Advice on improving conversion rate

[Dazza30]

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I launched this site pre-pay-as-you-go.co.uk in January, and it receives an ever increasing month on month amount of visitors via serps, twitter, links, blog etc, although still small compaired to other sites.

The problem I am having is converting click throughs to sales, this month the conversion rate is around 2%, id like someone to take a look please! and give me some advice.

[thomase]

Well, the first thing I went to do was click on the phone...and the text above the phone. Neither did anything. The details thing does nothing either. After that I'd probably hit back or close the site...thus a low conversion.

The only button that does anything is a tiny little buy button. Basically, improve how the site works would be my first step. make it more logical, and if people expect to be able to click on something, let them....take that to a details page/through to the affiliate.

[Mogga]

You need to know if you're being sniped as people go away and look for vouchers. Don't know how you work that out.

is there a "promo or voucher code" box at the merchants check out?
I suspect that causes a lightbulb to go on and people bugger off looking for a voucher code.
Shame there no way of knowing whether you get the cookie at checkout and then it's stolen there after.

[Dazza30]

The details thing does nothing either. After that I'd probably hit back or close the site...thus a low conversion.

Hi thanks for your opinion.

From what youve said, i suspect you assume the site has a high bounce rate, its currently around 51% which isnt bad at all. The average visitor time on the site for last month was 208 secounds or 2 minutes 48 secounds which isnt to bad either.

Could you explain how the details thing does nothing?
What happens on every pc and browser (Chrome, firefox, Ie7,Ie8) ive tested it on is a small pop up appears, with handset info and specs. This is supposed to work even if the visitor has swithched javascript off in their browser.

[Dazza30]

You need to know if you're being sniped as people go away and look for vouchers. Don't know how you work that out.

is there a "promo or voucher code" box at the merchants check out?
I suspect that causes a lightbulb to go on and people bugger off looking for a voucher code.
Shame there no way of knowing whether you get the cookie at checkout and then it's stolen there after.

Hi Mogga

Thanks for the heads up on that, i hadnt thought about being sniped, i suppose the only way of fighting it is to mention any available code with the handset, then a visitor is already prepaired to enter the code and not bugger off looking for one.

I will also look into how well the merchants landing pages convert, theres definantly a huge leakage going on.

[andylink]

Well, the first thing I went to do was click on the phone...and the text above the phone. Neither did anything. The details thing does nothing either. After that I'd probably hit back or close the site...thus a low conversion.

The only button that does anything is a tiny little buy button. Basically, improve how the site works would be my first step. make it more logical, and if people expect to be able to click on something, let them....take that to a details page/through to the affiliate.

I too tried to click on the phone images (that do nothing) before trying the text and then finding the "details" button. I expected to be able to click the images and phone model "text" which I believe is the point thomase was making.

Otherwise a bit more information would be needed to help with improving conversion, what funnels do your visitors take? Where do they abandon? What keywords do they use to find your site? Are they research type words or " I wanna buy a phone now" type of words? I don't know this vertical at all, how far off the average conversion rate for this sector is your 2%?

[Dazza30]

I too tried to click on the phone images (that do nothing) before trying the text and then finding the "details" button. I expected to be able to click the images and phone model "text" which I believe is the point thomase was making.

Otherwise a bit more information would be needed to help with improving conversion, what funnels do your visitors take? Where do they abandon? What keywords do they use to find your site? Are they research type words or " I wanna buy a phone now" type of words? I don't know this vertical at all, how far off the average conversion rate for this sector is your 2%?

Hi andylink

Thanks for your input and clearing up the previous missunderstanding.

I must admit this site started out as an SEO experiment, aimed at implementing and testing what i learnt in the previous year, and so far so good.

Obviously i totally agree with your comments with regards to the images or phone model text, its great how others eyes can help you see whats so easily overlooked.:tup

As for keywords i deliberatly tried to write for this site in a natural way aiming for the longtail keyword and obviously using h tags for the stronger more competitive ones.

