We need to improve the conversion rate of our website. And perhaps conversion rates of our client websites. So how should we go about it? It's easy to get early wins with a crappy (excuse me: under-optimized) website, but how do you ensure that we keep getting wins month after month, year after year? If you think it's a list of "100 proven tactics" of can find in a blog post - you're wrong. What about following best practices? That won't take you far. How about copying successful competitors and market leaders? That doesn't get results. What you need to do is to identify the very specific problems your very specific website has - by following the data. The way to get both short-term and long-term results is in the right process. Pros use processes, amateurs follow tactics - we all know that (right?). We know we should be data-driven, but what does that actually mean? How in very specific terms - should you do data-driven optimization? You will find out in this talk.

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HOW TO FIGURE OUT
WHAT REALLY MAKES
YOUR WEBSITE WORK
Conducting conversion research to make
more money
Peep Laja, ConversionXL
@peeplaja

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Optimization
is compound
interest for
growth

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How would
you go
about it?

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• “you can easily sort
through the 100+
techniques”

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Best practices?

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Don’t copy your
competitors, they don’t
know what they’re
doing either

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So you need a
systematic approach. A
process.

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If you can’t
describe what
you’re doing as
a process, you
don’t know what
you’re doing
William Deming

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How do we
optimize the
optimization
program?

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The discovery of
what matters

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What are the problems?
Where?

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1. Testing
2. Research

25. Yet another guy
with a bunch of
data 

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Ask the right questions

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• whose problem are we solving?
• what do they need?
• what do they think they want?
• why?
• how are they choosing / making a decision?
• why?
• what are they thinking when they see our offer?
• how is what well sell clearly different?
• where is the site leaking money?
• what is the problem?
• what are they doing or not on the website?
• what leads more people to do X?

28. …careful with your interpretations

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Step #1: Technical analysis
• Is shit broken?
• Where?
• Which browsers?
• Which devices?
• Which pages are slow?

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Step #2: Heuristic analysis
• Relevancy?
• Clarity?
• Motivation?
• Friction?

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Clarity

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Visual hierarchy

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Screw

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Screw

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Screw

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Screw
Uninspiring
headline. Not
enough info
5 bullets is too
much, lack of
focus
My grandma
designs
better sites
Testimonial
credibility
questionable
Too little is
done to get me
to click
Unhelpful
screenshot

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What’s wrong
with this
picture?

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Step #3: Digital analytics
• Where are the leaks?
• Which segments?
• What are users doing?
• Which actions correlate
with higher conversions?

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Measure everything
You’ll need it later

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How many different
ways are there?

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#4: Mouse tracking & form analytics
• Where do they click?
• How far down they scroll?
• Differences between devices?
• Session replays

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#5: Qualitative surveys
• Buyer groups
• Which problem are they solving?
• How are they deciding?
• What’s holding them back?
• What else do they want to know?

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#6: User testing
• What’s difficult to understand?
• What’s difficult to do?
• What goes wrong?

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Now you know
what (most of) the
problems are with
your site!

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• Measurement stuff
• Just Fix It
• Test

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Issue Bucket Background Action Rating
Google Analytics bounce info is
wrong
Instrument Google Analytics script is loaded twice! Line 207
and 506 of the home page both contain GA code, as
do all the other pages.
Removethe double entry
★★★★★
Conversions are low for IE9. Investigate Possible cross-browser issues. Conduct cross-browser testing.
★★★
People don’t know how to use
category pages
Hypothesize Too many options, unfamiliar information
architecture & layout.
Re-think the category page layout
★★★★
Missing value proposition on the
home page
Test Add a compelling value proposition in the header of
your website that states what your website is about,
what can they do here and why should they do it
Add prominent value proposition
★★★★★
Content is very hard to read JFDI Font size 11px is too small Increase font size
★★★

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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DGuw1vkqYZ61plOpTcGHFDvh4MMP4kaRnlTtaXS
WrJA/edit

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79.3% uplift in conversions
Peep Laja, ConversionXL @peeplaja

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Systematic, repeatable,
teachable process

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This stuff is difficult

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“EVERYBODY
WANNA BE A
BODYBUILDER
BUT NOBODY
WANNA
LIFT HEAVY ASS
WEIGHTS”
RONNIE COLEMAN

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“Everybody
wants a win,
but nobody
wants to do
the heavy ass
conversion
research”
Peep Laja

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Remember this:
1. Think in terms of processes, not tactics
2. Focus on the discovery of what matters
3. Do the heavy ass lifting

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THANK YOU.
EMAIL ME:
PEEP@CONVERSIONXL.COM