Blog | Conversion Detectives

CRO Case Study – Natural Health

Posted by JimK on Mar 5, 2013 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Case Study in 6 Words: Health Business, Ecommerce, Re-Skin, Online Marketing Recently I did a report for a natural health website based in Hertfordshire. Revenue increase by 130% in the first 6 weeks compared with the same period the previous year. How did that Happen? It started with an Advanced CRO Report (including a 60 point competitor factor comparison...

Conversion Rate Optimisation Resources

Posted by JimK on Mar 5, 2013 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Conversion Rate Optimisation Resources in 8 Words: Experts, XL, Anne Holland, Diigo, 25 CRO Tools The great thing about working in Conversion Rate Optimisation is the other people that do the same thing, because they share. The following is a brief list of some great CRO resources, including the best CRO experts, testing your selves and an endless resource of...

CRO Quick Start Guide for Digital Agencies

Posted by JimK on Mar 9, 2012 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Digital Agencies & CRO in 6 Words: SEO, PPC, Marketing, PR, Design, Success I’ve worked with a diverse spread of agencies, from PR to Web design and from ‘Full Service’ to niche. I believe all agencies working online can benefit their agency and their clients by focusing all their work on their Website with a Conversion Rate Optimisation...

SEO v Conversion Rate Optimisation

Posted by JimK on Sep 3, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Tools | 0 comments

SEO v CRO in 5 Words: Cross-Over, Hand-in-Hand I’ve been using a fantastic new SEO Tool, Linkdex. It’s a Software as a Service for everyone. You don’t have to be a Search Engine Optimisation geek to get the most out of it. Why? Well for two main reasons. First it comes with a Task Manager and second it has an ‘SEO Assistant. The SEO...

Conversion Competition Report

Posted by JimK on Jul 27, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Competition Conversion in 2 Words: Competitor Research Influenced By? I remember a comedian being asked who were his major influences and he replied: “Do you mean who do I steal from? The best.” We were recently commissioned to review 5 of our client’s competitor sites and do a competitive Conversion Rate Optimisation Report for each and so we learnt a...

Entertaining Conversion

Posted by JimK on Jul 17, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Entertaining Conversion in 2 Words: The Visitor Essential Conversion Rate Optmisiation Conversion Rate Optimisation is about converting more of your visitors into sales isn’t it? It’s simple. It’s what we do. These elements are always true:- The customer is always right Customers build Websites, not you Content is king Lost in Space I’ve recently been...

Conversion Tools: ClickTale

Posted by JimK on Jul 6, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Tools | 0 comments

Clicktale in 3 Words Video, Customer Experience ‘Actual Interactions’ There’s something slightly ‘barmy’ about the phrase ‘Actual Interactions.’ It appears on the ClickTale site as a description for the product. ClickTale is one of those tools that offers insight to various elements of your Website. The product records visitor sessions and...

Conversion for the Soul

Posted by JimK on Jul 1, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Conversion for the Soul in 5 Words User Experience, Art, Science, Church User Experience Chris Lake (twitter: @lakey) has written a thoughtful article ’30 User Experience Quotes to Warm Your Soul’ which asks the question is design a science or an art? The Soul of Conversion We drown in stats. We analyse everything related to our Websites and we make actions...

Marketing Speaks Volumes

Posted by JimK on Jun 27, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Marketing in 3 Words Jargon, Buzzzzzz, Action Marketing Jargon I’ve been in marketing for a long time. I make my living from it but I don’t believe a lot of what is preached by “marketing experts.” I’ve never got the hang of talking about “KPIs” or “Social Media Optimisation.” I don’t wish to sell stuff I don’t believe in and I don’t want...

Social Conversion Skills

Posted by JimK on Jun 24, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Social Conversion Skills in 6 Words Don’t Count the Sheep Until They’re Hatched Social Grace Do you like reading about the things that turn you on? I was reading this article by Nathan Linnell entitled ‘4 Steps to Measure Social Media ROI with Google Analytics’ and my eyelids lost to gravity. I went from “ON” to “OFF” because I want to be...

Google Led, Google Fed

Posted by JimK on Jun 20, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Google Led and Fed in 5 Words Individual, Custom, Tailored, Bubble Bursts Google Does This Google Does That Google is a massive force and wants it’s customers to have the best possible experience. Search is more individual and a new tool or service lands on the scene with the regularity of tax increases. Why DO Google Do That? Yes it’s service and yes...

Just Add Optimisation

Posted by JimK on Jun 17, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Just Optimisation in 5 Words Optimisation, erm Optimisation and Optimization Just add the Word I came across this post the other day on the Get Elastic site, 14 Ways to Optimise Your Ecommerce Marketing. It’s a very useful article and goes on to list the 14 tips. Now can you spot what they’ve done? SEO – Search Engine Optimization SMO – Social Media...

Conversion Killer Winners

Posted by JimK on Jun 13, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Conversion Killer Winners in 5 Words Long Page, Longer Page, Wallpaper Positive Take This article on Econsutlancy stirred a tiny bit of controversy. How do you turn your site conversion killers into winners? The article by Fabian Alvares has a comment comparing what it advocates with one of those long ‘sales letter’ pages beloved by some marketers. What I...

