I'm not a fan of the phrase "Conversion Rate Optimisation" as I think to be successful online you need to look at the entire ACR model (Acquisition, conversion and retention). WIthout looking at all the areas of the customer lifecycle, it is very difficult to look at the bigger picture of success. With that in mind, we need to account for the way that the market is shifting towards hybrid engagement & commercial websites and look at a larger process; the ACER model.

Acquition - Getting users to your website
Conversion - Converting those users into customers
Engagement - Getting them to engage with your product, website or service
Retention - Customers revisit because of the successful experience from all of the above stages

The ACER model is important because engagement is a key factor for all online businesses. This engagement is what can make a real success of even a mediocre business offering by connecting with your customers.

Despite my small rant about the short-sightedness of the above phrase, I noticed a post on Econsultancy that I think sums up the basic steps to success to maximise conversion rates. Econsultnacy focuses on the Acquisition - Conversion part of the model and give some good rules of thumbs to improving your website. There are a few things that can take you to the next step, but there isn't much missed so if you follow these guidelines, you should see improvement to your site:

A is for Accessibility

B is for Brevity

C is for Customer Intent

D is for Differentiation

E is for Ease of Use

F is for Forms

G is for Good Service

H is for Help

I is for Incentives

J is for Jargon

K is for Key Information

L is for Labelling

M is for Merchandising

N is for No Good

O is for Options

P is for Persuasion

Q is for Quality

R is for Repetition

S is for Speed

T is for Trust

U is for User Generated Content

V is for Value Proposition

W is for Where Did They Come From?

X is for The X Factor

Y is for YES

Z is for ZZZZZZZ

 

See the full article to get a full description of the above examples.

Related links

• A-Z of conversion optimisation article
• A-Z of online persuasion (By cScape)
• See how you can improve your performance online