Web Page Conversion Optimization and My “Phone Book” Rule

Before I get to my "phone book" rule, I want to share some ideas about how customers view the web pages they land on. When it comes to customer conversion optimization, here are a few guiding principles that every webmaster should keep in mind when designing a website, or updating it:

1. Every Page is a Selling Page. Even Contact and “About Us” pages.
2. If someone comes to your site by way of a search engine, they have a pretty good idea about what they’re looking for.
3. You can’t be too obvious when telling your customers what you want them to do.
4. Too many bright colors can be confusing.
5. Any "auto play" animation or video that is not part of the call to action will distract the viewer. The same goes for sounds and music.

So what is my “phone book” rule? Simply stated, it says that you shouldn’t leave out any information on a web page if you would normally put it in a phone book ad. First and foremost, this means placing your phone number on every page, assuming you want people to call you. If you’re selling anything online, you will be surprised at the number of people who are afraid to complete an order through a secure shopping cart, but not afraid to give a credit card number to a complete stranger over the phone. Secondarily, there are people who will not complete their transactions until they talk to a live person.

Continuing with the phone book rule, you should have a brief, compelling message about your services. You should indicate what credit cards you accept, and you should use the BBB logo if you are a member. If you have any accreditations, endorsements, association memberships, awards, or endorsements you can legally use in an ad, you should consider adding them to the website unless you have so many that they become obtrusive.

How does the phone book rule integrate with the principles of conversion optimization?

• Search Engines will land customers on whatever page of your site is most relevant to the original search query. Therefore, since every page is a selling page, the customer will get the message. If you know anything about “bounce rates” (the ratio of visitors who leave your site after landing on only one page) then you are aware of the need to communicate before your potential customers click the “back” button.
• Customers have something in mind when they get to your site. The messaging “above the fold” on the page should reinforce the search query, and explain the product/service in more depth as the page goes down. If you're buying paid traffic that isn't getting results, we have PPC Management services that can help you find out why.
• The call to action should be remarkably clear. If you want people to fill out a form, put the form in the middle of the page, and make sure it is the most obvious piece of visual real estate. To see this principle in operation, take a look at eSurance.com. Better phone book ads take advantage of this principle by making the phone number the most prominent item in the ad.
• Bright colors attract the human eye. Yellow on black seems to work better than red. Green and orange also draw attention. If all these colors are on the same page, the reader suddenly doesn’t know what to do. Until a few years ago, the only other color you could get in a phone book ad was red, and it cost more because it worked wonders.
• Granted, there are no animations in the phone book. It doesn’t need them. Video and animation can work very well for conversion optimization when they include a call to action and are the focal point on a page. If not, the human eye focus on any animation that is automatically executed (doesn’t require a click to begin) and your message could be missed. When it comes to sound, you should remember that quite a few people surreptitiously shop online while at work and they will click away from your site if it suddenly becomes audible.

My “phone book” rule almost always comes to mind when I speak with prospective customers. Almost all of our clients come to us with a website that has been active for some time but has not gained much traction. Several prospects have good traffic but aren’t making sales. In most of these cases we can jump-start the process with a simple addition of a phone number to every page. After that, the conversion optimization process can really begin.

Every website is different, and every customer niche has its own pattern of behavior. The advantage of a website vs. a phone book is that you can change the site’s message frequently until you get the results you want, or use multivariate testing to see what approach gets the most conversions. You can even use customer tracking software to record visitor interactions with the site, and follow recorded mouse movements to see what people are looking for. Once you have enough knowledge, you will have a web page that turns visitors into sales, and you might even think about dropping that old ad in the phone book.