. You must not take any decision based on your intuition. Every action has to be based on data. 

We will use Peep Laja Framework to do the conversion research. Let’s dive deeper into it:

Heuristic Based Analysis

First, we have to start with a heuristic analysis, and experienced-based assessment of the website. We need to assess all the pages of the website as a user does. We will do the assessment based on the following things:

• Clarity: Is everything clear?
• Friction: What’s causing doubts and hesitations? What’s is hold our users back from going down the funnel
• Anxiety: Is there any element on our website creating anxiety? For instance, you ask for personal data 
• Distraction: Are there too many things on your website page? Every good page must have one clear CTA and should focus on one goal at a time

Next, you need to carry out technical analysis. Small little bugs on your website can cause you a lot of damage. Here are the things you need to keep a check on:

• Cross Browser Testing
• Cross-Device Testing
• Speed Analysis

Digital Analytics

Where’s the flow stuck? We have to find the friction point. Where are our users dropping off? Where is the friction point? What people are doing after they land on your page? If someone has bought something when he or she did next? 

Every action the user performs on your website should be trackable and measured.

Qualitative Research

Here, we will survey people who are on our website. We can put a poll on key pages. For instance, through Google Analytics, you were able to notice that most people are dropping off on the form page. You can ask them why they are not filling the form? Maybe there are too many fields and you are asking for a lot of information. You may have to put different polls on different web pages because these pages are different and anxieties are different. 

User Testing

You recruit people who belong to your target audience. If you cannot find your ideal target audience, you can just test it on anyone. Make these people use your website and assign them a task. Maybe they have to subscribe to a service. Or, maybe they can book a session with you through your website. If you have an e-commerce store and you sell clothing, ask them to buy a pair of black jeans with size 34 under 30$. Then while they use the website, they share their thoughts with you. And, pay attention to what they do on your website. 

Mouse Tracking Analysis

You can track where people click on your website by using heatmaps. Scroll maps also help you figure out how far do people scroll down on your webpage. By watching a lot of recorded sessions, you might be able to figure out what’s the problem and where is it.

What to do now

By now, you have recognized a lot of issues with your website. Now you need to identify which issues are minor and which are severe. After doing so, you need to find the most suitable treatment for these problems. Maybe you can fix them with one treatment. Or maybe, you are going to need two or three different treatments to fix the problem. 

Site Walkthrough

Numerous conversions are lost because your website does not perform well on different devices or browsers. 

You need to answer the following questions here:

• Does my website work with different browsers?
• Does it work with every device?
• How good is the user experience with different devices?

Most companies don’t walk through the website. They think their developers have already done the right job. I have seen numerous websites which work great on desktops but they are terrible when opened on mobile and tablets. The reason is, there are always gaps between mobile and desktop usage. This is even true when your website is new. You need to find those gaps and make an optimal user experience for your audience on each device. 

Conduct a comprehensive walkthrough of your website with all top browsers and every device category (tablet, smartphone, desktop). Fill the form yourself. You have to be your customer to know how your customers feel when they use your website. 

Heuristic Analysis

Here’s the definition of Heuristic Analysis from CXL Institute:

Heuristic analysis is an expert-based analysis that uses experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning, and discovery. Its results are not guaranteed to be optimal.

It helps you get yourself familiar with the website and helps you find problems. Later on, you can use data to make sure whether the date approves or disapproves your findings.

When you analyze the website, always take a structured approach. Doing it randomly can mess it up.

Out of all the frameworks presented by CXL, I like the Invesp Conversion Framework. It has 8 steps including:

• Creating buyer personas and then focusing on a few when creating or optimizing a website
• Establish Confidence: Establish trust by using different things (testimonials, social proofs)
• Engagement: Make them spend more time on your website
• Understand the impact of buying stages: Most users don’t convert in the first visit. Create appropriate funnels for each stage, so you can capture the lead and market them later
• Address fears, uncertainties and doubts (FUDs)
• Provide incentives to deal with FUDs
• Test
• Do smaller changes and then test them to improve performance

Analytics Healthcheck and Funnel Goal Flows

Here’s how CXL Insititute described Health Check:

• “Does it collect what we need?”
• “Can we trust this data?”
• “Where are the holes?”
• “Is there anything that can be fixed?”
• “Is anything broken?”
• “What reports should be avoided?

The health check is essential for Conversion Research as it provides you quicky insights, helps you identify problems and helps you move forward.

Analysing funnels is the easiest way to discover traffic drop-off. If you get an Analytics account where the funnel is already set-up, never trust it. Always verify it to know where the traffic is going off. 

My thoughts on Conversion Research by CXL

This course by CXL Institute teaches conversion research comprehensively. I think the course involves some technicalities which you can learn by doing it in the realtime. For me, it was a bit difficult to go through different sections in Google Analytics to find out where my clients were losing conversions. I used the second-page dimension in behaviour>landing page and funnel visualization. It is best to do it practically when you are taking this course for maximum learning.