A/B testing is straight up the single most effective technique for improving the conversion rate. But it’s also tricky, as it requires a large number of website visitors to conduct the A/B testing in the first place.
If you don’t have an extensive pool of website users to analyze it’s hard to determine which changes they do like and which they absolutely don’t. So what do you do if you have a low traffic website and wish to drastically increase your conversion rates?
Step 1: Try out the 5-second test
After we review the first couple positions on the google list and choose the most suitable description and meta title, we are faced with a new website and the decision to stay or leave it. If the landing page is greeting us with a full-screen “download me now” offer, is too crumbled with all sorts of still and video ads, or hasn’t changed its design aesthetic since the early 2000s, we tend to leave this website as soon as we can.
To avoid losing your customers and conversions to reasons you might overlook, take a 5-second test. This test type displays your page design to users for 5 seconds and asks them for their feedback after that. You can check out a great example of such a user test from UsabilityHub under this link.
Step 2: Decrease the statistical significance
Yes, it feels absolutely breathtaking when we know something will work a hundred percent. Or ninety-five. But what if we currently don’t have many website visitors and much time to spend on analyzing them?
When you lower the statistical significance of your A/B tests, making decisions based on them becomes a little more risky. But 90% confidence or even 85% confidence is still quite solid, and at the early stages of business growth, it’s usually more imperative to test bold ideas at a fast rate than to know a particular split test is a hundred percent winning.
Step 3: Employ fixed-period testing
Okay, so if you’ve recently played around with A/B testing you know that getting results is now conducted on an ongoing basis. And if you are a low traffic website, that can be quite long. Instead of taking this approach, you can go with fixed-period testing.
You can set up a maximum duration period for each testing, based on the result of which you’ll go with the control choice or the challenger. This strategy will help you make decisions faster and implement changes more confidently.
Step 4: Take a look at session recordings
If you are serious about conversion optimization and have chosen a great CRO platform from our Top Ecommerce Tools Guide, you already have access to an in-built function called session recordings. If that’s not the case — have no worries, as most great conversion tools like Hotjar, CrazyEgg, VWO and Matomo include session replays in their pricing plans.
This feature allows you to see how your users, or more accurately, each user in particular have interacted with your website. This enables you to literally watch how your users act once faced with your web interface. Watching session recordings allows you to clearly define what makes customers frustrated, what makes them take a step back or ask for assistance.
Step 5: Start conducting usability tests
We’ve all heard of those tests which include a personal computer, a new website, a set of tasks and a user who has never seen this website before and is getting paid for browsing it. Those are called user tests or usability tests.
Sometimes they involve you watching how website visitors complete certain tasks on camera, sometimes it involves users noting any difficulties or peculiarities themselves. There is a great variety of ways to get that honest user feedback, which you can conveniently find in this article — Top 15 CRO and UX tools to Get User Feedback 😉
Step 6: Get yourself design feedback tools
Do users love your website? Or do they hate those screaming red buttons and are super-tired or those hero carousels? No way to find out, huh, unless — there is! There are specifically-made design feedback platforms that are created to help you answer those questions above.
You can even define your target audience to the smallest of details to find out what your actual demographic likes. To choose the right platform for your business, take a look at this useful piece — 15 Tools to Get Design Feedback for a Webpage or Application.
Step 7: Invest in PPC ads
You’ve probably thought about it at some point but discarded this idea for the need of spending quite some time, effort and money. Well, we’re about to bring it back.
Launching a quick pay-per-click advertising campaign on the pages you want to test is a great conversion technique. Among our recommendations, in this case, is choosing to test important landing pages and design aesthetics, only the bold things. You don’t need to take millions out of budget, simply reaching a few hundred website visitors within a month is enough.
Step 8: Monitor your micro-conversions
Ideally, every business should aim for big goal achievements and tracking business growth metrics like lifetime customer value or revenue. But at the beginning of your eCommerce experience, it is important to focus on every milestone and track even small and medium achievements.
The same applies to conversions. Instead of measuring items, you’ve sold or clients you’ve acquired try measuring newsletter sign-ups, engagement indicators and click-through rates. These micro-conversions bring granular insights into how your business operates and can be calculated this instant instead of taking quarters to estimate.
Conclusion
After walking with us these 8 awesome steps to improving your conversion rates take a look at the other top conversion optimization articles that our readers love:
