Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [127]
The degree programs were divided along the lines of right-brain and left-brain stereotypes, and an A/B test was performed. Overall, the conversion rate improved 44 percent, which is impressive. Most degree programs showed a slight improvement with the right- or left-justified landing page, and only half provided enough data to prove the hypothesis.
Two “left-brain” programs in particular responded strongly to the form on the right side of the page, the MBA and the HVAC programs. The HVAC landing page improved conversion by 83 percent, and the MBA program landing page improved conversions by 91 percent, lending credence to the assumption that some respondents in a left-brain field would respond better to a right-side contact form (Figure 11-29).
Figure 11-29: Alta Colleges college landing page testing results showing the conversion improvement for each degree program
Review and Hands-On
Chapter 3 was about establishing clear business goals, and here is the place where the goals come into practice. In evaluating your website, does every page communicate the goals for the business and the visitor?
Every page should be asking the visitor to convert in some way, either a direct conversion to a sale, lead, or subscription or an indirect conversion to more information, related topics, or other noncommittal activities.
Review your calls to action. Simply presenting a subscribe function will not suffice. What reason are you giving your visitors to invite them to subscribe, purchase, move forward, or click to additional content?
Explain what is in it for the visitor.
Remove bland imperative statements from your conversion points.
Create more active button labels.
Test simple messages.
Just from an initial glance at your pages, use the principles of visual acuity, purpose, and contrast to determine the most critical information on the page. This is also an activity where you may bring in a third party to get an outside opinion of the messaging of your marketing, the purpose and clarity of the tagline, the arrangement of the content and images on the page, and also the purpose for the page.
Review your content and design to identify areas of low contrast. Ideally, those are not areas of importance or targeted conversion points. If they are, you know what to do.
Outline the steps in the process that you require your visitors to take. List every check, form field, link click, and step in the process. To be completely honest, bring in a third-party to record all the actions necessary simply to go through a conversion process.
After you have compiled the list of actions, evaluate which are necessary, which can be optimized or combined, and which should be left out entirely.
Evaluate your contact forms, your request forms, and your usage of them. Are they asking the right questions for the right conversion point? Are they too long and do they have too many required fields? Do you really need to ask all of that information in order to get the contact?
Afterward, look at your landing page after the conversion. What does it say? What can you do to provide follow-up after the conversion that will assist in building a relationship with the new customer or in moving along the sales cycle?
Testing produces results. There is no lack of testing tools available online, with most of them being free. With the pervasiveness of Google Analytics, the step up to Google’s Webpage Optimizer takes only a few hours to a few days for a business to acclimate to a testing program.
The amazing thing about testing is that the time invested in testing is earned back very quickly, because questions about the process and the website can be answered with user-based behavior data, not opinions.
Part IV: Month 3: Develop Good Site Architecture
Any true craftsman uses tools to create a masterpiece. In the hands of an internet craftsman, the information architecture is the result of knowledge, experience, skill, and the right tools, used correctly. Developing the architecture