It goes without saying that most of us want more web traffic.
The more traffic we generate, the more subscribers and customers we’ll get, right?
Right.
And WRONG.
There’s a glaring hole in “the more, the more” theory, and as you guessed it, this is what we’ll be talking about this week.
Conversion Optimization
Imagine all the work you have to put into increasing your blog traffic: writing quality content, guest posting, mingling on social media, working on your SEO rankings…
Now answer this question: considering all the work, would you rather get 1,000 visitors and convert 100 of them into paying customers (10% conversion rate) or 10,000 visitors and convert 100 of them (1% conversion rate)?
Rhetorical question, I know.
So before you ask me “How do I get more traffic to my blog, Ana?“, let’s ask ourselves:
How Can We Do More Business with Less Traffic?
We all tend to fall in love with our site designs and often ignore the fact that they simply don’t work for our readers.
Since Traffic Generation Cafe started in July of 2010, it’s been redesigned THREE times.
The sad thing is that the first two times it was redesigned because I wanted it “to look pretty” and include some of the features I came across on other blogs and thought they were great.
Never occurred to me to actually do some testing to see whether any of those features actually helped or HURT my conversion optimization.
…Until I stumbled upon a Google Analytics feature that I never bothered to use before.
I was very unhappy to find out that so many features I thought were great were in fact simply cluttering my blog.
Take a look at this video I’ve made BEFORE I gave Traffic Generation Cafe a new makeover in December and see what worked and what didn’t.
We’ll talk about:
- One or two navigation bars?
- What actually gets clicked on your navigation bar?
- What about your sidebar? What do your readers want to see there?
- Should you use related posts plugins?
- And more…
Conversion Optimization Problems Addressed
Fast forward one month.
My blog looks pretty much the way you see it right now.
How much traffic conversion improvement has Traffic Generation Cafe seen since the redesign?
And here’s another video I made AFTER I redesigned my blog:
So as you can see, working on tweaking your design to increase conversion optimization never ends.
I’ve got a long way to go…
Conversion Optimization Marketing Takeaway
There are plenty of tools to help you optimize your blog design. Some of them are listed on my internet marketing tools page.
However, most of us don’t make an effort to work on conversion optimization because it sounds complicated and time-consuming.
With a simple and FREE tool like Google In-Page Analytics, there’s no excuse.
It’ll take you about 5 minutes. Do it now.
Yes, it’s that important.
I do hope my redesign experiment will encourage you to take a look at your own site and try to figure out what works and what doesn’t BEFORE you spend gazillion hours driving traffic that will never stick.
How Would You Like to Have Me Audit Your Blog?
It always helps to have an extra pair of eyes when it comes down to blog functionality and design.
That’s why I am bringing back my Blog Audit Friday series.
This series is all about me analyzing a blog in terms of overall design, traffic conversion, SEO, traffic potential, etc. and then publishing my findings at Traffic Generation Cafe.
How do you get to be the lucky (or unlucky – depending on how you look at it) blog owner who gets the benefit of my free blog audit?
Join our Traffic Generation community – that simple.
I’ll randomly pick one of my subscribers each and every month.
See you there!
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{ 129 comments… read them below or add one }
I learned something new today about conversion optimization. You are right that not at all time the theory “the more… the more” because there are cases when an increasing input on something decreases its total output.
Quality over quantity, Danica.
Once again, a very insightful post. The last time was blog was redesigned was around 4 years back. Maybe its time I gave it a tweak. And yes, I need to take a detailed look at the In Page Analytics again.
Definitely sounds like it’s about time, Sanjay.
Very nice post Ana (as always). Website re-design/improvements should always in progress.
The Google ‘In-page’ analytics is great. I just checked on my blog and discovered that some menu items are never clicked (very very little). That something could be kept at the footer menu and removed from the Top menu.
Definitely ‘Most Commented Posts’ or ‘Most Viewed Posts’ grabs visitors attention.
There is a lot more work to be done for me.
Thanks for opening my eyes.
Boutros.
