When we talk about “user experience,” we’re talking about a few broad considerations: how easy something is to use, what people are thinking and feeling as they use it, and what actions they end up taking. The biggest factor in whether someone will take a desired action on your website is whether or not they are the right match for what you offer. Since that’s a traffic targeting consideration, let’s hold that constant and look at additional influential infrastructure. The following website design and development concepts are the critical components that affect conversion rates.
Some areas of each page will garner more attention than others. Upper right tends to be a strong conversion spot, and just after the first paragraph below the banner or title area tends to be another, but there aren’t any guarantees. It differs from website to website. Heatmapping is the best tool to figure out where to place your calls to action.
No one wants to be first to a party. Being an early adopter has risks, so it’s important to let potential customers know that your products and services are vetted. People aren’t going to trust self-published reviews, so you should always provide a link outward to a neutral review aggregator. Make sure that the review service you choose also links back to your website in a prominent way. Displaying a “Leave a Review” button promotes trust because it shows confidence in your customer satisfaction.
Over the years, we’ve performed a number of regression models and A/B tests on many elements of Bell Tower Hotel’s marketing. One experiment that surprised us was during a push to increase our “time on site” metric. Even though it was working, it seemed like it wasn’t helping our conversion rate. When we ran it through the regression model, we found that it was actually an inverse relationship. The longer someone spent on the site, the less likely they were to book a hotel room. Shorter time on site meant more conversions – a little bit counterintuitive, but if you put yourself in a “hurried customer” mindset, you can wrap your head around it.
So we changed our strategy completely, focusing instead on trying to guide a customer to a conversion action as quickly as possible – trimming lots and lots of content and fluff. This project had the effect of a 50% increase in our conversion rate. These and other conversion rate improvement projects have resulted in record-breaking direct booking revenue in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Every commitment was met on time and the professionalism was always at the highest levels. There are more projects coming your way from The Ann Arbor Marriott, and I look forward to continuing our relationship.
JCM just did it again. I know it sounds like I am just raving about these guys but our results have, once again, been amazing. As you can tell, I’m drinking the JCM kool-aid. These guys are the real deal.
Everyone was THRILLED by the new site — lots of excitement, lots of pride.
Our first step is a 30-minute digital marketing consultation to explore whether we’re a good match and create a customized plan to achieve your goals.
