However, you might not realize which details of your website you should test. Here are a few off-the-wall conversion experiments to implement.

“Where’s that Phone Number, Again?”

Try increasing (or decreasing) your telephone number’s font size. Some sites make their phone numbers downright illegible. Others take up the entire header with their digits. Run a few tests to make sure your phone number is optimized for your users’ expectations.

Test Your 404 Page

404 pages happen. Don’t be ashamed by them. If a visitor has clicked to a page that doesn’t really exist, use the opportunity to experiment with the location of a search box or offering your social media profiles as a resource. Your new 404 page could be just the shot in the arm your twitter profile needed.

“What do my Highest Bouncing Pages have in Common?”

Use your Web analytics package to identify the 5 pages on your site with the highest bounce rates. Then, make some hypotheses about why the pages are similar. Perhaps the content on the pages wasn’t written with the correct reader in mind. Perhaps you have a broken widget that only appears on a few pages. Use A/B testing to check your guesses and make a better user experience for your visitors.

These are just a few off-the-beaten-path A/B tests to run. Let us know of any other unique conversion experiments you like in the comments. We’d love to hear them.

Need help optimizing your website for conversions, contact Fahrenheit Marketing today to schedule a consultation with one of our talented team members.

The post Three Off-the-Wall Things to A/B Test on Your Web Site appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

A UX Booth article recently shared how they discovered through A/B testing that the businesses that took the time to translate their product information into attractive content had higher conversions than those who didn’t.

The company content26 developed enhanced product-detail content for 128 products sold by an e-commerce retailer. Half of the visitors were shown product pages with generic content. The other half were shown the “enhanced” product pages. There was a 38 percent increase in conversion rates among customers who were showed the enhanced content.

The main difference in the generic vs. enhanced product-related content was the that generic content usually tossed around technical jargon that sounded smart, but didn’t help the customers understand how those qualities would benefit them. For example, instead of just listing, 70,000:1 contrast ratio, the enhanced version said, “And thanks to a dynamic contrast ratio of 70,000:1, it displays realistic, bright colors that immerse you in the image.”

Users are researching as many sites as possible to determine where they will purchase their products from. If your product-related content doesn’t just list the features, but also share how those features will benefit your customer, you will get more conversions than your competitors.

To learn more how we can use our content development skills to improve user-experience and convert clicks into clients, contact Fahrenheit Marketing today and set-up your consultation.

The post How Product-Related Content Impacts User Experience appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

The client’s website was ranking well, but its conversions had flatlined. Learn as our Web designer, SEO specialist and CEO share how our site redesign transformed not only its website, but also its conversions — something SEO companies just don’t have the capabilities to do.

Brian Y., Fahrenheit Web Designer

How did you come up with W.T. Johnson’s new website design?

The previous W.T. Johnson site was very formal with a white and blue color theme. It was what the client wanted, but the site didn’t convert well.

So, we tried to come up with a site that had an opposite look. That is why we chose the darker colors, and we tested out a more futuristic menu bar. Since the logo has circles in it, I tried to make a curvy shape for the menu. The other new graphic elements are all related to those two ideas.

Zane, SEO Specialist

What has been the impact of the redesign?

The redesign has markedly helped the client’s user experience:

• The client’s page views have increased by 71 percent
• Their pages per visit has increased by 84 percent
• Their average visit duration has increased by 247 percent and
• Their bounce rate has dropped by 12 percent

Why did Fahrenheit choose to redesign the site even though it was ranking well?

Sometimes, SEO alone isn’t enough. The client already had good rankings for targeted keywords and enjoyed a large amount of visitors. Oftentimes, it’s more strategic to increase the conversion rate of a site rather than focusing solely on increasing the number of qualified unique visitors.

That’s the benefit of working with a full-service online marketing agency, rather than an SEO firm. We were able to design, stage and launch a complete redesign in under 48 hours. If you luck out and hire a good SEO firm, you might get the traffic you need. However, you might also be stuck scratching your head at why your phone isn’t ringing. A full-service online marketing firm will be able to offer you conversion management guidance and implementation.

Ricardo Casas, Fahrenheit Marketing CEO

What does the client think of the redesign?

The client loves the new design. Especially since the client is on retainer, the redesign didn’t cost them anything. As long as a client remains with us, we will design and redesign the site for continual conversion improvement at no additional cost to the client.

Anything else you would like to add on what makes Fahrenheit Marketing unique from SEO firms?

As a marketing agency, our commitment to our client goes much beyond ranking. We need to know who our audience is and what causes them to choose one thing over the other. This is only possible by analyzing data and testing until we find the silver bullet. Even then, it only lasts for so long because people change and so must our strategies.