Boutros invites you to read: Top 10 Free Antivirus Software For Windows
You are so very welcome, Boutros; glad I could add to your to-do list!
Hi Ana,
Well, i have to tell you that I opened Google Analytics while watching your videos. I have never used again the in page analytics. I find the analysis you make here very helpful and interesting. I have just learned one more thing and that is thanks to you. So I am grateful
I have a question if you don’t mind: do you have some conclusions about the use of 2 navigation bars on the header of the page? I saw you had two in the firsts video but you have just one now. Why? Did you conclude that this type of design confuses the visitors?
I am asking because I am currently working on redesigning my english blog in a WP platform and I thought that the two bars is a great idea. But as you explain very well what it matters is if this idea is great for my visitors and not only for me!
Thank you for the videos. Great information as always.Ii am stuck to your site
Two answers to your question, Lenia:
1. The bottom nav bar with all the category links wasn’t clicked on.
2. The more choices you give to your readers, the less they choose.
That’s why I found that I needed to take away some of those options.
Oh yeah, I double checked the first video…I see some stats on the list and link building but you mention it is very low…
Ok, I got it! Thank you for the tips.
Have a great WE!
I have tried looking up the In-Page analysis for my website. But for some reason I get an error message which says:
“Your site doesn’t load ga.js from Google. If you host the Google tracking code on your own servers, it isn’t updated automatically and can miss important changes.”
What does this mean? Any suggestions? I am using thesis theme
Take a look at the comment below from Ileane, Leon – she had the same problem.
wow Ana, really interesting stuff!
Are you sure that the analytics are giving spot-on data?? Like you, I also noticed quite a lot of jumping around with figures.
Also, I noticed that it doesn’t seem to show click-throughs for videos embedded on my site or social media buttons, so maybe that was why it appeared no-one clicked on your social links??
Anyway, thanks for showing me a new tool and looking forward to future updates
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You are correct, Mandy – we always need to take GA stats (or any stats for that matter) with a grain of salt.
That’s why I confirmed my suspicions with a bunch of paid software. lol
As far as social media goes, it only makes sense; after all, why would you encourage your readers to LEAVE your site vs STAY, right?
Hey Ana,
this is great but I miss the old design!
I realise that may not be a popular thing to say but I really liked the ‘feel’ of your site – particularly the colour scheme which was your own unique scheme.
I love the cafe idea and the cafe-friendly colours you used to have. I get why you have changed the actual content & structure but surely you could have done this whilst keeping the same colours (or were you bored of them).
Don’t get me wrong, I do like the minimalist feel (my site is similar with a really bare design & white background).
It looks to me like lots of sites are going for the white background these days so your site is becoming like the rest – but it already looked great!!
It still looks good but in my view not as good as it was – sorry but it’s my view and I think in any case you’ll appreciate the feedback even if it’s not just great post, great job Ana etc etc.
It is a great tip about the in page analytics and about removing unused buttons (I didn’t need GA to tell me my social media buttons weren’t clicked I think a lot of people are social media button blind these days anyway) – but I just don’t think you needed to change your colours – for me that is part of your brand and you have a really great brand.
Even for example your social media icons – even if they weren’t clicked that’s not to say they never will be and even then, even if they’re not they looked really cool and contributed to a really professional look & feel within your superb ‘cafe’ theme,
hope this makes sense, just a bit of feedback, in any case, you’re awesome & so is your content I just have to say I preferred your old colour scheme (including the very clean borders around your posts, & carefully thought out & co-ordinated graphics).
Apart from the colours (which I’m assuming you don’t get any stats for) you are doing what any great business does & measuring – what gets measured gets improved!
I completely understand, Alan, and I did like the old design quite a bit.
However, we need to stay with the times or even be ahead of times in this business…
Wow. I was only trying to help Ana
I know, Alan – did I say something that made you think otherwise?
Truth is I don’t like change. I’d rather stick with what I know…
Too bad doesn’t work too well with online businesses. lol
no worries Ana, I just found your reply a little short (perhaps businesslike) that’s all.
Made me feel like a bit of an idiot for writing (and caring) so much in the comment in the first place.
