Website performance is a key priority for any brand. It is no accident that high profile companies have well-designed websites; these sites are the result of heavily-customized and multi-faceted optimization strategies designed to convert page visits to sales. If you want to make your website perform better and earn you more revenue, you may want to consider partnering with a firm that specializes in conversion rate optimization, or CRO.
WiderFunnel, a Vancouver-based website redesign firm, is one of the many companies that exist to fill this need. Founded in 2007 by CEO Chris Goward, WiderFunnel seeks to continuously increase web-generated and web-associated revenue for its clients by layering its proprietary strategy on top of current website operations.
Before starting WiderFunnel, Goward worked in the advertising industry. “I was continually affronted by how we would build websites for our clients,” he says. “The [sites’ development] would be at the complete discretion of creative directors and HIPPOs (highest paid person’s opinion), with no regard to user experience, conversion or measurement.” Despite the huge amount of money spent on web redesign, companies would often see their new sites drastically lose conversions when compared with their previous sites. Goward states, “I founded WiderFunnel to offer a different kind of website redesign service, one focused on optimizing conversions and increasing ROI.”
Today, WiderFunnel provides clients with service offerings such as conversion optimization strategy, A/B testing and results analysis, voice-of-customer research and user testing, web analytics reviews, hypothesis creation and test design, copywriting and user experience design, and full-service conversion optimization outsourcing,
Its client base is mainly North American firms with significant figures for unique monthly traffic. “One of the qualifications for working with a client is for them to have at least 50,000 unique monthly visitors or more,” Goward says. “100,000 is even more ideal.” Some of WiderFunnel’s more recognizable clients includes Google, Magento, International Rescue Committee, Iron Mountain, BuildDirect, EA Games, and Nurse.com.
“We have increased leads, ROI, and revenue for every client. For example, this year we increased Iron Mountain’s leads by 404 percent, and increased monthly revenue for BuildDirect by $1 million per month — yes, a million dollars.”
These figures are impressive, but if you’re starting to consider partnering with a company that specializes in CRO, you will have many to choose from. Blue Fountain Media in New York, Conversion Rate Experts in London, and Brain Pulse Technologies in India are just three of the top providers that come up in a basic web search. Every company competing for your business will have varying strengths, weaknesses and years of experience in the industry. It’s up to you to determine which one will best fit your needs.
To accelerate the short-listing process, Michael Parizek of Online Behaviour gives four general skill sets essential for all conversion rate optimization specialists:
- User Experience (UX) — Because usability and persuasion directly affect your website’s performance, your CRO specialist must have staff with a solid understanding of UX to translate your website into an easy-to-navigate product for web visitors.
- Analytics — Data is important in CRO, and having the tools to analyze that data, measure performance and drive actionable insights is crucial of an optimization firm.
- Marketing Communication and Sales — Your website is your online sales person. It needs the equivalent of the right approach, strong tone, clear pricing structure and attractive overall appearance. Your CRO specialist not only needs to understand this concept, he/she needs to be able to actualize it in your finished product.
- Project Management — Every idea in an optimization strategy should be tested, and every test should be treated as its own project. Your CRO specialist must be capable of planning effectively, allocating resources, meeting deadlines and deliverables and evaluating results.
With the blinding pace at which e-commerce is moving, there is one principle you must always keep in mind if you want to stay ahead of the curve: no matter how well-designed your site, no matter how many visitors you’re converting into users: you could always do better. By partnering with companies which specialize in conversion rate optimization, you will, above all, be improving the user experience for visitors to your website.
And when visitors have a good experience, they will be far more likely to buy from you. How’s that for ROI?!
Photo of Chris Goward courtesy WiderFunnel
