Just because you paid a lot of money for that website doesn’t mean it’s gonna convert
We see it all the time — companies who just can’t figure out why their site doesn’t convert like it should.
We know first-hand that high conversion rate sites aren’t necessarily the prettiest sites. They often don’t have fancy graphics, knock-your-socks-off design or expensive flash elements. But they know what their users want and they give it to them — for example, they help users easily navigate to the right product; they give users the information they care about; they make it easy for users to do business with them.
Since it’s a Friday, I’m not going to tell you why you should do user testing on your site, or rant about common usability problems I encounter in performing user testing for clients. Instead, I’ll save the educational post for the work week and direct you to this funny (because it’s true) post, Don’t Hire An Ad Agency to Build Your Web Site. It says it better than I ever could!
March 30th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
[...] Just because you paid a lot of money for that website doesn’t mean … We see it all the time — companies who just can’t figure out why their site doesn’t convert like it should. We know first-hand that high conversion rate sites aren’t necessarily the prettiest sites. They often don’t have fancy graphics, … [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
The biggest clue I give to people looking for a website:
a) Allow 20% of your budget for initial site development
b) allocate 30% for onging testing and development in the first 12 - 20 weeks
c) The balance should be spent on marketing the site.
The key here these days I believe is live chat or operator at least some short conversion orientated video or audio.
Be very clear on who your market really is and what you want them to do on your site and test test test.