I was actually interested to hear your feedback on my feedback
e.g. why couldn’t you just simplify but preserve the branding & colour scheme, or do the stats actually extend as far as telling you that changing the colours will convert better (I didn’t see that in your vids)?
Obviously if you were just tired of the old colours then that’s different. Here I go again – why am I re-writing this?
Please just ignore me, I didn’t mean to sound so grouchy!
Well, I generally felt that the blog looked very “behind”, very old-school.
Plus, the way it was laid out, I couldn’t add some of the functions I wanted to, so I needed to redesign the layout, and once I started doing that I decided I might as well play with “cleaner” look as well.
I do kind of get your point but I thought it looked good.
The new look is very up to the minute (in my opinion still not as good as the old one but I get your point) the only problem is it looks the same as everyone else now. Take the guy who commented below who has another ‘traffic cafe’ – virtually the same colour scheme. As are lots of others (including mine but I did mine ages ago, different niche and mine’s blank just because it’s very minimaliist, not for any conversion reasoons).
Anyways – thanks for answering I’m going to stop bothering you now
All in all the business fix side of it (giving more prominence to what works, getting rid of what doesn’t) makes total sense (obviously)
I still think you’re awesome
Great post Ana! Detailing how you improved your blog in regard to Google Analytics was very helpful to me. I have a bounce rate of 80 percent right now. I need to bring that down. I did notice there is a large increase in traffic coming from mobile devices. There is so much to learn and I am glad I am teachable.
Thanks for the help you gave me last year on getting my blog focused in on a particular niche. Now my site is advancing in Alexa rank and I am attracting the right visitor to my site!
Danielle Parsons invites you to read: How to Achieve Your Weight Loss Goal
So glad to hear that, Danielle!
Yes, mobile marketing is on my list to learn more about…
Great videos Ana, I love your content and your blog design. It looks so professional.
Thank you, Michael.
Great blog Ana. I seem to always learn something new with your posts. I started my blog Decembeer 1, 2010. So I have a long ways to go in learning.
Catch up, Barry!
Thanks for the details! I am still learning the “blogging ropes” and find your blog posts invaluable. I am planning to go self-hosting in the near future and can’t wait to start adding plug-ins like Google Analytics. Sure hope I win a Friday blog audit to help optimize my next site.
Well, hurry up and start that blog, Carol! lol
Yeah, I know! I’ve done three months on the free access Wordpress to see if I liked blogging. I do. Now I just need to get it moved to a self hosting site, which I hope to do In February. But in the meantime I keep blogging at my current, albeit limited, site.
I am taking the first three months of my blog and using these first months as a testing platform to see how the blog is doing…this tool is amazing. I learned a lot from your videos (they are awesome), and was amazed at the number of changes I implemented, thinking they were going to be great, weren’t really that good at all. So, needless to say, I have a ton of work to do and can’t wait to see the results. Thanks again for another amazing article!
Jaime
You are very welcome, Jaime; glad you were able to pick up a few tips for your blog. Yet another traffic cafe? lol
Thanks for the reply…yes, great videos and content as always. Yes, another traffic cafe… I do have a question…I took your advice and looked at my page and noticed I had some decent click-through’s, but on my ads I didn’t have any at all…I don’t nearly have the traffic you do, but do you think it’s too early to change them since I’ve only had the site up about a month and the ads have only been there a week or so? ps…I did sign up as an affiliate and let them know I was referred by you…it’s not much, but it’s a lil’ something…lol.
Jaime invites you to read: Is SOPA Dead?
I wouldn’t take down your ads just because GA doesn’t show enough clicks on them yet, Jaime.
And thank you!
Thanks for this blog. Gonna check out in page analytics now…
Personally I would love a blog audit. That would be sick!
G
I think you are on my list, Geoff, so you never know!
I do like your design, simply because it’s uncluttered and easy to navigate around. You surely know what you’re talking about. It’s really brilliant that you only started this site in 2010. I wish I had your tech know-how.
Do you include Blogger blogs in the Blog Audit Fridays?
