Digital Marketing From The Coalface

Digital Marketing From the Coalface, Episode 24

Written by David Robinson | Jan 26, 2026, 3:45:00 PM
This podcast was originally released on 09/11/2021.
David 00:00:00

Alex, what are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about getting more from your website traffic. I mean, when people look at digital marketing, quite often the starting point is we need more visitors to our website. And that might be the case if you've got a website that's a complete Billy no-mates and it's not getting any traffic at all, then yeah, you've got no data, you've got no traffic, you've got no where to start. But nine times out of ten websites that we work on actually are not starting from zero traffic. Not always, but a lot of the time they've already got traffic. They're already they've already got search rankings. And it might make more sense to start by looking at what that traffic's doing and whether or not we can get more value from it. Okay. We're back with Digital Marketing From The Coalface. And today it's me and Alex and Alex. What are we going to talk about?

Alex 00:01:02

We are going to talk about not CRO. Okay. We're going to talk about getting more from your website. Traffic.

David 00:01:09

Isn't that known as CRO Alex. I think it.

Alex 00:01:13

Is, yeah. Okay.

David 00:01:14

What we're talking about is when when we say CRO is conversion rate optimization, which sounds really guilty, guilty, sounds really geeky and is not what this podcast is all about. So CRO, in plain English, Alex.

Alex 00:01:30

Is about taking your pre-existing web traffic and turning it into more converting customers. Yeah, I think so.

David 00:01:38

Yeah, basically, I mean, when people look at digital marketing, um, quite often the starting point is we need more visitors to our website. And that might be the case if you've got a website that's a complete Billy Nomates and it's not getting any traffic at all, then yeah, you've got no data, you've got no traffic, you've got nowhere to start At. But nine times out of ten, websites that we work on actually are not starting from zero traffic. Not always, but a lot of the time they've already got traffic, they're already they've already got search rankings. And it might make more sense to start by looking at what that traffic's doing and whether or not we can get more value from it.

Alex 00:02:19

Yeah, that's exactly it. You can spend a lot of money trying to get more visitors to your website. But I mean two things. Firstly, if you've already got visitors coming to your website, then just get more out of them. And the other thing is, of course, if there is something kind of fundamentally wrong with your website, you'd be better spent spending your time and money fixing that problem than just kind of pouring more traffic in, I guess.

David 00:02:38

Okay, so the whole idea of conversion rate optimization or getting more value from the traffic that you're already getting is it's a big subject.

Alex 00:02:51

Yep. Big and complicated, but we'll try and demystify it.

David 00:02:55

Yeah, It is complicated, but certainly it doesn't need to be. Some of it doesn't need to be. I mean, it's as simple as using a tool like Hotjar, which will record the visitors on your website so you can actually see what they're doing.

Alex 00:03:14

Yeah.

David 00:03:15

So something as simple as that can uncover some roadblocks. It can uncover some things that your website is, or rather, it can uncover the way that users are interacting with your website and let you see, well, I can see now why they're not clicking that button or they're not doing whatever, because that person's looking at our website on a mobile phone and that form that we want them to fill in isn't even there. I mean, that's unlikely to happen if you've got a good web design team, but.

Alex 00:03:40

It might happen. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So I think you've done slightly done the thing that we talked about last time about jumping ahead. Um, because before we get there, I think I'd like to unpick a really common misconception about CRO, right? Which is that squeezing more out of your customers, getting more value out of the people landing on your website and kind of converting people is about kind of putting gaudy banners on your website or pop ups that tell people they'll get ten percent off if they buy now, or, you know, that spinning wheel that you see all the time on like cheap e-commerce sites where it's like, oh, if you feel lucky, give us your email address and we'll let you spin the wheel and win something free. It's not that, is it. We're talking, I guess, about, like you say, sitting down, looking at what people are doing and kind of working out where the problems are working out, where I guess we talk about roadblocks a lot, right? It's like things that kind of stop people from purchasing. They've got your website, they're interested in what you're selling, but something is stopping them from actually clicking the add to cart button or the enquire button.