Want to Understand Analytics?

Posted by JimK on Jun 10, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Analytics for CRO in 2 Words Occam’s Razor The Best Blog About Website Analytics Ever! Avinash Kauskik writes a blog about analytics called ‘Occam’s Razor.’ He’s been going for 5 years and his posts are packed with insightful, honest and actionable ideas. He’s also written the best guide to analytics called ‘Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.’ He’s...

CRO Writing Tips #3 – Your Audience

Posted by JimK on Jun 6, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

CRO Writing Tips in 5 Words Who, What, Which, How, Why The Big 5 I love lists. Checklists I call them and I have them for everything I do for Conversion. You can’t have enough lists can you? You’ll never forget anything. Most of my lists are in Excel, some in a database and quite a few in Word documents. Some Ideas to Write for Your Audience There are many...

The Joy of Conversion Alerts

Posted by JimK on Jun 3, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Tools | 0 comments

Conversion Alert in 5 Words Human, Thought, Red Wine, Oli Google Alerts Forever If you have a Google account you have a powerful tool called Alerts. It’s very simple to set up and it can help you make sense of the Internet and your quest to learn and practice Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO). 3 Way Conversion Joy We learn from other people, we want to...

Page Load Time & Conversion

Posted by JimK on Jun 1, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Tools | 0 comments

Page Load Time in 3 Words: Google, Frustration, Tools Site Speed Racers I remember being at a Google Retail Summit a couple of years ago and my over riding impression was the desire for search enquires to be instant. Almost every time a Google person did a search they’d comment on the time the search took. Over at the Google Conversion Room Blog Here’s a...

The Art of Conversion by Oli Gardner

Posted by JimK on May 31, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 2 comments

The Art of Conversion in 5 Words Human, Thought, Red Wine, Oli Science Bores Me Science is fun for some and logic is important, so is deduction and anylsis but we lose a part of ourselves if we lose sight of the art of what we do. The intuition, the learning from an expression or a thought as opposed to the hard slog of study. The Conversion Art Oli Gardner is...

What Price Conversion?

Posted by JimK on May 27, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Pricing’s Effect on Conversion 5 Words: Pennies, Sensitive, Cash, Voucher, Stuggle The Penny Drops I worked for a major online reseller of hardware and software. It was mostly catalogue driven when I started and we advertised in a lot of magazines. Every week we were tasked with doing a price comparison with our competitors. Every week I’d undercut them and...

Conversion Tools: KISSinsights

Posted by JimK on May 25, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Tools | 0 comments

KISSinsights in 5 Words Survey, Feedback, Simple, Useful, Insight What is it? It’s a simple survey tool. It’s so simple, so very simple because you ask one question. This makes you think. If I could ask only one question of my visitors what would it be? KISSinsights Example How Simple, How Useful It’s as simple...

What is Visitor Engagement?

Posted by JimK on May 20, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Visitor Engagement in 5 Words: Slideshows, Video, PDF, Forms, FAQ Jargon Everywhere I say ‘engagement’ to prospective clients and I can see I’ve ‘mis-spoken.’ Jargon is a part of every industry and we try to talk in plain English. So what does ‘engagement’ mean in Conversion Rate Optimisation? A Visitor Doing Something It could just mean reading...

My Kingdom for a Menu

Posted by JimK on May 18, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Website Menus in 5 Words: Hierarchy, Category, Consistency, Sign-Posts The more I look at Websites the more I wish there was just one menu system. You know we would not have to guess where the information is we want. If only every Website had a good internal search engine. Website Hierarchy We have written before about the importance of getting your Website’s...

Act Like Detective CRO

Posted by JimK on May 16, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

CRO Detective in 5 Words: Prejudice, Visitors, Survey, Feedback, Evidence A detective will examine all the different elements of the case and look for evidence. When examining your Website for clues to improve your Conversion Rate Optimisation do so without prejudice. Be ‘Detective CRO.’ Website Prejudice We all act differently and each of us...

Visitor Engagement Tips

Posted by JimK on May 13, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Engagement 5 Words: Interact, Click, View, Listen, Watch In CRO terms engagement is getting your visitors to do something on your site. This is more than being ‘engaged’ in reading the copy. Why Clickity-Click? The more a visitor finds to do, to interact, with your site the longer they will stay and the more likely they are to go further down your sales...

What’s An Online Value Proposition?

Posted by JimK on May 11, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Online Value Proposition in 5 Words: Instant, Touchstone, Conversion, Me, Test What Does Your Website Offer? We know exactly what our Website is offering, don’t we? We concentrate on creating all manner of content (words, images, video etc) based on what we are selling or promoting. Your Website may have what it does in the actual domain name and you may think...

Why Are Categories Important?

Posted by JimK on May 9, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Categories, Structure and Navigation in 5 Words: Words, Map, SEO, Time-Saving Sometimes it’s easy to work out which categories your site needs and that will dictate your navigation for your visitors. But have you found all the words possible? Falling Down The Word Mine With an ecommerce site your product and your product ranges will be neat and easy to follow...