You know, your Comment luv goes to the ComLuv site. Even though I did mine according to your tutorial, my link doesn’t go to the site. That’s weird, isn’t it.
Anne invites you to read: How To Write An Article Online – 2
I knew nothing about any techie stuff when I first started, Anne. We all learn as we need to! lol
Yes, I include any sites for my Blog Audit Friday.
Which CL link are you referring to?
The one under this comment panel that says TGC uses commentLuv Premium, which always allows you to use your real name then… It’s under the box that asks you to please click to confirm you’re not a a spammer.
Anne invites you to read: How To Write An Article Online – 2
That one is meant to go to CommentLuv site, Anne – it’s an aff link.
I know, Ana. Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. I know that it’s aff. I tried getting mine set up to go there too (with my aff link) but it doesn’t. I thought I copied exactly what you said to do.
Completely misunderstood you, Anne. lol
Go under “Keyword Name” settings and you’ll see the box that says “Text under comment”. You can add your HTML link there.
Ana – first off this pop-up is certainly the least offensive I’ve seen and the only one that doesn’t immediately put a bad taste in my mouth…
Great to have an insight into how you’re using this tool… I actually had a fiddle around with it last year but it was still in Beta at that point and seemed fairly unreliable. I think it should still be taken as a general indicator only since – as you mentioned – there are some elements which Google simply doesn’t track.
Here’s to the ongoing optimization of all our blogs, and thanks for sharing as ever
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I’ve had it for a couple of days only; took me a few tweaks to get it right.
However, from what I know, it’s the only popup that’s timed to show up AFTER the post is read. I think that eliminates the major problem most readers have with their blog.
Jym: could you email me 3 of your best posts you’d like to drive traffic to?
Well well well, you certainly have made a lot of changes to this site – even since I was here last. I have to say that I cannot see any of these changes being for the worse. I especially like the page that appears when you first come to the main page – although I would have to add that you really need to build up your brand and your credibility before something like this would convert (which you have most certainly done)
I commend you on … well everyhing you have done here and say that you most certainly deserve the rewards that (hopefully) come with it.
Keep up the great work Ana, good to see you again (and to be seen LOL)
Alex invites you to read: What Are The Most Important Elements to Include on a Niche Site?
Great to have you back, Alex.
I got rid of the welcome page; great conversion and even greater exit rates. You are right – I need to build my brand up first before such pages pop up.
Hello Ana,
Congrats on the new look to your blog.
I found your two video’s on the Google In-Page Analytic’ s, before and after, to be very informative.
I have heard of other marketer’s using some sort of on page software to try and see what their site visitors are doing while visiting their blogs.
With regards to your having the top and lower navigation bars in your header on your previous blog layout, and seeing that your visitors were not clicking some of the tabs, I had an experience about a year ago, where I had taken a free month trail at Blog Success with Jack Humphrey.
One of his partners there, Diane Corriette, would do blog reviews for people. And I remember her telling a blogger whose site was being reviewed by her, that she had way to many navigation tabs on her site.
I have visited some blogs that have 7 tabs at the top and 10 more on the bottom of their blog header.
I found that many blogs not only take to long to load, but while having all those tabs might look for a more interesting and engaging blog, it usually leads to more confusion than anything else.
Sometimes more isn’t always better.
Glad to see you are willing to make changes to your site, that will make for a better experience to your blog visitors.
Question, do you find you have better opt in results by having your form and side bar widget on the left side of your blog?
Thanks for sharing,
Willie
I definitely agree, Willie – if you give your readers too many choices, they’ll end up choosing none.
Yes, my left-hand side bar converts better.
PS I normally don’t approve comments without the first name, so please make sure to use your first name as well next time.
Hi Ana
Fabulous post as always.
Guess we all want a pretty blog and I do think that it’s possible to have both.
I’ve just started an affiliate for Genesis themes and I’ve added a big box and graphic for readers to click on – you can’t miss it.
Learn something every time I visit.
Thanks Ana
Keith Davis invites you to read: Genesis Pro Plus Package… Fabulous Value!
