Feedback, yes we get feedback. Some articles get more than others. This last GrokDotCom article about the value of words generated LOTS of feedback. It’s interesting to see what kind of content will get people to respond.

Have you read the article yet?

...continue to read "Words: One of Your Better Investments"

Conversion rate measures the number of visitors who took the action you wanted on your site divided by the total number of visitors. Every end-goal conversion (Macro-conversion), like a purchase, is composed of Micro-conversion points, like the click-through path in a shopping cart. In order to achieve the Macro-conversion a series of decisions has to be taken by the visitor, these clicks are measurable evidence of those decisions.

Only when you define and plan for Macro-conversions vs. Micro-conversions then you can understand…

...continue to read "How To Measure Conversion Rates"

Think of your customers going down different paths to the close, not simply one optimized path. If you ask a different question, you may get a different answer.

If your question is, "How do I build a single pipeline that gets me the highest conversion rate?" that’s likely to be what you build.

What if you asked "How do I build multiple pipelines that give me the highest conversion rate overall?" What might you build?

...continue to read "What question are you asking?"

Early in our company’s life, persona development was largely an intuitive process. We wanted to develop a process we could use to train clients and partners to duplicate the persona development process. To do this, we delved into literature and film to understand character development.

We were fortunate to be introduced to a prominent Hollywood screenwriter and script evaluator, David Freeman. Freeman taught us about “character diamonds,” a tool he teaches in his course, Beyond Structure. Today, we’ll share what we…

...continue to read "Making Personas Sparkle Like Diamonds, Part 1"

In this high-tech medium, your low-tech words will always give you the persuasive advantage

Everyone’s clambering for your development dollars – software systems guys, design guys, marketing guys, SEO guys, usability guys, information architecture guys. They’re all going to tell you their little piece of the pie is crucial to your success online. And they have a point … up to a point. I guarantee I have opinions on “the good, the bad and the ugly” in these subspecialties as they…

...continue to read "Words: One of Your Better Investments"

“Persona” is a hot buzzword in this industry, yet most companies that create personas haven’t fully embraced everything they have to offer. Most personas are watered-down and hard to relate to. The worst of the lot are lifeless outlines of a company’s demographic targets. Most often, they don’t deliver the expected outcome from using the persona approach.

I’m contributing to a book about the persona development process with experts Tamara Adlin from Amazon.com and John Pruitt from Microsoft. I don’t have…

...continue to read "Persona Development and the Law of Averages"

In that first second at midnight on January 1, something nearly mystical occurs. Though the only thing that really changes is the calendar, we somehow feel we’re making a fresh start. We begin plotting things in our lives or work that can be different and better. Allow me to challenge you to think afresh about the opportunities 2005 offers you and your Web site.

The Conversion Rate Game

Before the dot-com implosion, we were a small, lonely voice shouting about conversion rates…

...continue to read "Beyond Conversion Rates"

From GUUUI we read the following

Most web development projects put a lot of effort into the design of navigation tools. But fact is that people tend to ignore these tools. They are fixated on getting what they came for and simply click on links or hit the back button to get there. Read the entire article.

Why weren’t we surprised? Could be that in 2001 our very own lovable persuasion guru Bryan Eisenberg wrote the following…

Clearly, the center area…

...continue to read "Invisible Navigation"

More ways to examine your site through the eyes of your visitors

When it comes to online shopping, consumer confidence is increasing. More folks are turning to the Internet for their shopping needs – this holiday season alone, online spending was up 25% over the last holiday season (according to one statistic I ran across). That’s cheery news for all of us. But don’t whoop it up too much just yet. Truth is, the mere presence of more traffic isn’t going…

...continue to read "Still Falling Short in E(xceptional)-tail?"