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8 Essential Usability & Conversion Optimization Tips

by Paul RoukeHead of Usability at PRWD

12th July 2011 @ FutureCommerce 2011 by How DoBridgewater Hall, Manchester

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The Leading North WestUsability & Conversion Optimisation Consultancy

Provide services to help businesses improve their website conversion rate

•Usability testing•Expert evaluations•User-centered design•Usability training•Consultancy•Conversion rate optimisation

About PRWD

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PRWD Clients IncludePRWD clients

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Effectiveness – Can they reach their goalsfind what they are looking fordo what they want to do?

Efficiency – How fastnumber of errorsamount of effortnumber of steps?

Satisfaction – Was it a good/bad experience? Do it again? Recommend to others?

What is Usability and User Experience?What is good website usability?

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What does all this mean for website owners?

more & moreexpectant visitors...

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Key recommendation

Don’t neglect what actually happens ON

your website

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Calculating ROI… What financial impact will an improved conversion rate

have? Not just sales impact, but profit as well It should not be hard to build the business case to invest

more in a user-centered business culture Calculate potential ROI for both lead generation and e-

commerce websites

The financial impact of improving your website conversion rate

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View the ROI calculator at:http://www.prwd.co.uk/what-we-do/usability-return-on-investment

Calculate your potential ROI

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Key recommendation

Provide transparency

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What ASOS don’t do

• Stay still• Think that they know best• Ignore what their customers are saying• Presume their brand credibility means visitors will

automatically trust them as an online retailer.

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More details - http://bit.ly/ASOSbbp

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Do we hide important information from visitors?Do we present visitors with any nasty surprises late in a journey?Do we get customer service calls about questions we can answer online?Do we manage visitor expectations?What can we do to give more visitors confidence to complete their on-site journey?

Questions on your website…

#fcomm2011Photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/99387925/lightbox/

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Key recommendation

Answer visitor questions

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Test version A

Does answering questions improve conversion?

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Test version B

Does answering questions improve conversion?

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Test version A v Test version B - RESULTS

+ 66%

Does answering questions improve conversion?

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What questions do our offline customers often ask us?What questions can we answer to help visitors make a decision?Are any of our key pages currently confusing for new visitors?What’s the number 1 question our customers currently ask us?

Questions on your website…

#fcomm2011Photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/sooperkuh/2932775162/

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Key recommendation

Remove barriers to entry

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Don’t force registration

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Remove barrier but still give the option

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A much better way to encourage ‘registration’

More details - http://bit.ly/reduceabandons

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If users have to, the word ‘register’ is a barrier

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Replace the words register/registration

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Does our wording give visitors to wrong impression?Are we forcing new customers to register?Do we really need to ask for all this information?Do we provide visitors with benefits for them if they do what we want them to?Do we know if there are any barriers which we need to improve conversions?

Questions on your website…

#fcomm2011Photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/editor/283989913/

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Key recommendation

Focus the user on what you want them to do

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Bad ExampleDon’t use 1 button style for all actions

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Bad ExampleFocus on the primary action for each page

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Consider what you want visitors to do

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Don’t be shy about attracting attention

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Bad ExampleDon’t clutter your primary CTA

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Bad ExampleFocus on the primary action for each page

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Focussing the visitor on what you want

Use button size, style and colour to focus the user and increase conversions

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Does our primary call to action stand out amongst other actions?Do we use different button styles dependant on how important the action is?Do we encourage visitors to think about exiting/cancelling by providing buttons which are too prominent?Is there white space around primary action buttons?Do we draw visitors attention to what we want them to do?

Questions on your website…

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Key recommendation

Listen to what your customers and prospects

have to say

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We all know how important it is to be considerate of what people want…

especially when buying Christmas presents…

…look what can happen when we’re not!

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Getting an understanding of how other people use your website is one of the most enlightening experiences you can have when it comes to online marketing

There are 3 main types of user testing, suitable for all budgets:

User testing overview

Guerrilla Remote Moderated

More details -http://bit.ly/usertesting101

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What are the business benefits of user testing?

More business benefits here:

http://bit.ly/UTbenefits Photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/4915772994

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What is remote user testing?

CheapSimple Enlightening

Delivers actionable results

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Try it for FREE with a PRWD partner:

Visit http://whatusersdo.comUse promo code PRWD

1st 20 get one FREE test

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What is moderated user testing?

In-depthComprehensive Important for larger brands

Delivers actionable results

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Some insights from user testing with our client

• The time I had with 9 women in 9 hours – (Google ‘9 women x 9 hours’)• 10 e-commerce best practice features – (Google ‘Lakeland best practice’)

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Have we ever watched one of our customers use our website?Do we know what is stopping new visitors from buying from us?Do we know why visitors aren’t completing their application?Why do so many visitors end up exiting our website at this particular page?What is stopping visitors from signing up for our service?Can we ask some of our current customers to help us improve our website?

Questions for you and your business…

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Key recommendation

Stick to ‘best practice’ in most cases

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Not sure what best practice is all about…

WFT does usability best practice actually mean?

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Want to find out about general best practice?

usability best practice

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Looking for e-commerce best practice?

e-commerce usability best practice

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or for a different approach you could try…

hancholo

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Google Analytics and other analytics packages provide intuitive and powerful advanced segmentation functionality

You need to understand what is your true conversion rate – not just from visitor source, but other factors

More information on this approach can be seen on my Econsultancy article:http://econsultancy.com/blog/4340-traffic-segmentation-humble-or-sliced-which-pie-are-you-having

Gaining a true representation of how a website is performing is crucial, and there is one thing that traffic segmentation does

do - it delivers benefits to clients, agencies and last but not least end users.

Advanced Traffic Segmentation

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THE most important type of on-going testing and optimisation

Builds on best practice improvements to help make further refinements to improve conversion rates

Removes the purely theoretical aspects of usability

Companies still gladly increase acquisition spend in order to improve sales, without investing seriously and continually in on-site conversion optimisation

Split and Multi-variate Testing

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Don’t neglect what actually happens ON

your website

Key takeout for all

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Connect with me

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulrouke

Office:0161 228 0585

Mobile:07739 745 126

Email:paulrouke @ prwd.co.uk

Web:http://www.prwd.co.uk

PRWD22 Lever StreetManchesterM1 1EA

http://twitter.com/paulrouke

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Thankyou for listening

“8 Essential Usability & Conversion Optimization Tips”

by Paul Rouke

Slides, resources, tools & best practice available here:

http://bit.ly/CROresources