I used to have that kind of box for Thesis, Keith – got quite a few clicks. I hope yours does as well.
Thanks for the +1!
Just started using In-Page Analytics and got quite a bit of ideas on what to get rid of on my blog too. Thanks for the videos Ana.
You are very welcome, Peter.
Hi Ana,
Two videos clear gives an idea for us to improve the traffic thanks for sharing it
You are welcome.
What you said really rang true with me, I fall into the trap of making my blog/sites look pretty but never considering navigation/conversion from the perspective of the customer/visitor. Thanks for the inspiration to stop being so selfish and concentrate on what works. I’m off to run the in page analytics tool.
google +1′d and liked on fb for such useful content.
Really look forward to future posts.
cheers
Thanks, Michael.
Hi Ana, the In-Page analytics doesn’t load for me. I get this message
We’ve identified problems in your setup. These may cause problems loading In-Page Analytics.
Your site doesn’t load ga.js from Google. If you host the Google tracking code on your own servers, it isn’t updated automatically and can miss important changes.
Any ideas why that’s happening? I use the Google Analytics Plugin from Yoast to install the tracking code.
Ileane invites you to read: Podcasting Gear and Ms. Ileane Speaks on iTunes
Hi, Ileane:
I checked the source code on your site and it seems to be installed just fine.
Since you are using Thesis, I’d suggest you remove the code from the Yoast plugin and add it under Thesis Site Options ==> Stats Software/Scripts.
Give it a shot.
Ana, did I ever tell you how brilliant you are? Shame on me then…
That worked like a charm and I’m finding out all the good stuff now. Interestingly enough, in my sidebar I have 2 lists of posts – Featured posts and Latest posts – no one is clicking on the featured posts and almost everyone is clicking on the latest posts. Ironically, most of those posts are on the home page anyway and they just need to scroll down
Stay awesome girlfriend!
Ileane invites you to read: Simple Ways to Get Free Website Traffic
So glad I could show off my brilliance, Ileane! lol
Latest posts… interesting and counter-intuitive.
I’m having the same challenge, but I use a Genesis theme with the Ultimate Google analytics plugin by Wilfred van der Deijl — have you seen any reasons why these two would interfere with GA in-page?
The only thing I can think of, Tea, is the fact that some of these plugins don’t mash with your theme very well and produce some invalid parameters for some reason.
See if you can follow the directions I gave to Ileane and place GA code into your theme yourself – should be very simple to do. And don’t forget to deactivate the plugin.
Are you sure the intro that first appears when people access your site is right for them (especially when “go straight to the blog” is written so small at the end of the page?) You said: “We all tend to fall in love with our site designs and often ignore the fact that they simply don’t work for our readers.”
You need to be more specific, Jack – my “go straight to the blog” line is the same font size as everything else on that page.
My bad – you’re right, it’s the same font. When that happened to me, the first thought that crossed my mind was “what [***] is this, where’s the blog?”, but I continued reading until I found the text “go straight to the blog” only because a friend of mine recommended you.
You won’t see that window again, Jack.
Ana
I enjoyed watching your videos and learnt a lot from them thanks, I have changed my blog a couple of times already and it’s quite new as I wanted it to “look pretty” but I now know that it’s not the most important aspect.
I am going to start using Google Analytics and see the results so I can continue to tweak my blog.
Regards
Pauline
Pauline invites you to read: Why Take Part In A Giveaway Event continued….
I hope so, Pauline.
Thanks for the good advice Ana, which I’m going to follow now. I’ve made the same thing with my blog and tested tens of themes and such. Now I’m gone for a simple and clean, yet flexible, theme like Suffusion. Also because a simple theme is good for those who surf using mobile.
Have a great day!
Clean is definitely in, Andrea.
I found this article very helpful. I agree that quality is more important than quantity. I learn alot about using Analytics that I didn’t know in your videos. Thank you Ana.
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You are welcome, Michael.
Useful video tutorials, Ana. Site design is just one of those things we never stop working on. It’s an ongoing housekeeping task whether we like it or not. If there’s another big thing to take away from this, is that we should focus more on what really interests our readers. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Ana,
Very good insight here. It’s very important to tweak our blog, because as you said sometimes we might think it’s great but it doesn’t generate much result or vice versa.
By the way I had meant to tell you before, on my computer I have a hard time to the the entire page of your blog, meaning no matter what I try I can’t read all the way to the end of the line on the right hand side. I am not missing much be maybe a letter or two. I don’t have this problem with any other blog.
Do you know what would be the problem, by any chance? Not a big, deal, but since you were talking about what you readers see, that’s what I see on your blog, or can’t see rather
Great post Ana! It’s amazing to me how much we know or do not know about how our blog visitor behave at any moment. This very helpful information in terms of knowing what we get out of the traffic get redirected to our blog. I think the key is to know what’s going on with the traffic we get and we can better be prepared to serve our readers and give them more of what they are looking for. That’s only one of the reasons I like Google In Page Analytic is that we can see what people are clicking on and usually this tells us exactly what they are looking for on our blog.
Thanks for sharing the knowledge Ana.
Stephane
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One of these days I hope to have grown my blog enough to be bold enough for an audit. Right now, I just keep reading everything you write and follow all of your advice.
As for keeping things simple and focusing on conversion rate, I am so thankful to hear. While I was trying to put the bones of my blog together I was looking at what everyone else was doing and thinking if they were successful it would work for me too.
After some soul searching about my ideal client and my own personality, I’ve cleaned things up a bit and hope I’ll be on the right trail with my readers.
At some point will you please tell us how you seem to be able to answer all of the comments here, tweet, update G+ and a fan page, not to mention creating awesome content. If there’s some secret sauce to it, I’m paying for it!
Susan
That’s what I do as well, Susan – looking at other blogs, learning, implementing, testing.
I am planning on doing a video on my social media management!
Another great article Ana, although I would like to point out that you cannot convert traffic you are not getting
I have been arguing about conversion rates for some time now…..another photographer keeps bragging about what great traffic he’s getting on his site but I know for a fact he’s not converting any of them into portrait sessions….
They are both important
They certainly are, Doug.
As usual; awesome content Ana. Conversion optimization is something I need to pay a lot more attention to. Like many bloggers and marketers; I focus the majority of my efforts on driving more traffic instead of improving conversions.
Great stuff; taught me several things I didn’t already know.
Understandably, Jamie.
Hope now you’ll focus on both.
And please get an avatar!
When one hears the word “traffic” it’s easier to think quantity over quality. We all do it at first, because we don’t know better. But with time the lucky ones reach the same conclusion, that the extra effort to get more traffic is not worth it.
Definitely, Stan.
Happy New Year(s), Anna!
Even though I knew about this GA tool, I really wasn’t paying as much attention to it as it deserves. I am currently working on a blog redesign and, as you said, I was concentrating on it looking mostly pretty. Glad I dropped by (once again!).
Sounds like a perfect time to find out what your readers want to see on your site, Rod!
Thanks for coming by.
We all want to have a lots of traffic and that is probably the main thing as a blogger. I find your blog very interesting Ana and thank you so much for sharing it. Thanks for the video as well.
You are welcome, Marnie.
Ana, this is so true! That’s one of the reasons I got rid of my 3rd column. It was just offering too many choices for readers and adding clutter. I just recently switched back to a left column nav on my static site and my email opt ins jumped 300%. It also improved my page views per visitor and lowered my bounce rate. Will have to follow up on my blog soon as well. It is definitely easy to get caught up in design and forget to track what’s important… and I must admit that I am not always the best at tracking everything. Great post.
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It really is amazing how many things we take for granted that are not actually working that well, Lisa.
Sidebar is a great example. Everyone has it on the right. So all the new bloggers put it on the right as well, since that’s “how it’s done”.
Testing, testing, testing!
Never really got into Analytics, but I keep hearing a lot about it. Looking forward to checking this out. Thanks and God bless!
Definitely need to, Marta!
Blessings to you as well.