Ranking is where SEO firms stop. Our goal is to create visibility through outstanding ranking as well as conversions. We do this by offering a user experience that connects with each individual user, improving our chances of turning casual visitors into paying clients. We believe that this truly sets us apart from what some consider our competitors.

Fahrenheit is NOT a search engine optimization shop. We’re a marketing agency that uses search engine optimization as a means to an end.

To learn more about how Fahrenheit Marketing can help you rank well and convert customers, contact us today.

The post The Difference Between an SEO Shop and a Marketing Agency appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

1. Know Your User

A recent article from UX Magazine discussed how developing fictional personas can bring sanity to projects. Through envisioning an actual user from a client’s target audience, the article shared that the designer can make inferences about the needs and desires of the audience, communicate user characteristics in a compact and clear way, help keep stakeholders from changing the definition of the audience and put a face on who the site is being designed for. 

2. KISS…Most of the time

A popular UX term is KISS — Keep It Simple Stupid. If there are too many fonts, colors, pictures or too much text jumping off the page, then your user will have information overload. If a site is simple and scannable, it is easier to navigate and stay connected. But don’t forget to know your user. Some small segments, such as engineers, may enjoy complex interfaces and the challenge that comes with them. Keep that in mind too, but most of the time just KISS.

3. Exceed Users’ Expectations

The UX article also discussed how if you exceed user’s goals, you will be memorable. Aaron Walter, the lead user-experience designer for Mail Chimp, discussed making a memorable product. “Hold on to that memory … that feeling is what we’re trying to craft through emotional design. We’ll create that feeling of excitement and we’ll bond with our audience.” It’s those little details, that you didn’t have to do, that usually make a huge, memorable impact on the user. 

Everyday at Fahrenheit Marketing, we are designing websites with the user’s experience in mind. To learn more about our Web designs, contact Fahrenheit Marketing today.

The post Three Ways to Design Websites for User Experience appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

Your site may have the most researched, informative and engaging content on the planet–but if your website visitor is confronted with a distracting pop-up or the site is difficult to navigate, a bounce may be the first move your user makes. Alternatively, if you have a beautifully designed site that has everything easily accessible for the user but the content is stale and yawn-inducing, your site is also primed for a bounce. “Keep moving folks, there’s nothing to see here.”

White Space is a Website’s Friend.

White space allows the user room to breathe when reading. White space is used to draw the eye to elements of the site as well as directing the flow of text. Too much text, no matter how informative, is overwhelming for site visitors.

Consistency is Key.

Content is more than just text. Content includes images, navigation, links, share features and more. Each element of content should be consistent with the message shared in the text. For example, use images that have a common thread with the story. Group similar content together.

Scanability Matters.

Use fonts that are easy to read — for all users. Give the text proper spacing. Make sure the text is scanable and that users can glean information from a quick look at the page. Use bullet points as needed. Stay away from lengthy pages, and break them into smaller pages for longer content.

Bells and Whistles Not Necessary.

An engaging website is often fun and friendly — if your site has bells and whistles, make sure each one has a purpose or communicates a message to the user. You’ve launched your site and it looks wonderful, but is it working for the user? Don’t get caught up in “Launch Love.” Be pragmatic and make changes as needed. Show your site’s sophistication through simplicity.

Don’t Make Your Visitor Work.

Engaging content with a clear and consistent message goes a long way. Your site visitor will appreciate being able to easily navigate to that information without thinking. Choose wisely when naming navigation buttons. A visitor can get frustrated with your site quickly, and if that happens, they may leave and never return.

Marry your great content with a good user experience and your visitors will be back for more.

The post 5 Tips for Blending Content and Usability appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

Though the restaurant industry isn’t the most tech-savvy field, that shouldn’t excuse restaurant owners from building user-friendly sites.

Here’s five of our favorite restaurants in Austin that could use some help:

5. Clay Pit: The Clay Pit uses Flash, which takes a few seconds to load and can’t be navigated easily on a smart phone. In their defense, we applaud them for not making a mistake that is common in restaurants: only having a downloadable PDF menu. Clay Pit lists their dishes and prices in text on the site.

4. Justine’s Brasserie: Justine’s website is the epitome of unnecessary (though admittedly artistic) Flash animation. A vintage movie–complete with nudity, in some cases–plays in the background of all the pages. It’s creative, but not exactly user-friendly, as the footage makes any text hard to read. We’re not sure what to make of their page titled “amazing,” which displays several negative comments about the restaurant, but if there’s anything to say about the website, it’s this: they’re certainly unique.

