Conversion Optimization: The Art and Science of Converting Prospects to Customers [Paperback]

I sat down on a plane yesterday evening with a two hour flight. I was tired and thought this book might help me sleep! Then I read the book cover to cover! I did skim a few sections and finished when the Captain told us we were about to land. Kept me fully awake with a lot of very valuable insight and a well-crafted explanation. I now have an extensive list of changes that I can't wait to test on our sites. Khalid and Ayat are true experts in their field. This is not consultant waffle, but rather hard facts based on real analysis and experience in the trenches. Congratulations I will be recommending your book to friends and colleagues

In the early days of World Wide Web the mare presence of a webpage with the info about your products or content was considered sufficient for the promotion and success of your online business. However, most people soon realized that bringing customers or content viewers to the website was not enough to assure sales or other metrics of success. The exact layout, navigation, and other elements of the website architecture all need to be fine-tuned in order to increase conversion rates. In the early days conversion optimization was somewhat of a dark art, but over the past decade or so there has been an enormous increase in our understanding of what motivates consumers online and how those insights can be translated into desired actions.

"Conversion Optimization" is as close as one can get to a textbook on this subject. The book is extremely thorough, full of valuable insights, and it provides many useful examples and suggestions that can be easily implemented by almost anyone on their own. Conversion optimization is a data driven enterprise, and there is plenty of data and other useful information in this book that can best illustrate the points that are being made. The book provides a snapshot of most important website analytics concepts, tools, and measures. It highlights somewhat different definitions that are in use for the measurement of, for instance, bounce rates. The book emphasizes the importance of testing various different site designs, but it also shows the limits of this approach. Only the highly visited sites can gather enough information on user behavior that will be statistically relevant and informative for the purposes of conversion optimization.

Conversion optimization is still as much of an art as it is science, but informative, systematic and pedagogical books like this one go a long way towards shedding some much need light onto this field.

Far too many businesses focus on getting visitors to their websites. They seem to believe that once they have gotten the visitor to the website, their job is done. The conversion rate of visitors to most websites is dismal. Conversion is defined as getting a visitor to take some specific action such as buy, download a white paper, sign up for future messages. Unless the visitor converts, all the money you spent on the website and generating the traffic is wasted. More and more businesses are starting to recognize the need to apply the principles of conversion optimization to their websites.

While conversion rates vary by industry, product and specific business, most are in the single digit, some even lower than 1%. This means that well over 95% visitors that find their way to your website do not take the action you want them to take. This is a huge area for improving the ROI on your website.

According to the authors, "The purpose of this book is to help you create a strategy and provide you with tactics to sell more efficiently and effectively online." To accomplish their purpose the authors provide a logical framework for optimizing the conversion of a website.

The first three steps in conversion optimization are to understand your site visitors through personas. While most marketing professionals are familiar with developing customer profiles, the authors go into great detail describing how to develop your customer personas and how the different personas will react differently on your website. One size will not fit all. You must understand your customer personas and optimize your website to suit them.

The second step is to gain trust and confidence. The third step is to design your website for the different buying stages. Again, the authors go through the different buying states that most prospects will go through before reading a buying decision. You must know where a prospect is and speak to them where they are. Trying to convert a visitor when they are at the awareness stage (an early stage) will not work.

Then the authors lay out the next steps for the framework. You must understand the impact of FUDs (Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts) and work to eliminate them on your site. The next step involves how you use offers and incentives. Some incentives can actually turn out to be disincentives. You website must be engaging and persuade your visitor to convert.

The final step in conversion optimization is testing. Most marketers are familiar with A/B split testing. There has been a lot of discussion lately about multivariate testing. The authors spend a good deal of time talking about the positive and negative sides of multivariate testing.

According to the authors, "The science of marketing is about studying human behavior and how to influence it. Optimization done correctly starts with a full analysis of the target client and gaining deeper understanding of their business goals." It is dangerous and often unproductive to rely more on testing software than putting the brain power to really understand what is going on with the prospect and how they interact with the site.

The book is well written. They authors bring their real world experience to the book and share numerous examples of what works and what doesn't.

This book is for the website professional. While there is a lot of great information and insights that will help any web designer do a better job, the book is primarily for those charged with optimizing business websites.

You will come away with a much better appreciation of all the different things on any website which can be improved.

If you are in anyway involved in ecommerce, you would do well to read this book. You will have a much better understanding of why online conversions is so difficult and how you can improve your site.

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