Impressive. But this is theoretically not for me. Am still concentrating on building traffic and writing awesome content. Conversion optimization will come later.
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I strongly disagree, Obinna.
Just got back from your site. If I were your first-time visitor (and I was), I’d leave just by looking at the poorly aligned header, etc, crowded sidebars…
Why would you want to get visitors to your blog just so that they can hurry up and leave?
Thanks Ana, have de-cluttered the sidebar. It is now showing only my Social profiles and popular posts.
Taking action – that’s what I like to hear!
Hi Ana,
I certainly am glad you’re bringing back blog audit Friday. I also hope that I might be the lucky one to win an audit.
But if I don’t win one pretty soon, I have to part with some doubloons and have one done for my blog.
BTW. Did your husband get that job at Google yet?
Lou
I’d love to audit your blog, Lou; maybe you and I should get together for a quick analysis – we’ll call it a “loyal long-time reader in good standing” audit. lol
No, I am serious.
No job yet…
Ana,
I am so glad you did these videos and this post.
I did this same type of analysis of my blog last month and was astonished at what people were clicking on.
For one, my readers did not click any of my related posts but did click quite often on previous and next posts also. How funny they didn’t click related, most problogger tips tell you to include them to keep bounce rate down. I may eliminate mine also. One less plugin is a faster site.
Also, I wondered about putting a widget to my reviews. There is always this controversy to how many clicks you should make your readers do before they get to the purchase page. Meaning marketers say have direct clicks to products. But, you know, I always want to know what my fav trusted bloggers think about certain products. I think I may try a this widget of review links.
Thanks so much for your help!
~Allie
Related posts discovery definitely went against everything I knew about blogging, Allie!
Since review are so often clicked, I’ll be working on optimizing that are of my sidebar as well.
Thanks for the +1!
Hey Ana,
Honestly, I think CRO is THE CHALLENGE we all face.
For me getting sites set up and running and even custom coded all came easily.
But getting a real human to click requires REAL psychology.
You are doing far better than most.
Keep up the great work.
Mark
Thanks, Mark.
That’s probably because I actually take the time to find out what my readers like.
Wow, that was brilliant.
Thanks Ana. It was the first time I’ve used it, and it was very interesting which area of my homepage received the majority of the attention from readers.
Makes me see I need to shuffle things around a bit.
Thanks for the tip.
You are very welcome, Rory.
It is interesting how user behavior sometimes is strongly tied in with the blogs design. I have been using In-Page Analytics for a while now and it has given me some things to think about too. I think that it is a great tool and everyone should use it to analyze what “happens” in their site when people visit them. There are some surprising results, I must admit
DiTesco invites you to read: Ads Galore, Google+ SEO, SOPA, Social Web, Speedlink 03:2012
I was definitely surprised!
Hey Ana,
Thanks for sharing your conversion stats with us. Tweaking your blog design is an unending process, I can tell you that. We need to track our efforts and keep tweaking in order to see better results.
I have been seeing the author box with an opt-in form a lot lately and I thought it was a plugin. I even asked Dev about it the other day, lol!
I’m going to get rid of the categories in the menu – no use!
Traffic generation without conversions it’s useless. Period.
All the best,
Mavis
Mavis Nong invites you to read: Top 2 Blogger Exposes the Truth About Successful Blogging
I can’t believe how simple it was to add the optin form to my bio, Mavis!
By the way, did you see my previous post? I mentioned you: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/popular-blogs-from-scratch/
Oh dear! I thought I had left a comment already. Fixed that!
Thanks very much for the kind mention, my friend
Warmly,
Mavis
Mavis Nong invites you to read: Top 2 Blogger Exposes the Truth About Successful Blogging
Ana! LOl
Please be so kind and share with me how I can add an opt-in form to my author box, pwetty pwease??
Thanks!
Very easy, Ruan: go under your profile and add the opt-in code in your bio box.
Mine is not working properly at the moment…
Wow! That it? WoW!
Cool, thanks!
ruan invites you to read: How To Migrate Your Thesis And Any Other WordPress Blog To A New Domain In 8 Easy Steps
Sometimes, the most brilliant ideas are the simplest ones. lol
Ana I totally agree, generally we all get overwhelmed in designing our website, and try to aim for a singing and dancing site, which looks very appealing to the eye, but forget about if it actually fits our target audience and to test what’s works and what doesn’t.
The key is to get the right balance a site that looks well and also converts at the same time.
Wasim Ismail invites you to read: Weekly Business Sales Quote by Chilean-American novelist about spending yourself
Achieving the right balance is never easy, but always worth shooting for, Wasim.
I guess its a matter of trail and error, and see what works best for your visitors.
Ana,
Traffic conversion is a ridiculously important topic. I have been doing many redesigns to my site as well.
I will say that at certain traffic levels no amount of optimized conversion design will get you the sales or whatever you’re looking for. So obviously traffic is important but I’m assuming we’re all striving for greatness so increased traffic needs to go hand in hand with subscriptions and conversions.
Great post…
Thank you.
Quantity can get us only that far, Ryan – thanks for coming by!
Hi Ana,
Learning, practising and testing how to convert traffic to leads is vital for any internet business and yet so many people focus solely on driving traffic and not converting.
It’s crazy!
James
James Debono invites you to read: Use Niche Picking to Seek Out Your Own Personal Gold Mine!
I know, James.
Hey Ana–
I tried to view vids but both posted a “This video is private.” Of course, I wondered if I needed a secret PW or something…
Regardless, I completely agree about the uselessness of traffic without conversions, and design and easy navigation are key. Honestly, I’ve been in re-design hell for the better part of 6 months–thankfully my new person is a programmer so I expect the code kinks to be resolved in no time–ugh!
It never ends…
I’ll try back later and see if my video access is restored…:).
Thanks for letting me know, Linda; I can’t believe I forgot to turn the videos to public!
No, it never ends… But what’s the fun in everything running smoothly, right?
Great post! Seriously… I can’t tell you how many of our clients are terrified of Google Analytics. Get over yourself, get over your fear – nobody can run your business like you.
And of course I am also glad you did a post about conversions because really… traffic is awesome but who cares if a million people hit your site if they don’t buy. Well… we might care a little
I’ve noticed a big surge in search volume related to content conversion the last few months. Of course that’s what my company is all about so I’m biased but still – I bet the conversation will shift from site design to content in regards to conversion optimization. Or maybe that’s just my hope!
Happy Monday!
Amie Marse invites you to read: 2 Reasons Outsourcing SEO will Crumble Your Sales
So right you are, Amie – running your business blindfolding is not the way to run a business at all.
Oh man, did the “pretty blog” desire ever screw me up when I first started. I wasted so much time fiddling with my design or redesigning it from scratch and never, ever thinking about optimizing it. I just wanted it to look “perfect.” That’s probably the biggest reason I later invested in both the Genesis and Thesis theme frameworks. I know I’ll want to fiddle with it and at least a framework helps me keep things organized and effective while I do it
Daniel Roach invites you to read: How To Use Negative Marketing to Make More Money Without Scaring Away Your Customers
I hear you, Daniel – most of us have to learn from our own mistakes of over-personalizing our blogs and forgetting about our readers!
Hi Ana,
The theme of revamping the design of a blog /site is endless. A new technology / tool / social site appear and increase traffic, then you should tweak it again. The vivid example is Google Plus, when the button and profiles are more important than ever.
If the traffic’s goal is convert into a sale, it’s clear for me the concept: it’s preferable 10 visitors per day that convert, that 10000 untargeted that not convert at all.
The only way that can justify untargeted general traffic, is if you’ve a model based in CPM.
All the best,
Gera
Gera invites you to read: Internet Marketing Graphics Plugin Review – Landing Pages and More
It certainly never ends, Gera.
Hi Ana,
On both videos say: “This video is private, sorry about that”
I suppose they should be public, right?
Gera
Gera invites you to read: CommentLuv Global Search Engine
You are so right, Gera – I completely forgot to change it!
Good to go now.