You know what it’s like.

You go to a site to buy something. You’re interested in their offer. So you look for customer testimonials. But you can’t find them.

What happens next?

Doubt seeps into your brain. You start to wonder if there’s any truth to the site’s claim. And even though the product feels like it’s the right fit for you, you second-guess yourself. You can’t help it. You feel like you need to seek out other people’s experiences first before you can make your final decision.

Guess what?

This isn’t unique to you. In a study by Trust Radius, 91% of the respondents regularly read testimonials before making a purchase. That’s because third-party reviews and testimonials give them the confidence that they’re buying the right thing.

That’s how important testimonials are on your sales pages. I know you know this. Or you wouldn’t be here.

But here’s the lesson for today.

Just because you have flour, butter and chocolate doesn’t mean you can make an awesome chocolate souffle. Similarly, just because you have testimonials on your site doesn’t mean they’re going to convince your visitors to buy. See, not all testimonials have the same degree of power. If you want to make full use of their capacity to influence decisions, then there are rules to follow. When you do this, you give your testimonials wings to fly so they can do their work.

This is exactly what this post is about. We’ll look at the characteristics of effective testimonials. I’ll show you:

• Why customer testimonials on websites are important
• Where and how to ask customers for testimonials
• What effective testimonials have in common
• Where to put customer testimonials on a website

Let’s start.

Why are Customer Testimonials on Websites Important?

On May 6, 1954, on a cold wet day in Oxford England, Roger Bannister, broke the 4-minute barrier. Forty-six days later, the Australian runner, John Landy broke it again. Then a year after, three more runners did the same.

Here’s the catch.

Since 1886, it had been the serious runner’s dream to break that barrier. But no one managed this for over 60 years. Not until Bannister did. After which other runners started breaking it again and again. There were probably many reasons for this. But one thing’s certain. There was a mental barrier stopping runners from reaching that elusive sub-4-min time. They needed to break that mental barrier first. And all it took to break it was for them to know that another person had done it.

This is the reality of our human psychology. We tend to look to others for confirmation before we move into action. When we are uncertain, we need proof based on the experience of others.

Just like buying online.

Sure, eCommerce is commonplace. But when buying something you can’t touch. When buying a service without the face-to.face contact that the offline world allows, it all becomes uncertain. You only have the words of the seller to rely on. The seller with the ulterior motive of getting you to buy from him.

So what do we do to get rid of this uncertainty our brain is oh-so-prone to? We rely on testimonials. We get confirmation from a third-party for an unbiased analysis of the product or service.

That’s how testimonials help your business. They address the feeling of uncertainty in your customers’ minds and steer them towards making a decision quicker. Testimonials promote trust in what you sell and confidence in their decision to buy from you. Customer testimonials, when done right, can be one of your most prolific “salespersons”.

Okay. So you know you need testimonials. But you haven’t got any.

Where and how do you ask customers for testimonials?

There’s no other way to say this. The only way to get testimonials is to ask for them. As Arnold Schwarzenegger says, “If you don’t do the work, you don’t get the results.”

Your customers have their own life. Writing testimonials for your business is the last thing on their minds. It’s not their priority. It’s yours. So do something about it. You don’t have to wait for a customer to drop a testimonial for you. You can actively pursue them.

Here are three things you can do to help you get testimonials for your website now.

Strategies for getting testimonials from clients

Gather testimonials from your “hidden” vault

You may not know it. But you already have a wealth of testimonials in your possession. Where? In your customer emails. Most customers are not motivated to tell you how your product or service has changed their lives. But you’ve most likely had a client who was so happy by the results of your services, that he was moved to send you an email of appreciation and thanks.

Gather these emails and use them for testimonials. These are usually sent when the experience is new. So the words are raw and the feelings are real. Just the perfect combination you need for effective testimonials. These written-from-the-heart emails speak right to your target customers’ emotions. You can use these word for word. Or you can ask additional questions to the client for more details.

See. These are already warm customers. They’re already happy to talk about you. And many of them will be willing for you to use their names and their testimonials for marketing purposes. As long as you ask their permission nicely.

Listen to your customers

When it comes to conversion optimization, listening is one of the important skills to master. When you listen to your customers, you’ll know exactly what their needs are. This gives you valuable insights in how to better market to them.

But what you may not have been using this skill for is getting testimonials. How? Go where most of your target customers hang out. Which social media are they usually on? Are there any forums they frequent? Go there. Track any mentions of your company. Then contact the person to ask permission to use his statement as a testimonial and voila! you’ve got yourself instant content for your sales page. You can easily track mentions using tools like Mention, SocialBakers and Hootsuite.

Ask for testimonials from happy customers

Yep. By asking. You can send an email after every purchase to ask for a testimonial. But another way to do this is by knowing who your happy customers are and then asking them for a testimonial.

Here are some tips for a higher chance of them saying yes.

1. Strike while the iron is hot. Ask while the experience is still new. This way, it’s easier for them to remember their exact feelings and emotions.
2. Ask to interview them, if possible. You can use this for video testimonials if that’s something your customer agrees to. An interview with a customer holds so much value for your business. Not only will you have the testimonials you need but you will also know your target customers better.
3. Don’t ask generic questions. Ask questions like:

• • What benefits has the product or service had in your life?
  • Why did you choose to buy from us rather than from other sites?
  • How did the product or service help you?
  • What was it like buying from our site?

4. Be mindful of their time.
5. Look after them. If they give testimonials, this means they’re happy about buying from you. If you look after them, they could become your loyal fans. And these are the type of customers you want. So take care of them.

Effective testimonials and what they have in common

When it comes to customer testimonials, businesses fill their websites with dozens or hundreds of them. These sites use mob mentality hoping that the sheer number of reviews will sway customers towards the actions of the “mob”.

But you know what’s even better?

Customer testimonials that address the common objections and anxieties that your customers have.

What do I mean? Here’s what.

Testimonials aren’t there to fill your web pages and make them look pretty. They’re there to convince your target customer to buy.

How do you do this? By gathering and displaying testimonials that specifically address your customers’ concerns. And for them to be effective, they should also have these four non-negotiable traits.

1. It should be true. People have become very savvy. They can spot fake reviews from a mile away. And they are ruthless when they find a business that does this. If you deliver a good service or have great products, there’s absolutely no need to have fake reviews.
2. It comes from the right person. Sure. Having hundreds of reviews from every Tom, Dick or Harry can work. But it’s not as effective as having testimonials from people your target customers respect. You see, there are degrees of importance and power when it comes to customer testimonials. For example, gamers trust the testimonial of another gamer more than they would the mom of a gamer. However, an even more powerful testimonial would be from a popular gamer the customers admire. So give priority to testimonials from known persons in your industry. Or from people your customers associate themselves with.
3. It recognizes and addresses the common anxiety and objections customers have. This here is the magic ingredient in any effective testimonial. Use this to answer customer questions and lessen doubts they may have about your business. Then inject it with even more power by strategically placing it at the relevant section on your landing page. Do this and you have social proof on steroids.
4. It abides with FTC rules. The FTC means well. They need to protect consumers. As they should. You also need to protect your business. So get acquainted with FTC rules and ensure the testimonials and reviews on your page follow their guidelines.

Where to put customer testimonials on a website

+ plus website testimonial design examples

The most common place to put testimonials is on their own page. But when you only do this, you’re clipping their wings and limiting their power.

Why? There are loads of other places on your site that can benefit from customer testimonials. See. Testimonials are meant to help,

• Relieve anxiety
• Show proof
• Create buyer confidence
• Show the product benefits

So at sections on your site where a customer feels anxious, needs proof or is unsure about your product, then a testimonial strategically placed at that point does a lot of good.

Find pages on your site that stir up these feelings of insecurity in your customers. Find sections where objections and anxiety may arise. Got them? Great. Now find a testimonial that addresses these insecurities and place them near to that section. That’s how your testimonials become effective business assets.

Let’s look at a few examples to give you a better idea of what I mean.

Testimonials on Zapier’s homepage

Zapier uses testimonials on their homepage. The sub-headline says, “More than 1 million people rely on Zapier to take care of their tedious tasks”. This emphasizes social proof and the power of the crowd.

But they don’t stop there. Under this are 6 relevant testimonials. I bet these testimonials were carefully chosen from the many they have. If you read them, you’ll notice that each testimonial talks about the benefits of using Zapier.

This is a way to assure customers that Zapier really does work in the wild. Take note that each testimonial not only includes a photo of the person but also their company name and their position. This is strategic. This shows that Zapier can help anyone, from professionals to founders. If using Zapier helped them, it will help you too.

Convertica’s third-party site testimonials

At Convertica, our homepage features customer testimonials. You may notice that the testimonials are embedded from third-party sites like Trust Pilot and Facebook reviews. Our rationale is that reviews from other sites that we have no control over are more believable. But this is something you have to experiment with to find out what resonates with your audience.

Birchbox’s Testimonials on the homepage

Birchbox’s homepage has a scrolling testimonials area. The testimonials go under the heading Unexpected Finds. New Favorites. Unique Matches. There are three different customer testimonials here that are either reviewing a product or addressing the benefits of a Birchbox subscription. Notice how each testimonial is designed. An image of the customer, an image of the product bought, and the very targeted testimonial.

Ancestry’s Free Trial page

Remember what I said about putting customer testimonials near sections on your site that may cause anxiety? One of the places this happens is near a call to action button.

Here’s one example from Ancestry.com. It’s a FREE trial and you might think that someone interested will sign up without prodding. But this isn’t often the case. When a person arrives on this page, he’ll begin to have doubts and questions. “Is this worth it?” Is this legit? Isn’t filling out this form a waste of time?

So to help its customers resolve these doubts, Ancestry subtly puts a testimonial on the side. It’s like having a person on that page reassure the visitor that it’s all going to be ok. And that simple reassurance can go a long way when it comes to conversions.

Accessally stresses its value proposition with one testimonial

Accessally’s WordPress Subscription plugin makes a point of their value proposition with one testimonial on the sales page. This testimonial stresses the selling point of this plugin – that you can set different multiple payment options unlike other plugins of this kind. This addresses the common concern that its website visitors have. And all it takes to show this benefit is one testimonial from a relevant source.

Marie Forleo’s Email newsletter sign up form

Don’t limit testimonials to product pages. You can use them to encourage visitors to sign up for your newsletter, too. The way Marie Forleo does.

10X Emails Landing Page by Copyhackers

Copyhackers’ Joanna Wiebe does not skimp on customer testimonials. In this 19,000-pixel sales page, there are four sections full of testimonials – all addressing different pain points. The testimonials are weaved into the copy selling the benefits of the course and lessening customer anxiety. Why use your own words when your customers speak right from the gut and do it for you?

VI. FAQ

How do you use testimonials?

Use them as third-party proof to convince your website visitors that you’re the real deal. Customers tend to look to others if they have any doubts or feelings of uncertainty regarding your services. And when your claims are verified by other people who do not work for you, then they tend to believe what this third-party says.

How many testimonials to include on a website?

As many or as little as needed. If you look at the examples we have on this page, Accessally has only one testimonial on the page but it’s a testimonial that supports the product’s value proposition. On the other end of the spectrum, 10X Emails’ sales page is covered with testimonials. It’s not so much how many as to how strategic you are with them.

Where to put testimonials on a website?

Ideally in places where a customer feels some friction or anxiety. You can have one separate page for all your testimonials but there should also be relevant testimonials near the CTA button, the product pages, signup forms or the add to cart button.

So that’s all I’ve got to say for now on testimonials and reviews.

But the question is…

Are you ready to supercharge the customer testimonials on your website?

Now you know the characteristics of effective testimonials, it’s time to put what you’ve learned into action. If you already have testimonials on your site, check that every one of them addresses a pain point or emphasizes a benefit. Also, find sections on your site where a customer might have possible doubts or questions. Then put a suitable testimonial near that area.

If you don’t have any testimonials yet, then start gathering them. It takes a bit of work but with the boost it gives your website, it is well worth the while.

And as usual, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments section below or keep the discussion going at the CRO academy.

Have you heard of the time eBay changed its background color from yellow to white?

People hated it.

Yellow eBay

So what did eBay do?

The legend story goes that they made a code which in the course of a few months, incrementally changed the color to white. One shade different every day. Fading the color one day at a time.

And guess what? After a few months, no one noticed.

Why did people hate the change in the first place?

You could argue that we’re creatures of habit. And we don’t respond well to change. Add to that the online environment where everyone feels entitled to an opinion. And you have the combination needed for anger towards something as “trivial” as changing the background color.

But shift your attention away from that anger and into eBay’s response: the incremental color change.

Whoever thought of it knew a thing or two about human Psychology:

That to stop the barrage of hate, they needed to find a way to get people used to the white background. It was obviously not possible to do it overnight. So they did it slowly. One day at a time.

Each day it changed. And customers didn’t notice it one bit.

And they were right. Familiarity slowly built and when it finally turned to white, everyone was already used to it.

Here’s the thing. Familiarity is an important part of our survival as a species. When our ancestors saw an animal that didn’t jump at them every time they saw it, they knew it had no intention of eating them for dinner. They put their guard down and put away their bow and arrow. The regular friendly exposures gave them a reason to feel secure with the animal nearby.

This desire for what’s familiar is something we still crave today. It attracts us like a fly to honey on a summer’s day.

We crave it so much that when something is familiar, we break down our walls and become more open to engage with it.

Science has proven this so many times. Over and over again.

Here’s one of the mind-opening experiments that Social Psychology pioneer Robert Zajonc did to illustrate how familiarity influences our attitudes.

During one semester, 4 women who were similar in appearance attended his lectures at a different number of times. All they did was sit in the class and did not interact with any of the students. One woman attended 5 times. The second one, ten times. And third woman, 15 times. And the last one didn’t attend any lectures at all.

At the end of the semester, the students were presented with pictures of the women to rate them on different traits like attractiveness, familiarity and similarity. Even though the students never once interacted with any of the women, they evaluated the one who joined the class 15 times a lot higher than the other women.

This is the familiarity effect or the mere-exposure principle in action.

And it doesn’t only apply to rating how much we like people. Decades of research have shown that we respond in the same way to smells, sounds, and even unrecognizable shapes.

