Have you ever faced a situation where conversion rates for a pay per click program were going down and you were not able to trace the exact reason behind it? If yes, then you might want to know some facts that I discovered while trying to figure out the reason behind the lower rate of conversion for my pay per click (PPC) campaign. While trying to find out the reason, if you are unable to pin down any prominent one, check whether anything has been changed within the website.
While reviewing all the other aspects about the overall website performance, make sure you also review the abandonment rate with the help of Google Analytics tracking. You might find that people are leaving your website before performing the required action and think of ways of how to bring them back again. You will also know which is place or page from people are dropping off. Other than all this, the performance of your PPC campaign might also be influenced by seasonality. One big factor could be the landing page of your ads. If the landing page has a high bounce rate, then it can be safely assumed that the current landing page is not working. The landing page then has to be optimized keeping usability in mind. If that is not feasible for you then hiring a usability consultant is the way to go. Reviewing of the conversion funnel is thus, very important, when trying to find out the reasons of lower conversion rates.  You can consult a pay per click consultant to analyze the review the various aspects of the conversion funnel in the right manner.

Google’s old keyword suggestion drop down box design -

Original Google keyword suggestion dropdown box

Google’s new keyword suggestion drop down box design -

Another example of A/B testing .

There are a lot of sites out there that get tons of good traffic through search engines but don’t get their fair share of leads or sales.
Most visitors search, land up on the site and just leave.

I often get asked if it is even possible to get better conversions on a site? Or all you can do is work on getting more visitors by investing in SEO, PPC and all the other forms of internet marketing.

Well, it is important to keep working on the internet marketing campaigns that you’re running but it is definitely possible to improve conversions.

Some simple mistakes that I often see on sites is -

1 – No clear message -

If you’re offering a service or product build your website around it. Don’t confuse a visitor by offering him tons of irrelevant data.
2 – Passive Goal Marketing -

You want the visitor to fill up a form, or click on the Buy button? Well, actively tell them to do that. Don’t hide your contact or buy buttons and hope that people will notice and click. Be extremely clear about what you want the user to do and then make it easy for him to do it.

3 – Trust Elements -

Everyone thinks twice before giving out their payment and personal information. Tell them that it’s safe. Use those trust elements like the Verisign secure certificate, Anti-Hack symbol, etc that you may have purchased to re-assure potential buyers.

4 – Browser Compatibility -

Check your site with the popular browsers. Often, designers don’t bother to do that and it can affect conversions. No one is going to purchase stuff from a site that they can’t view in their browser.

5 – Use soothing Colors -

A professional website cannot be bright red and black. You may be fond of these colors, but if it is a professional service you offer stick to the safe blues and whites or a color that’s associated with your professional service.

I hope these tips help you. You can check out the articles’ section at Convonix for more detailed articles on website usability and internet marketing.