Website Hypnosis

When I took driver’s education as a teenager, we learned about something called “highway hypnosis.”

It happens when you stop paying attention to what’s going on around you and you just drive along watching the white lane markings mile after mile. You lose sight of the big picture and get hypnotized by the minutiae, which can cause you to miss important things like your exit or another car swerving into your lane.
In conversion optimization, you can experience a similar phenomenon. When the newness of your website has worn off, website hypnosis can set in. You can lose sight of your overall strategy, leading to crucial mistakes.
That’s why it’s important to periodically take a step back and do a website review. Here’s some questions to get you started?

What is your long term goal?

If your answer is “high conversion rates,” then you’ve got the wrong goal. Conversion rate is simply a measuring stick, not an end in itself. If you’re an eCommerce website, then your long term goal is sales. Even a high conversion rate can be misleading if those conversions are all low-dollar sales and you don’t have repeat customers.

What about your competitors?

Have you checked out your competitors websites recently? How do their services compare to yours? What about their pricing? Have they improved their site recently? Is it clear how your products or services are better? Most of your visitors will comparison shop before they buy. Try to see your website and your competitor’s websites through your visitor’s eyes.

Identify the Winners and Losers

Using your analytics, determine which pages are your ”winners” (high converting pages) and which are your “losers” (low converting pages). Next visit each of these pages. Why do the high converting pages do so well? Is there anything you can take from the winning pages and apply to the losers? Duplicate what works and fix what doesn’t.

What to test?

Your review will generate ideas for improving your website. Rather than guessing if your customers will like the changes, try testing them out. New headlines, copy, even images can be easily tested without completely redesigning your page using one of the paid testing programs. You don’t have to do a complete re-do of a page to test. Even if the original page outperforms the new one, you’ll learn more about your customers through the testing process.
Regular website reviews will give you the opportunity to shake off website hypnosis and see to any red flags that might be waving at you.
By Marty Diamond