David 00:04:38

I suppose this starts with the premise that you've developed your website, and you've looked at every page, you've developed every page with a mindset of who is this for? How are they going to find it? And what do we want them to do when they find it, and when they land on it, when they view it. And that isn't always the case, is it?

Alex 00:04:57

No, I think.

David 00:04:58

It's rarely the case.

Alex 00:04:59

Well, I think the last bit especially what do you want people to do is like the key. I mean, we were talking internally the other day, weren't we, about landing pages and this whole idea that, you know, if you send somebody.

David 00:05:08

When you say talking internally, do you mean those voices in your head?

Alex 00:05:11

I do, it's a Friday, so you never know. Um, I'm close to the edge sometimes. No, it's um. But, you know, it's this whole idea that especially if you're paying for traffic, right? Using kind of paid search marketing or something like that.

David 00:05:25

Google ads and stuff.

Alex 00:05:26

Yeah. You're paying to get somebody onto a page, but a lot of people don't really think about what, you know, you actually want people to do once they hit the page. It's about kind of creating an experience that encourages people to do a specific thing, whether that's kind of buying from you or inquiring or. Yeah, it has to have a purpose.

David 00:05:43

Okay. So is trying to get more value from the website visitors you've already got, or rather, you're already getting a worthwhile investment.

Alex 00:05:55

Yeah, definitely.

David 00:05:56

It seems like it seems pretty obvious that it would be, doesn't it? Okay. So, um, is it, uh, is it, is it cut and dry or is it somewhat experimental?

Alex 00:06:08

I think it's incredibly.

David 00:06:08

Leading.

Alex 00:06:09

Question. Yeah. I see where you're trying to take me. No, I mean, I think two things. Firstly, it's very experimental. Secondly, it's very difficult, right? There are no kind of easy solutions here. And I think this is why a lot of maybe a lot of agencies don't kind of offer these services. A lot of businesses don't kind of dabble with this kind of thing because there are no kind of hard answers. There are no kind of what's the best way to format a landing page? You know, should you do this? Should you do that? Should you have forms? Should you have pop ups as people leave, you know, or maybe.

David 00:06:35

Should people follow best practice and leave it at that instead of following best practice and then seeing if that best practice is actually effective for them.

Alex 00:06:43

Right? Because we've talked before, I guess, about how every audience is different and unique and has its own kind of expectations. And I guess that's a really important part of this. Um, but yeah, it's very worthwhile. It's just very challenging, I think, to to get it right.

David 00:06:56

Okay. So give me or rather, let's discuss, but I'll, I'll throw it to you initially. Give me an example of where it might be worth looking at conducting a conversion rate optimization or get more value from a website type experiment.

Alex 00:07:13

Well, I think you have to pick a page that, to start with, has a lot of traffic. I think that's really important. You have to, for any of these experiments to work. When you're sitting there and saying, oh, I want more out of my traffic, I'm going to try changing the color of my buttons or adding more pictures of people or whatever it is you think you're going to do that's going to inspire people to take action. You can't really test those ideas unless there's a decent amount of people. So I would say always start with pages that get plenty of visitors. Um, maybe that's a little bit simplistic. I guess you also have to start with a page that can kind of steer somebody towards taking an action, right? So it has to have like a clear call to action at the end. It has to be designed to sell something, whether it's a service or a product or whatever. You can't do it with your About Us page. Really. I mean, you can, but you shouldn't start.

David 00:07:54

I guess the only exception to that rule might be if you're creating a landing page and you're going to buy traffic using Google ads, LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads.

Alex 00:08:04

Yeah. I mean.

David 00:08:05

You might then set set that page up. So right from the start, you're running an experiment. And the experiment I'm thinking of, which is a common one, which some people might have heard of, is what's commonly referred to as an a B test. So you basically have a web page that's built with a technology that allows you to show fifty percent of the people who visit it one thing and the other fifty percent another thing. I mean, you can make it. That's a simplification of it, but in essence, that's what an A B test is. Yeah. And it might be worth doing that, even if that page currently is brand new if you're sending traffic to it.

