Live: Increasing Conversions Through Better Usability

Oct 5, 2009 - 3:40 pm 0 by
Filed Under SMX East 2009

Below is live coverage of the Increasing Conversions Through Better Usability from the SMX East 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by Brian Ussery - Beu Blog.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage, please excuse any typos. You can also interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.

Increasing Conversions Through Better Usability(10/05/2009) 
3:45 Brian Ussery:  Greetings from SMX East we'll be starting in just a few moments.
3:46 Brian Ussery:  Increasing Conversions Through Better Usability

Increasing Conversions Through Better Usability – Are you missing out on sales because of poor usability? This session looks at how improving your site visitors’ experience can increase conversions.

Moderator: Gordon Hotchkiss, President and CEO, Enquiro

Speakers:
Scott Brinker, President & CTO, ion interactive, inc.
James Fenelon, Interactive Product Director, nFusion
Kimberly Krause Berg, Usability and SEO Consultant, UsabilityEffect.com/Cre8pc.com
Alissa Ruehl, Manager of Website Effectiveness Consulting, Apogee Search
3:48 Brian Ussery:  Up first is James from nFusion
3:49 Brian Ussery:  Usability testing provides measurement of ease of use and user success.

Helps explain how test subjects respond.
3:50 Brian Ussery:  Usability is about helping site visitors via user centered design
3:50 Brian Ussery:  Where business visitor goals overlap is the point of interest.
3:51 Brian Ussery:  Basic techniques 1 heuristic review
3:52 Brian Ussery:  Heuristic testing can include competitive reviews.
3:53 Brian Ussery:  Basic technique 2 is information architecture
3:53 Brian Ussery:  IA techniques focus on logic.
3:53 Brian Ussery:  Basic technique 3 card sorting
3:54 Brian Ussery:  Basic technique 4 prototype testing
3:55 Brian Ussery:  James seems to like paper prototypes best and I see why, simple.
3:56 Brian Ussery:  When do you prototype? early
3:56 Brian Ussery:  Usability for optimization isn't a one time event.
3:58 Brian Ussery:  Up next Alissa
3:59 Brian Ussery:  Anyone who does testing knows the answer isn't always what you might think in advance.
3:59 Brian Ussery:  Do you have to understand your problems before you can fix them?

YES
4:00 Brian Ussery:  Establish goals
- define goals
4:01 Brian Ussery:  Optimize to all of your Goals
4:05 Brian Ussery:  Tactics to fix obvious issues: usability testing, focus groups.....
4:09 Brian Ussery:  Lead Generation Issues
- What do people do
- fill out forms
- browse
- read
- leave

Lead bait (free resources)
4:09 Brian Ussery:  The more complex your product or service the more users tend to browse...
4:10 Brian Ussery:  Conversion Strategy
- dig deep for end goals
- analytics
- tailor solutions
- figure out what is low hanging fruit and fix it first
4:33 Brian Ussery:  How can I improve my conversion rate? It depends....
4:33 Brian Ussery:  Don't focus on forms focus on leads!
- Human error
- Qualified leads
- Sales
4:33 Brian Ussery:  Up next Kimberly Krause Berg!
4:33 Brian Ussery:  Step 2 What is your traffic doing?
- start by looking at your site purchase process
- look for shopping cart issues
- try product purchase
- do landing pages (entry) seem correct?

Where do visitors go when the visit your site?
4:40 Brian Ussery:  The man the boy and the donkey. Donkey is the problem because so few live online.

4 areas of focus:
-landing page
-ad copy
- intent
- keyword

Landing page seems to be most problematic. Message Match is the heart of usability. Message Match is where all things tend to break…

Ideal situation: Customer says he/she finds what he/she wants but that isn't always the case.

Example 1 Overland storage website which is highly targeted and conversions grow thanks to 100s of landing pages.

Example 2 American Greetings which increase conversions by 30%
4:44 Brian Ussery:  - adopt cms for landing pages
- create templates

Test Driven Marketing:

Controlled experiments to discover what people really want.

What is the real story?
4:47 Brian Ussery:  Give people what they want, that is the secret when it comes to landing pages.
4:48 Brian Ussery:  Conncection issues, now answering quesitons from Twitter
4:51 Brian Ussery:  Question: What do you do for testing for sites with little traffic?

Alissa: 90% with 25 conversions, so it can be done...

Kim: Keyword testing from search....

Gord: Any usability testing is better than no testing
4:52 Brian Ussery:  Gord: stress on usability testing in context to your site.
4:55 Brian Ussery:  Thanks for joining today! :)
4:55
 

 

 

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