But how useful is this to you?

That’s what this article is about. How you can get customers to buy from you using the familiarity effect. We’ll talk about:

• What the familiarity effect is
• The Psychology
• How to encourage customers to buy your product using the familiarity effect
• Warnings and last thoughts

What is the familiarity effect?

The familiarity effect also called the mere exposure effect suggests that the more you see, feel or experience something, the more you like it. The more familiar something is, be it a feeling, a person, a place, a product, or a brand — the more you have positive associations with it.

It’s a mental shortcut that we regularly take when making decisions. It’s a strong factor that affects which people we trust, which brands we become loyal to, and which type of music we like.

You can credit the familiarity effect for the millions of dollars big brands spend on product placements. Or why people who spend a lot of time together get attracted to each other.

It is one potent tool in your marketing arsenal. And if you want to know how to get people to buy your products, it’s worth your while to learn how you can apply it in your business.

The familiarity effect works better with these other psychological concepts at play

We’re complicated creatures. And when we make decisions, it’s not based on one thing. So we can’t say that the familiarity effect is the only reason why people buy from you.

To properly grasp how you can use it in your favor, let’s talk about other psychological concepts that work hand-in-hand with the familiarity effect. Use them all together and you increase your chance to make this work.

Frequency Effect

For familiarity to happen, there should also be frequency. This means exposure happens as many times as possible.

This is why the same ads repeat on tv.

As Wikipedia states,

In the advertising world, the mere-exposure effect suggests that consumers need not cognize advertisements: simple repetition is enough to make a ‘memory trace’ in the consumer’s mind and unconsciously affect their consuming behavior.

Reduced Cognitive Load

Cognitive load is your brain’s mental capacity at any given time.

It’s like your computer’s working memory. And you don’t want to overload it if you want it to work at its full potential.

Why? Because it has a limit.

Here’s how Richard E. Cytowic M.D. from Psychology today eloquently describes it:

Human brains operate at low speeds of about 120 bits (~15 bytes) per second. By comparison, my Verizon fiber-optic connection shoots data into my home at 75 megabytes per second, 5,000 times the rate that my brain can handle. We ask our brains to sort, categorize, parse, and prioritize gargantuan data streams it never evolved to juggle. It should shock us all at how unprepared it is to weigh and navigate the glut of decisions that modern life throws at it.

Only 120 bits. That’s how much you can process per second.

You know how much reading consumes? 50 bits per second! That’s almost half of what your brain can process.

The bottom line is this: As an online marketer, you’re faced with a challenge. You don’t want to overload your customer’s mental processes as they navigate your site.

Why? Because when the brain is overwhelmed, it shuts down.

Say goodbye to him clicking that buy button!

But here’s the good news.

The brain has its own coping mechanisms. And to stop itself from overloading, it takes mental shortcuts. It borrows from past experiences to gauge the actions it’s going to do today.

What’s one of these shortcuts?

Familiarity.

Let’s say you’re shopping for perfume for your lady love.

You go to a site. You’re faced with dozens of choices. If you had to rationally compare each and every perfume, you’ll go crazy. Or forego buying it and play Crusader Kings II instead.

So what do you do? You narrow it down to brands and products that you’ve heard of before. It’s no contest. You’ll buy the one you know. It’s easier that way, right? That’s your brain telling you, “Come on, dude. Just make this easy and buy the one you’re already familiar with! Let’s get back to playing that game”

Fear of the unknown

Uncertainty is scary. When things are uncertain, your brain wants to go back to a state of equilibrium and take back some level of control.

Not having heard of a product or brand before puts your defense system up high. You tend to be suspicious of things you’re not familiar with.

Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s say you’ve just moved to a new village. Your children are in the playground. As they play happily, you think that you’re not sure if you shut the doors of your car. It’s not far of a walk. About 3 minutes away. Assuming you can’t take your children with you. Do you ask one of the parents who you’ve seen many times in the school run (but have never interacted with) or some random stranger you’ve never seen before?

You won’t even think twice about it.

You take the mental shortcut and go with the familiar person — the one whom you’ve had more exposure to. Even if you haven’t talked to that person before.

The same is true for the person who lands on your site the first time.

He’s not familiar with you! You need to develop that familiarity first before he’ll trust you. And on the web, trust is the currency that makes your bank account very happy.

Foot-in-the-door technique

This one I’ve talked about in detail before: the foot-in-the-door technique.

If you can get a target customer to do a small request first (watch your ad, sign up to a newsletter, read your blog), he is more likely to agree to a bigger request in the future.

The first small request is the start of the familiarity process.

Add a few more small requests (frequency effect), and you cement the foundations of familiarity.

The more the person engages with you. The more he responds to all these little things. He becomes more inclined to buy from you when this big ask comes.

How to encourage customers to buy your product using the familiarity effect

There are many ways you can encourage customers to buy your product. If you’ve read my other blog posts before you probably use some of these already. But one of the effective methods that big brands use every single day is the familiarity effect. The good news is that it’s something that you can easily apply in your own online business, be it eCommerce, Lead Generation or an affiliate site.

1. Make yourself visible 

There’s a curious thing about the familiarity effect. It doesn’t necessarily happen consciously.

In fact, some studies have shown that even when a person is not aware of it, repeated exposure to a product or business, inevitably makes him familiar (ergo likes) to the product.

Like product placements in movies. You may not notice them but they get into your subconscious.

Yep. Like some voodoo sh*t.

And tbh, it’s why marketers get a lot of flack for manipulating people.

So yeah. There’s that.

But as I’ve always said. You can use your power for good or evil.

Which brings me to my point.

Make yourself visible everywhere. So that the more they see you, the stronger their familiarity towards you becomes.

With the wide world that is the internet, you’ve got to find the places where your target customers hang out. Regularly and consistently make a point of being visible in these places.

There’s a reason why big brands pay tons of money to advertise in the Super Bowl.  And why actors go to every talk show under the earth when they’re promoting a movie.

It may seem nothing to you. But just being exposed to that logo cements the foundations that build the familiarity effect.

I know that it sounds implausible that ads you don’t even “notice” can affect your decisions. Some kind of witchery. But so many research studies have shown this subliminal power of the familiarity effect that you can’t afford to ignore it.

2. Aim for quality interactions

So. You’ve got all that subliminal power up your sleeves.

But don’t just flood your target customers with your logo or your ads.

It’s not only the number of exposures that matter.

If you want to strengthen the customer’s positive affection for your business, then the quality of the engagement affects familiarity a lot more than just the quantity. 

It’s pretty obvious once you think about it.

People buy with their feelings. If they feel good about you, then they’re more likely to engage with you.

Imagine you’re deciding which of two  conversion rate optimization agencies to use. Assuming that both are top-notch businesses. And you’ve been subliminally exposed to their products an equal number of times. The only difference is this: one company had more quality interactions with you.

Which one would you choose?

I bet you’d go with the one whom you’ve had positive interactions with.

3. Make use of retargeting

Most visitors who land on your site for the first time will fall through the cracks. And they might never visit your site again.

But you can get some of them back with a retargeting campaign.

This keeps your product or your brand in their consciousness.

Also repeated retargeting campaigns often give the impression that you’re selling a good product. In one study by the Journal of Consumer Research, when companies spend lots of money on advertising, the consumer assumes, “If they’re willing to spend a lot of money on advertising, the product must be good.”

When you do a retargeting campaign, you’re not only getting them back to your site at that precise moment. You’re also developing familiarity which will benefit your business down the road.

4. Have a sales funnel

So we’ve talked about retargeting. Together with it comes using a funnel.

It’s not just some fancy word businesses use. This is a way to get consumers to slowly build trust and confidence in your business. Every time a person passes through each level of the funnel, he becomes closer to you. He knows more about you. He becomes familiar with you.

And as long as you’re delivering content and building a trustworthy relationship at every level, your target customer will feel that sense of familiarity and closeness towards you.

5. Engage with target customers on different social media platforms

Every time you engage a customer, you pull the gap between you and him closer. The level of virtual proximity narrows, and he slowly puts his guard down and develops a sense of trust towards you. Your business becomes “imprinted” in his memory. And if at some point he needs what you sell, he’ll think of you first.

There are many ways you can regularly engage with customers.

Through regular email newsletters. Orby having a regular blog post schedule.

But in the current landscape, having conversations with them on different social media platforms is an effective way to build trust and familiarity.

6. Take advantage of what’s already familiar

Turns out familiarity can be passed on by somebody (or something) to your business.

This is another shortcut your brain takes. Let’s say we both hang out in the same Facebook groups. You know who I am. In fact, we may have chatted with each other in some of the threads.

Now you’re looking for SEO services. I recommend a business you’ve never heard of before.

Wouldn’t you be more likely to avail of the services of the one I recommend than say, the recommendation of a stranger on the street?

Why is that?

Because you’re familiar with me already.

You’re taking your familiarity with me and then transferring it on to another business.

In the same way, you can do this for your business, too.

How? By using social proof.

There’s a reason why one testimonial from a person the target customers respect has more impact on sales than dozens of anonymous reviews.

That familiarity (ergo trust) is passed on to another business.

So how can you take advantage of this: Here are some things you can do:

• Get customer testimonials from people your target customers are already familiar with
• Add logos of businesses you’ve worked for, businesses that use your products, or places where you’ve been featured.
• Harness the power of influencer marketing. And let them do the talking. Their followers (as long as they’re targeted good quality ones) will transfer that familiarity to your business when they recommend you.
• And for you web designers out there, use a design that your customers are already familiar with. Every industry follows a website template. A SAAS design is different from an eCommerce site or from a news site. By following these familiar templates, your visitors find it easy to navigate your site. With this familiarity comes ease of use. And if I haven’t said this enough yet, making things easy for your customers will as a matter of course increase conversions.

7. Look at the camera

Harness the power of videos.

I know that many of you are not too keen about putting yourself on video.

But videos and live streams increase trust. It solidifies familiarity.

If you want to add a boost of familiarity, then get over your fear and make videos part of your marketing strategy.

A study by Cornell University showed that when brand ambassadors make eye contact in ads, 28% of target customers felt a higher brand connection.

Right there is your ticket to better brand connection.

Eye contact.

You can easily do this on videos and live streams. And if you can’t get yourself to live stream or make videos, at the very least, do it with the images you use to spread brand awareness.

Warnings and last thoughts

Geoffrey Chaucer once said,

“Familiarity breeds contempt.”

And with these words, I leave you with a warning.

The Familiarity or Mere Exposure Effect is an effective and very popular marketing technique. Just look at the millions of dollars that big brands spend on product placement.

But there are two caveats to implementing this.

First, always aim for positive interactions and exposure. A study has shown that a customer’s first impression of the product affects his subsequent feelings towards it.

Great if it’s a good feeling.

But when the first impression of your brand is negative, subsequent exposures are only going to amplify this feeling and make him dislike you even more.

Now you wouldn’t want that, would you?

The second caveat is this:

There’s a point when an ad will start to work against you. In fact, studies have shown that interest in a brand or product wears out when they see an ad too many times.

So know the balance. And regularly change your ads at different levels of your sales funnel.

And more importantly, remember this:

You’re competing with other companies who are doing the same thing as you. So don’t immediately assume that customers will choose you just because of the familiarity effect.

Think of familiarity as the springboard to get your target customer to consider you next time he wants to buy something that you sell.

There will be other psychological processes at work when a person buys something. But the one that will make you stand out. The one that will get the customer to choose you over the competition is the quality of interaction you’ve had with him.

It’s a no-brainer.

The familiarity effect is a wonderful psychological tool to use in your business. But if you want customers who buy from you over and over again. If you want the type of customers who become loyal to your brand, then you have to make every engagement and exposure a way to deepen the relationship.

Forget about tricking the subconscious.

And prioritize good quality interactions. That’s how you win. Every. Single. Time.

Let’s not beat around the bush.

If you’re having problems generating leads, your business is going nowhere. Without a system that continuously generates leads, your business shrivels like an orange left out in the sun.

You know what it’s like. You have an offer with awesome benefits for your target audience. And yet your visitors are not interested. Your site is getting traffic. But no one’s queuing up to sign up for your offers.

When no one signs up for your offers. You don’t get leads. When you don’t have leads, forget about increasing sales!

Here’s the deal:

Whenever a business comes to us with this problem, we always try and focus our attention on the lead generation landing page. Almost always, when we optimize the landing page, we increase the conversion rate.

Look at this way. The people on your lead gen landing page are looking for something. They took time out of their day to click a link and visit your page. It’s in their best interests to find what they went to the site for. When they take action and convert into leads, that’s not only beneficial for you. It’s good for them, too.

But if they land on your site, and decide against doing what they were there to do in the first place, then you’ve got yourself a landing page optimization problem.

You’re failing at convincing your target customers to avail of your offer. At convincing them to take the very offer they came looking for.

It’s as simple as that.

A bit disheartening, right?

But there’s good news!

You can turn it around.

You can increase conversions using UX design and consumer psychology principles. There’s a way to optimize your landing page in a way that generates leads for your business.

With these simple tweaks to the lead gen landing page, you could dramatically increase the number of visitors who sign on to become leads.

Lead Generation Landing Page Best Practices

So how do you optimize landing pages?

Let’s start with a warning.

These are simply guidelines to jumpstart conversion tests. The benefits can only go so far. Don’t treat them as the magic pill that will suddenly convert your traffic to leads.

Keep this in mind as you read these landing page best practices below.

==========

• Stick to one goal
• Make use of directional and visual cues
• Consistency is key
• Design for usability
• Convince with your copy
• Have a compelling call-to-action
• Reduce friction and solidify claims
• Make your value proposition clear
• Design for mobile devices
• Always A/B test
• Landing Page Examples
• Conclusion

=============

1. Stick to one goal

If there’s one key thing we know about buying behavior, it’s this:

It’s easy for people to make a decision when the choice is limited. Too many choices bog people down.

So if you want to convert a warm prospect. If you want a website visitor to take action and convert into a lead, then stick to one goal for every lead generation landing page that you create.

What I’m saying is this. Landing pages are unlike the office water cooler. It’s not the place for small talk. It’s the place where business gets done. And because of that, you’ll have to create a one-track process for your potential prospects.

