#Convcon 2014: Interviews with the Experts

Well, Conversion Conference just ended but while there, we had the honor of rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in conversion marketing! We asked a really cool series of questions, so grab a cup of joe, get your headset on and read or listen to some of the responses from the experts: Tim Ash, Rich Page and Bryan Eisenberg.

1. How Did You Get Started in Conversion Optimization?

Tim Ash

Well, we were doing Online Marketing and pay-per-click campaigns for clients and we were sending high quality traffic to crappy pages. So, we decided to help our clients gain more money by improving the efficiency of their pages. And then, we just got rid of all of our Pay-Per-Click Management and now we just do Conversion Optimization.

Bryan Eisenberg

I started optimizing my bulletin board as a very young teenager back in 1983.  I would change menus on screens, to see if people could get to a different part of the bulletin board. Then, when the internet came along, people start creating e commerce sites, and I start doing a little bit of SEO but I was also tweaking the designs as well to figure out how to improve their conversion rates.

Rich Page

I was a Web Analyst for a long time, and I was getting bored making presentations and reports so I starting including some recommendations, but nobody really listened to them. So, I started to get into Google Web Optimizer, in 2007, and found out some amazing results.

Then I learned, and thanks to Brian Eisenberg’s Call to actions book, I started to blog about it, switching my focus from Web Analytics to Conversion Optimization. I also helped Tim in the second edition of his Landing Page Optimization book.

Then, I wrote my own ebook entitled, "Website Optimization: An Hour a Day" and now I’m in love with conversion optimization! Analytics is good also, but I like making the changes that impact revenue and sales.

2. What Are Some of Your Best Tips for Highly Converting Landing Pages?

Tim Ash

Less text in the page: Remember, people in general don’t read.  Also less visual distraction: don’t decorate your page with graphic or unnecessary ornamentation. Fewer choices: I get so tired of getting too many choices, so limit the choices.

Less, less and less!

Bryan Eisenberg

Every successful test I’ve seen always involved something that relates to the conversion trinity. The conversion trinity is:

1. Relevance to the visitor, or the segment..
2. Expressing the Value to that visitor.
3. Building confidence on your Call to Action, do they understand your call to action, and what to do?

As long as you work on at least one of those things you’ll improve conversion rates over and over again on your Landing Pages.

Rich Page

Make your Unique Value proposition short. This is because people have no idea what your page is about, so make it explicit. Also, people want to see the headlines. They’ll scan your page and if they can’t find your Value Proposition, they’ll leave and your bounce rate will be much higher.

Another important thing is Social Proof. Make sure that your landing page shows signs of life. For example, you won’t go to a restaurant if nobody is there eating right? You probably won’t even go in.

Well, it’s the same with your Landing Page, no one is going to convert if it seems like nobody is using it. So that’s why you should include great testimonials, numbers and social media stuff, including shares, likes and tweets.

3. Common Mistakes That You Can’t Believe People Are Still Doing?

Tim Ash

Continuing on with what I’ve just said, one of the common mistakes I still see is that people still include way too much text. Remember: Visitors came to your landing page to solve a problem, not to read an essay. Keep your content focused, on topic, and short.

Bryan Eisenberg

Multiple call to actions in the column. That’s a common one that I still see people doing way too often.

Also, waiting too long to get to the point in their copy. They fill up too much copy towards the bottom. If they’d just remove some of the copy from the bottom of the page and add it up at the top, they’d increase their conversion rates.

Rich Page

People don’t make their links obvious enough. They’ll use the same font and colour every time. That’s going to cause the visitor to not know what is clickable, and you’re making them work.

Also, some people still underline stuff that isn't a link. Actually, why would you do that in the first place? You’re just confusing your visitors, and that really annoys them.

4. Some Short and Simple Quote About Conversion Optimization

Tim Ash: “Be honest with yourself!”

Recognize and admit that your Landing Page has problems so you can work on it.

Bryan Eisenberg: “Test for Impact, not for variations”

It’s easy to test 15 different headlines, or call to action colours etc. But, is that really what makes a great impact on your visitors? So, if you step six feet away from your screen, would you notice the difference? Try to test something that’s going to move the needle!

Rich Page: “It's much cheaper to double your conversions, than double your traffic”

5. In your opinion, What Was The Best Part of Conversion Conference San Francisco 2014?

Tim Ash

People that were here were really impressed with NeuroMarketing. Learning about how the brain works, specifics regarding making choices and sales decisions.  Persuading the brain, that’s the new frontier. And the keynote by Bart Schutz explained all of this in such a great way!

Bryan Eisenberg

For me it’s always about the networking, it’s nice to catch up with everybody.  It’s also interesting to see what kind of new technology is out there as well.

Rich Page

My favorite presentation was by Angie Schottmuller (Director of Strategic Planning & Optimization at Three Deep Marketing) talking about “Conversion Tricks for Organic Search Traffic”.

I found it interesting, because it’s so much harder to measure that kind of stuff.  She showed us how, when and where to provide search users a clear path to conversion, regardless of where they enter your site and despite Google's "not provided" keyword madness.

Bonus Track!

What's Coming For Next Year at Conversion Conference?

Tim Ash

We’re gonna change the formula of Conversion Conference. We’re gonna change from 3 shows per year to one here in the USA. We’ll probably host it sometime in the spring and it’ll also probably be in Las Vegas. It’s gonna be a much bigger show, with specialized tracks for large business, small business, ecommerce, B2B. And with different kind of topics such as lead generation, usability and copywriting.

Listen to the Interviews

Tim Ash

Bryan Eisenberg

Rich Page

Stay Tuned!

If you enjoyed these interviews, stay tuned because we’re gonna put together a great summary regarding the best of these 2 full days here at conversion conference. Also we’ll have a big surprise for you to, so don’t miss out!

Books to Give Away!

We have 3 CRO books to give away, you can participate to win one of these ebooks by just sharing this post here! We’re gonna reveal the winners this Friday 28th , so stay tuned to know if you were one of the lucky ones.

The 3 books we have to give away are these:

Landing Page Optimization by Tim Ash

A/B Testing by Dan Siroker and  Pete Koome (a gift from Optimizely)

Accelerate by Arnie Kuenn.

So What do I Have to do to Win These Amazing Books?

Just leave us a comment on this post saying you want one of the books, or share this post with your friends by clicking here!

That’s all you have to do, we’ll announce the winners though our Social Media Channels such asTwitter, Facebook and Google+, and also though our blog. So stay tuned to find out if you were one the lucky ones! Good luck!

<<<Click here to share this post, if you want to participate for one of the books!>>>