Alex 00:08:39

Absolutely. Yeah. I think the important thing is just that, like you say, if you're going to test something like whether a certain layout works better than another or certain pictures work better than others or whatever, you do have to have traffic, whether you're paying for it or it's there kind of naturally. I think I would say one of the easiest ways to get started with this kind of thing, though, this, this kind of squeezing more out of your web visitors, if you like, is to pick a page on your website that already gets quite a lot of traffic. I think that's something that we do recommend a lot, isn't it?

David 00:09:04

Yeah. Yeah. Now, one of the things that might people might find slightly concerning is if a web page is getting a lot of traffic.

Alex 00:09:14

Sure.

David 00:09:14

But it's not converting. Um, if you start messing about with it, then it might stop getting lots of traffic, i.e..

Alex 00:09:24

You might break.

David 00:09:25

From a search engine optimization point of view. Suddenly you've tried different things and it's broken. How do we get around that conundrum?

Alex 00:09:33

Well, look, I mean, the thing is, if a web page is getting lots of traffic and it's not converting, one of two things is happening, right? The web page isn't good enough or the traffic isn't relevant. Either way, there's no actual benefit to you, the business in having traffic that isn't converting, it's a waste of time. It's fantastic. It looks great on your graphs and your reporting and stuff, but at the end of the day, if people aren't doing the thing you want them to do, it's kind of a waste of time. So I would just say be brave, right? It's like if you ruin the page and it stops ranking, you've lost a load of non converting traffic. Um, or. Or the sensible option.

David 00:10:07

You use a tool like Google optimize so that you can actually put different versions of the page in front of visitors without changing the original page at all. Yeah. So that you don't lose the rankings, you get to play with the page in terms of the elements that you know, the colors that you use, the buttons that you use, the calls to action that you use and everything else. And that's one of the beautiful things about this area of digital marketing is that there are some pretty good tools out there that let you conduct these experiments safely.

Alex 00:10:42

Well, I think it's worth saying, isn't it? Because I think we've talked about Google optimizing other podcasts, but it's worth pointing out that it is a completely free program that basically lets you run an experiment on a page and you can literally kind of clone or duplicate a page, change whatever elements you like, and then just kind of set it running as a test and fifty percent of your web traffic will see one version, fifty percent will see another.

David 00:11:03

Yeah. And you can actually set all of that. You can decide how much traffic you want. Yeah. How much, how many of the visitors you want to see the original page and how many of them you want to see the tweaked version or versions.

Alex 00:11:16

Yeah.

David 00:11:16

And then it gives you feedback. It says based on this experiment, this version is getting way more, uh, form fills, you know, way more inquiries or way more phone calls or whatever than this version. So it lets you make some informed decisions.

Alex 00:11:30

Yes. However, I'm going to be very boring now and say that when you sit down and kind of play with something like the Google optimized, there's a temptation to just kind of like test random things. It's like, oh, I can just change this about the page and see which works better. I think all of these tools and all of this whole idea of like a B testing requires that you have kind of a hypothesis first as to why your page isn't working and an idea to test. You have to have a clear kind of, I guess, goal in mind. And you have to have a clear kind of idea of what it is that you're going to change and why that's going to inspire more traffic. You cannot and should not do the classic thing, which is, yeah, change the color of your buttons or I'm just going to run a test where, you know, I take some of the text away and see if that works. There has to be more kind of, I guess, a more developed thought process to it. I think.

David 00:12:13

Yeah, I think so. Um, what I would say, what I would caveat that with ooh.

Alex 00:12:19

Is we're just having a competition to see who can say the longest words.

David 00:12:23

You'll win that you'll win that you've got a degree in English. I'm just a dumb engineer. Um.

Alex 00:12:28

There's some engineering words are pretty long. To be fair.

David 00:12:32

You've got to be prepared to fail when you do this stuff. It's not an exact science, and there's a lot of great information out there about how to make websites perform better. I'm not talking about the speed. I'm not talking about search engine optimization. I'm talking about once all the hard work's done and people are on the web page looking at it to get it to do, to perform better as in to generate more leads or sales or whatever it is you want it to do. There's a lot of good information out there.

