Conversion Optimization Mistakes

Posted by Scott Quarterman in A/B Testing, blog, Conversion Optimization, Multivariate Testing

Conversion Optimization Mistakes to Avoid Making

We’ve been talking a lot about things to do to increase your conversion rates.  Today we’re going to change directions and talk about three conversion optimization mistakes to avoid making.

1.  Don’t Assume Results Are Universal: Don’t view the results generated within other’s case studies and automatically assume that you will achieve the same results by duplicating their efforts.

Consider these two case studies dealing with Trust Icons:

“ICouponBlog, a site that gives discount coupons to its visitors, were surprised to see that on removal of a secure icon of page, conversions actually sky-rocketed by 400%.”

“House of Kids, an ecommerce store, generate a 32% increase in conversions with the E-mark badge.”

Two different sites, different industries, and different results. The fact is that while case studies can give you an idea of some items to test, their results are meaningless to you until you test your own landing pages, sites, emails, etc.

2.  Don’t  Test Against Past Results: Another mistake would be to test against past results. Let’s suppose your landing page has had a 10% conversion rate for the last three months and you want to test a new headline. After changing the headline you find that conversions dropped to 5%.

Automatically you would assume that your original headline was the better one.  That would be a mistake.

What you need to do in this case is set up an A/B test and show 50% of new visitors the old headline and 50% the new headline. You might find that while the new headline is generating a 5% conversion the old headline now is generating a 3% conversion. There are factors changing every day that impact your conversion rate and you need to test simultaneously to produce a valid result.

3.  Don’t Just Test Once: A third mistake would be to test and assume that the results will hold up over time. The reality is that testing is an ongoing process. Your goal shouldn’t be to simply increase your conversions today, but rather to continuously test to drive further conversion rate improvements.

To sum up, test your pages to determine what improves your conversions, split test your changes compared to your original, and continue your testing to drive further improvements.

Surge Labs is a conversion optimization company.  We offer  a simple guarantee:  If we do not increase your landing page conversion rates by 20% in the first 30 days you pay us nothing for our work.  For more information on conversion optimization please contact us at 678-951-9506 or info at surgelabs.com.