Do you know your conversion rates for different sources of traffic? Measure your website conversion rate using Google Analytics ecommerce tracking or by setting up goals.

Conversion rates will vary for different kinds of traffic that visit your site and that’s to be expected, what you want to learn is what is your best converting source of traffic and how can you get more of it. Track it back to referral sources, if it comes from organic search find out which phrases convert best and focus on improving the rankings for those phrases.  If it comes from PPC which are your money phrases and conventrate on them for SEO.

The following is a list of Conversion Factors that could be affecting your conversion rate. Scan down the list… do any of these factors affect your conversions? Can you take action on any of these points to improve your Conversion Rate?

If you are not sure where to start consider doing some Usability Testing to get feedback from real people using your website to perform tasks designed to test your specific website conversion goals.

Trust Elements:
- Safe Shopping Icons (hacker safe, BBB)
- Free or Local Cost Phone Number visible
- Address visible
- Quality of Design
- Quality Domain Name
- Money Back Guarantee
- Risk Reversal (We’ll pay the return postage costs)
- Accepts all forms of payment
- Nice Logo
- Testimonials
- About Us prominent
- Contact Us prominent
- Privacy Policy
- Order / Postage / Invoice tracking
- Privacy Policy
- We don’t spam you messaging
- Clear and unambiguous optin/out for marketing & 3rd party marketing
- Ability to get offline help at physical locations

Look and Feel:
- Site is easy to navigate
- Easy to grasp what the site does
- Clear Calls to Action on every page
- Links to further information are easy to find
- Great site search returns relevent results
- Checkout / Conversion process is clear
- Forms are forgiving (e.g. taking dashes, spaces for credit card)
- Forms error handling – clear, concise errors & instructions for correcting
- Does not require registration up front
- Fast Page load times. Adverts render last.
- Pages load consistently (high availability)
- Renders in all major browsers
- Accessibility Issues have been addressed
- Pictures are good quality and highly optimised
- Good quality help / FAQ system
- No Broken links or broken images
- Relationship Marketing, encourage 2-way interaction through Facebook, Twitter etc

Product / Selling Proposition:
- Product / Site Exclusivity
- Compelling Product
- Brand Name awareness and reputation
- Good Product Pictures, quality and quantity
- Compelling Offer / Price / Clarity
- Price easy to find
- Add to cart button is inviting and prominent
- Terms and Conditions highly visible
- Path to checkout is unencumbered with no distractions
- Extra charges (postage) are low and easy to find
- Speedie Postage
- Free Postage
- International Shipping
- Good Comparison Matrix (including competitors)
- Independent Product Reviews
- Good Headline
- Good Tagline
- Supporting Copy
- Supporting resources (buying guides, blog, forum)
- Scarcity (limited Quantity or limited time)

Off Page Factors:
- Time of Day
- Day of Week
- Holidays
- Seasonality
- The weather
- Event Timing (product will be regulated, taxed or discontinued)
- Item / site gets significant press coverage (TV appearances, BBC coverage)
- Relevant Advertising
- Type of Advertising (banner vs PPC)
- Visitor profile of site where advertising appears
- Compelling ad copy
- Ad copy matches landing page
- Click Fraud
- Quality and efforts of Affiliates
- Reputation of your Site
- Size of your Organisation
- Newsletter Quality
- Offline advertising
- Presence of offline locations
- Competitor Offerings and Marketing

The original conversion factor list that inspired this post came from: http://paul.webanalyticsdemystified.com/2008/08/15/conversion-factors/ I have taken the liberty of adding to it and amending it for our target audience.

What other factors would you add to this list?

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 6:23 am and is filed under Increasing Conversions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.