You do this with a single offering for each page. Give your visitors only one thing to do. Introduce only one product or service for each page. Limit their options and give them one thing to focus on. Direct your visitors’ attention towards one action and you’ll see an increase in conversion rates.

Why is this so important in converting traffic? Here’s why.

You’re already competing for their attention, as it is. As they survey your landing page, they have other tabs open. There’s Netflix to watch, Social Media to poke their head into and YouTube videos to check out.

This means if you want them to take action, if you want to generate more leads, you need to have their focused attention.

Their focused attention on only one goal. When there’s a single thing to do, this helps the brain make a decision. And you want them to make that decision to take your offer, right?

So before you design your landing page. Before you pay for traffic. Before you write any additional content for prospects to read. Do this first.

Ensure that there’s a single action your prospects can take to engage with you.

So now it’s your turn.

What’s the one purpose of your landing page? What one action do you want your visitors to take?

Once you know this,  design every element on the page to direct visitors towards taking that action.

Is it to:

• subscribe to your newsletter?
• request a quote?
• donate to charity?
• provide his contact number?
• start the trial of a new tool?
• answer survey questions?
• try the demo of new software?
• download the pdf of a case study or industry report?
• sign-up for a webinar?

Whatever it is, choose only one. That’s your page’s only purpose. Then every single element on your lead gen landing page should be designed to get your customers to take that one action.

This means you stick to that one message no matter what. In effect, visitors have only two choices. If the landing page is optimized, they accept your offer. If it’s not, they leave. Simple as that.

Here are some tips to help you with this

• Focus on only one call to action. If you want your visitors to try a demo, let that be the only measure of website engagement. No share buttons. No links to your about us page. Nothing.
• Don’t give your prospects the option to click links that don’t directly drive people to convert. Often, this includes getting rid of navigation links.
• If you must present different options, like different pricing structures, highlight the choice that you want them to take. This could be the product or service that converts the most. The one that provides the most value.

2. Make use of directional and visual cues

Once you know the action you want prospects to take, the next step is to create lead generation landing pages that are designed to guide target customers towards it. To do this, provide a specific and predetermined path for visitors to take.

But how do you do this on a virtual page? How do you start creating a path to convert visitors with only computer pixels to work with?

One of the effective ways to do it is by using directional and visual cues. These are design signals to guide your users towards important elements on the page. These design elements are like beacons on a screen that capture your prospects’ attention. They ensure that their minds don’t wander. That they notice the relevant steps they have to take as they read your content and decide whether or not to take your offer.

You’re not there to actually hold their hands. So in place of this, use the tools that you have at your disposal. What tools? The tools that all online marketers must learn to wield: colors, fonts and imagery. Use these web design elements when optimizing your pages and your prospects will stick to the path that leads to a conversion.

So how is this possible? How can simple design changes have an impact on successful lead generation?

Well, here’s the thing. Our brains like to keep things simple. And when there’s a signal on a page that tells us where to focus our attention, we gravitate towards it. That’s what changes in designs can do.

Here are some tips on how you can start doing this.

• use arrows that point to the ctas
• have an image of a person face the form you want the person to fill in
• have an image of a man or woman point to the offer
• use colors to emphasize parts of the page you want people to focus their attention to. For example, use bright colors for the CTA button and make it stand out from the rest of the elements on the page.
• Bold important keywords to attract the eyes to that part on the page

3. Aim for message match and consistency

A lead generation landing page is part and parcel of your conversion funnel. It does not exist by itself.

There are other moving parts in your marketing strategy that determine its success. To increase conversions, you can’t build it in isolation to other marketing campaigns.

Yet one of the big problems we see is that different teams within a company don’t talk to each other. The SEO’s do their magic. The PPC ads people do their thang. The web developers work away. They don’t share their campaigns and processes.

What ends up happening is a lack of message consistency from one part of the conversion funnel to the next. There’s no message match. The ad promises one thing. But the landing page promises something else.

When your optimization process runs this way, it doesn’t matter how perfect the landing page is. It doesn’t matter if you have a landing page with flawless UX, dozens of testimonials and a strong copy that hits right through the heart. If the traffic that lands on it are not the type of visitors who are looking for your offer, they will abandon the landing page as quickly as they arrived.

Here’s what I’m trying to drive at.

If you want effective landing pages, ensure there’s a message match between the source of traffic and the page on your blog.  Make it a practice to have the same message between different sales and marketing channels: the PPC ads or the meta titles in Google search results must have continuity with the headline and the content on the landing page.

When you do this, you prime visitors for what they’re about to do. There are no surprises and their hearts and minds will be in it, too. Doing this alone will make a big difference in eliminating friction. And provide prospects a reason to stay and read what’s on the screen. It can have an impressive impact on your landing page conversions. It’s that powerful, it can lift conversions by as much as 212%.

Tbh, if you pay for PPC ads, then this is one of the first things you have to do. Or else, you’re just throwing money away. And yet many businesses continue to do this.

Here’s an example. I just did a quick Google search – “buy a house in Valencia Spain“.

Here’s the top Google AD.

And here’s the landing page.

You see the mismatch?

When I look at that Google ad, my brain thinks, “Ok. I’m going to be looking at a list of properties in Valencia, Spain.“

But what greets me on the landing page?

A search form with the headline “Start your Spanish property search.”

I’m not looking for a “Spanish” property. I’ve already narrowed down my options to Valencia. And I expected to see a landing page with a list of houses for that area.

You might reason that it’s easy enough to just type Valencia under location. And you’re right. But that’s an extra thing for me to do. And at this point, you’ve just interrupted my line of thought. Your landing page is supposed to limit me to only one path. You’ve not only annoyed me by not giving me what I expected to see. You’ve also opened a new path for my brain to start wandering off to.

That very subtle change in my thought process. That extra action you want me to take will impact what I think about your business and how I’ll engage with you.

Sure. Big brands like Amazon and Apple can get away with it. But for most online businesses, it’s a mistake you can’t afford.

Still don’t believe me? Let me take you to the other side.

Let’s go back to the same example. If I were doing the same Google search. And I get to a landing page with a list of the hot properties for sale in Valencia this week — this is what I feel.

A completely different state of mind. And this is where you want your visitors to be when they are on your page. Happy visitors are more likely to take action and engage with you.

Capeesh?

But how do you do this? Here are some tips.

Go back to your one goal. That’s where it starts and ends.

1. Use the same words in the ads and the landing page headline. This also holds true for any message you have on other marketing channels – from social media to Google search listings. This way, people know they’re on the right page. They’re not left wondering, “Did I click the right link?”
2. Remember what I said about the one specific goal for your landing page?  ​​​​​​​When writing the content, ensure your CTA is consistent with the promise on the headline. Joanna Wiebe recommends writing the call-to-action first. Then reverse engineer from there. This way, as you write the headline and the copy, it’s always in-line with the action in the CTA button.

4. Get rid of things that distract users from the goal

Remove any additional elements that take the visitor’s attention away from the page. A common reason visitors leave is that they get distracted by other things. Some distractions are outside your control but others are not.

So how can you ensure that people do not get distracted? Here are some examples of things you can do

• remove any links on the navigation menu that take people away from the page
• get straight to the point. Too much information can harm your optimization efforts
• limit videos and images. True. They can sometimes lift conversions but they can also distract people. Test it.
• don’t ask for unnecessary information

5. Design for usability

Just because a lead generation landing page looks pretty doesn’t mean it’s going to convert.

Many times, I’ve seen that bells and whistles often distract visitors from the objective.

I’m not suggesting that you build an ugly site. I’m saying that beauty should be a secondary consideration in landing pages. And if at any point it clashes with the goal of the site, always ditch beauty in favor of function.

Look at it this way.

 When people first visit your landing page, they need some guidance.  The ideal situation is for you to be there. To welcome them in. To answer their questions in real-time. To help them whenever they get stumped. But you can’t do that.

So what do you do instead?

You do everything in your power to optimize the user experience using the tools you have.

The people who land on your site know what a landing page does. They know they’re going to have to give something up if they engage with it.

They’ll have to give something that belongs to them – be it their time, phone number or email address.

Because of this, when they first get to the landing page, they have more reason to bounce off  than to stay.

It’s your job to stop that from happening and tip the scale in your favor.

And the way to do this lies in what psychologists call cognitive load. In simple terms, this means making the brain do as little as possible. It’s

• making page navigation easy for the prospect
• having content easy to understand
• showing desired actions clear to act on

All these together form the foundation of designing the user experience.

There are many things you can do to improve your site’s UX. But for this article, let me share a few things you can do.

When it comes to landing pages, I find that there are three crucial points to optimize for UX.

1. when a prospect first lands on the page
2. as he scrolls the page content
3. as he decides what to do next

Optimize these three critical points and you create a page that the brain prefers and prospects love. And why is that important? Because making the brain happy is one step closer to converting your target customer.

So with that said, here are some UX practices for effective page optimization campaigns.

1. Optimize for the first impression. The first crucial seconds when visitors see your page has a strong effect on cognitive load. If the elements are squished too close to each other, if the imagery is not enticing, if the page looks unprofessional, then the brain will immediately feel like there’s a lot of work that needs to be done. So make it easy for the brain by making use of space and having a clean layout.
2. Provide design elements that make reading the page easy to read. This includes using directional cues, imagery to support important points, and using colors not only for branding purposes but also to direct people to areas of the page you want them to focus on.

6. Convince with your copy

So you’ve designed a  landing page that’s easy for users to use. You got rid of navigation buttons. The directional and visual cues are on-point. The hero image is perfect. You even have an awesome video on the page.

Now comes the substance of your lead generation landing page: the copy.

The copy is your “love letter” to the readers. This is where you convince them that engaging with you benefits their lives.

It makes potential clients see the value of your offer.

How do you achieve this?

You achieve it by meeting the customer where he is in the buyer’s journey and making him see that you understand his needs.

Only when he fully grasps this should you start talking about the product or service you offer.

Here are some ways to help you with landing page copy best practices to increase your site’s conversion rates.

• Before you write your copy, get up close and personal with your target audience. Research the voice of your customers. Hand out a survey and collect answers to relevant questions about your offers. Know the exact language they use to describe their problems. Gather customer testimonials and reviews. Find strong feelings that a lot of prospects use to describe your offers. All this information will give you the insights you need to write the content for the landing page. When you know your target customers well enough, effective copy that increases conversion rates will be very easy to write.
• Add an element of curiosity to your content. Don’t’ say “Download my eBook about social proof”. Say “Download this eBook and learn the technique we used to increase our sales by 50% last month!”
• Suck them in with the content above the fold. The visible part of the screen that prospects first see when they land on a page is prime real estate. It’s when people decide whether to give you the time of day or not. It’s an important part of your lead generation landing page. And if you’re an internet marketing strategist or copywriter, you should spend a lot of your time perfecting content above the fold. Ensure that important elements are visible above the fold including the headline, subheadlines, value proposition, and images (when applicable) and the main benefit. For short landing pages with a form asking for contact details, design it to show on the screen too.
• Clearly talk about the benefits of your product or service. People who’ve been running digital marketing campaigns for any length of time know to emphasize the benefits rather than the features of the product or service they’re selling. And yet, many lead generation landing pages still fail at this. You know why? It’s usually because they don’t know the pain points of their visitors that well. So when your copy isn’t converting potential prospects, go back to the first step and collect valuable customer data. Know your audience and writing sales copy that converts becomes a piece of cake.

7. Work on your headlines

Headlines and subheadlines may just be 1-3 sentences of your landing pages. But they play a big part in optimization. What exactly do headlines do? Well, an effective headline captures a visitor’s attention and entices them to stay on the page. It encourages a prospect to scroll the page and read your offer.

Here’s a secret. If you’re out of headline ideas, start with headline templates. These templates have been tested many times by many conversion copywriters and they make your job easier.

8. Have a clear and compelling call-to-action button

The call-to-action is a point of great tension for your customer.

He knows that he’s about to give up something that belongs to him.

Understandably, he wants to ensure that he’s not going to make a schmuck of himself and regret it later.

So your call-to-action button should help lessen this tension and anxiety.

Here are two things that can help you with this

• Make it clear what he’s going to get. Don’t just use the word Submit. Use more specific language like  Start trial now.  Add to Cart. Check Price. Try Demo Software. Or I want to sign up for the webinar
• Start with an action word. For extra points, use “My”. So instead of saying “Download the Ebook”, use “Download My Ebook”.
• Make it clear that it’s a call-to-action. Have it stand out from the rest of the elements on the page. Use bold colors. Contrast it from the background. Place it inside a box.

CTA buttons can be as detailed as Search Logistics’

Or as straight to the point as Moz

You’ll have to test which one works best for your audience.

Once you start testing the performance of your pages, you’ll find that ctas are great for quick wins. They’re one of the quickest things you can change in your pages. Marketers who don’t have a programming background can easily test them. In fact, many of the AB testing platforms have visual editors that allow you to easily test call-to-action button colors and text. And the good thing about all these is that testing call-to-action buttons can often have a big impact on your conversions.

That’s why one of the first things marketers do is fiddle with call-to-action buttons. It’s a small tweak that delivers major returns.

9. Reduce friction and solidify claims by adding quality social proof

Use social proof to get your target customers to act on your offer.

Social proof is a shortcut people use to make decisions. It helps reduce anxiety. When there’s third-party proof, prospects tend to believe their claims more than the brand tooting its own horn. It’s a shortcut to getting visitors to trust your company and the validity of your claims. It helps lessen customer anxiety which increases a page’s conversion rate.

For example,

If many people say your company is the real deal. The brain in shortcut mode will say, “Hmmm. It must be. If they trust this company, I can give it my trust too.”

If respected people in your industry give glowing testimonials on your brand and say your services have changed their lives for the better. A visitor thinks, “I want what he’s got, too”

If a security software badge indicates your site is trustworthy, a customer will believe it more than if you said it yourself.

So make a lot of space in your layout for social proof.

Examples of social proof include:

• user testimonials and reviews
• endorsements from celebrities or influencers
• business credentials
• logo of a credible brand you’ve worked with

10. Clearly state your value proposition

The value proposition is what makes your company stand out from other businesses selling the same thing as you.

Why should a user buy from you? What makes you different?

Your target audience needs a valid and compelling reason to accept your offer. What’s so unique about what you’re offering?

Finding your value proposition might take a lot of “soul-searching” but here’s a way to help you find your brand’s unique feature that separates you from other businesses.

Picture your target customer in research mode with 5 tabs open.

Four of the tabs belong to your competitors. They are all offering the same thing as you.

Now here are the important questions:

What makes you different from them? What do you have as a company that your competitors don’t? What will stop the visitor from clicking your tab’s X button?

That’s your value proposition.

11. Design for mobile devices

Design for mobile devices first before you build the landing page for desktop.

Why?

People are increasingly using their phones to go online.

And here’s the interesting thing:

Most people use their mobile devices while on the move. And then transfer to desktop when they’re ready to buy.

What this means for you is:

It’s on mobile devices that you should be doing the convincing. It’s where you build trust.

But you can’t do that with a lead generation landing page that is not optimized for mobile. So when you make your landing page, keep this at the top of your list of things to do.

Here are landing page best practices for small screens to get you started:

• Be clear with your value proposition above the fold. As soon as visitors land on the page, he should immediately know what the page is about and why he should stay. Do this with a compelling headline and a clear value proposition. If you’re using a hero image or a video, ensure it doesn’t use up all the space above the fold.
• Test making the copy short and crisp.
• Create a form that’s short and easy to fill out
• Make it speedy. Yep. That one. How’s your lead generation landing page load time? Impatient mobile users want yours to load in under 2 seconds. How do you fare?
• Add a sticky header or footer with your CTA button. Have a CTA button that’s always visible on the screen and make it easy for prospects in buying mode to convert.
• Make use of white space. It’s great for the user experience.
• Put CTA buttons on areas that the thumb can easily reach on mobile devices.

12. Build a form that lessens anxiety

On a lead capture landing page, the form is almost always the place where potential leads engage with the page.

It’s an important part of lead generation landing pages. And yet, it’s also the part that causes anxiety with your target users.

People hate to fill in a form.

So ease the mental pain that a form often triggers in people. You’re already making people work by filling the forms out — which is not something that people love to do, anyway — and the least you can do is to make that a no-fuss affair.

How do you do this?

There are two main things to consider when creating forms for landing page:

The length of the form and the visual appeal.

Optimizing these two things will make a big difference in converting visitors.

How do you do this?

On form length

A lot of marketing advice will tell you to limit form fields. And for the most part, that’s true. But like a lot of things on the internet, this has so much to do with your relationship with the buyer.

If they only just got to your funnel, make the form concise and direct. A simple email address form field is enough. If they’re further down the funnel and you have a more advanced relationship, they’ll be more inclined to answer more questions or fill out long forms.

At any rate, studies have shown that 7 form fields are the maximum number of fields after which the rate of abandonment escalates.

So reduce long forms and include only the necessary form fields. At the most basic, this could just be someone’s contact email. This is especially true when you’re asking for information from people at the top of the funnel. Bear in mind they’re not that invested in you yet, so they don’t have that much of a reason to give you their personal information.

When visitors are at the bottom of the funnel and you already have a deeper relationship with them, you can get away with a longer form. But even then, ask only for what’s absolutely important for your relationship at that stage.

On visual appeal

Embrace white space. There’s no easier way to immediately make visitors feel better about your form. It costs nothing yet it does wonders in the mental frame of mind of your user. It makes him think the task is less draining when there is a good use of white space between from one form field to the next.

And lastly, gamify your forms. Most people don’t use auto-fill. So they have to write all the information every time they fill out a form. This makes forms a real pain. There’s one way to remove that pain. Gamify the forms. Make them interactive. People tend to finish forms when it’s easy for them and there’s not a lot of brainpower involved. Try it. You’ll be surprised how much more willing people are to give you their contact info this way.

13. Always A/B test your lead generation landing pages

You never know what’s going to work. And often just a little change can spell the difference between success and failure.

So get into testing mode. As soon as you make changes to your lead generation landing pages, do it using a data-backed scientific process, and you’ll have valuable insights that will help you in converting visitors to leads.

Here are some ideas for page elements that you can test:

• headlines
• sub-headlines
• copy lengths
• CTAs
• copy
• images or videos

Best Lead Capture Landing Page Examples

SEMrush

SEMrush’s one goal is clear. To get you to try the tool. They also show that they are a trusted service by showing social proof. The logos of big companies that use them are very prominent above the fold. This is prime real estate when it comes to website design. And there’s a reason why they’ve got all these logos plastered on it. Social proof, especially from a big brand or a trusted expert, can and do swing the needle in your favor.

That’s social proof that provides the visitors with some validation to know more about what they offer on the page. And click the cta button.

Mental Mastery

This is one of Ramit Sethi’s courses.

He doesn’t skimp on words. In fact, many of his sales pages start with very long stories to lure the reader in before he starts talking about his product.

Yes, it has a big cta button in the header for people who are already in the buying mode. But after that, it all starts with one long piece of educational content.

He does a lot of storytelling. He makes himself an example. Talks about his life. He shows the reader that he understands what they’re going through because he’s been through it too.

He talks about the reader’s problem for a very long time. As you scroll down the page, there are more than 2000 words to agitate the readers’ pains points  That’s copy that really gets the reader to understand that he is on their side. And whatever it is the reader’s going to give up, it’s going to be worth it.

Cleanzy

Cleanzy has a very clear value proposition.

You don’t want to take more time than necessary to look for a cleaner. But it’s an important decision. You’re letting someone into your house.  Can you trust them? What types of jobs can they do? Who are they? These are the potential customer’s deepest anxieties. And Cleanzy irons-out these worries with its clear and compelling value proposition.

“The Easiest Way To Book Trusted Professionals”

If you visit this landing page, you’ll also see how everything on that page puts the reader at ease.  And check out that form. It asks only for the post code

The copy emphasizes a $150,000 coverage in the event of any damage. Anxiety squashed.

It shows how they only hire trusted cleaning professionals who go through a background check before they’re hired. Major client worries eliminated.

What to do next to generate more leads

So here’s what you do.

Assess your current lead generation landing page. Where are you at? What are the conversion rates?

If you have horrible conversion rates then changing just one element on a page won’t cut it. I suggest overhauling the whole page based on the landing page best practices outlined here.

After you create a new page, observe its performance and look at the sales data. See if that’s more effective at converting visitors to leads. If it converts better than your old page, then start testing. You then iterate and make this new page better.

On the other hand, if you’ve already got landing pages with ok conversion rates, then you need a different optimization process. I recommend doing a CRO audit first. Spend time analyzing data. Look at your analytics and notice what the data is telling you. Install a heatmap and notice where your visitors are stalling, what they focus their eyes on, or at what point they leave. All this research helps you make a strategic plan for improving the performance of a landing page. Have a good and honest look at all the elements on the page. Then from there, identify the element that you think affects conversions the most. Then make changes to that element.  From there, you and your team can keep testing to improve the relevant page.

Conclusion

In conclusion, landing pages are essential to the success of any digital marketing effort. Businesses may develop highly effective landing pages that encourage conversions and yield quantifiable results by adhering to best practices and using conversion rate optimization ideas. Concentrating on producing a seamless user experience, writing catchy headlines and copy, and adding effective calls to action is crucial.

Testing and iterating the design while optimizing the website for mobile devices is essential to ensure that the design produces the most significant outcomes possible. In order to make sure that the right audience is being reached with the right message, organizations need also pay special attention to their targeting and segmentation initiatives.

You’ve done the hard job.

You’ve attracted people to your site.

They’ve read your copy. And they’re convinced your product is the one.

They should now be itching to click the buy button.

Well, not so fast, cowboy!

This is the internet we’re talking about. And in this world, trust is the most important thing.

This point when the person is about to turn from a passive reader to an active customer is a delicate stage.

It’s when trust issues arise. When anxiety kicks in. When doubt cripples the brain.

And if you want your target customer to click that buy button, it’s your job to nip anxiety in the bud.

There are many ways to do this:

• Customer reviews.
• Brand mentions.
• Influencer recommendations.

But one of the easiest ways you can promote trust is by using trust badges or trust seals.

Put them at points where anxiety might kick in, like your product pages or near the buy button. That’s how you prevent the tragedy of a warm lead who decides against it and proceeds to click the back button instead.

What gives website trust badges this power to change minds?

Trust badges are third party endorsements that vouch for your site’s security and trustworthiness.

Here’s the thing.

Your customers buy online with trepidation. Not only are they on the lookout for the best product for their needs. They also have to figure out if they’re buying it from a business they can trust.

Will you deliver the exact item you say on your product page? Is your website secure? Can they trust you with their personal information? Will they get their money back if they return the item?

These are questions that linger in the back of your customer’s mind. Waiting to influence their decisions. Unless you do something about it first.

The truth of the matter is that they just want to get on with their lives and make the process as quick as possible.

So when you have trust badges on your site, you allow them to take a shortcut.

They now have third-party endorsements from a credible outside entity that they can trust your site.

And when they see this, they become more likely to buy.

But where and how do you get these trust seals?

Well, today, I’ll show you exactly that.

====What we’re going to talk about today===

• Where to get site seals for your website
• Guaranteed safe checkout trust badges
  • Norton trust badge powered by Digicert
  • McAfee trust badge
• SSL secure site seals
  • Comodo site seal
  • Trustlock verified secure seal
• Secure payment trust badges
  • Paypal
  • Stripe
• Download trust badges for your site’s use
• Adding trust badges to your site
  • How to add a trust badge to your Shopify store
  • How to add trust badges on WordPress

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Trust badges resource: where to get a few trust badges for your website

First things first.

Don’t just slap any trust badge on your site expecting your customers to magically trust you.

It doesn’t work that way.

It’s an element that will only work when everything else is in place.

Things have to be built one on top of the other to make the best of what trust badges can do for your site.

This means:

The copy addresses your customer’s emotions.

The UX design is flawless.

The reviews and testimonials perfectly accentuate the benefits of buying your product.

In short, convince him that he’s on the right page and staring at the right product.

Done that?

Now add a trust badge to calm any anxious thoughts.

And he becomes more likely to convert.

Here are the places to get trust badges from. Bookmark this page for future reference.

Guaranteed Safe Checkout Trust Badges

Most of these badges cost money. With these, you pay a third party company to regularly and continuously check your website’s credibility and security.

The best places to put them on are on product pages or under the call to action button.

Think about the customer. At what point during the process is he going to be most anxious about his personal information’s privacy or his credit card’s security? Put these badges at these points of high tension.

Norton Trust Badges Powered by Digicert

In a Baymard study in 2013, Norton trust badges came out on top as the badge that gave the most sense of consumer trust.

Source

This is all well and good. But it’s not the cheapest trust badge option. It’s worth buying, however, if the ROI is justifiable.

About Norton Trust Badge

• The Norton trust badge used to say, Powered by Symantec. Since it was acquired by Digicert in 2017, the badge now bears the Digicert name.

• Comes with up to $1.75 million warranty. This means that if your company incurs a financial loss because of a certificate failure, you’re covered by this warranty.
• You have 5 different choices as shown in the image below. If you’re still confused about which one to use for your site, click here for Symantec’s “Help me choose” guide

To get the Norton trust badge, do this:

1. Buy the Digicert TLS/SSL certificate here.
2. Install the Norton seal on your site. Click here for installation instructions

Mcafee Trust Badges

GoinFlow in their trust badge research found that McAfee Secure increases conversions. They’ve consistently found that the absence of a McAfee badge decreases conversions and its’ presence increases it.

Here’s a chart of one of the sites they tested it on.

Source

The McAfee secure trust badge is free for the first 500 visitors of your site. After that, you will need to upgrade to the McAfee Secure Certification Pro.

Here’s what you get with a McAfee Pro certification

Where and how to get it:

• Click Here to register and get your first 500 visitors/month free.
• Note that the cost of a McAfee certification depends on the number of site visitors per month. Click here to know how much it costs for your website.

SSL Secure Site Seal

If you don’t have an SSL security yet, do it now. Many hosting companies offer this free so there’s no reason for you not to have it.

Depending on which SSL certificate you have, you’ll be entitled to put a site seal from that company online.

These seals certify your website’s SSL security and ensure that transactions are all encrypted. There are a few of these online. Check with your hosting company to see if they offer SSL protection with hosting for your own website.

Here are some SSL certificate providers you might want to consider buying from.

Get Comodo Site Seal & Trust Badge

1. Buy the Comodo site seal here. The certificate starts at $88.
2. Go to this page and copy the code you need to add the seal to your site.

Trustlock SSL Verified Secure Trust Badge

Trustlock has three different site badges. You can buy them separately depending on your needs but you can also buy all three for $20/month

Each badge costs $9. Choose from either a business verification, privacy safe verification or an SSL secure verification.

Trustlock has a 30-day money back guarantee. If you don’t increase sales within 30 days, you get your money back.

Where and how to get it:

• Choose the best plan for your site here.
• Install the trust badge on your website.

Use Payment gateways logos as website trust seals on your ecommerce store

If you accept payments on your online store, then having the logo of the payment gateway you use is also a legitimate trust badge that increases trust.

They’re cost-effective and quicker to add to your online store.

Using Paypal badges to increase trust with online shoppers

One of the most recognized payment gateways, the Paypal certified logo is the most recognizable and trusted brand.

In fact, in ConversionXL’s study on trust seals, Paypal came out to be the most trusted brand for online payments making it a highly trusted safe checkout badge. You should display this on the cart or checkout page or your ecommerce sites to boost online purchases.

Source

• Get the source code for Paypal logos here.

Stripe Trust Badges

If you accept Stripe payments, display the Powered by Stripe badge on your cart and checkout pages to instill trust and reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Here’s where you get the logo kit.

Accepted Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can also include logos of credit cards you accept.

Whenever you use these logos, take note that there are brand guidelines on how to properly use them.

• Mastercard: View the guidelines and download logo here
• Visa: Guidelines and logo here
• Free Credit card logos to go with your site’s theme
  • 24 Vector Icons for different payment methods from Worldpay to Skrill.
  • Credit Card logo generator

Other Types of Trust Badges

Trust badges are not just limited to SSL and other secure site certifications. But you can also increase trust by showing visitors that they have nothing to lose if they buy from you.

