Conversion optimization refers to the rate at which you can use your web layout and content to convert visitors into paying customers or users who complete another desired action, such as filling out personal information in a web form. It’s customary for business website owners to study how changing their website’s design in different ways will affect their conversion optimization rate. Often, business owners will use controlled experiments to study different variations of the same web page.
Say, for example, you create two versions of a checkout page for your online store. One screen features the customer’s total and payment information. It’s your control variable. The second screen, or the experimental variation, includes the same total and payment information plus a customer’s itemized list of items selected for purchase. The second version gives a customer a snapshot of how the sales total was reached, including costs for taxes and shipping. You can set up the website to direct visitors equally to these two versions of the checkout page and study which version, control or experimental, produces higher sales volume. Then, you will know which checkout page design to keep.
Every time you want to update your site’s design, it’s worth asking whether you need to perform some form of split testing. You may decide to test more than two variations of a page and study different effects, not just sales or lead volume.
Conversion optimization will help you understand which website updates will affect your conversion rate and positively or negatively influence your business goals, including sales volume, number of converted customers, and lead volume. Use this split testing to continually assess which combination of web page text, design, layout, colors, and more resonate with a target audience. You always want the combination with the highest conversion rate.
