10.21.12
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Case study: Remove 3 form fields – increase customer registrations by 11%

Blivakker.no is Norway´s leading online beauty shop with approx. 20 000 visits per day. In September 2012, they performed  an A/B-test of the site registration form using Visualwebsiteoptimizer.com. They were aware that the site had an overly complicated registration process, but wanted to collect actual data to support the suspicion.

The goal

Their goal was to prove that a small change in a web form would lead to an increase in the form registration conversion rate. The hypothesis (supported by experts…) was that by reducing the number of form fields, the conversion rate would increase. If they could show a significant increase in conversion rate by making small changes to a form, they would revise the entire purchasing process.

The A/B-test

The original form had 17 form fields. They reviewed the form fields and chose to remove 3 fields immediately; account number, phone number and phone number evening. The goal was to remove even more fields, but this was difficult due to technical limitations.

They set up 3 different versions of the registration form step in the process;

  1. Control – the original form
  2. Skjema-light – the original form minus 3 form fields(account number, phone number, evening phone number)
  3. Skjema-uberlight – a completely stripped down form with fewer fields and less navigational elements

Here are the results from the A/B-test:

Visual website optimizer

The red marker shows which fields were removed:

The Conclusion

The tests showed that when you reduce the number of unecessary fields in a form, you increase the number of registration. The test also shows that it´s not optimal to remove too much information from a form. The most important consequense of this small test is that the company now understands the importance of fast registration processes. Within a few months, more key processes will be analyzed and simplified to increase online sales.

10.08.12
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7 specific contact form improvements to turn visitors into customers

Having a contact form on your website allows a web visitor to get in touch with your business. People don’t like complex forms. They take too much time and require too much thought. Easy contact forms are proven to increase leads and conversion rates, which in turn leads to increased revenues.

During the last month I have worked with a software provider to help improve their websites online experience and contact forms. We made sure the contact form was readable, easy to complete and prominently featured on the site. The following improvements made to the form lead to a 170% increase in conversion rate and 277% increase in completed contact forms.

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Make the form secure

Internet users are becoming increasingly aware of fraud and phishing techniques online. When entering sensitive information such as credit card details, users look for the trust and verification logos. However, personal information such as name and email are just as sensitive so we made sure that the page is secure with https:// and SSL certified. Don’t risk having IE or Chrome label the page as insecure. Next to the “send” button, we included copy that read “this form is secure” for added reassurance.

Reward good behavior

It’s now common practice to include inline validation (javascript) when a user does not correctly complete a field in the contact form (example below):

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What is no common is a reverse effect of inline validation. Instead of presenting a negative validator we also improved the form to include positive validator. We reward the user when an action is completed successfully (example below):

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In September 2009, research by Etre and Luke Wroblewski found that inline validation has a great impact on completed contact forms, resulting in:

  • 22% increase in success rates
  • 22% decrease in errors made
  • 31% increase in satisfaction ratings

Using this data, we applied both positive and negative validators on the contact form.

Set expectations early

The human race is becoming more and more impatient. Everything has to be fast, whether it car repair or load times on a web page. We are time sensitive and completing a long web form may be enough to turn away a web visitor. The client’s contact form contains 15 fields, which at first glance may appear to require 5 minutes of time. However, the average time on page for completed forms was less than a minute. Using this data, we removed the previous copy above the form “Please fill out all fields carefully……” and instead used the following:

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Avoid friction

One of the fields in the form asked for the users website. This is common amongst B2B sites and helps the client when assessing the possible best service to offer. However, when running a simple test we found that entering www.mysite.com was not working. Several tests were performed using different variations (www.mysite.com, mysite.com, etc) yet we were unable to proceed. The problem was the CMS setting for a valid website address including the http:// prefix. We immediately removed the prefix and to only include free range text in the field in order to make this form user friendly.

Capture email address early

The world’s top 10 converting websites send email campaigns to users who visit the site only to abandon the shopping cart (known as remarketing). An easy way to capture the email address before the booking process is to ask for it on your contact form early, and above the fold. Alternatively, you can ask for an email address on your home page, and offer incentives to sign up including a free e-book or white paper.

