We’ve all heard the adage, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” But you can’t measure something if you don’t know exactly what you’re measuring.

What is water?

This question pertains to the health advice to “drink more water.” Some experts say the water we get in our food counts. Others say it doesn’t. Some say caffeinated beverages actually count against our water allotment, while others say caffeinated beverages are still water. How can we drink eight glasses of water a day if we don’t know what counts as water? See the problem?

What is a conversion?

It’s the same situation when we want to improve conversions from our website. Fortunately, conversions are easier to define (believe it or not). First, ask yourself: “What do I hope to accomplish?”

Is your goal to:

1. Collect names for your mailing list?
2. Collect phone numbers of prospects?
3. Get people to contact you for more information?
4. Comment on your blog posts?
5. Get people to buy?

Ultimately, of course, we all want magic number 5—to improve conversions and get our prospects to buy. But the steps that could lead up to that are also worthy goals. Steve Jackson at Conversion Chronicles calls them “micro-conversions.”

Three Common Micro-Conversions and How to Improve Them

Let’s look at how we can improve conversions by getting people to:

• Click the link to read more
• Provide their names
• Provide their phone numbers

1. Click the link to read more: Tell readers exactly what they’ll find out—and the benefit of the information. This is also better internal linking strategy. Instead of writing, “Click the link to find out more,” write: “Click the link to find out how to improve conversion with a strong call-to-action.”
2. Provide their names: Rather than “sign up for my newsletter,” you might tell readers, “Get exclusive savings when you sign up for my newsletter.”
3. Provide their phone numbers: A phone number is a valuable piece of information that people don’t want to give up if they’re not getting something good in return. Offer a free eBook, Webinar access, or something equally valuable (and let readers know just how much it’s worth). Again, share the benefit in your call-to-action.

Measuring and Testing to Improve Conversions

Of course, it’s important to have tools installed on your website so you can measure these micro-conversions. And it’s equally important to test different pages to see which ones get the best conversions at every step of the way.

Dawn Allcot is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

Image from loft965.com

Tags: content marketing

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 5th, 2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Content Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.