In several conversations over the last few weeks, I’ve run into some puzzled looks when I mention the term "conversion" in relation to measuring website success. "What’s this guy talking about? My website isn’t trying to make proselytes," their faces seemed to say (they had very expressive faces). Now, among the analytics/web design crowd you won’t run into any confusion on whether you’ve strayed into a theological discussion, but not all analytics terms have gone mainstream. Whether you’re a marketer on the client or agency side of the business who is responsible for a website’s success, understanding the concept of conversion is essential to achieving and measuring that success.
Conversions Defined
In its most basic sense, conversion in regards to website activity is simply getting visitors to do what you built your site for. Do you have an e-commerce site? Then a site visitor making a purchase is a conversion. Is your site built as informational, supporting other distribution channels? Then a PDF download of a product spec sheet or manual could be a conversion. Maybe your site gives information on your service offering; then a conversion could be an appointment made or an inquiry sent through a web form.
Conversions Selected
So how do you decide what specific conversion activity or activities to track for your site? Well this takes us one step back in your website design process. Ideally, before a site is built, an explicit purpose is laid out and the success measures are defined. This is the point when the key performance indicators (the KPIs term has been borrowed from Six Sigma for all kinds of success measurement, including online) are chosen, and out of those, the determination of which conversion activities to track can be made. For instance, if a KPI for your site was sales inquires made, then as a conversion activity, you would be interested in tracking the number of visits that included a request to be contacted by a salesperson.
If it’s a bit late for planning your website – say your site has been up and running in some form for several years, there is still an opportunity for defining your KPIs and conversion activities. While you may not have stated it when you were building your site, you did have a purpose in mind or you would not have committed a budget to the effort. Look back and determine what those main goals of the site were and define their related conversion activities. If looking back at your site you come to the realization that your site isn’t really providing the conversions you need for your business, then it’s time for a redesign – because a website that isn’t directly contributing to your overall business goals is just a needless drain of company resources.
Each site will vary in how many KPIs and related conversion activities are needed to truly gauge the site’s success. A very simple brochureware site might only have one KPI and conversion activity to track, while a deep corporate site with customer service, product support and e-commerce components could have several conversion activities being tracked in each section. Regardless of the number, tracking conversions is essential to justifying the purpose of any site and providing guidance for needed improvements.
Conversions Measured
Defining the conversions that need to be tracked is the hard part; the actual tracking is usually not that difficult. Any quality web analytics software currently on the market allows access to the data needed to track just about any conversion activity you can define. The only variance between the software offerings is how easy that data is to get out and present in an easily understandable form. Assuming you have access to an analytics professional for your site (and I hope you do), this is a great task to let them work their stat magic on.
When properly programmed to recognize the activities you have defined as conversions, the best analytics programs can not only show you the rate at which visitors are converting, but also show you the path they take on the site before converting so you can determine where most visitors are being lost in the process. For example, say you have a page of information detailing the service your company offers that includes a link to a sign up form. Should a visitor select the link to the form, they are then greeted by a page requesting basic information, followed by another page requesting credit card information. When tracking the conversion rate of visitors who sign up for your service, the web analytics software will allow you to view the three pages as a path to conversion and will show the percentage of visitors who make it through each step in the process. Information like this not only shows how well your site is currently converting visitors, but allows you to test any modifications throughout the conversion process as you seek to improve your conversion rate.
Converted?
So can we agree it’s best to decide on what you want your site's KPIs and conversion activities are before building the site (saving yourself the trouble of building a site focused on the wrong things)? Can we also agree tracking your site’s conversion rate is worthwhile and truly essential if you want to find ways to improve your site over time? You’re not going to tell me we can’t agree on anything? Did I fail to convert you at all? If so, tell me, and I’ll redesign and give it another try.