Seasonality and Conversion Rate Tips

Posted by JimK on May 6, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Seasonality in 5 Words: Calendar, Editorial Schedule, Competitors, Categories Business Seasonality How seasonal is your business? When are the peak times? Sam and I worked for a personalized gift company and as you can imagine it was Christmas that drove the business followed by anniversaries and birthdays. It was easy (using Hitwise) to find the anniversary...

Benchmarking for Conversion Rate

Posted by JimK on May 4, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Benchmarking in 5 Words: Goals, Action, Action, Action, Action CRO Benchmarks How well is your Website performing? What are the important measurements for your business? Is it just the number of sales? All businesses use, jargon like Key Performance Indicators to judge how well they are doing. Statistics and Website Conversion “Eighty-two point six per cent...

CRO Writing Tips #2 – 6 Rules

Posted by JimK on May 2, 2011 in Blog, CRO Writing Tips | 0 comments

6 Rules in 6 Words: Metaphors, Length, Cut, Passive, Jargon, Barbarity George Orwell He wrote a lot of good novels and was a significant journalist. None of us will be able to write like him. I know I can’t write like him but I can learn to write better for Website visitors. If you are familiar with these rules you’ll be writing more effectively for your...

What are Signs of Confidence?

Posted by JimK on Apr 29, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Signs of Confidence in 5 Words: Security, Social, Testimonial, Reviews, Awards When you walk into a shop you can unconsciously pick up signals that make you confident of buying. How do you give these signals online? Security Visitors, of course, want to know that your site is safe to use. Social Signals Having a FaceBook page and visitors seeing friends who...

Abandon Shopping Cart! 5 CRO Tips

Posted by JimK on Apr 26, 2011 in Blog, Shopping Cart | 0 comments

Abandon Shopping Cart in 5 Words: Progress, Steps, Link Back, Shipping So you have an ecommerce site and you’re making money. How much more revenue would you make if potential customers didn’t abandon the shopping cart? Abandon Hope and Basket Shopping cart abandonment is a science in itself. Experts talk about the ‘sales funnel’ which is the steps...

Nice Website! Who Built it?

Posted by JimK on Apr 21, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Who Built it in 5 Words: Designer, You, Audit, Visitor, Segments Do you like the way your Website looks? Did you spend hours tinkering with it? Do you think it could produce more revenue? Designers Know Nothing OK so it’s a bit of a generalization and what it means is designers like a site to be neat and tidy. Designers who care about how their design will...

Conversion Rate Audit

Posted by JimK on Apr 19, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

Conversion Rate Audit in 5 Words: Plan, Invest, Improve, CRO, SEO Have you had your Website for a number of years? Do you think that site can produce more revenue or sales leads for your business? Should I Spend my Money on SEO or CRO? We would say both and yes that’s because it’s our business but it’s also what we believe in. A Website should have be...

Conversion Tools: foldtester.com

Posted by JimK on Apr 13, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Tools | 0 comments

Foldtester.com in 5 Words: Browser, fold, scrolling, seeing, clicking How Visitors See Your Site I came across this tool thanks to Conversion Rate Experts. In fact it was seeing a seminar from CRE that inspired me to start my own business focusing on the ever changing world of Websites. Foldtester.com allows you to see how your site is seen in browsers set for...

5 Conversion Rate Testing Tips

Posted by JimK on Apr 13, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

What Should I Test on my Website? It can be daunting to start testing your Website to aid conversion of visitors from prospects into customers and eventually into brand loyalists. These 5 tips are just a staring point that we hope gets you thinking about how much more business you can get from your Website. 1. Test Your Important Pages For most Websites...

What is Conversion Rate Optimisation?

Posted by JimK on Apr 11, 2011 in Blog, Conversion Rate Optermisation | 0 comments

CRO in 5 Words: Research, Hypothesis, Testing, Refinement, Confidence If you’re not in the online marketing industry it’s unlikely you’ve heard of Conversion Rate Optimisation. I’ve been asked to explain it whenever I meet non-online people (that’s the majority). Here’s the definition from our own Conversion Rate Optimisation Glossary. Conversion...

CRO Writing Tips #1

Posted by JimK on Apr 6, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

Writing Tips 5 Words Use one word, not four. Writing is easy. Use a few words. It makes the point quicker. a Jargon is the Devil Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can use a simple one. Visitors scan the words on a page. Then they read. It’s not a novel or a page from The Radio Times. It’s a Web page. Why use the word...

Conversion Tools: Crazyegg

Posted by JimK on Apr 1, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

Crazyegg in 5 Words: CRO, Heat maps, Confetti, Segmentation, If you want a quick insight into how a visitor reacts to your landing page then give Crazyegg a go. Heat Maps v Confetti Crazy egg gives you a snapshot of any page on your site (well not the secure https: versions) as an overlay. Once the test has been running you get to see exactly where a visitor is...

Talking Landing Pages

Posted by JimK on Mar 25, 2011 in Blog, Landing Pages | 0 comments

A brief discussion on Conversion and Landing Pages. Should you be using your 'gut feeling?' Is instinct to be trusted? Do small tweaks work or should you be bold in your testing?

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