At Gemvara we are building a data driven culture based around constantly testing. One area of constant focus is improving our landing pages. Since our site launched in February of this year many landing pages have gone through a number of iterations, our popular initial necklace page has gone through at least 3 major overhauls and a number of smaller improvements.
For other start-ups looking to improve their landing page here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Not just about conversions - While conversion rate (whether to a lead, subscribe, or purchase) is the ultimate goal, there are a number of ancillary metrics and micro-conversions to track improvement around which will lead to improved conversion rate.
- Bounce rate is a significant one, the lower the bounce rate the more users are staying on your site longer and the higher likelihood of a conversion on those users. Google Analytics is a great free tool to find out your bounce rate.
- Load Time there is a strong correlation between load time and bounce rate as well as conversion rate and other metrics like paid search quality score. Some great tools for identifying load time include Google Webmaster and Webpagetest.org
- Micro-conversions the small events that can be measured that take place prior to a conversion event (completing step 1 of a form, choosing your letter for your initial necklace) tracking improvements here as your make changes to layout, copy, etc. can impact your overall conversion rate
- Test Everything - Copy, offer, imagery, layout, calls to action, functionality, etc. We test it all and use an inhouse A/B framework for our testing. For multivariate and out of the box testing capabilities try Google Website Optimizer. Not sure of ideas for test changes? Use competitors, comparable sites, and user testing to generate a slew of ideas fast.
For additional reading on this topic here are a couple great resources:
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