Conversion Rate Optimization is an amazingly effective marketing practice, yet so many people have trouble implementing a successfully strategy. Fair or not, CRO is a combination of many online marketing disciplines—Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Advertising, Web Analytics, Design, Development and Copywriting—that requires expertise and technical knowledge. For this reason, many webmasters and business owners struggle to implement the right changes because they make a series of small mistakes both in concept as well as in execution. These mistakes are understandable, yet cause significant damage to a campaign. Moreover, these mistakes tend to be repeated over and over again.
Here’s our list of the most common Conversion mistakes to avoid when testing and optimizing your website.
Testing too much – If you decide to test too many variables at once, you will end up with a wide range of data that doesn’t give you anything useful. This can sometimes be worse than not doing any testing at all.
Testing what doesn’t matter -Starting with things that make vital structural changes is what is most essential. Too much time can be wasted testing elements of a site that don’t impact conversion rates and in the end don’t matter.
Not testing long enough –Not testing long enough may prevent you from gathering statistically significant data. You could have tested during a fluke week or month; a typical time frame would be 3-4 months per page.
Starting with the homepage –As mentioned above, the homepage is far too complex and unqualified to start testing here. You only want to test the homepage after you’ve tested various other elements of the website that have more traffic.
Seasonality –It is important to take into account the ebbs and flows of your business. Compare conversion rates from the same time the previous calendar year to make accurate assessments.
Not the considering the effect of pricing and other business factors –