I cant say every keyword i receive visitors via is a good one but there is a huge variety, heres a varied selecton from yesterday

best simple mobile phone for calls texts email
pay as you go sim cards
free orange sim cards
asda pay as you go phone
touch screen mobile payg
orange pay an go tarrifs
orange flip phone under £30 payg
solo sim card
transfer credit from one asda sim to another
orange world costs
new touch screen pay as you go for £50
webnwalk booster
simple easy to use pay as you go phone
o2 pay as you go with qwerty keyboard
3 mobile £5 internet add on
asda payg mobile
gmail internet allowance 3 mobile
orange call extra minutes
virgin payg
wi fi enabled mobile on orange payg
best price vodafone mobile payg
unlimited web tarriff pay as u go
t mobile pay as you go international text
asda 3 sim card
mms included in text bundle on orange
mobile payg call and text rates asda
will a t-mobile sim fit in a nokia go phone
o2 academy usb memory stick
orange text extra 150
pay as you go phones t mobile

[accelerator]

The fact that you can't click on titles or images is a conversion rate disaster. You need to sort this out. Either make them click through straight to the merchant, or if you want more SEO'd pages, then a page specifically on the model.

Read the 101 tips and buy the Steve Krug book (I've read it, it's excellent) given here:

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Rgds

[accelerator]

Also, users are probably loath to click on a buy button, because they are distrustful and don't want to initiate a basket on a site they may not trust. Test a few other button names, e.g. "More", "View Details", "More Info", etc. You'll probably get more clicks with some of these, button can still go through to the merchant site.

Rgds

[Mogga]

Conversion is diff to click through.

once you send them through to merchant that site has to be sensible and easy to use without hiding any important info (You should see how well hidden postage is on some sites)

if there's a massive promotion code box that people see they bugger off and try to find a discount code to go in there and maybe if they do find one the cookie gets sniped, or worse perhaps, they don't, but they've not bookmarked your site and have lost it....

Improve click throughs by making more things clickable.

Pre-selling - filling all the answers to the questions a buyer has can help

[Dazza30]

Also, users are probably loath to click on a buy button, because they are distrustful and don't want to initiate a basket on a site they may not trust. Test a few other button names, e.g. "More", "View Details", "More Info", etc. You'll probably get more clicks with some of these, button can still go through to the merchant site.

Rgds

Hi accelerator thanks for the helpfull advice, what i should have asked initialy was how can i increase conversions from clickthroughs.

Since ive realised it was a stupid question and i should somehow find out how well the merchants i use convert before sending traffic there way.

last month according to the three networks i use my site produced 847 click throughs to merchants with a 3.6% conversion rate

[Dazza30]

I have implemented some test changes to this page http://www.pre-pay-as-you-go.co.uk/a...le-phones.html

It seems that peoples behaviour when entering a page leads them to either mouse over/ click on a phones name or image, so ive tried two different methods.

The first phone on the page requires the user to click on the image to reveal more information. All the others just need to be moused over, does anyone have any thoughts on which method to use?

Ive also removed the details link next to the buy button and replaced it with more deals, which on mouseover shows the specific handset available on other networks etc.

Any helpfull opinions are welcome.

[accelerator]

The first phone on the page requires the user to click on the image to reveal more information. All the others just need to be moused over, does anyone have any thoughts on which method to use?

I'm not overly keen on the pop-up, but if you must use it, I would say the onmouseover is better, but the pop-up window should contain a link to the merchant site. I still think my original suggestion is better, either the click takes them to the merchant site, or a standalone page on that phone (with the various deals compared).

Google do a suite of test tools, various other tools are available, I think I have a link on my conversion optimisation page, and these are something I really want to look at.

You should of course also test how well a merchant converts then you can stick to the high converters.

Rgds

[Dazza30]

I'm not overly keen on the pop-up, but if you must use it, I would say the onmouseover is better, but the pop-up window should contain a link to the merchant site. I still think my original suggestion is better, either the click takes them to the merchant site, or a standalone page on that phone (with the various deals compared).

Google do a suite of test tools, various other tools are available, I think I have a link on my conversion optimisation page, and these are something I really want to look at.

You should of course also test how well a merchant converts then you can stick to the high converters.

Rgds

Thanks again for your input accelerator.

I agree with you that the pop up probably isnt the best way to show the extra information, but im completely tied up at the min and dont have the time to rebuild. So for now ill keep with it and try to improve the user experience.

One more thing about the pop up, at the min if the pop up is activated on mouseover (This could lead to irratating accidental activation) and the only way to remove it is to either click within it, or anywhere on the page or click the red x on the top right. Others have advised me to change this to on mouse out so that if a user accidently mouses over an image a quick movement away removes the pop up.

This leads me to think that probably onclick activation of the pop up could be better as the pop up is then activated on command only, what are your thoughts on this?

[accelerator]

This leads me to think that probably onclick activation of the pop up could be better as the pop up is then activated on command only, what are your thoughts on this?

If you are going to have it as onclick then put in the alt text (and title text for Firefox) of the image "Click for more details". Either way my guess would be the pop-up is doing you no favours.

Rgds