March 3, 2010
3 Ways to Leverage Time for More Conversions
by Sandra Niehaus @ 10:52 am
Filed under: Conversion, Information Architecture, SEL Articles, Web Usability
Time, they say, was invented to keep everything from happening all at once. Whether we’re performers, filmmakers or UX designers, time allows us to organize events and engineer an audience’s experience.
Time is also a conversion lever that can be as powerful as messaging, placement, color or any other user experience factor—and as deserving of its own study and focus. Three areas in particular are, I think, important to test and optimize in regards to time.
1. A need for speed
Some events just can’t happen quickly enough. The end of Lost and the final, complete obliteration of IE6 certainly come to mind. From a conversion perspective, however, the same is true. The faster certain events happen, the more likely your website visitors will convert. This includes:
The least sexy factor: page load time.
Page load time isn’t very sexy or hip, but it’s fundamental. It’s the plain, beige, lace-free foundational garment of your conversion optimization efforts. All other factors being equal, this single lever alone can improve your conversion rate and customer loyalty.
The conceptual keystone here, of course, is the phrase “all other factors being equal.”
… Read the complete article on Search Engine Land >
Some great advice here, and worth thinking about. I like the thought about spreading company information across a whole site rather than reducing it to an about us page, it does seem a lot less contrived.