How do you do this?

By reassuring them with these types of trust badges:

• Return guarantees trust badges

  Shopping online can be intimidating, but with return guarantee badges prominently displayed on retailers’ and e-commerce sites’ pages, customers are reassured that their satisfaction is guaranteed. These trust badges ensures shoppers the retailer’s commitment to providing a satisfactory experience; if they’re not satisfied – no problem! They may simply take advantage of assured returns offered by these businesses.

• Easy product returns trust badges

  Trust badges serve as an assurance to customers that buying from a retailer or e-commerce site is worry-free. They give shoppers the confidence of knowing they can return products without any issues, should there ever be a need for it. This reassurance helps build trust and encourages customer loyalty by increasing their likelihood of making purchases – with no added stress around product returns! Plus, contact info and links are included just in case extra help or advice is needed along the way.

• Free Shipping badges

  Free shipping trust badges serve as a powerful enticement for customers to purchase from your online store. These labels and visuals can be displayed on website homepages, product pages, or checkout screens – reminding consumers that no additional charges will apply when they place an order. Not only does this encourage shoppers to make the final decision quicker; but it also reduces cart abandonment rates significantly by removing one of the key factors contributing to second-guessing their purchases: extra fees like shipping costs!

• Money back guarantee badge

  Customers want to feel secure when making a purchase, and money back guarantee badges provide just that.

  Retailers or ecommerce sites can display these visual cues on their website, product page, or checkout page – reassuring customers shopping with them of the option for a full refund should they not be satisfied with the product upon delivery.

  These trustworthiness-building symbols are designed to give shoppers peace of mind knowing that there is an explicit policy in place offering returns within reason; ultimately allowing consumers more confidence as they complete their transaction.

• Accepted Payment badges

  Payment badges are important components of any retail or e-commerce website, allowing customers to quickly and easily identify which accepted payment badges are availabls. These informative visual elements showcase recognizable logos like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and more – giving shoppers the convenient confidence that they will have multiple options available to them when checking out. Ultimately increasing customer satisfaction whilst boosting potential sales for retailers.

• Checkout page trust badges

  Strengthen your customers’ sense of security with trust badges prominently displayed on the checkout page. Show that you take their privacy seriously with a secure checkout badge, offer reassurance through money-back guarantee badges and payment acceptance badging; even independent certifications to endorse your eCommerce site’s safety and reliability – all backed up by customer service contact information for further anecdotal support!

• Accredited business trust badges

  Earn customers’ trust and increase conversions with accredited business badges. As an indicator of a retailer or e-commerce site’s legitimacy, these labels help build customer confidence in online businesses by showcasing that they have been independently verified as trustworthy through organizations such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Displayed prominently on websites, product pages, or checkout pages – featuring both accrediting organization logos and easy links to view each business’s profile – it is clear why having one of these trusted seals inspires long-term loyalty from shoppers all over the world.

• Safe Checkout badges

  Customers can be confident that their personal and financial information is protected when they make a purchase from your e-commerce site, thanks to encryption technology enabled by Safe Checkout Badges. These badges build trust with customers by providing visual reminders such as secure padlock icons or “https” in the website URL, sometimes including certifications like McAfee Secure or Norton Secured for added assurance of security measures taken at checkout.

• Stripe logos

  Displaying Stripe logos on an online store can ensure customers that their purchase experience will be safe, secure, and streamlined. With its renowned brand recognition in the payment industry and commitment to PCI compliance measures, using Stripe demonstrates a strong focus on customer satisfaction with reliable security assurance & user-friendly features.

• Best price guarantee trust badges

  Customers can enjoy confidence-boosting savings when shopping at stores offering a Best Price Guarantee Trust Badge. This trust badge is an assurance that buyers will receive the best deal possible, allowing them to make purchase decisions with increased security and peace of mind – resulting in boosted revenue for retailers looking to maximize customer satisfaction!

  With a best price guarantee, customers are empowered to make informed shopping decisions with the confidence that their needs will be met. This can lead to increased sales for stores and repeat business from loyal customers who know they’re valued by an establishment willing to match prices elsewhere.

  Trust badges are invaluable for businesses, creating a sense of security and encouraging customer loyalty. By communicating the best price guarantee to customers, companies can build trust while increasing their likelihood of making a sale.

Here are some trust badges you can use for these.

Whatever design or color you want, be it black and white trust badges or gray trust badges, you’ll find the image or vector you need in one of these three sites.

120+ Badges from Trustlock

Trustlock has a lot of free downloadable trust badges that you can use on your sites.

You can use these trust badges for free with a Trustlock subscription. If you don’t have a subscription, they require a link back.

Convertful Trust Badges

Convertful offers 60 free trust badges. You’ll need to give them your email and subscribe to their marketing materials. Then you can download their free trust badges for personal and commercial use. The trust badges are on a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Freepik Money Back Guarantee Badges

Choose the free trust badge that’s perfect for your website’s theme with the many vector icons available from Freepik.

You can use Freepik graphics for free with attribution. But with a premium subscription at $9.99/month, you can use them freely on all your commercial projects.

Source

Resources: Adding Trust Badges to Your Site

Here are some tutorials to help you add trust badges to your site. This one’s for Shopify and WordPress

How to add trust badges to Shopify

The easiest way to add a trust badge to Shopify is by using an App. Here’s how it works:

As you can see, the Free trust badge by Hektor Commerce gives you a good start.

The basic free trust badges are sufficient but if you want extra features like custom css and easy drag and drop features, it will cost you $9.99/month.

A more advanced method to add a trust badge to your Shopify store is by tweaking your theme’s code.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to do that.

1. First, you will need to have the trust badges you need for the site such as the payment gateway or SSL certificate icons in one image.
2. Then go to your Shopify store and upload the trust badge image files: Settings>files
3. Now comes the tricky bit. If you’re not familiar with code, I suggest hiring a Shopify expert to add it in.
   1. Click Store on the menu.
   2. Looking at your current theme, click actions >edit code
   3. Open the Product template file. Sections>Product template
   4. Find the words Add to Cart in that code. Use Control+F/Command+F to quickly find it.
   5. Add in the trust badge image URL under the Add to cart button
4. Click Save

Shopify resources

• Adding payment icons in your footer
• Adding a Shopify security badge

How to add WordPress Trust badges

Like a lot of things with WordPress, using a plugin is the quickest and easiest way to add trust badges. But you can also easily add it to the functions.php file.

Here’s the code to help you add trust badges below the Add to cart button.

Resources:

• McAfee secure plugin for WordPress
• Get your Norton secure script here.

Conclusion

So there you have it.

Everything you need to know to put trust badges on your site.

But as well as putting this into action, bear in mind that a trust badge is only one of the ways to increase trust in your site.

If you really want to increase conversions, don’t solely depend on a trust badge to magically do the hard work. You’ll also need to sell the perfect product to the right people.

And as usual, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, always test it. You never know which trust badges your target customers respond to best.

So.

You’ve managed to build an amazing operations and SEO team for your website portfolio.

All your main SEO keywords are on the front page or inside the top 3.

You take websites to fully-fledged businesses in under a year.

You know with certainty that you can increase any website’s revenue month after month without fail.

But.

Your starting to see diminishing returns for your SEO and content producing efforts.

This is the point where I tell you:

“There is a way out of this pickle you’re in.”

I know that deep down you know this. Or else, you wouldn’t be reading this blog.

But, you’ve been putting it aside.

Today is the day I give you permission to step out of the dark and step into the wonderful world of conversion rate optimization.

I’ll show you how we work with website investment firms.

I’ll show you how we help them increase the revenue potential of their portfolio of websites.

And, as an example, I’ll show you the process we followed to increase the revenue for three of sites in different niches.

You will see what a wonderful marriage SEO and CRO is.

After reading this post, you’ll you’ll start to optimize your sites and reap all the benefits that come with it.

Let’s jump right in and let me introduce you to yellowHEAD, a website investment company that we have been working with for the last couple of years.

Table of Contents

• About yellowHEAD
• Where does Convertica fit into this?
• Site 1: Hobby niche
• Site 2: Sports niche
• Site 3: Parenting niche
• What can you learn from these 3 sites?
• Can you see what I’m getting at here?
• Conclusion

========================

Who is yellowHEAD?

yellowHEAD is a team of digital marketing experts that provide holistic marketing solutions. They perform a host of digital marketing services from media buying to SEO. They also manage web property investment portfolios.

We’ve worked with them on many sites.

Today, let me use as examples just three of the sites they’ve acquired that we worked with.

A few simple CRO tweaks and we increased revenue for their investors in a short period of time.

Where does Convertica fit into this?

We work with website investment firms in two ways.

First, we evaluate the potential of a site they want to acquire. 

We assess how spot-on the site’s conversion optimization is.

Why? Because when a site has had minimal CRO, you know there’s a lot of growth possibilities.

Secondly, once they have bought a site, we go in to optimize the conversion for quick wins and longer-term revenue increases. 

Because we already have systems and processes in place, we can help them achieve their monetary goals in a quicker manner than waiting for SEO to kick in.

Here’s how we increased revenue for three of their websites in different niches.

Website 1: Site in the hobby niche and quick wins

If you’re familiar with Convertica, you know we like quick wins.

And that always starts with a site audit.

It doesn’t matter the niche or the size of the property. A site audit sees to it that you’re not just pulling rabbits out of thin air when you test. But that you have a solid reason for any optimization you take on. This way you maximize the test’s success potential.

The first thing we do is investigate elements above the fold.

Over 80% of your visitors will only see this section. So work on it first.

This hobby site already had tables on money pages.

That’s great!

However, it lacked some clarity. It didn’t give any compelling information to convince the visitor to click the link.

Listen:

Just having a comparison table is not enough.

You need to sell that link!

You can do this by adding a features and benefits column, for example. Or information on which product is best suited for a particular demographic.

Because we’ve done hundreds of comparison tables before, we have become so good at deciding what type of table fits the niche and the site’s theme.

Which was the case with this one.

So upon getting instructions to optimize the table, our developers went to work to design a suitable one for both mobile and desktop.

And then we put it to the test:

And guess the results of this optimization after 3 weeks?

We increased AD fees by 19.2% against the original design.

Think about that for a second.

In 3 weeks, our new comparison table made 19.2% more than the old design.

Not a bad way to get your client’s investment off the ground, huh?

And that’s in less than a month.

How long would it take for your SEO efforts to work and increase your site’s revenue by that much?

A lot longer, I would guess?

And yet with CRO, all you have to do is add a properly designed comparison table.

Just a few tweaks, and you increase the value of the site in less than a month!

What to test next? That’s the question

A CRO’s job is never done. We don’t rest on our laurels.

We keep testing to get the conversion rates even better.

In this case, we had a decision to make. We could either refine the test on the comparison table or test another element.

We decided to do the latter.

We wanted to see if adding a featured section above the fold would increase conversions. So for our next A/B test, this was what we did.

The featured section looked like this:

And four weeks later?

Boom.

An increase in ad fees for 5 of the ten pages tested. In these situations, we roll out the winning tests live to the website. For the losing test pages, or pages the under perform, we come up with a new hypothesis, and test again.

This is why split testing is so important.

But we were not done yet.

With two more months to work on the site, we decided to optimize the review section of the money pages.

We changed the copy and optimized the call to action button.

Our UX developers quickly went to work and we deployed the new design on the 18th of March.

We tested this on 11 pages.

After 4 weeks, there was a significant increase in click through rates on 4 of the 11 pages.

That’s right. Just for 4 pages.

Listen to me right now. This is important.

This will happen a lot in your CRO tests.

Some CRO changes will work on some pages on your site while not on others.

That’s why best practices don’t always work.

Different pages on the same site can vary widely in conversions.

Just think what that means for sites that are in completely different niches!

The point?

You can’t just copy one’s site success.

Do your own tests.

Adding a sticky footer

So far, we had optimized the comparison table, the featured section and the review section.

For the last campaign, we put to test a sticky floating footer bar.

This footer is anchored to the comparison table. But it appears only after scrolling past it.

You’d think that with the many tests we did on these pages, we couldn’t increase conversions even more.

But on the contrary, this humble sticky footer increased the conversions on 3 of the 6 pages we tested.

This meant an extra increase of +65.0% in orders, and +220.9% in ad fees.

Website 2: Site in the sports niche

Let’s move on to the second site. This one is in the sports niche.

This 4-month campaign started in September 2018 and ended on January 2019.

As usual, we first thought about optimizing this site’s comparison table.

But after our initial audit, we agreed that the tables were already well-optimized both on desktop and mobile.

Considering this, we thought we could make more impact on revenue by testing a different element.

So for the first test, we decided to optimize the featured section on top of the page.

The first test

We started the first test on the 11th of September. By the 27th, we saw some good increases on clicks and orders.

That was a very quick win.

So far so good.

Time to refine the test.

As we moved on to the next test, we decided to keep working on the featured section.

To optimize it, we looked more into the Amazon sales data.

This is key if you want to make more money from Amazon affiliates sales.

See.

It’s not just your website that matters in this equation. You also need to be tactical about which product you promote.

So off we went to dig into Amazon sales data. We were on a quest to find the perfect product to feature. This means finding a more expensive item or one that converts well.

For this test, we added a featured section to highlight a more expensive product.

This was what it looked like.

The time we spent looking into the sales data proved to be very good for conversions.

There was an overall increase in clicks and orders for the pages we tested.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

We were getting great results and we were pretty chuffed.

After this, we wanted to keep doing more tests. But unfortunately we couldn’t.

This is a seasonal site. We had to pause all tests.

We proceeded to add the expensive product version to the featured section. And stopped testing.

We will start it again next time the season comes around.

Website 3: Site in the parenting niche

By the time we started working on this site, we had done CRO on many of yellowHEAD’s portfolio of sites.

They were already familiar with our process and knew what to expect from us. This made things easier and quicker. We didn’t have to explain every single reason behind the changes we made. And they trusted our process to bring the results they wanted.

