Today I spent the day with a client in New York City and I'm on the Amtrak Acela back to Boston... I love the Internet (my laptop, my Sprint broadband modem, and my new iPod Touch!).
We talked about conversion and last year their website converted 2.54% of their gross visitor sessions into inquiries. If you use my rule (i.e. take your total visitor count and cut it in half - they are not qualified visitors or they are just people clicking around the 'net), the conversion pops up over 5%.
From those inquiries they booked 147 new clients. Good stuff, for sure.
Conversion... you say. What is conversion, Chris?
Conversion is that magic moment, the goal of EVERY website (IMO), when a bride or groom visiting your website does something you want them to.
If you sell your services it's most likely an inquiry, a phone call, or may be a download of your take-away - you are using a take-way, right?
If you sell online it's when they put something into their shopping cart and then, if everything goes right, enter your checkout process, put up their credit card, and complete the purchase.
So the question is: What is a good converstion rate?
Obviously, the higher the better.
But realistically, if you sell services anything below 5% is an indication something is wrong - either with your website or your traffic (i.e. poor qualified traffic) - or both. Below 2% and you've got a disaster on your hands.
In most cases, I see conversion in the 2% to 3% range and I think that is the average. Keep in mind, that's just an inquiry - not a sale. Tweak your online marketing, do some testing, and I've been able to get to between 10% and 16%.
When it comes to ecommerce the numbers are, sadly, worse. A .5% (1/2 of 1%) conversion is not unlikely and probably about the average. Yes, about average. An ecommerce site that converts 1% to 2% is above average. In a recent article in Internet Retailer, some sites claimed to be in the 6% range. Those, I'm sure are not typical.
As you might guess there are a lot of things that impact conversion and it's almost ridiculous to say there is an "average." Factors like quality of traffic play a large role, things like email marketing and repeat visits/visitors also impact conversion.
Bottom line... track your results (Google Analytics), test different page copy (split testing), test different graphics, test using landing pages (if you're using pay-per-click), get feedback from people who bought from you... gather up all your data and then, and only then, will you have an idea of what is REALLY happening at your website. If you think you've got trouble, then drop me a line.
As for my New York City client, we're shooting for 280 new clients in 2008 and optimizing conversion, getting it to 8% to 10%, is our plan of attack
Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
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