Conversion optimization is a science in and of itself, but when it comes to getting started with building your own strategy, it needs to begin with a series of questions – the answers to which are found through their own research and experiments, sort of like doing pre-optimization optimization.

1. Conversion optimization is a science in and of itself, but when it comes to
getting started with building your own strategy, it needs to begin with a series
of questions – the answers to which are found through their own research and
experiments, sort of like doing pre-optimization optimization. Unfortunately,
too many site owners start jumping into A/B testing before even taking a look
at these foundational pieces of information. If you’re contemplating changing
something about your site to enhance conversions, begin the process by first
asking yourself the following questions:
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This is one of the most neglected areas of conversion optimization strategy,
simply because most site owners don’t put the data they’re seeing into context.
Instead, they just know that things aren’t ideal and they want to fix them. Like
a doctor, you need to do an examination before you can start thinking of what
tests to recommend or a diagnosis. Before doing anything, have a concrete
idea of what the current state of the site in both a holistic sense and the
specific areas you want to optimize.
For example, if you’re an ecommerce site and you’ve seen an increase in traffic
but not an increase in conversions, you’ll want to first get a general idea of the
trends and patterns you’re seeing with the site overall in terms of traffic and
user behavior, and then, start diving deeper into your top landing pages and

2. traffic sources to start to form hypotheses about why your traffic isn’t
converting as well. From there, you’ll do A/B testing or maybe you’ll find that
there’s a more obvious site issue causing a problem, such as a price that was
incorrectly entered and is too high or a broken checkout button.
)
Armed with your general site data, you’ll next want to form a better
understanding of who exactly your visitors are. Information like what browsers
they use, what languages they speak, what country they come from, what
interests they have, what they value in a product, or whether or not they are
male or female is essential to forming your conversion optimization strategy.
Get this information through customer surveys, polls, social media interaction,
or tools like Google Analytics. Once in hand, you can test things based on
specific visitor segments or form correlations in the data or observe patterns.
The key is to establish a baseline and have an understanding of those who will
be involved in your experimentation. Like any scientist, you have to know the
participants of the study by some criteria.
)
Where your visitors come from also has a lot to do with how they interact with
your site, so really dig into your marketing and analytics to get a sense of what
channels are driving traffic, how much, and what patterns there seem to be
with those streams. Sometimes, you may find an opportunity for a new
channel to test or a chance to reoptimize a channel that isn’t working as well as
it used to.
)
Seeing data that shows that there might be something wrong with a particular
page is one thing, but redoing every element on that page isn’t always the best
answer. There are many elements to a landing page (or even an entire site
design) that can play into conversion optimization. Headers, subheaders, calls
to action, footers, product images, the size of buttons for purchase, the length
of a contact form…these are just a few of the things that you can explore with
A/B testing. Choose one or two elements and start there. Don’t think that you
have to change everything to see results – sometimes one thing can make all
the difference.

3. )
Here’s the kicker. Conversion optimization can only work when you use the
data and observations you’ve gained to make actionable decisions about your
site. Decide early on in the process what your criteria will be for measurement,
as well as the tools you’ll use to collect and analyze that data, but be flexible.
As with all great experiments, you may find that one way of measurement
might not work, so be open to exploring other possibilities. Depending on your
goals for conversion optimization, you may look at using multiple methods of
testing, analytics, or tracking. Collect as much data as possible and from there,
start to look at correlations.
With these questions answered, you’ll have a good foundation to start building
your conversion optimization plan on. Speaking of plans, there are plenty of
resources out there with solid tips that can help you as you start to build your
strategy. Here’s some recommended reading:
 Top 20 Conversion Optimization Tips [Search Engine Watch]
 31 Conversion Optimization Tips [Wider Funnel Marketing Optimization]
 Conversion Optimization Notes from the Interactivity Digital Conference [Three
Deep Marketing]
 10 Important Conversion Optimization Tips That Make Your Site Bad@$$
[Search Engine Journal]
 The Conversion Optimization Rulebook [Unbounce]
Have something else you think should be included in this list of questions to
ask before getting started? Leave a comment!