Killing Website Conversion Killers - REVIEW (Part 1)

This is the second in the series of 12 articles highlighting key takeaways from my Conversion Rate Optimization training at CXL Institute.

Last week, I introduced the concept of Heuristic Analysis as the first of the 7 steps in a conversion rate optimization program. Using the ResearchXL framework, the next 6 steps are shown in the diagram below i.e.

1. Technical Analysis
2. Qualitative Surveys
3. Copytesting
4. User Testing
5. Web Analytics
6. Mouse Tracking Analysis

Just as it is important to stack as many conversion assets as possible on a website, especially the product page, it is also critical to do away with every element that kills conversions.

This article examines some of those conversion killers and suggests how to get rid of them to make your website a potent conversion machine.

TECHNICAL ISSUE #1 - CROSS-BROWSER & CROSS-DEVICE PROBLEMS

The main conversion killer on a website is technical. If a website has a technical issue, nothing else matters. The offer may be the best the world has ever seen, but if the website is not accessible on a browser, everyone using that browser will not even see the offer let alone make a purchase.

Let’s bring it nearer home. 

Consider a website with a conversion rate of 3% and an average order value of $50. If it gets 10,000 visitors per month on Internet Explorer 8 but those visitors have difficulty moving to the cart page or even checking out, that is a potential loss of 3% x $50 x 10,000 or $15,000 per month. 

This amounts to about $180,000 over the course of a year. And this is just one browser. If, in addition to a cross-browser issue, this website also has a cross-device issue so that it is not accessible on many other devices, it is double jeopardy. The loss could be a multiple of the figure above.

How do we detect cross-browser and cross-device issues? 

Of course, odds are that you don’t own all devices, neither will you have all browsers installed on your device. There are two ways to detect or troubleshoot these issues: Online testing services and Google Analytics.

Online Testing services

My recommended platforms are:

https://crossbrowsertesting.com/

https://www.browserstack.com/

Google Analytics

This is a free service that gives a great deal of insights. Browser and Device can be accessed through:

Audience > Technology > Browser & OS report

Pay careful attention to the conversion rate per browser. Don’t look at averages. Averages lie. Always look at one device at a time to see the truth in the data.

Here’s a sample screenshot for illustration

On this website, Safari browser which gets just about 15% of users generates 83% of the revenue. On the other hand, Chrome which gets the lion share of users (about 73%) generates only 16% of the revenue. 

This should be concerning for any business and definitely deserves further investigation. Why is Chrome with over 300,000 visitors generating a paltry $4,000?

Drilling down further we find something still more interesting.

What do we find? Only the first 9 versions of Chrome with 3% share of about 300,000 users generated nearly all of $7,000 revenue from Chrome. This implies that other 950 versions of chrome with more 95% of users are contributing nearly nothing to the revenue. This is a problem that needs to be fixed as quickly as possible.

If this single issue is sorted out, the conversion rate could easily jump from 0.13% on average to between 0.5%-1%. This means the revenue could go up from $41,000 to between $157,000 to $315,000 for the period it covers. That's more than three times the previous revenue!

Technical issues of this type are low-hanging fruits that, if fixed, could result in quick wins for the business.

TECHNICAL ISSUE #2 - SLOW PAGE SPEED

The following graphic from TrueConversion illustrates the implication of slow loading speed on the revenue of a website generates $100,000 per day.

This implies that a delay of 1 second in page load speed could potentially translate to a loss of $2.5m in revenue for a year.

If your website takes 10 seconds to load, it is too slow. You should be aiming for 3 seconds even if it is impossible to achieve that all the time.

Again, you can access details of the load speed on your website using Google Analytics under “Behaviour”. With the recent update, website owners can even get suggestions on what to do to improve load speed of each page.

Here a few suggestions you can follow to help reduce page load speed:

1). Always use browser caching

2). Optimize your images

3). Use a fast website host

4). Disable or remove plug-ins you are not using

5). If you have lots of traffic, consider using Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Other conversion killers border on trust, social proof and friction points on websites. 

Let us take a look at issues related to friction.

FORCED REGISTRATION/E-COMMERCE SIGN UP

It is startling that a lot of websites still enforce registration before checkout. This means that intending buyers cannot make a purchase unless they register on the website. That is a huge friction point. Statistics show that 25% (i.e. 1 in 4) of online shoppers abandon their carts because of forced registration.

This huge conversion killer has been appropriately described as the “greedy marketer syndrome”.

What should websites do instead? A better approach should include such things as:

• Provide guest checkout
• Provide Social login where people sign up with any of their social media accounts.
• Give for buyers an incentive to register in order to complete the purchase e.g. a 10% discount would be nearly irresistible.

INTIMIDATING WEB FORM

Since forms are very close to the final conversions, making them long and intimidating is a sure way to lose the sale. Having given your visitors a smooth experience up to this point, it is counter-intuitive to now dis-incentivize them with a long form at this crucial stage.

If your website is designed to generate online sales, cut down the number of form fields to about 4-7. That is the optimum.

You can also implement a multi-step form where the form is split into multiple short steps. Shoppers complete the easiest first, and then, they are taken to the next page to the other steps. The advantage of this is that it reduces the perception of friction.

There you have it! These are few of the most common conversion killers on your website.

Kill the conversion killers, and watch the lift in your conversion rate. If you don't kill them, they will kill your conversions, eat deep into your revenue, increase your acquisition cost and invariably, wipe off your profit margin.

Once your profit margin is consistently eroded, the inevitable is sure to happen - you will be out of business sooner than you think. Go implement these now!

Next week, we shall take a look at a couple more conversion killers.

Did you enjoy this article? Feel free to share it with others. And if you need help with increasing your website/landing page conversion rate, feel free to get in touch.

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