A lot of businesses get caught up in the analytics game, looking deep into their site metrics to find trends, identify new referral sources and see how their site is growing. It’s easy to burn hours pouring over these reports – often the only tangible piece of data you have to judge your site’s success.

The problem is, the number of unique visitors, page views, or time on site is only an indicator of a site’s success. The real measurement is the number of actual conversions that happen on the site.

In this context, we define a conversion as “a prospective customer taking a marketer’s intended action.” These conversions are tracked through form submissions, data tracking and other methods that reveal to you insights about your visitor, their behavior and ultimately that they conduct some form of transaction with you.

Let’s explore a few different conversion concepts:

1. The form. The most simple and direct form of conversion on a web site is the use of a form. Often asking for a direct inquiry of the customer to your business, the form provides a direct method of a site visitor to reveal who they are and what they want. Strategy tip: Don’t rely on a single ‘catch-all’ form for your site. Utilize custom, targeted forms that fit the context of the page it appears on. For example if you’re a C.P.A/tax advising firm, offer a form on your site’s page about “auditing advisory services” that specifically address if the site visitor is currently being audited or has been audited in the past. If they are visiting the “John Doe, C.P.A. profile” then they should have a form to ask “John” a tax question.
   
2. The special offer. Offers and promotions create a very specific promotional driver to capture details from a site visitor. Often tied into a marketing campaign or promotion, special offers help prompt specific responses to a specific issue/need/topic that can help you generate business. The key factor here is that there really must be a deliverable/return for this conversion. People expect something unique and timely. Strategy Tip: Special offers need to have a valuable reward; otherwise they’re just another form. If the visitor is on the “tax tips for 2009 filing” page, create a form that specifically lets them complete a check list of things they qualify for as part of their submission to get more info from you and give you their email address for future communication.
   
3. The sale. An obvious ‘in your face’ conversion is the purchase of a good or service. This is ultimately what many businesses are seeking from their website…a return on investment. Consumers are turning to the Internet more and more to make a buying decision. As a marketer, it is your responsibility to observe the paths a consumer takes while navigating through your website. Strategy Tip: If you are using a shopping cart as part of conducting this transaction – a big tracking factor is the abandonment rate of items in a shopping cart that do not result in a final sale. It’s not just the number of sales you’re making, it’s what is happening to stop a sale.
   
4. The interactive questionnaire. A very engaging method for developing strong conversions is to give site visitors an opportunity to participate in a series of questions that result in an outcome of value.  These quizzes, tests, self-assessments and other questionnaires not only keep your site visitors engaged on the site, each answer provides you more insight into their needs and helps you push them further down the conversion funnel. Strategy tip:  Utilize results-specific topics to implement interactive questionnaires. Keep these conversion tools simple and straightforward to drive responses that have actionable results. For example, if a company builds and sells valves to manufacturing facilities, they might use the interactive questionnaire to learn about what applications of valve the customer uses, the average replacement time line, volume of use and current preferred brand . Once complete, the valve company provides a price quote and comparison sheet on the competitor’s valve versus their own.

While it is important to watch metrics such as the percent of site traffic coming from search engines and a site’s bounce rate to make sure your site is optimized and prepped for conversions, it is imperative to set up conversion goals and monitor them regularly to ensure a true return on investment. Don’t get lost in the glitz of percentages and click through rates. Make sure you stay focused on the conversion.

You may be wondering…what do I do with all his information? Here are your action steps:

1. Make sure you have analytics installed on your website. (Google analytics is offered free of charge.)
2. Set up conversion goals within your analytics. (What do you want your audience to do?)
3. Include conversion points on your website to gather data and understand your audience. (Pick at least one of the four examples above and get started.)
4. Optimize, test, optimize… (The beauty of the Internet)

Sheila Smiley is a Senior Media Strategist at MediaSauce. She’d like to hear from you about how you measure conversion. Comment below, or you can reach her via email at sheila.smiley@mediasauce.com or call at 317-218-2500.