The best direct testing method is having an actual human test your website. With this route, make sure to keep all emotions out of the way. Being defensive about the results will not help your website be successful. Just keep the end objective in mind, to help your users navigate on your site and find what they’re looking for.
Human conversion testing can be done for FREE! Ask a colleague or outside parties to test the website for usability and credibility. Give them tasks to accomplish and products to find on the site. Ask the user to record objections they would have regarding buying the product or coming back to the site. Then use the findings and feedback to make changes to the site. You can start implementing the feedback piece by piece if you’re looking to keep track of the improvements.
Another option is to turn your website over to an optimization company for a more drastic change and also a much more expensive avenue. I would recommend this route if your business is entirely based on the internet like retail stores or software companies. If you do go this way, make sure your company has a profile full of proven results with statistics and testimonials to back up the successes.
Check out my conversion series here:
- What the Hell is Conversion rate anyway?
- Design for Conversion, Quick Changes for more clients.
- Credibility vs Website Conversion Rates Exposed.
- Website Conversion, Split vs Multivariate Testing
More Resources
- Conversion Rate Experts
- Holy Grail of eCommerce Conversion Optimization
- Pay for user testing ($49) User Testing.com