As Doron from yellowHEAD says,

“We like working with Convertica because they have a deep understanding of customer psychology. This means we are able to provide a better more holistic experience to our readers. They don’t only improve conversion rates. They also work on improving the site’s overall experience. This effectively benefits our SEO efforts.”

So anyway, with this site, we started by testing the comparison tables for the top 10 pages. We coded a design that was well-suited to their theme. The goal was to increase clicks and sales.

After a month of testing, we saw an increase in clicks for almost all of the pages.

At which time the client requested us to roll-out the changes right away. So we stopped testing and continued to roll-out the table design to all the pages.

This allowed us to move on with the next test right away.

No matter how many times you do CRO, sometimes, your hypothesis will be wrong

We’d done other parenting sites before. So when we started the second test, we were confident we would increase conversions.

For the next test, we optimized the comparison table again.

Yes. That one. The one in the first test that was already converting well.

To optimize it further, we added a “Read Review” link which was anchored to the review section and a sticky footer with a CTA anchored to the table.

It flopped.

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

As you can see, our first table design did better against our second one. Also, for the pages with an increase in conversions, this wasn’t consistent for mobile and desktop.

So we decided not to roll out the second design.

And instead, we ate humble pie.

It’s one that happens when you do CRO tests day in and day out.

Sometimes, no matter how many times you’ve done conversion optimization, you still don’t know how it’s going to turn out. It’s only through testing that you’ll know if something works or not.

But let’s look at the bright side. 

It wasn’t a complete fail. 

We had some data to work with to start our next test.

Moving forward, on the 25th of June, we added the “At A Glance” section. For this test, we only wanted to test click through rates.

After less than a month, this increased overall click-through rates on mobile by 25.3% and by 9.1% on desktop.

And on that high, the campaign for this site ended.

So what can you learn from these three sites?

Here’s what:

Follow the system and it will reward you.

This is how we get things done in Convertica.

And I suggest you do the same when you do CRO on your sites.

Stick to the basics, especially at the start of a campaign. Then keep testing and refining.

Doing this, it’s inevitable that the site’s income will increase.

Can you see what I’m getting at here? Can you see the light now?

No. CRO is not easy.

And you’ll need processes and systems in place to get things in gear.

But.

Look at the revenue increase it generates in a short period of time.

I’m not saying this just because I run Convertica.

I’m saying it because numbers don’t lie. 

Here’s what I mean:

Let’s say you’ve got two sites. On one, you work only on increasing traffic and manage a 10 percent increase each month. On the other, you work on both increasing traffic and optimizing conversion. Both traffic and conversion rates increase by 10 percent monthly.

Notice how adding CRO into the mix increases revenue by 3x more than without it.

This is how your site can grow in leaps and bounds.

SEO is great. Having lots of traffic is a dream. But mix that with a CRO campaign run by a highly-experienced team and you’ve got the keys to the kingdom in your hand (insert evil laugh!).

You can hire us to do it for you. Or you can do it yourself in-house. It doesn’t matter.

What I’m saying is if you want to maximize return on investment, it’s sacrilege to ignore CRO.

Conclusion

I hope this has given you valuable insights into how you can grow your business. You’re in the right position to do this now. You just need the right mindset to approach it and the right people to work with.

And if you’re a website property management firm and you want a team of CRO experts to collaborate with, get in touch. Let’s see if we’re a good fit

———————————-

Want to read a section of this article again? Click below:

• About yellowHEAD
• Where does Convertica fit into this?
• Site 1: hobby niche
• Site 2: sports niche
• Site 3: parenting niche
• What can you learn from these 3 sites?
• Can you see what I’m getting at here?
• Conclusion

User Experience (UX) has grown increasingly important over the years for getting the best out of your website.

On the internet, where attention spans are lower than ever. Where there’s more competition, constantly raising the bar. You need to be at the top of your game.

It’s not only marketers and designers that have noticed this….

Companies such as Google have increasingly implemented User Experience factors into their algorithms.

In fact, we know that page speed has been a verified ranking factor since July 2018 on Mobile devices.

And Google describes some of the speed factors they really care about in the Chrome User Experience Report.

Reports on page load times have shown that web pages that take longer than a second to load cause a significant number of users to leave the page, and that this could cost retailers such as Amazon $1.6 billion in sales.

It’s clear that there is a lot of crossover between Search Engine Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization…

However, page speed and load times aren’t all there is to User Experience. And this isn’t the only way the two interplay.

Five UX Considerations For Your CRO & SEO

5. Accessibility

Don’t scoff. Accessibility is important, and while it may only play a small factor in both your rankings and conversions it does make a difference.

Things like alt tags, title attributes on navigational links, and making sure that your site is ARIA compliant, are all big parts of the puzzle here.

Thankfully today most modern browsers automatically convert HTML5 elements into their ARIA attributes.

4. Size & Color Contrast Of Text

This one is something that people regularly get wrong on their sites. In some extreme cases, you’ll even get warnings for these items in Google Search Console.

In the cases of most websites though, they’re simply getting on-page visual hierarchy wrong. It can make the entire article look like a giant wall of text.

Unappealing pages that are difficult to digest make people leave. This then affects things like Bounce Rate, Dwell Time and inevitably your actual conversion rate!

You should use size and contrast to help break up your content and establish hierarchy. This then helps direct the flow of the user, and hopefully helps guide them to a conversion.

It also helps keep people on the page, and engaged with your content. Which is something that we are seeing become increasingly important in terms of SEO.

A good font-size ratio that works for most designers is the 3:4 ratio:

Font-size in pixels: 9, 12, 16, 21, 28, 37, 50, 67 etc.

This refers to the typographic scale, which is something that nearly all good designers use. Many people prefer the 3:4 ratio, while others prefer different scales.

I prefer to use the 3:4 ratio, as I feel that it is best for optimal legibility.

I start with the font-size of 16px, because this is the default in your average person’s browser.

What you then do is apply whichever ratio scale you want to use, and you’ll get 9, 12, 16, 21 etc (if you use the scale provided) or something else depending on what you use.

While you don’t have to use all of these font-sizes on your site, you will likely want to use most of them for various heading sizes and so on.

Recommended: You can use type-scale.com to look at various scale ratios and do the calculations automatically.

3.) Use Of Images

This one plays into everything we’ve talked about so far….

Not only are images usually the biggest resource on your page in terms of file size, which can affect speed a lot.

By compressing and converting your images you can decrease the total size of an image by around 90%.

But images are also one of the best ways to break up the flow of a page, capturing the eye and generating interest in surrounding pieces of content.

In terms of accessibility, you need to know how to markup your images correctly so that visually impaired users can use screen readers to understand the images properly.

2.) Simplification

Simplification is the process of reducing a website to its bare essentials.

It’s been one of the secrets to many of my SEO successes. It has also been a vital concept to me as a designer, both before I got into marketing several years ago, and even recently when I won an award for User Experience & User Interface for the design of my companies site.

In terms of SEO I have often referred to this as link sculpting. A part of this process always involves the removal of unessential links from my sites.

As a designer this was the norm, and spotting improvements in rankings while doing this became the norm.

It’s also been my experience that I often notice conversion rate increases when doing this.

A study on the psychology choice from Columbia U & Stanford U in 2000, showed that too many choices can actually lead to less purchases of jam!

Analysis paralysis, decision fatigue play a big part in this.

So providing less links, by simplifying your design can actually be a big plus for rankings and conversions.

1.) Contagion Heuristic

The Contagion Heuristic is a psychological judgemental shortcut that leads people to avoid things they’ve had bad experiences with before. Often subconsciously.

This is my #1 User Experience consideration for people to take away from this article…

If someone has a bad experience on your site, odds are they won’t be coming back. It doesn’t matter whether they see you for another result in future, they’ll avoid you even on a sub-conscious level.

We are seeing Google shifting towards more branded results in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages). Displaying brand favicons, and plenty more.

I know from my own testing that CTR (Click-Through-Rates) really can improve your rankings – or tank them if people aren’t clicking-through to your site.

If you’re not getting returning traffic from someone due to their bad experience in the past, then every single usability and user experience factor in play becomes more important…

You can’t convert anyone without traffic.

It’s hard to estimate the cost of this to brands, but it almost certainly plays into things like word of mouth etc.

Conclusion

Many of the things you do on your site for better User Experience are inextricably linked with both your SEO and CRO results.

Incorporating SEO and CRO services into your digital marketing strategy can help you identify areas of your site that need improvement and prioritize resources accordingly. 

Finally, while this is important already it’s only going to get more important over time as competition increases, traffic decreases and search engines focus more on user engagement factors in their ranking algorithms.

About the author:

Daniel Cuttridge, an SEO veteran and front-end developer, is the founder of Pathtorch.com a website intelligence startup, offering technical audits and more. He is also the founder of On-Page Academy, a free facebook group and learning community for SEOs.

Your target customer lands on your site overwhelmed with many concerns.

He’s plagued with distractions.

A crying toddler. Hard day at work. Hangover. Slow computer. Dog demanding a walk.

Because of this, he has limited energy to spend on your site.

Psychologists call this cognitive load.

And if you want to master conversion rate optimization, it will benefit you to know all about it.

Factor it into every CRO campaign and your customers will be more receptive to your offers.

Today, you will learn about:

• What is cognitive load?
• What does cognitive load have to do with conversion rate optimization
  • Make web forms a breeze by doing this
  • Take advantage of what your customer already knows and expects to see
  • Limit options already
  • Reduce cognitive load at the point of purchase
• Conclusion: What are you waiting for?

What Is Cognitive Load?

Wikipedia defines cognitive load as the used amount of working memory resources.

I like to think of it as how much of your brain is being used at any given time.

It’s an amazing part of your mental construct that draws from what you already know based on past experiences and what you’re dealing with in the present.

It influences what you learn, how you react to situations and how you make decisions daily.

But there’s one small catch:

Our cognitive load has a limit. Every little thing you drop on it adds to the load.

The more work you give it, the more processing it has to do. If you swamp it with tasks, it slows down or clams up.

It’s like a computer. The more programs you open, the slower it becomes.

And sometimes, it’s like a circuit breaker. Give it a surge of electricity, and it shuts everything else down completely.

But the question is —

What does cognitive load have to do with your conversion rates?

Quick. Without using a calculator.

What’s 38747532 divided by 237.

I’m waiting….

Still waiting…

Ok. Who am I kidding? You’re not doing it, are you?

But indulge me for a moment.

What went through your head when I asked you to do the Mathematical equation?

Did you think: “Why should I do it?”, “Why bother?”, “No way I’m doing this!”?

Did you feel like it was unnecessary and a waste of time?

Hold on to that feeling.

Got it?

That feeling —

…is how visitors to your website feel when you make them do more work than necessary.

…it’s how they feel when they arrive hoping for one thing but reading something else.

…it’s how they feel when you make it difficult for them to choose something.

Why?

Because when they have to figure things out themselves, you’re adding to their cognitive load.

And what happens when you give the brain too much information for it to process?

Oh. Only a lot of things that you don’t want your customer to feel.

He gets frustrated

You may not be asking him to do a Mathematical equation. But something like a block of text without white space, images or headings adds to cognitive load.

This means he’ll struggle to scan the page. He now has to work to find what interests him on that page. This extra workload slows his brain down. And nobody’s got time for that. So he leaves as quickly as he arrives.

He postpones the decision for another time

We love having a lot of choice. But time and time again, research shows that this only stops us from picking an option.

Why? Cognitive load.

With a lot more choice, our brain has to do more mental analysis to find which option is the best. We get paralyzed and postpone the decision for another day when we’ve “given it some more thought.”

And do you think this visitor who can’t make up his mind will come back? Doubt it. He’ll probably just go to another site that makes his job easier.

The person trusts you less

A study on the effects of cognitive load on trusting behavior shows that the more cognitive load a person has, the less trusting he is.

And you know how important trust is online. When there’s trust, your customer is more willing to give you his time (and his money).

If there’s little trust, he’s less willing to do what you want him to do. So you can forget getting him to click that buy button.

So what do you do instead? 

How do you reduce cognitive load so you don’t overburden your visitor’s mental processes?

Make it easy.

Think about what he needs to know when he lands on your site and give it to him.

As Steve Krug says don’t make him think. Make every page of your site intuitive so that your visitor gets it right away without even thinking about it.

What this means is this:

Once your customer starts to ask questions like:

• I wonder how long delivery takes?
• If I click this button will they charge me right away?
• Which of these buttons take me away from this page?

Then you’re adding to his cognitive load.

It’s your job to think about the possible questions and fears your customer has.

Because when you know this, you build a page that already has the answers to these questions and assurance for his fears. So he never has to wonder and think about them.

The truth of the matter is that it’s impossible to aim for zero cognitive load. But you can keep it at a level that’s tolerable.

How do you do this?

Here’s how:

1. Make web forms a breeze by doing this

We all hate filling out forms.

Writing the same information that we’ve done so many times before feels like a sheer waste of time.

How many times have you not purchased something you liked or stopped sending an inquiry because the form looked too daunting?

Your site visitor is no different.

So make it easy for him.

Check this out:

Source

This form requires a person to recall information.

Now see the changes that we made.

This new form lessens the cognitive load. This is easier on the brain. All he has to do is click. He doesn’t have to do the taxing task of digging through his memory to recall something. And then type it.

Do you know what else makes this form a breeze?

The sequence map.

This gives the person a bird’s eye view of exactly where he is in the process. He doesn’t have to think and wonder “How much longer do I have to do this?”

Just by making these small changes was very powerful in this campaign. It was so effective that it increased conversions on Empire Flipper’s lead capture page by 40.16% in two weeks!

Pretty cool, huh?

That’s what you can expect when you factor in cognitive load when designing your website forms.

2. Take advantage of what your customer already knows and expects to see

“We must understand that our goal is not simply to give prospects more options or products. But to LEAD them to the one option that is most relevant, important and urgent to them.” – Austin McCraw –

Have you ever gone to your favorite store, gone straight to the aisle where you know the bacon is (or tofu for you vegetarians!) and found it no longer there?

You realized instantly that they’ve changed their arrangement once again.

You thought this was an in and out job. Uh uh. Not today.

So you get annoyed. You search around for a bit. You begin to get frazzled. If you really need the bacon, you might keep looking with steam coming out of your ears. If you’re in the mood to talk to somebody, you might gingerly approach a staff (customer support) for directions.

But then again.

You might also decide it’s not worth the hassle and leave.

This is what happens when you break a person’s expectation of how something is supposed to pan out.

This is what happens when you force him to learn something new to perform a task.

The fact of the matter is your customer already has a mental model of how things “should” be based on past experiences.

For example,

…he expects a holiday booking site to have a search bar for place, dates and number of people.

…he knows what a link looks like.

…he knows where to go for navigation.

And your job is simple.

Stick to things he already knows.

That’s your shortcut to making it easy for your customers.

Innovation is good. But often when what you want is a conversion, you stick to what your visitors already know.

Then they don’t have to think.

They know exactly what to do. And they’re not stuck on the page wondering,

“Hmmm… how do I buy this thing?”

You might think that’s basic marketing strategy. But even the internet’s eCommerce giant makes this mistake.

This is the page where you’re about to click pay.

And yet, they make it difficult for the person to do that.

When my friend did this, it took him a few seconds to find the other link that takes him to the sale.

He didn’t want to subscribe to Amazon Prime.

He just wanted to pay.

And what’s your preconceived idea of what a pay button looks like?

A button!

But there’s only one button on this page and it’s not the one he wants (I know they’re doing this to push Amazon Prime subscriptions but it’s bad UX practice, methinks!)

You could almost hear his brain screaming, “I don’t want a freakin’ subscription! Where the f*@k is the buy button?”

Now, this is Amazon. A buyer might have a higher level of tolerance for it. And he might work a little longer to find that button.

But if you don’t have the same brand power, you can be certain that your visitor will leave before he finds the link that seals the deal.

My point is this:

It’s easy to forget your customer when you build your website pages.

Sometimes, we think that because we spend so much time poring over every single thing on our product pages, our customers will do the same.

That is not the case. A lot of people don’t convert because their expectations were not met. And they were left to figure things out by themselves.

As Steve Jobs used to instruct his designers every day:

“See your product through the eyes of the new customer. The one that has fears and possible frustrations and hopeful exhilaration that their new technology product could work straight away for them…So make it faster, easier and seamless for the new customer.” 

Your customer already has a mental model of what the experience is going to be based on past experience.

Take advantage of that.

3. Limit options already

I know you know this. I’ve said it so many times before.

But.

Why do you continue to cram your comparison tables with so many products? Why do you put a newsletter subscription on your product page? Why oh why do you insist on using sidebars on pages where your goal is to get some leads?

These are common mistakes. And they affect your conversions.

Hicks Law states, “The more stimuli (choices) users face, the longer it will take them to make a decision.”

And when it takes a long time, the person becomes less confident with his choice. So what does he do? He abandons the task.

So how can you design your page to limit choice?

Here’s how:

• When there are multiple choices on a product page, highlight the most popular one.
• Allow users to sort or filter available options
• Know the one goal of every page on your site and be intentional with the way you direct your customer to that goal
• Make a default choice in search results or web forms. For example, if 80% of users are from the US, use that as a default country when filling out forms. Or if navy blue is the most popular color, default the search results to show that shirt. As Paul Boag says, “Good defaults can reduce cognitive load on users, while not taking away the choices available to them. That is a powerful tool for overcoming choice paralysis.

4. Reduce cognitive load at the point of purchase

Want to know a Convertica SOP?

When we first work on a site, we almost always work on the part of the page where the buying decision is about to be made.

This could be the comparison table for affiliate sites.

The Add to cart section for eCommerce sites.

Or the form for lead generation.

You know why?

Because on many sites, these page elements present too much unnecessary friction for the customer.

Which means it imposes a lot of cognitive load.

Let’s say you’ve convinced the customer that yours is the right product for his needs.

Then he gets to that crucial part of the page where he’s about to sign on the dotted line, so to speak.

He’s almost there. But then he stops. And hesitates.

If you were sitting next to him you could ask him what the problem was and guide him through it.

But you can’t. For obvious reasons.

Now the burden is on your customer to figure out why he hesitated.

But here’s the thing.

He doesn’t have to hesitate.

It doesn’t have to come to that.

There are many things you can do to steer your visitor away from this land of hesitation.

There are precautions you can take. So that his questions are answered before he asks them. So that he doesn’t doubt his decision. So that he doesn’t end up being distracted by a Reddit post, breaking news or cute animal videos.

Distractions. Remember? You’re always competing with one.

So how do you get your visitor to click that buy now button and slide down the funnel to complete the purchase?

Simple.

Lessen the cognitive load to tip the odds in your favor. Minimize friction. Don’t just convince him that this is the product he needs. But also make it clear that he has to buy it now. And that your site is the right place to buy it from.

Here are some things you can do to make sure this happens.

• Add as much social proof as possible
• Make intuitive call to actions
• Add trust signals such as return guarantees, customer recommendations and company memberships

So what are you waiting for?

Now that you know all about cognitive load, I have a challenge for you.

Go to a page on your site. Preferably the one that brings in the most money.

Now go through it as if you’d never seen it before.

Imagine you’re a first-time visitor with a problem that you want solved.

You also have a lot of other things on your mind.

As you go through the page, list down the questions that pop in your head.

List down any doubts or uncomfortable feelings you may have as you scroll down the page.

What’s stopping you from clicking the buy button?

Finished?

Now redo your page to address those fears.

And when your conversions go up, come back here to tell me all about it!

=====================

Want to reread the article? Here are the quick links to each section

• What is cognitive load?
• What does cognitive load have to do with conversion rate optimization
  • Make web forms a breeze by doing this
  • Take advantage of what your customer already knows and expects to see
  • Limit options already
  • Reduce cognitive load at the point of purchase
• Conclusion: What are you waiting for?

Get this:Trust is one of the most powerful elements of your online business.

Get people to trust you and conversions will skyrocket.

If they trust you, they’ll listen to every word you say.

If they trust you, they’ll buy what you sell.

If they trust you, they’ll tell others about your brand.

But trust is not an easy thing to build online. People tend to reserve their trust for only a chosen few.

And who can blame them?

Without the luxury of physical interaction, it’s not easy to gauge if a business is worthy of one’s trust.

So how do you get past this technological barrier?

Well, there are many things you can do.

But today, let’s talk about an effective Psychological technique that can do wonders for getting people to trust you and your business.

And the good news?

You don’t have to force them to do it.

You don’t have to drag them shouting and screaming towards your purchase button.

In fact, when you use this technique, people will buy from you with a smile of satisfaction on their faces.

“What is this technique?” you ask.

======Quick Links=======================

• Intro
• What is Foot-in-the-door Technique?
• Foot-in-the-door technique examples
• Why does FITD work?
• A word of caution
• Conclusion

========================================

Let me introduce you to the foot-in-the-door technique (FITD)

Here’s a lesson for you, young ones.

Not a long time ago, salesmen used to go door-to-door to hawk their goods. One of the things they would do was to put one foot in the door to stop people from shutting it on them.

This is the inspiration for the foot-in-the-door technique.

Thankfully, you don’t have to be as obnoxious as stopping a person from shutting his own door when using it online.

This is how it works:

You first make a small request. Make it something easy to agree to.

It shouldn’t need a lot of mental or physical investment from the person.

If they agree to it, you can then later ask for a bigger request.

The FITD technique says that when you approach customers this way, they’re more inclined to agree to the bigger request than if you didn’t make the small request first.

This Psychological phenomenon was first studied by Freedman & Fraser in 1966.

Here’s what they did.

In a small town in Palo Alto California, researchers knocked on homeowners’ houses and asked to put a big billboard on their front yard with a message for drivers to drive safely. Only 17% of homeowners said yes.

They then did the same experiment with an improved strategy. First, they asked the homeowners to stick a small 3-inch sticker on their window with the same message. But here’s the kicker. A week later, they returned to the same houses. This time, they asked if they could stick the bigger billboard on their front yard.

Guess how many agreed to it?

76%!

A small similar request first, followed by the bigger ask increased the conversions of the latter by more than 400%.

And you might think that’s an isolated case.

But you see this used in a lot of situations in our daily lives.

Think about the food samples in supermarkets to get you to buy the whole leg of ham!

Think about the people who volunteer first intending to get a permanent job in the future.

Think about a love affair that starts at first base to get to fourth base! 😛

It’s so prevalent in our daily lives that it will serve you well not only as an internet marketer but also as a parent, a husband/wife or a friend.

Foot-in-the-door technique examples: applying it online

1. Convertica’s form to get leads

Let’s start with one that we use on the Convertica site.

This is many levels of a small request leading to a big ask.

Let’s have a look at our homepage. Check out the content above the fold.

And have a look at the form aimed to qualify leads.

It’s not just any form. It’s a gamified form that takes the person’s details in a few short steps.

It starts with the segmentation. Small ask.

Person clicks. Then info about the business revenue.

Person clicks Next. Then the site address.

Person clicks Next. Then we ask for the name, email and Skype info. Bigger request.

It’s short. It’s quick. It’s sweet.

Every time the person clicks, he’s doing a micro-behavior. He starts to invest in the whole process.

And you know what’s true about human Psychology?

We generally like consistency.

It gives structure and meaning to our lives.

Every time a person clicks Next. The Psychology of consistency becomes more established.

2. Asking for people’s emails

Asking for people’s email address is the FITD technique in action.

When you sell something online, asking for an email is a relatively small ask in the whole scheme of things.

What you’re doing is getting them used to interacting with you.

Undeniably, there are a lot of nuances involved in making email marketing thrive.

But part of why it works is that by asking them to send you their email, your target customer becomes primed to treat engaging with you as part of their behavior.

Want to give this even more power?

After they’ve subscribed, don’t just leave it at that.

Send them a personal email with another ask (like a question). If they respond, great! You’ve just multiplied the possibility of them responding to another bigger request later.

3. Beardbrand and user-generated content on social media

Have a company hashtag and ask your followers to use it when applicable.

Ask your website visitors to share your blog post on social media.

Even better, hold a contest on social media that your target customers will be excited to join.

What you’re doing is starting the small ask. A small change in behavior.

No biggie.

And guess what? Keep doing this and their attitude and behavior towards your brand will change positively in your favor, too.

So that when you ask for a bigger favor later, like Buy Your New Product, they’re more likely to say yes to you.

This is what Beardbrand did to increase email sign-ups and sales in only a month.

During the month of Movember, Beardbrand ran a social media contest. Every day for 7 days, they gave away over $560 worth of their products to one lucky winner each day.

It’s a small ask to get them to send their emails for the chance to win something.

And it turned out to be a success for Beardbrand. They not only doubled their email list but also had their largest sales day ever.

See my point?

A contest may seem like a trivial marketing strategy. But, it’s one way to modify your target customers’ behavior. It’s a way for them to associate positive emotions with your brand.

This not only helped the company spread its reach but also initiated the FITD technique.

So that when the bigger ask came, their customers were more open to taking their credit cards out and handing them their money.

This is the type of customer you want in your business.

4. Amazon Prime

Amazon Prime Trial.

You sign up for free and you get 30 days of special prices and free delivery.

This is classic FITD technique in action. You get something for free and the chance of you subscribing for a Prime account after 30 days goes up.

Boy! I would love to have a peek into Amazon’s conversion rates and see how much these trials increase Prime subscriptions.

As you may notice, this is a popular strategy among many online companies.

Like basecamp…

Source

Or TakeLessons

Source

5. Pottery Barn and its 3d Room View

Pottery Barn has a 3d -Room View App.

The concept is simple.

Want to see if a Pottery Barn furniture fits well in a space in your room? Simply use the app and you’ll see. Right there on your mobile phone.

It’s easy to use. It’s a big help to the customer.

And what else does it do? It encourages the customer to become invested in the product.

And late, getting them to buy it will be an easier sell.

By asking them to do a small thing first before the bigger ask, the conversions go up.

6. Influencing the influencer with the FITD technique

If you’ve done outreach marketing before, you know what I mean.

Find an influencer you’d really like to be besties with. 🙂

He’s busy. You’ve got time on your hands.

How do you get his attention?

How do you get him to share the next big article you’re launching when he doesn’t know squat about you?

Start small.

Simply say hi on social media. Or better yet, regularly promote his work.

If he says hi back, or retweets your tweet (a small behavioral investment) you’ve started your FITD strategy.

Then send him an email. A simple introduction. Nothing fancy.

You could then ask (nicely) for a quote from him for that next big article you’re writing. This is a bigger request. But if you did your small request correctly at the start, chances are he’ll agree to this, too.

And guess what?

If you cement this relationship well. And your article is awesome. He will likely share the article to his followers when you publish it.

That’s foot in the door technique in action.

Now imagine how that story ends if you skip all the small requests. What would happen if you jumped right in and asked him to share your article the first time you sent him an email?

It is extremely unlikely he’d even respond to say “No”.

Why does the foot-in-the-door technique work?

Our actions are often influenced by previous experiences.

Hanna Perfecto et. al in their research study, Rejecting a Bad Option Feels Like Choosing a Good One, argues that when a person makes a decision that’s consistent with past behavior, he’s more confident in the choice that he makes.

Why?

Because we’ve evolved to have high regards for consistency.

Encyclopedia.com says that 

“…people are motivated to seek coherent attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, values, behaviors, and feelings. If these are inconsistent, they will produce a “tension state” in the individual, and motivate the individual to reduce this tension. Individuals reduce this tension,…by making their relevant cognitions consistent.”

So what it boils down to is this:

When our actions are inconsistent, we feel uncomfortable.

That’s why change is often a struggle. It takes too much mental power and Psychological fuel.

And herein lies the power of the foot-in-the-door technique.

Think about that first small request. Remember it’s small enough that the person doesn’t expend a lot of brainpower agreeing to it.

When you later approach him with a bigger ask, the brain does a mental calculation of past behaviors to look for consistencies.

And If he had previously said “Yes” to you. Chances are high that he’ll say “Yes” again.

What you’re doing is making it easy for your customer to make a decision.

But like a lot of things, there are some principles to follow to ensure its high chance of success.

