What is website optimization?
Website optimization involves using controlled experiments to enhance a website’s capacity to meet business objectives. Website owners conduct A/B testing to try different variations on their site’s pages to identify which changes will lead to an increase in conversions, such as demo requests, higher organic search rankings, more sales, or reduced customer service time.
How to optimize your website step-by-step
Website optimization adheres to the same principles as conversion rate optimization and relies on the scientific method.
Identify the goal of your website optimization. Different types of businesses will have varying objectives to optimize for. For instance, an eCommerce website may aim to increase purchases and average order values (AOV). To achieve this, a website owner should conduct quantitative and qualitative research on key website pages that influence the site’s ultimate goal. Often, the homepage is a critical area for conducting A/B tests, as it is typically the first page a visitor lands on. It’s crucial that visitors immediately grasp what the company offers and can easily navigate to the next step (a click).
Formulate hypotheses on how to influence your objective. Once the primary goal for improvement is identified, pinpoint the under-performing aspects of a web page and start devising hypotheses on how testing these elements could enhance conversion rates.
Create a list of variables that your experiment will test.Variations can be crafted and executed as experiments using an A/B split testing tool.
Run the experiment. Ensure that when conducting the experiment, you collect sufficient data to achieve statistical significance. It’s crucial not to base business decisions on data sets that are inconclusive.
Measure the results, Drawing conclusions and iterating is key. The outcomes of an experiment will reveal if the modifications to a website element have yielded improvements. A successful variation may be established as the new standard and undergo iterative testing as additional enhancement ideas emerge. Conversely, a failed test still offers valuable insights and can guide the next steps in the optimization journey.
Correctly executed website optimization can yield numerous quantifiable business advantages. Initially, it involves identifying the optimal configuration of webpage elements that facilitate the achievement of specific visitor goals. This optimization enhances the site’s ability to convert visitors into email subscribers, readers, or paying customers, thereby increasing the efficiency. Consequently, this heightened efficiency boosts the ROI for customer acquisition and campaigns that generate traffic, including web searches, Google AdWords, social media, and email marketing.
THE DESIGN PROCESS
The goals of website optimization
The objectives of a website differ based on the nature of the business, its target clientele, and the intended actions of that audience, such as making a purchase, completing a form, or reading an article. Additionally, a key goal for a website visitor may be to achieve conversions, which refers to the number of visitors who carry out a specific action.
For instance:
- An online publication practices website optimization with the conversion goal of increasing the number of articles visitors read.
- An online store optimizes its website to encourage completion of checkouts and repeat purchases.
- An online software company optimizes its website to improve the rate at which visitors sign up for (or convert to) a free trial of the product.
- An insurance company optimizes its website to capture more potential leads for insurance coverage sales.
- A fundraising campaign optimizes their donation form to encourage more donations.
8 elements of websites to optimize
Depending on the company’s goal, website optimization could include testing:
- A headline, or key messages related to the company’s value proposition.
- The use of visual media, like photography or a video.
- The length of a form, varying the number of required fields or the order of completion.
- Prominently displaying customer case studies that describe their success with your product or service is highly effective.
- The design, wording, and positioning of a call-to-action (CTA) button or link are crucial elements.
- The organization of the website’s navigation.
- The placement of social sharing functionality.
- The design and layout of a webpage as experienced by a visitor using a mobile device.
Landing pages for marketing campaigns often present opportunities for optimization due to the high-quality traffic directed there through ads, emails, or social media. Similarly, website owners can optimize multi-page processes on their sites, such as free trial sign-ups, checkout funnels, or any form that spans multiple pages.
Search engine optimization vs. website optimization (disambiguation)
Website optimization can also refer to the process of enhancing a website’s visibility for search engines, aiming to boost the rankings of key search terms in the search results.
When undertaking search engine optimization (SEO), essential ranking factors to consider include modifying page titles, reducing page load times, enhancing user experience, selecting appropriate keywords, and creating high-quality content.
- Changing page titles – Search engines such as Google utilize your `<title>` tag to comprehend the subject of your page and present that content to users. Ensure your `<title>` tag is fewer than 160 characters, distinct to the page, and enticing enough to warrant a click.
- Decreasing page load speeds – Website optimization is closely linked to enhancing site speed and performance. This aspect is crucial to the overarching goal of website optimization, which is to facilitate the completion of desired actions on a website. Subpar website performance, characterized by latency or sluggish page speeds, can deter visitors from engaging due to navigation difficulties.
- Minimizing poor user experience – Google’s latest algorithm updates reveal that user engagement metrics like dwell time–how long someone stays on your website from the Google search engine results page–are being used for rankings. If users are staying longer on your site compared to your competitors, you will see higher rankings.
- Using the right keywords – the core of SEO still depends on the usage of relevant keywords. For example, say you run a sushi restaurant. Does it make sense to have a page that is going after the keyword [Japanese delivery] or [sushi delivery]? Based on keyword research in the US, we can see that there’s 1,900 searches for [Japanese delivery] and 18,100 searches for [sushi delivery].
- Producing well-written content – at the end of the day, search engines are serving users the best content they can find. If Google directs one of its users to your content and it’s full of grammar and spelling mistakes, then that reflects poorly on Google. Make sure the content you’re crafting is unique, full of value and well-written.
Website optimization is closely linked to enhancing the speed and reliability of a website’s performance. This is inherently related to the objective of website optimization, which is the successful completion of a desired action on a website. Subpar website performance, characterized by latency or errors, can deter visitors from engaging due to navigation difficulties.