1. Does the con­tent of your site stress the ben­e­fits of your prod­ucts or ser­vice, or sim­ply the fea­tures? Your poten­tial cus­tomers want to know WHY they should buy your prod­uct over some­one else’s. What are the ben­e­fits to them of pur­chas­ing your product?

Exam­ple: A TV store could say “We have a great selec­tion of 42” Plasma Screens and home audio sys­tems”. What they should be say­ing is some­thing like “With our 42” inch Plasma screens and sur­round sound sys­tem, you won’t even know you aren’t in the movie theatre”.

TRY IT: Tweak your word­ing to high­light what your prod­uct or ser­vice can do for your poten­tial cus­tomers — the ben­e­fits, not sim­ply the fea­tures.  Include images of your prod­uct or ser­vice in action to add inter­est visually.

2. Are the forms on your page ask­ing for more than 4 pieces of infor­ma­tion? Research shows that ask­ing for more than 4 pieces of infor­ma­tion is likely to cause a drop in con­ver­sions.  Ask your­self what you really need to know. Usu­ally first and last name, and email address are suf­fi­cient — some­times com­pany name too.

TRY IT: If you are ask­ing for too much infor­ma­tion, try a shorter form and see if your con­ver­sion rate improves.

3. Where is your most impor­tant infor­ma­tion located? Peo­ple are less likely to scroll to infor­ma­tion that is placed “below the fold” (the point where the size of the screen cuts off vis­i­ble content).

TRY IT: Look at each page and bring any con­tent that you really do not want peo­ple to miss above the fold. If there is a lot of text, reduce it enough to encour­age con­ver­sions so as not to over­whelm users with detail.

That being said, don’t cram every­thing into the first screen. Peo­ple do scroll, but you have to give them a rea­son to. Make sure your con­tent is com­pelling to keep them engaged, and use visual trig­gers to help draw the vis­i­tor down the page.

4. What infor­ma­tion is included in your head­lines? Are head­lines mean­ing­ful and com­pelling? With one of our clients, Kinaxis, we per­formed a head­line test — the head­line that included a rep­utable indus­try brand name (“S&OP: 2008 Aberdeen Research Bench­mark Report”) res­onated best with the vis­i­tors as it helped add cred­i­bil­ity and reduce risk.

TRY IT: If your head­ing is some­thing like “Tele­mar­ket­ing Soft­ware” try adding some mean­ing  to it such as “ Tele­mar­ket­ing Soft­ware that Boosts Pro­duc­tiv­ity”, or includ­ing indus­try brand names.

5. What is your call to action (CTA)? If the CTA you cur­rently have is not work­ing (whether it be to con­tact you, watch a video, sign-up for your eNewslet­ter, take a free demo etc.) try test­ing either dif­fer­ent CTAs, or dif­fer­ent wording.

TRY IT: Are you ask­ing peo­ple to phone you? Try an email address instead. Are you ask­ing peo­ple to watch a video? Try a free demo instead. Change ‘Call Today’ to ‘See How it Works’ etc.

6. Where is your CTA located? Hav­ing the call to action above the fold is best prac­tice, but hav­ing it below the fold under very valu­able con­tent can help to deliver more qual­i­fied con­ver­sions.  With­out clear CTAs, your vis­i­tors won’t know what to do next, or why to do it.

TRY IT: If you want to increase the quan­tity of con­ver­sions, try­ing mov­ing the CTA to a bet­ter posi­tion where it is more vis­i­ble, or chang­ing the colour of the but­ton, or the font type etc. If you want to improve the qual­ity, try mov­ing it to below the qual­i­fy­ing text.

7. Do you have cred­i­bil­ity on your site? Pro­vid­ing con­tact infor­ma­tion such as a phys­i­cal address, phone num­ber, email address etc. builds trust with users and is more likely to encour­age them to com­plete the desired action.

TRY IT: First, be sure to have a pri­vacy pol­icy on your site. Sec­ond, add links to it next to your call to action or any­where that asks for per­sonal infor­ma­tion. Once peo­ple under­stand what you are going to do with their infor­ma­tion, they are much more likely to pro­vide it.



8. What lan­guage do you use on your site? Avoid using acronyms, indus­try jar­gon, or tech­ni­cal terms that the user doesn’t under­stand or mar­ket­ing fluff that is all company-centric as it will not help them under­stand what you have to offer.

TRY IT: Think about your site from the customer’s point of view, not your business’s point of view. If your site seems very tech­ni­cal with lots of indus­try terms, try using more customer-centric lan­guage that you know they will understand.


Biography / Resume : Ian is the Manager of User Experience & Research at Mediative, helping clients optimize the online experience for their potential customers. He manages several key accounts and leads the company’s ongoing research projects to better understand search, buyer behaviour, mobile, and user experience. With a background in neuroscience, web design and eye tracking, Ian brings an invaluable knowledge of human behaviour and human-computer interaction to his position at Mediative. He plays a key role in many of the company’s SEO projects and lends his expertise to the strategy development of both PPC and display advertising projects. Ultimately, Ian believes that success in digital marketing comes down to two things: being found and being good. So he works with clients to make they tick both boxes and establish a successful and lasting presence online.