Alex 00:12:58

There are tons. I mean, there's a very good book that you recommended that I read. That's right. What it's called. Yeah. But it was.

David 00:13:06

Well, we'll figure out what that is and put it in the show notes so people can get that from, uh, from.

Alex 00:13:10

The. Yeah. I mean, there are so many resources out there. I mean, and I mean, I guess that's one of the great things about coming to this kind of thing now, right? Like, you know, are you late to the party a little bit, but the great news is that other people have been doing this kind of testing for years now. And you can kind of look at their results and take a guess at what kind of things might help your website.

David 00:13:27

I would hazard a guess that if you get your agency to look at this conversion rate optimization for you, then you will be in a minority. You there are not many businesses that are investing in this stuff and taking the time to do it. And if if you read some of the really good case studies that are out there, the returns can be quite startling. Like. But I don't think it's widely adopted. I think conversion rate optimization is so important, yet it is not, well, mainstream for most marketing people, I don't think.

Alex 00:14:01

Well, I think just going back to something you said earlier about being prepared to fail, I think, you know, in my experience, that's been the biggest problem with it because a lot of people will dabble in it. They'll experiment once, they'll try something, it won't work, and they'll think, oh, this is a waste of time. I'd be better just getting more traffic, right? It's that horrible thing with marketing, where you've got a limited finite amount of time or money or whatever to spend, and it's kind of how do you approach kind of divvying up those resources? And if it's in something that isn't yielding results, there's a temptation to say, oh, this doesn't work. Yeah, I think in reality, you have to kind of go at it again and again and again until you find a formula that works. Um, it's not an easy or quick thing to do this.

David 00:14:37

No. And do you think, you know, if you read, if you read on this subject, a lot of people will say, you need to be bold, you need to be quite.

Alex 00:14:45

Like.

David 00:14:46

Really, you know, like, like, oh, you know, we think that should have a comma there. Let's, let's put a comma there and try that. That's kind of like me, you know, it's not really going to help, but you need to be bold. For example, if you're using very formal language on a landing page or on a web page, that's getting lots of traffic and it's not performing, it's not like turning into sales or inquiries or anything. You know, it might be worth trying to use plain English or maybe even just bolder Boulder language. And I'm not talking about you like the font. I'm talking about the actual language that you're using a different approach. Try it, I think.

Alex 00:15:22

Yeah, I think that's exactly it, isn't it? Don't be afraid to kind of tear up the script. At the end of the day. I think a lot of the time, you know, assuming that your website kind of exists alongside other similar websites selling similar things, there's a real danger of just kind of doing the same old, same old. And I think the best results and returns always come from people who are not afraid to say, okay, this is what all my competitors are going to do. I'm going to do something completely different and just try something off the wall. I mean, we did a thing once, didn't we, where we you changed all of the, uh, the text on one of our pages to kind of Scottish dialect, just to see how that kind of went down with people. I think it's stuff like that. Yeah.

David 00:15:53

I mean, I keep meaning to change it back. It is getting traffic that page. Um, and.

Alex 00:15:58

People are probably like, what the hell is this?

David 00:15:59

But it was just one of my, um, moments of, um, madness, I think with, with, with that one particularly, um, I think it's important that you're bald. It's also, I think, important that you don't sort of focus in on one thing. I mean, I'm talking about using in, you know, what I've just said, using bold language and, and try it. But that doesn't mean for the next six months, just keep trying different headlines and seeing if it's because it might be that it isn't that that isn't the reason that that page isn't working. So you've got to just maybe run an experiment. And that made no difference at all. Right. Let's look at other things.

