Website Optimisation

UX Design and Conversion Rate Optimisation

Doesn't the digital marketing industry love jargon? I'm always suspicious that they promote this jargon to keep you, the small business owner, confused about what exactly online marketing entails. You know you need it, but don't understand it, so end up paying someone who you hope can look after it for you. There are many instances where unscrupulous web marketing companies have signed businesses up on long contracts and then offered very little in hard results, just lots more jargon. So don't let the tech speak confuse you, it really is quite straightforward and if done correctly can have great results.

What is User Experience Design (UX Design)?

UX Design is simply looking at how a website visitor interacts with your website and adapting the design and layout to make it as easy as possible for them. When talking about UX Design, you'll often hear stats such as Bounce Rate, Time on Site, Pages Visited etc. These stats will help show whether a website visitor likes your website or find it confusing. If they don't like your website, they'll leave straight away (Bounce) or only view a few pages and spend limited time on it. Of course these stats are just a guide and in some cases can be misleading; for example, if someone comes to your site and "Click to Call" you straight away.

What is Conversion Rate Optimisation?

Firstly, what do we mean by a "Conversion"? A website conversion is generally either a webform enquiry or an online sale (for an eCommerce website). In some instances, we also look at phone calls as conversions; but need to set up tracking software for this. Therefore, Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is looking at ways to increase your websbite conversions. This might be something as simple as having a "Call to Action" box on your web pages.

So is that all there is to Website Optimisation?

Essentially, YES. Website optimisation is just making sure that when we drive visitors to your website that we maximise what you get out of them. I always like the analogy of a retail store. There is no point in spending money on getting people to come to your store if all they do is come in, look around and then leave. Every good Retailer knows you need good instore layout, signage and friendly sales people to make sure you convert as many sales as possible. A website is exactly the same. Unfortunately, this is often overlooked and all the focus is on SEO, Adwords, Directory Listings etc.