Do the Web Write. Dan Furman

another disclaimer. I want to point out up front that sometimes, I have rather strong opinions on a lot of things, and I may seem to repeat them over and over. I have these opinions (and repeat them) because I know, from experience, that the things I discuss work. I practice them every single day. So I’m not looking to debate anyone on the merits of page order, writing, etc. If someone thinks they know a better way, hey, that’s great, but I’m not interested in an email debate. Write your own book.

      Expanding on that point, let me tell you that everyone likes to think they have an opinion regarding websites. If you ask 100 people about your site, you will get 100 different ideas about what you should do. Don’t be swayed. Unless the person giving you advice knows enough about what makes a website succeed to write a book on it (ideally with an overly clever title like Do the Web Write), they likely know very little about what actually makes a website work. If you want others’ opinions, use the “Furman 21” (my website questionnaire) in Chapter 2 and on the CD-ROM included with this book.

      It also goes without saying that the preceding rings true for everyone else in your life. Your cousin (who drives a paving truck) probably doesn’t really know anything about marketing a website. So take his advice with a grain of salt. On that note, I’d like to point out that driving a paving truck is a fine profession; I mean no disrespect. Be it far from me to make enemies with an army of guys who drive trucks filled with hot tar.

      Okay, I’m done giving disclaimers, and you’re probably ready to get into the details of what will make your website work. So let’s go.

      1

      Understanding Website Conversion and Targeted Traffic

      Website Conversion Basics

      We have to begin this book at website conversion, because in a nutshell, that’s the entire reason for this tome: to get your website to convert visitors into customers. Everything I am going to teach you is geared towards turning more of your website visitors into customers.

      But what does “website conversion” really mean?

      Although it sounds boring and technical, “website conversion” is simply a fancy name for comparing the number of people who visit your site with the number that take the action you want them to take (buy, contact you, etc.) It is a number (or, more accurately, a percentage) that acts as a measuring stick for how well your site is serving you in terms of business. It’s pretty useful, too, so I encourage you to read on and learn about it.

      Your website’s “conversion rate” is reached by doing a little math — don’t get scared — it’s pretty simple. All you need to do to figure out your website conversion rate is divide the number of “actions taken” by the number of people who actually visited. If 100 people visit your site, and 2 take an action, the equation is 2 divided by 100, which is .02 (or, more simply, 2%).

      So when someone says their website is converting at 2%, this generally means 2 out of 100 people take an action.

      Conversion rate = the number of actions divided by the number of visits.

      Hits versus visits

      To figure out your web conversion, I am assuming that you will be able to get your website statistics to know the number of visits you are getting (your web host or IT department can tell you how to get this information). However, be careful here — many people look at their stats in terms of hits. This is a useless stat trotted out by IT people responsible for web traffic because it’s usually a big number. Well, it’s big because “hits” typically measures how many items load on your page in one view. To give a very basic example, if your page has just simple HTML and also has 4 pictures, one visit will typically result in 5 hits (the page load, and 4 pictures loading). Other things affect hits too, so ignore the “hit” stat, and instead concentrate on “unique visitors” (or similar). It’s a smaller number, and won’t make you feel as good, but it’s a truer measure of how many people come to your website because it is literally the number of unique IP addresses that have visited your site, so theoretically, unique individuals.

      What is an “action”?

      I mentioned a visitor taking an action — but what exactly is an action? Well, it’s whatever you need your website to do. For example, on my main website, at this writing, I don’t sell products. Thus, I measure “actions” by how many emails and phone calls I get inquiring about my service. To me, an email or a phone call is a successful action. If someone comes to my website and then contacts me because of it, well, that’s the result I was looking for.

      So if you have a service-type business (which could mean local plumber all the way up to an enterprise-level software developer), your “action,” in terms of a conversion rate, is generally how many people contact you for your service (or for more information or pricing). And, obviously, if you have a site that is selling a product, your “action” will generally be a product order.

      It’s entirely possible to have two or more conversion rates on the same site as well (because, as I just pointed out, what defines an action is entirely up to you). For example, if you have a site that sells a product, and you get an email from “Mega-Store Conglomerated” asking about placing a giant order, isn’t that a measure of how effective your website is? Of course it is. It’s totally up to you. If you wish, you can track your conversion rate for sales, contacts, bookmarks, etc.

      Now, I’m mentioning actions and conversions, but I don’t want you to get too wrapped up in it. Knowing your conversion rate(s) is useful, and we’ll discuss how useful it is in a moment, but it’s also not an exact science. For example, all “actions” are not created equal. Take me for example: To me, an email from a wealthy, ready-to-spend corporation regarding web copy is MUCH different than an email from a broke college freshman offering me a six-pack of his roommate’s home-brewed beer to write his term paper. (This has really happened. I refused, but I must say, the beer sounded really good.) Yet, in terms of defining an action, I count both the corporation and the freshman as the same (I just don’t have the time to quantify the “good” actions from the “I’ll buy you a beer” ones). So your conversion rate should really be regarded as a loose indicator of success, and not an exact one.

      Establishing your conversion rate

      I told you the formula and criterion for establishing a conversion. So, how long do you give before you settle into a “normal” conversion rate? There are two answers.

      The first answer is one to three months — that’s a fair measuring stick — that will allow for daily or weekly spikes in traffic and business to sort themselves out. I would go the full three if possible, but I have also found that business is pretty predictable on a month-to-month basis. I’m just saying three because if the “one month” that you measure is a big holiday month (like December), well, that could give you a skewed result.

      The second answer is … there is no answer, because it’s infinite. You NEVER stop measuring conversion. For the most part, your conversion rate should hold steady (as it’s not a measure of how many visitors, but rather how many take an action), but even this can vary. For example, a construction company will have seasonal surges. So will a tax preparation service. The conversion rate in the spring for both of these businesses will (likely) be higher than in the winter, as more website visitors are actually looking for the service right away, so a higher percentage might take action. Make sense?

      Again, no hard or fast rules. Just establish a conversion rate, and then check it every so often.

      So what is an acceptable website conversion rate?

      I want to tell you something else about website conversion that is often misunderstood. In my opinion, there are no set-in-stone, acceptable website conversion numbers.