Only ask for what you need

There are millions of contact forms on the web that ask questions including name, email address, address, sex, etc. and so on. I was recently interested in signing up for a newsletter at a travel company and the sign up form asked me for my postal address. It didn’t make sense to me so I left and did not sign up. Do you really need a postal address when asking users to sign up to a newsletter?

In this blog posts example, we removed the following fields and reduced the form from 18 fields to 15:

  • City
  • Country
  • Telephone

In 2010, Dan Zarrella of Hubspot found that when removing one field that, moving a total of four fields down to three, the conversion rate increased by 50%. If you can reduce the number of fields and only ask for what you really need, you could see an increase in completed forms.

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Thank you page

Once a user has completed a form, don’t send them away with a generic “Thank you, we will contact you shortly” page. The Thank You page is under-utilized in almost every organization. Here are three suggestions on what you can do once a user has completed the form:

  • Download a whitepaper
  • Sign up to a newsletter
  • Register to a webinar

Keep the communication going and complete two goals at once, both for you and the visitor.

Conclusion

Making your contact forms easy to use and complete should be at the top of your to-do list. In just under a month, leads and conversion rate has tripled and the number of users abandoning has decreased. A higher conversion rate means more leads, more sales and more success.

What else can we do to improve contact forms and is there anything I have missed from my list? Please comment below.

Sources

10.02.12
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Automate PPC management by using the Google Adwords API

If you manage a large Google Adwords account you´ll know that the account structure  can become quite complex with hundreds of campaigns, ad groups, ad texts and keywords. In addition you have to update the account according to events that occure in your organization (price fluctuation, promotions, product launches, number of items, etc.)

For large e-commerce sites, with hundreds of products in a dynamic environment  the Google Adwords API can make account management alot easier! Instead of having to manually create/remove campaigns and ad groups every time a new product is added/removed from your product catalog, you can integrate your e-commerce storefront with Google Adwords using the Google Adwords API and automate many of the processes.

Benefits of using the Google Adwords API for e-commerce stores

Here are some of the benefits of using the Adwords API for e-commerce stores:

  • Ensure 100% advertising coverage for active products.
  • Only advertise for active products at any point in time.
  • Achieve higher click through rates(CTR) and lower cost-per-acquisition(CPA).
  • Set bidding prices based on how eager you are to sell specific products.

Dynamic Adwords management process

Using the Google Adwords API, you can generate keywords, ad texts, and destination URLs to automatically appear. In addition you can integrate your Google Adwords with your other management systems. Here are some suggested automation points:

  1. Keywords: When a product is created in your e-commerce store management system(or legacy system), you can add a data field for search words that are relevant for that product directly in the management interface.
  2. Campaign creation: When a product is activated for the first time, you can automatically create and Adwords campaign, an ad group and an ad text, display URL and destination URL in Google Adwords.
  3. Campaign start/end: When a product is sold out or inactive, the system can automatically deactivate the campaign.
  4. Bidding: In your e-commerce management interface, it should be possible to control the campaign budget and the max cost per click(CPC). When you want maximum exposure for a product, the system can automaticall adjust the campaign budget and the max CPC directly.
  5. Dynamic Ad texts creation: Through the Ad Parameters feature of the AdWords API, you can easily update ads in almost real time with numeric information such as prices, stock levels, or a countdown.

Next steps:

In order to use the Adwords API, you need to apply for access to the Adwords API through the  (MCC). When you have an Adwords API token, your a qualified developer can start researching how you can use the Adwords API in connection with your other systems. Do you have experience with the Google Adwords API? Feel free to suggest other opportunities!

Resources:

09.03.12
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The four week SEO workout plan

In any organization, the basics are often overlooked. It’s much more fun to work on exciting projects such as launching a new website, instead of solving system issues such as reporting accurate data.

During the last six months, I have worked on five SEO audits and each organization has the same problem – The basics of SEO are overlooked (and ignored). Each audit, I approach the same way; I collect the data:

Each tools provides valuable data. In webmaster tools, there are usually a high amount of crawl errors found.

Crawl errors

Instead of having a team that addresses these problems, resources are instead used for link-building, content creation and web design. While all important factors in SEO, yet if Google is specifically telling you it has problems crawling your site, why is there so little focus? If Google has problems finding your site, then chances are so do your potential customers.

