What is a conversion-focused website?

Conversion-focused web development is a way of web development where every aspect is aiming for the highest conversion rates. This doesn’t only mean trying to obtain the highest ROI. It is all dependent on the goal of the website. a conversion could be someone who downloaded the ebook, brochure or any other kind of content. Let’s have a look at a funnel that is regularly used to analyze a website.

A conversion-focused website is a website that focuses on conversions. Conversion-focused web development is a way of web development where every aspect is aiming for the highest conversion rates. This doesn’t only mean trying to obtain the highest ROI. It is all dependent on the goal of the website. a conversion could be someone who downloaded the ebook, brochure or any other kind of content. Let’s have a look at a funnel that is regularly used to analyze a website.

This funnel describes all the stages from visitor to sales. In between every step you can calculate a conversion rate. The aim of a conversion-focused website is to achieve the highest possible conversion rates. In each phase of the funnel, there are different solutions. Those will be explained later in this article.

Now that we know what a conversion-focused website is, let’s have a look at the characteristics. On what elements of a web page does it differ from your regular developer in order to obtain more website conversions.

1. Knowing the target group by gathering data

Do we listen to your input? Data is the most important source for building a website. Data is objective (if you interpreted it right) and will tell us a lot of information about the target group. Data is obtained by using several methods like website analytics, heat mapping and A/B testing. If it’s the first time you hear about heatmaps, then I recommend you to read this.

Later in this article, we will take a closer look at the terms A/B testing too.

2. Analyzing

There are hundreds of performance indicators which will tell you the behavior of the target group. Data on its own won’t help you. Analyzing and drawing conclusions based on the data is just as important. Otherwise, you can’t really understand the needs of your target group. For instance, a page could be not converting enough. This doesn’t mean that the page is bad and it needs a completely different design. The problem might be the content, the CTA button or a technical issue. You need to combine the data and place yourself in the shoes of your prospects in order to draw the right conclusions.

Earlier in the article we saw a website funnel. With this funnel we can analyze the area in which your website can improve the most. For instance; The website is not achieving the required number of visitors. Perhaps the content is not interesting enough. You could also consider inserting social media button that people can use to easily share the content.

If the most problematic area is that people are not downloading the content, then it might be better to optimize your website with better CTA’s and review the form they have to fill out before downloading that piece of content.

3. Optimizing

After you have the drawn the right conclusions, you can fix the issues that your prospects are experiencing. This can be anything from small changes like a color change in the call to action button to a completely new website design because to have a better user experience.The most important strategies are:

1. User experience

By optimizing the user experience, people will experience the site as pleasant. With conversion-focused web development, A/B testing could be important effectively test user experience. With A/B testing you create two versions of a website element (Version A and version B) and test them with your audience (the website visitor). The one with the best results stay. The important thing about testing is, don’t change too much at the same time. When you test more or bigger parts, you might not know what changed caused the difference in data. There is much more when it comes to A/B testing. A good blog about A/B testing can be found here.

2. Valuable content that converts

Of course, who would visit your website (and return) when there is no valuable content. There has to be an incentive for prospects to convert. Providing your prospects with valuable information is the way to attract them to the website in the first place. Content also plays a role in website conversion. If prospects are impressed and think the content is helpful, they will use the CTA button more often. This is very important for sites who just want to inform as their main goal.

3. CTA buttons

CTA buttons stand for call to action buttons. This means that this button is trying to induce a visitors action. CTA buttons are the single most important tools when it comes to website conversions. When doing conversion-focused web development you want to implement enough CTA buttons to make it easier for visitors to execute the action you want them to complete. A button should be inviting. Usually this is done by having an inviting text, a color that is in contrast with the web page and the shape and size of the CTA button.
Please note that you can’t just think; Let’s add some more CTA buttons to increase conversions. This will lead to a CTA overload which will decrease your click-through-rate (CTR) drastically.

To see a SlideShare that will give you more practical tips about optimizing your CTA’s, click here.

I hope this will give you better insights into what a conversion-focused website is and what it consists of. In case you have any questions or comments about this topic regarding your company’s website specifically, comment on this blog or take advantage of the free consultation. If you want to be kept up-to-date about this topic, feel free to subscribe to our blog.