Conversion Research | Post 5
This is the fifth-week review post about my journey with CXL institute and learning about conversion optimization research. This week has been quite interesting where the course is concerned and its core focus is around conversion research. This course's basis is centred around how to do research and help you understand why you need to do research and that you cannot fix something if you don't understand what's wrong. You cant diagnose something if you don't know what's wrong.
Your opinions don't matter! A simple analogy is used at the beginning of the course "Would you rather have a doctor operate on you based on opinion or careful examinations and tests?"
Conversion research consists of:
- Experience-based assessments
Site walkthroughs
Heuristic Analysis
Usability Analysis
- Qualitative Research
Online surveys with recent customers
On-site Polls
Phone Interviews
Live Chat Transcripts
Customer Support Insights
User Testing
- Quantitative Research
Web Analytics analysis
Mouse Tracking Analysis
The course further recommends using their research model called the ResearchXL framework to conduct conversion research, which is an in-depth model that ensures all bases are covered.
Customer Development:
The first chapter informs you that conversion research cannot be conducted if it is a new business or startup. There are no customers to survey or no data to analyze. Instead, they recommend that you focus on customer development to help you figure out what product to build and for whom.
If you have no valuable data, then start talking to your customers to build a product to minimize your risks and improve the chances of your business surviving.
The ResearchXL Model:
In this chapter, Peep Laja explains his tried and tested process which has helped plenty of optimizers grow their businesses. The model consists of a six-step framework.
- Heuristic Analysis
- Technical Analysis
- Digital Analytics
- Qualitative Research
- User Testing
- Mouse Tracking Analysis
This process helps you collect valuable data and ensures that no stone is left unturned. He shows how to prioritize your data to achieve quick wins. I love this chapter because it's so detailed and shows you step by step what you need to do.
Sitewalkthroughs:
It is important to note that many conversions are lost due to poor cross-browser and cross-device compatibility issues. The key thing to remember is that poor user experience and technical will kill your conversions.
It's wrong to assume that your developers will check all key journeys for you. You have to inspect this yourself and make sure everything works fine and functions correctly.
Heuristic Analysis:
What is a heuristic analysis?
It's an expert based analysis that uses experience-based techniques for problem-solving, learning and discovery.
Although doing a heuristic analysis can be a wonderful thing, you must keep in the forefront of your mind that any problems identified with your bare eyes must always be backed up by data and not jump to any conclusions.
Usability Evaluation:
The outcome of a usability evaluation is to make a website easy to use, so people can make use of your website without having to think. The awesome thing about usability issues is that they are low hanging fruit that can be used for quick wins for your website.
The awesome thing about usability evaluation is that there are many checklists online you could use to fix usability errors on your website.
Online Polls, Emails Surveys & Customer Support:
Dr Rob Balon presents valuable information about survey design and how to present questions in a survey or poll. Online polls, surveys and live chat transcripts can provide useful insight for conversion rate optimization specialists.
Many businesses tend to neglect to do any form of surveys as this can give you valuable insight into how your product offering is performing and most importantly how you can win the battle within your potential customer's mind.
User Testing:
User testing is an important part of the research phase. It gives you insights into what stops people from doing something on your website. User testing and Usability tests are two completely different things.
When you completed a user testing session, it won't give you an exact answer as to the exact issue, but it can tell you the shortcomings of your current solution. You can for instance look at what is distracting them on a page, is the copy clear enough or are they not able to find key things on your page.
The main aim of user testing is to observe how real users use and interact with your website.
Google Analytics Health Check:
One of the most important aspects of your research is to find out if Google Analytics is collecting information accurately. Clients are always confident that their tracking and conversion goals are set up 100% correctly.
Before you start with research, these are one of the most important things you need to check to have accurate data.
Ask yourself:
- Does it collect what we need?
- Can we trust this data?
- Where are the holes?
- Is there anything that can be fixed?
- Is anything broken?
- What reports should be avoided?
Fixing analytics will be to your client's benefit for more accurate reporting.
List of Custom Reports:
A true optimizer must be able to create any custom report in GA. You must create the following reports from scratch to get the data you need:
- Conversion rate per time of day
- Conversion rate per day of week
- Conversions per traffic source
- Conversions per keyword
- Top-performing landing pages
- Social media performances
- PPC analysis
- Conversions per location (Country, City)
- New VS Returning users
- 404 Pages.
Copy testing:
Copy testing is an effective way to measure how effective it is on key pages. We might think that our content is effective and convincing by making use of copy testing can let you know which parts of your copy are ineffective.
Copy should be persuasive and lead the prospect client to take further action on your website.
This week has been interesting and I have learnt many things that will equip me with the necessary skills to be a great CRO specialist. I would recommend CXLto anyone interesting in furthering their career.