“The one thing I wish marketers would understand is that it’s not just about numbers or the specific discipline you choose.”
“You can have all the data in the world, all the new tools, processes and frameworks, but at the end of the day, if you don’t understand your customer, get inside their head and create the experience they want, you’ll never get the results you want.”
“ The only way to really grow your conversions and your business is to focus on your buyers.”
Once you understand how your site visitors and customers function, you can employ other elements of psychology to improve your website conversion rates, including:
Cognitive biases : Dozens of biases influence every decision your visitors and customers make. You can leverage these biases to persuade more effectively.
Emotional persuasion : The human brain is deeply emotional. Appealing to emotions rather than focusing solely on logic can be very effective.
Persuasion (general) : Understanding how the brain works, how it makes decisions, and how it compares options puts you in a powerful position to sell.
See? It’s not just about understanding how your visitors and customers think. You also need to combine that knowledge with an understanding of persuasion to convince them to take the actions you want.
Conversion rate optimization, at its core, is the practice of persuading visitors to change their behavior in your favor. Andre Morys of Web Arts explains:
Andre Morys, Web Arts
“I wish more people understood deeply that CRO is not about tweaking websites, but about changing behaviors. I usually look at the new customer optimization backlog as one of the first things, and it’s full of pseudo-hypotheses that won’t have any effect.”
“When we move the button to the left,canada phone number sample people will buy more” – that’s not a hypothesis, that’s a dream. A good hypothesis explains why changing one element will influence customer behavior.
Use your understanding of user behavior and human psychology to design tests that seek to alter behavior.
For example, changing the button color from blue to green is much less meaningful than removing a secondary call to action to refocus the distracted visitor on the more valuable “Add to Cart” button.
Psychology, like copywriting, is often considered a creative exercise by those new to conversion rate optimization. On the contrary, it is as data-driven as any other discipline and can have a direct impact on your results.
3. Testing
Testing your copy, landing page design, and other website elements can help you increase your ecommerce conversion rate. But before you dive into testing, FlowJo ’s Tiffany daSilva recommends putting in the effort to establish a solid marketing foundation:
Tiffany da Silva, FlowJo
“CRO and growth shouldn’t start until you have a solid marketing foundation. I always make sure, before I start testing things, that I have a well-defined strategy for SEO, PPC (pay-per-click) and email.”
“I look at the website technically to make sure we’re indexing correctly, do keyword research to find new content opportunities, and start building those pages. I make sure my PPC campaigns are supported by strong landing pages, appropriate keyword sets, and that I’ve optimized the settings as much as possible.”
“I then check to make sure my SEO and PPC campaigns have been connected to a robust drip campaign.”
“Once these settings are in place, you can start to really test different pieces of your strategy and improve them bit by bit. Often, people come to me looking for a test that will grow their business 100% and they don’t realize that they are already standing on a treasure that they just need to unearth.”
The argument here is clear: you need a solid starting point before you start making improvements to your conversion funnel. Often, there are hidden problems waiting to be solved beneath the surface.
Ask yourself:
How is my search engine optimization (SEO)? Is my site properly indexed by Google?
Am I missing important keyword opportunities?
Do all my pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns have effective landing pages?
Have I optimized my PPC campaign settings as much as possible?
Are all my SEO and PPC campaigns connected to a meaningful drip email campaign?
How is my email deliverability?
Do my emails inspire action?
Does my site load in all browsers?
Does my site load on all devices?
Testing requires a certain amount of traffic. Before performing A/B testing , you should calculate the sample size needed using an online calculator :