Alex 00:16:34

Well, I think that's it isn't it? I mean, I guess we try to approach these things with, you know, a page has a problem. Let's brainstorm all the different possible reasons. You know, what is it that people maybe don't like about this page. And then we'll kind of work through them and test each one one by one until we stumble across the correct answer. But I think that's exactly it, isn't it? It's like, don't be afraid to say, okay, this isn't working. Let's try something completely different because you don't know going in. You know, it could be something completely random. I mean, that page is a really good example. We could just have not been saying something that people wanted to see on the page. And we've kind of spent ages messing around with the language. And actually it's just that we're missing kind of a key kind of.

David 00:17:10

Yeah. I think that's why it's important that you don't test for testing sake. Yes. You need a strategy. Everything we do, we think we are. We always say like, start with a strategy, not with a tactic. So the tactic might be change the text, move the form around, change the color of the buttons. That might be the tactic. But what's the strategy, right? So where are we now? The the web page is getting traffic. It's the traffic is arriving because, for example, they're searching for a company to look after their website. So they're searching for website management, for example, not land. They land.

Alex 00:17:43

Sorry, not blue widgets.

David 00:17:44

Not blue widgets. We've we've dropped the widgets. Now we've sold them and we've sold that business, the Blue Widgets business. Um, so people are searching for a company to help them with managing their website. So they search for management company, website management company or whatever. So the web page has attracted them because it's been optimized and bang the landing on the page. So you're now in a situation where it's maybe not the best example, because some people looking for website management are looking for technical management, and other people are looking for content management. So it might not be, but that's part of the.

Alex 00:18:17

I was gonna say, I think that's that's the real value of this, isn't it? It's that you don't necessarily know. I mean, this is the thing. I mean, whatever you're selling, people land on your site by searching for something specific. Who knows if they're actually selling for the searching for the exact thing you're selling. Yeah. And that's unpicking that as part of this, I think.

David 00:18:32

But yeah, if we assume that right now they've searched for website management as an example, they've landed on a web page and that web page is offering the service that they want.

Alex 00:18:44

But they're not.

David 00:18:46

Bad. Hardly anybody, if anybody is filling in the form and to make an enquiry or picking up the phone. So your starting point there is we're getting the right eyeballs on the web page, and they are not responding to what they're seeing. So what elements of that page is it the design of it? Well, it's unlikely, but it might be. Is it the fact that the form is right at the bottom of the page. So they never actually get that far down to fill the form.

Alex 00:19:16

Assuming that there is a form there for a form. Yeah.

David 00:19:19

Assuming that there's a form there. Is it the language that we're using? Is it the lack of social proof, the fact that we're not saying, hey, you know, we manage hundreds of websites and we've been doing this since God was in short pants, you know, who knows? Yeah, but you've got to like, think about it like that and then write down all the things that might be having an impact, and then plan out the experiments in order to test all those theories.

Alex 00:19:41

Yeah. I think trusts are a really big one that you just touched on there. You know, the idea of social proof and kind of I think a lot of the things people overlook when they're kind of writing a web page is, you know, they want to fill it full of claims, we can do this, we can do that. You know, we're the people you want to choose. And it's not, you know, the idea that people kind of shop around online and are just kind of convinced by the things you write is a little bit kind of archaic. I think you have to do a little bit more to get people to trust you.

David 00:20:04

That's right. Yeah. Um, I mean, one of the really nice things about conversion rate optimization is both in conversations with clients and internally at the agency, you don't really have to have those sometimes pointless conversations. Where should it be this? Or should it be that? Should we use this photograph? Or should we use this word or that word? Should it be this color? Should it be that color? Yeah. You can actually find out which is the most effective. And that's the, that's one of the really nice things about, about this, this kind of work, isn't it?

Alex 00:20:40

Yeah. It is definitely. I think that's a really interesting point though, isn't it? Because it is all about really finding what is effective, not what we like the most, not what we think is the best fit for the business, but what actually makes people kind of convert. And that is, I guess, yeah, that has to be the focus, doesn't it?

David 00:20:54

It does. Yeah. So we've, we've talked briefly, um, about the, the most common type of test, the a B test. So I think it's fairly self-explanatory. But just for argument's sake, um, talk about it, tell me what an a B test is.

Alex 00:21:16

Are you trying to trick me? No I'm not.

David 00:21:18

I'm really.

