You Should Test That! summary

When optimizing their website, most companies look to design agencies. The problem, however, is that a good design agency can’t necessarily optimize your site for conversion rate or revenue. While they may excel at creating a sleek, aesthetically pleasing website, they usually don’t know what your website’s business goals actually are.

In fact, many design agencies have no clue which criteria are most important for creating a successful website. This is apparent in the very first question design agencies ask their new clients: “What do you want your website to look like?”

When companies rebuild their websites, it seems like all they talk about is SEO. In their obsession with their search engine rank, some people worry that CRO will undermine all the hard work they put into climbing up to rank number one on Google.

Fixated on search engine rank, they tend to prioritize SEO over CRO. However, you need both to make a successful website, and they actually work hand in hand.

Your reason for building a website shouldn’t be “just because.” You have to have a clear reason for doing so, that is, you need clearly defined goals. Otherwise, you’re simply wasting valuable time and energy. These goals need to be much more substantial than “increase sales!”

Start by defining why your website exists at all. Did you build it to offer information about your company and products? Or do you want to generate leads for your sales teams? Is it for engagement on Facebook and Twitter? Or are you hoping to cultivate a special brand image?

So how do you know which factors actually influence your conversion rate? One good way to find out is by using the LIFT model: Landing page Influence Function for Tests.

The LIFT model consists of six factors: value proposition, relevance, clarity, anxiety, distraction and urgency. Each of these factors can be improved in order to raise conversion rate.

Some businesses focus on only a single factor to improve their conversions. However, this is a grave mistake, as neglecting any one factor causes you to miss out on possible conversions. The more factors you improve, the better your conversion rate will be.

But to start improving the factors that affect conversion, you’ll need to develop hypotheses for them. Start by assessing each factor on your current page, and think about ways they could be improved.

Have you ever visited a company’s website that just gave you the creeps because it felt unsafe and unreliable? That’s the anxiety that’ll kill conversion rates for even the best products. So, it’s crucial that you do everything in your power to make visitors to your site feel at ease.

We’re in the age of WikiLeaks, identity theft and controversial social-media privacy policies, so people are more concerned about their private data than ever before. Companies therefore have to try hard to prove their trustworthiness to customers and justify the collection of their information.

Users go through two stages when they land on a new website: the initial impression stage and the message-consumption stage. Distraction is a hazard during both stages, and when you allow their attention to wander away from your value-proposition message and your call to action, then you end up with a lower conversion rate.

Distraction in the initial impression stage can cause your visitors to leave right after they arrive.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about developing a hypothesis. But how exactly do you go about testing it?

Start by building a test plan, which includes your test goals and the structure of your experiment.