Of the three site audits I have performed during the last two months, only one site has been quick enough to take action and addres the issues.. The audits usually have the same outcome; duplicate content issues, URL parameters and session IDs, crawl errors, etc. The site audit is filled with recommendations and suggested next  steps.

The following screenshots are taken from Google Analytics Organic Traffic report between July 1st to July 30th. Can you guess which site implemented the findings from the SEO audit?

Site 1

Site 1

Organic traffic decrease of 13% compared with June 2012

Site 2

Site 2

Organic traffic increase of 10% compared with June 2012

Site 3

Site 3

Organic traffic increase of 350% compared with June 2012

Congrats! You guessed it, it’s site 3.

I’ve made a note in Google Analytics for each improvement made using Annotations. Here is the list of improvements by date:

  • Jul 10, 2012        Redirect implemented for non-www to www
  • Jul 23, 2012        URL re-write, improved page titles and meta descriptions
  • Jul 24, 2012        New page titles added to home, and destination pages
  • Jul 24, 2012        /index redirected to /
  • Jul 25, 2012        New navigation menu launched
  • Jul 26, 2012        Google analytics goals implemented
  • Jul 27, 2012        Improved internal anchor text
  • Jul 27, 2012        Google analytics tracking script moved to top of the page
  • Jul 27, 2012        XML sitemap submitted
  • Jul 27, 2012        Crawl errors fixed – Reduced from 155 issues to 6 issues
  • Jul 30, 2012        New meta descriptions added for top destination pages
  • Jul 30, 2012        https pages now redirected to http
  • Jul 30, 2012        Google Analytics tracking script updated (only one per page)
  • Jul 30, 2012        New XML sitemap submitted for http URLs

In less than a month, organic traffic has increased by 350% (based on weekly traffic) and organic leads now account for 50% of total conversions, up from 3%. No link-building was involved and no content creation strategies implemented,  just fixing the basics reported that are reported in webmaster tools.

Has your organic traffic increased since fixing the crawl errors reported in webmaster tools? Feel free to comment below.

08.23.12
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Is your company ready for social media?

If you’re a B2B company and think that social media is primarily a channel for B2C’s, think again. According to just released 2012 IBM Global CEO study more than 1,700 Chief Executive Officers from 64 countries and 18 industries worldwide, social media will go from the least used customer engagement tactic to the second, only surpassed by face-to-face interaction in the next 3-5 years. Why? Because social media is a very effective and low cost means for connecting with customers, sales prospects, media, partners and employees.

As you can see in the chart below, only 16 percent of companies are using social media to connect with customers, but that number is expected to increase to 57 percent within the next three to five years. The CEOs in the study predict that social mediawill push past websites, call centers and channel partners as the number-two way to interact with customers.

Social Media Readiness Checklist

It’s easy to get excited about the social media hype, but creating a social media program is more than just setting up an account and waiting while the leads come pouring in. It takes a little bit of research and forethought to determine what your social media program will be before you jump in.

Here are 4 questions to consider before launching into social media:

1. What do I want to accomplish with social media?

Social media can be used in many different ways for your business – brand awareness, customer service, lead generation, building customer relationships, etc. Pick the direction you want to go in so that your efforts don’t get diffused in too many directions.

2. Where is my audience?

Don’t get caught using the wrong network. It could be disastrous. Where are you existing and potential customers, as well as your competitors hanging out? How are they interacting?

Use “listening tools”  such as Google Alerts, Google Blog Search, Twitter Search and Social Mention to help you with some of the work.

3. What do I want to share?

What kind of content do you want the company to share? What cannot be shared? Content, as always is king. Good content can come in a variety of formats such as blog posts, videos, case studies, white papers, etc.

It’s important to set up a frequency of posts and provide information which is useful to your readers.

4. How much time will I spend on this?

Although being part of social networks is free, social media is NOT free. It takes time, resources and commitment in order to make this successful. You’ll need to figure out who will be managing the efforts, be it you, your staff or outside consultant.

Social media can be a great addition to your other marketing tactics. And although you could be a user on Facebook, Linked in, YouTube, etc. in your own personal time, don’t get misled that it’s just as simple to get started. Take some time to think through the checklist and map out your plan before getting started and you’ll see much better results.

Sources: