You can’t just buy an increased conversion rate: you work the cycle of measuring, testing and optimizing your site. Here are guerilla tactics that even lean, in-house teams can use to move the needle.

Measure What Matters

Don’t let the data tsunami drown you: use web analytics to look at your critical few metrics and hear the voice of the customer. The goal is shaping the experiences your website offers to create outcomes your business needs.

Tips:

•Before you look at a single report, answer this: Why does your company have a website? Likely answers: Sell products get leads, get catalog requests. Laser focus your analytics on tracking these outcomes and ignore distractions.

•Learn what your customer is trying to do.

• Try this fast online survey: “Why did you come here today? Were you able to meet your goal? If not, why?”

• Talk to your call center staff. Where your site is slowing people down?

• Conduct a guerilla usability test: Research shows that testing with as few as five users can identify 80% of a page’s problems. Does the sample matter? Sometimes. A golf merchant testing content needs users who know irons from wedges but to test Checkout, all they need is people who shop online.

•Spend your budget on people, not software: You’ll gain more insight from 1 sharp
analyst using a free or inexpensive tool than from a team of part-timers trying to squeeze value from a premium package.

•Learn which metrics matter and which mislead. Exit pages are out: Sure, your visitor left, but after succeeding or failing to meet her goal? Bounce rate is in. Which pages create single page visits of < 5 seconds? Someone did not find what they were looking for. Time for a test.

Always Be Testing

The release of Google’s free Website Optimizer means that split and multivariate testing no longer commands a premium. Start testing now—your competition will.

Tips:

•Start with a business problem. Bad: the CEO hates this page, we’ll test the art director’s new idea. Good: why do 38% of the people landing on this page immediately leave? The few clicks we get occur below the fold. Will repositioning these links help conversion?

•Test high traffic / high profile pages and elements. Examples: homepage, landing pages, headlines, buttons, images, and navigation links.

•Test shouts not whispers: Significant lifts often require radical change.

•Watch out for hidden costs: Even with a free tool, more testing means more creative. If you work with a testing agency, find out the costs of their also contributing design.

Cut The Fat out of Your Design Process

Continuous testing demands fast-paced design. To jump start your process, a $3 pad of graph paper can beat the latest edition of PhotoShop.

Tips:

•Bang out new ideas with “lo-fi” paper prototypes. Typography and color matter but a sketch or wireframe let’s you nail down critical page real estate and call to action links much.

•Debug on paper before you commit the bits: Put your paper prototypes
to the test. Do your 5 guerilla usability test subjects understand where to click? If not, fix that problem before you commit to costly IT and graphic design.

Got it working on paper? Now develop and test your new design on your site. Keep that cycle working: measure, test, and optimize.

Larry Becker is VP and Principal, Website Effectiveness at the Rimm-Kaufman Group, an online agency offering website effectiveness and paid search services. www.rimmkaufman.com.