Here are my top tips:

1. 1. Make it public. As Robert Cialdini says in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, when there is a witness present, a person becomes even more inclined to be consistent with subsequent behavior.
   2. Make the small request consistent with the bigger request. 
   3. Don’t make the first request trivial. The person should have clarity as to why she’s doing it. So that the behavior becomes part of her self-belief. Why? As M. Burger & E. Guadagno finds in a recent study, when a person has low-clarity on the initial request, they are less likely to agree with the bigger request.

A Word of Caution

The FITD technique doesn’t work 100% of the time.

People with personalities that prefer change and unpredictability will not respond to this.

Also, if you have a rubbish product or bad customer support, you have to fix that first before you can get this to work.

You can, however, make this work wonderfully, when you combine it with other persuasion techniques like social proof and scarcity.

Have all the spokes in your marketing wheel in place and you’ll find the FITD technique works wonders in your conversions.

Conclusion

Use this technique with integrity.

Use it to form a relationship with your site visitors.

Use it to introduce your customers to the awesome products you sell that they don’t know about yet.

Don’t use it to control behavior.

It’s true. Some people abuse this technique.

Don’t.

Not only will you not sleep at night. There are also forms of the FITD technique (like a survey about the environment when you plan to sell them solar panels) that are illegal in some places.

What I’m saying is to use your power for good.

Do that.

And you’ll be greatly rewarded with an impressive increase in conversions.

Try it. And tell me about it. I would love to know how it works for you.

===

Want to reread the article? Here are the quick links to each section:

• Intro
• What is Foot-in-the-door Technique?
• Foot-in-the-door technique examples
• Why does FITD work?
• A word of caution
• Conclusion

Bounce rate is an important metric.

There’s only one problem.

It’s largely, and highly misunderstood.

See.

People immediately associate a high bounce rate as an SEO problem. Which leads to agitation.

But in fact, it’s mostly a CRO issue. And it isn’t a problem. It’s an opportunity for growth.

If you could reply to me now, you’d probably be giving me a long fully-researched response refuting my case, right?

But hear me out.

I’m not discounting SEO. I’m saying this is a space where CRO and SEO should work closely together. With CRO leading the way.

Optimize the page for conversions and the other SEO metrics that Google cares about will ride this wave of success.

Now isn’t that a more constructive way to look at the issue than all the bounce rate brouhaha many get themselves into?

You with me?

Then let me show you how you can apply CRO to your pages with the goal of decreasing bounce rate. I’ll show you:

• What the problem with bounce rate is
• Why a low bounce rate is not always a good thing
• How to do a bounce rate audit
• How to decrease bounce rate?

What’s the problem with bounce rate?

The problem is that it’s been reduced to a metric that you either have to increase or decrease. It’s become a number that you have to optimize no matter the circumstance.

When you look at this way, you miss the whole point. You lose its purpose.

It’s not a number to fix.

Instead, figure out what it’s telling you about your site’s pages and the people you’re attracting.

Here’s the thing:

The visitors who bounce have a reason. Figure out what this is. Find out what the friction and anxiety is that’s stopping them from engaging with the page.

Understanding this will help you make your site better. You’ll be able to find a way to answer the needs of those you serve. And your bounce rate will naturally go down.

Another problem with bounce rate is that it’s flawed.

It’s supposed to measure engagement. It’s supposed to measure if a visitor interacts with your site. It’s supposed to measure how much the page satisfies user intent.

But guess what?

That standard Google Analytics(GA) code that you copied and pasted can not track these interactions.

It’s great for eCommerce sites where engagement usually means moving between pages, checking different offers and categories.

But if you have a blog, affiliate, or lead generation site, where engagement manifests itself in other ways, that standard GA code just doesn’t work.

So what should you do?

First, let’s talk about what not to do.

Don’t simply think of a high bounce rate as a number to fix.

Why?

Because a high bounce rate isn’t necessarily a bad thing and a low bounce rate isn’t always a good thing.

There are pages where a high bounce rate is good. It can mean that you satisfied user intent and the person didn’t need to interact with the site any further. This is especially true with a daily blog or an information site.

On the other end of the spectrum, a very low bounce rate isn’t optimal either.

Don’t rejoice thinking people are partying all over your site moving from one page to another without bouncing off.

It usually means you’ve set up your google analytics incorrectly.

So yeah, don’t just look at it as high or low.

With that out of the way, what should you do instead?

First, know the benchmarks for bounce rates in your niche/industry. These can greatly vary so it’s worth knowing.

For example, the average bounce rate for eCommerce sites is 30-40% but landing pages hover at around 70-90%.

Want to know the average bounce rate in your industry? Start with this infographic by Hubspot.

Source

Now that you have a benchmark, it’s time to do a bounce rate audit

Don’t make the mistake of attempting to optimize your site’s overall bounce rate.

Optimize the bounce rate of individual pages, instead.

Different types of pages should have different rates. Your contact page will have a higher bounce rate than a product page, for example.

I like the way lovesdata puts it:

A site-wide bounce rate is an average that hides the detail. Focusing on the overall bounce rate would be a little like planning a trip to Russia based on the average temperature for the year. If you pack your suitcase based on an overall average of 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit), then you will be in for a bit of a shock if you arrive in December! The same applies to bounce rate; you need to look at individual pages or sections of your website, instead of the bounce rate for your whole website.

This may seem a daunting task, especially if your site has a lot of pages.

But you don’t have to optimize all the pages right away.

Like any CRO optimizations that I preach, start with the 80/20.

That is, work first on the 20% of your site that brings the most revenue or has the highest traffic.

Here’s how to do this:

1. Go to Google analytics
2. Find the bounce rates for all pages on the site – Behavior>site content>all pages.
3. Find the 5 -10 pages with the highest bounce rates. Then decide if they’re worth optimizing. You’ll need your critical thinking hat on here and familiarity with the pages on your site. For example, here’s a top traffic page that has a very high bounce rate. I wouldn’t worry so much about this right now. It’s an affiliate page and the high bounce rate could mean that people are clicking straight to the Amazon page which is what the goal of the page is.
   Then here’s another one. It looks great at 60% bounce rate. But it’s the home page with the goal of getting visitors to click on to the other pages of the site. So I’d quite like that 60% to be lower.
   
   See what I mean?

4. Here are a couple of questions to help you decide which pages you should work on first.

• What type of page is it? A landing page with a high bounce rate is ok. But a pillar content with the goal of leading visitors to other pages on the site should have a low bounce rate.
• What’s the source of traffic? For example, social media traffic tends to bounce more than search engine traffic

5. Once you’ve decided which pages you’re going to optimize first, it’s time to get to know them intimately. Look at them as separate pages and put yourself in the shoes of your visitors.What is it about the page that repels a visitor? Forget about yourself. Think about the person on the other side of the screen. What scares him away. What stops him from interacting with the page?

Here are some things that may be causing the problem:

1. The page does not answer the query
2. The page is attracting the wrong audience
3. The UX design needs improvement
4.  Google analytics is set up incorrectly

Got that?

Great.

Now learn how to decrease bounce rate

There are two main things you can do to reduce bounce rate:

1. Improve your page
2. Tweak Google analytics

You get these two down pat and you’ll see an improvement in your bounce rate stats.

Improve the page

This is when you put into use your CRO knowledge and expertise. For now, let’s talk about working on the site’s UX, satisfying user intent and improving site speed.

Meet the user halfway
Or the art and science of satisfying user intent

There’s a Psychology driving every visit a person makes to your site. It’s your job to figure out what that is.

The more precise and on-target your page is to the person’s motive, the more they will interact with you.

What does he need? What does he want? Why is he there? Get out of your own head and jump into that of your visitor’s.

Only then will you make a page that is tailored for him and understands him.

Understand why a person is on your site. Value his time and give him what he wants, and you will be rewarded greatly.

Not just with a lower bounce rate but also with better conversions and SEO rankings.

Easier said than done, I know. It’s the perennial CRO dilemma.

So how do you answer user intent?

First start by evaluating the page:

1. Go to your analytics and find the keywords the page is ranking for.
2. Identify the motivation behind that search. Think about why the person used these keywords. What was going on in his head? What did he want to find out? What was the struggle that set him on this journey to find your site?On which part of the buyer journey is he? Which of the 4 micro-moments is he in? Go? Know? Buy? Do?
3. Go to Google and look at the pages that are ranking on the first page for that keyword. As you look at all of them, you’ll find a pattern in the way they answer the query. Does your page answer it in the same way?

After you’ve evaluated the page, it’s easier to rebuild it so that it answers user intent. Here’s what you can do:

1. 1. Rewrite the page to fit the query more accurately. Matt has written a great article here on the topic.
   2. Improve the page’s UX. Make it clear to the first time visitor that he’s landed on the right page. Make headlines clear. Add subheadlines. Write short paragraphs.
   3. Add images and videos. Design the layout of the page so that it’s easy to read. This means using short paragraphs, clear headlines, and engaging images and videos
   4. Better match the meta title and description to the query. Having a good meta title is a given in SEO. And it’s just as important to improving conversions and reducing bounce rate. Why does this matter?
      
      Imagine that you’re searching for Samsung mobile phones. You click the top search on Google results and you end up on a page that sells iPhones.Your immediate reaction would be confusion.“Wait. I thought I was going to a page on Samsung phones,” as you furrow your brows in annoyance.If you have the time or patience, you might browse a little bit.But most likely, you’ll leave.It’s that dreaded Pogo sticking SEO’s keep away from.Failing to do this not only increases bounce rate. It’s also detrimental to your ranking.

       

      So really. You can’t take meta titles and descriptions for granted. Make sure that you write it in a way that clearly shows what the visitor is going to find on the page.

Know the page’s goal

You’ve done the hard task of getting a person to visit your site. You’ve answered his query.

Here’s the next step:

Decide what you want the person to do next.

A lot of times with the many websites I’ve worked on, the pages leave too much work for the user.

The bad news: 

Most visitors don’t want to do the work. They may want a service that you offer but if it’s not easy to find on your site, they won’t waste time looking for it.

Don’t expect them to land on one page and have the motivation to visit all the other pages on your site without your prodding.

Be the Ikea of websites.

Invite them in and get them to go through all the different nooks and crannies on your site.

You can do this if you make it clear what the next step is.

How do you do this?

1. Make the call-to-action clear. Here’s our guide on how to do that
2. Design the page so that it’s easy for the person to navigate the site
3. Add links to related pages. But don’t just add it at the end of the page. Instead, reference them within the article. Don’t be shy about it by hiding the link in some obscure keyword.

Improve page speed

We’ve been talking about improving page speed for many years now.

And yet, this continues to be one of the most basic shortcomings that I see on sites.

Which is a big problem.

People bounce off slow pages as quickly as a hare runs away from a fox.

And apart from increasing bounce rates, it also massively affects conversions.

Tweak Google Analytics

Bounce rate in the standard Google Analytics code is faulty.

If you simply copied and pasted the code from Google Analytics to your site, that’s standard off-the-shelf code.

And you’re doing yourself a great disservice if you use it as it is.

It’s like getting a Ferrari and using it in the slow-moving streets of Ha Noi.

There’s so much it can do. But you’re limiting its potential.

Here’s why:

1. It doesn’t measure how long the person stayed on the site. Why is this important? Because theoretically, the longer a person stays on a page, the more engaged he is. But since off-the-shelf GA code doesn’t consider this, then it’s counted as a bounce when he leaves.
2. If a person watches a video, that’s an engaged visitor. Again, the code doesn’t track this.
3. If a person clicks an external link on an affiliate page (which is the goal of the page), the code disregards that.

You get my drift.

So what do you do?

If you’re serious about improving bounce rates, then there’s no way around it:

Learn how to customize Google analytics.

When you customize GA, you begin to have more control into how it evaluates what a bounce is.

How can you customize it? There are a few things you can do:

Adjusted bounce rate

The standard Google analytics code does not put dwell time into consideration.

So if a person stays on your site for 5 minutes to read the whole page and then leaves, that’s a bounce. The same is true if he leaves after 2 seconds.

But these are obviously two very different visitors. It’s safe to assume that the first one is more engaged (read the article, watched a video, etc) than the one who leaves after 2 seconds.

Enter Adjusted bounce rate (ABR).

A feature so powerful yet so under-used.

ABR gives you control of how long a person stays on the site before it’s considered a bounce.

So you can set it at 15 seconds for example. That is, if a visitor stays for more than 15 seconds and then leaves, that is NOT considered a bounce.

Pretty nifty, huh?

How do you do this?

Easy.  Google’s got it for you on a silver platter.

Here’s the modified GA code:

Track other behavior on the page

What about instances when a person clicks an affiliate link? For money pages, this is the engagement you want from the visitor, right? That’s the goal of the page.

You should be happy. But for the standard GA, that’s a bounce.

But did you know that you can track this action so that when a person clicks it, it’s not considered a bounce?

Yes, Padawan. This is possible. You can have control.

With a little Google analytics tweaking, you can lower bounce rate by tracking actions such as

• Watching a video
• Clicking an external image or link
• Clicking a video’s play, stop or pause button
• Scrolling the page
• Sharing on social media
• File downloads
• Filling up a form

So that when a visitor does any one of these, it will no longer be counted as a bounce when he leaves.

Hallelujah!

So how do you track these events? I’ll be honest with you. It’s not as easy as copying and pasting the standard GA code. Get your developer to do it for you if you’re not comfortable with code. I’ll try and make another post on this in the future.

But if you want to get down and dirty now, OptimizeSmart has a detailed beginner’s guide to tracking events in Google analytics.

So that’s all for today folks

I hope this has opened your eyes to how you can use bounce rate to your advantage. It is a powerful metric but it’s also widely misunderstood. But once you see what a gem it is. Once you consider it as a window into your visitor’s behavior, you’ll find ways to make your pages better able to serve your target customers’ needs.

And you know what that means? Not only will your bounce rate go down. Your conversions will, too. And since you’ve worked on improving the quality of your pages, increase in search engine rankings will follow.

Now how about that for hitting three birds with one stone?

Quick links:

• What the problem with bounce rate is
• Why a low bounce rate is not always a good thing
• How to do a bounce rate audit
• How to decrease bounce rate?