3. Vespaio: PDF menus and an unnecessary Flash intro. The main reason Vespaio ranks to high on our list is because smart phone users can’t access the website at all — because of the Flash, only a blank blue screen appears.

2. Musashino Sushi Dokoro: To get to a Musashino menu, a website visitor must click to enter the Flash site, click again once an intro plays, suffer through mood music, find the tiny navigation menu in the top left hand corner, and then download a menu. The only good news? If you use your mobile device to access the site, you’ll be spared–the Musashino website won’t load at all.

1. Eddie V’s: This Flash website takes number one spot due to its unintuitive navigation. While the mobile website is fairly straightforward, hunting down an online menu took several minutes. There’s no menu link on the homepage; to get to a menu, a user must click on a restaurant name in the sidebar, and on that page, a small row of links (including the menu link) will appear.

Now that we’ve highlighted some example sites, here are some best practices for restaurant web sites:

• Don’t use Flash. Flash intros and flash driven navigation will leave big empty spaces for iOS users. Most Flash elements like slideshows can be converted into HTML through jQuery which has universal support on mobile platforms.
• Make your menu, hours, location and reservations button easy to find. Don’t bury any of these items under your main navigation.
• Don’t use stock photography
• Think about load times before adding huge hi-res images because mobile users with a weak signal will give up trying to load your site.

The post Restaurant Websites: Hold the Flash appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

Adding Facebook plugins also impacted visits and revenue spent on eCommerce sites:

• American Eagle has recently added Like buttons to product pages, and has discovered that Facebook referred visitors spend an average of 57% more money
• Tea Collection, a children’s retail site, has seen daily revenues increase 10 times since adding the Like button
• Levi’s has seen and maintained a 40% increase in referral traffic since adding a Like button in April 2010
• Giantnerd.com has seen a 100% increase in revenue from Facebook after integrating a Like button
• Ticketmaster has discovered that each time a Facebook user makes a post about an event they want to attend, it directly generates $5.30 of ticket sales

In order to maximize the effectiveness of Like buttons, Facebook recommends using versions that show thumbnail images of friends, and allow commenting.  Additionally, Like buttons are usually more effective when placed both at the top and bottom of articles, or near visual content such as graphics and videos.

While one would expect to put great effort into achieving such results, Facebook integration represents one of the few “easy wins” in online marketing.  Seeing huge jumps in traffic, sales, and engagement may be as simple as adding and optimizing a Facebook Like button.

The post Facebook Likes and Social Plugins: Online Marketing Success appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

In an interview with AllThingsD, Twitter product lead Josh Elman did not disclose the abandonment rate for their sign up process, but noted that adding more steps increased sign-ups 29 percent. In the interview, he disclosed the “a-ha” moment when a Twitter user shifts their visiting patterns from being a casual to active user.

Elman reported when someone follows 30 accounts and roughly 10 of those follow them back, the user becomes more active on the site. Following this metric disclosure, Business Insider used the Twitter API to research how many people fall into this category and determined that based on Twitter’s definition of an active user, fewer than 21 million exist. While it sounds small, it’s difficult to provide context since there aren’t any other services with a similar metric that provide access to their data.

The post Twitter Improved User Retention Rates With Counter Intuition appeared first on Fahrenheit Marketing.

This process is simple for users in the sense that if they go to a site and aren’t impressed with the information, they can block it and never visit it again. This capability however presents a new set of challenges for site owners who can now lose a customer for life if they give a poor user experience on any of their pages. I know that may sound dramatic but its the new reality for webmasters dealing with an increasingly frustrated search audience.

Will Someone Actually Block My Site?

Yes. If someone isn’t exactly impressed by the content on your site, they can click a link that will block future results from your domain after they return to their results. Of course you would have to present a very negative experience as opposed to something like a higher price point, lack of availability (ie: out of stock item) or failing to match a very niche query. In those instances I think the general public will not perceive your site as a bad experience rather your site was simply unable to match their specific needs at that time.

Possible reasons someone would block a site:
- Immediate pop ups or redirects: Pop ups can include traditional ads or chat / help screens that immediately display when someone lands on a page
- Thin content: While Google is trying to combat low quality content, pages that are just sentences long still show up for some queries
- Low quality UGC: This includes sites full of un-moderated submissions, article mills, and even general question sites
- Very high level information targeted for very niche queries
- Content that doesn’t match the query: This is more of a Google problem, not a webmaster problem
- Promising content and not delivering it: Promising pricing information in the title and meta tags to rank for price searches but not listing prices on the page
- Content that is difficult to read: Pages full of ads

Google is sending a clear message to Webmasters: Produce quality content because you can lose out on opportunities not only through our algorithm but now users themselves

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