Alex 00:21:18

Not trying to trick.

David 00:21:19

You. I'm never trying to trick you.

Alex 00:21:20

Yeah, it's just have a theory. Um, have two variants that let you test different parts of that theory. Um, you put them both live simultaneously. Some of your traffic goes to one, some of it goes to the other. And then at the end. And it is important that you kind of decide on an end date, right? You say, I'm going to test this for a month, or I'm going to test this for a thousand visits or whatever. And then you sit down and you say, which of these two variants performed the best? And then you take your findings from that and you test something else. And that's the critical bit that a lot of people miss. Right? You're not doing an A B test to find the best version of a web page. You're doing an a B test to find which of your two versions is the better performing one. But there's always further improvements to be made.

David 00:21:59

That's right. It's an ongoing process for sure. So an example just so people get this absolutely clear. Say for example, you've got a web page on your site that's selling a certain a particular service rather that you offer. So quite often when we're working with customers, they want to say, we do this, we do that. We are great. We, we, we, we, we, and we try and get them to think about.

Alex 00:22:27

Stop doing that.

David 00:22:28

Stop doing that and talk. But, but it's fair enough that they might think, no, no, I mean, people are on our website. They want to know that we can do this and we are great and we've done it before and we are going to do a good job for them. So we might run a run, an experiment where we Use language that's we are great. And then change that to your problems. Uh, um, I'm trying to think without using the we word, your, you know, your problems solved or something. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a really crap example. But we might use language that's all about the customer, not all about our client or the, you know, the owner of the website as an experiment, for example, because that's a conversation. You know, I was saying that the thing about this stuff about testing is it, it means that you don't have to have those conversations that never end well where you think as an, as an expert in the field of digital marketing, we should do one thing. What the client who's the subject matter expert in their line of business wants to do something else. And you're trying to persuade them that we get that. But we think that this is going to resonate more. And so you run an experiment to find out.

Alex 00:23:37

Yeah, definitely. I think everybody, everybody listening to this will have had that experience at some point in their life where they where they've got a kind of, uh. Yeah, they call them highest paid person in the room, don't they? Who says no? This is what we do as a company. And it's nice sometimes to be able to go back and say, well, actually, this works better than, than what we've been doing previously.

David 00:23:53

I mean, we live in a, you know, in a world of social media. I mean, we're all used to reading about what people reckon, oh, I reckon this and I reckon that. And, you know, it's, it.

Alex 00:24:03

Takes the guesswork out of.

David 00:24:04

It isn't it? So yeah, that's one of the areas that, that um that CRO conversion rate optimization can definitely help. And that's a simple example of what an a B test might be. It might even be that you use completely different imagery. You know, if you sell a particular product or service, you might want to show an image of that thing, whether it's a, you know, a piece of equipment or whatever it is. Or you might think, well, an image of people using it might be more effective.

Alex 00:24:35

Yeah.

David 00:24:35

Well, a, B test it and see which one seems to resonate more.

Alex 00:24:39

I think that's exactly it. I mean, if you kind of go away and read up on this stuff online. What you'll see is a lot of these kind of things where, you know, people say, oh, put pictures of people on your page and that will increase your conversion rate. You know, put a picture of somebody using your product on the page and that'll increase your conversion rate and put smiling people on the page. And that will increase your conversion rate. These are all great ideas. It's just really important that you actually go and test them for yourself, right? Because it is very dependent on your audience. Some people find that stuff kind of gimmicky and annoying. Other people will find it really kind of yeah, enthralling and you just never know until you test it. Really.

David 00:25:09

Okay, so what are some of the key takeaways for people who've listened to this? Because, you know, what we've said is, um, we're going to talk about the slightly geeky subject of conversion rate optimization. Hopefully we've explained it in language that will make sense to the majority of people listening.

Alex 00:25:28

That's always the.

David 00:25:29

Hope. Let's just recap on what those takeaways are.

Alex 00:25:32

So I guess first of all, um, there's real value in spending time and effort trying to get more out of your pre-existing visitors. Yeah. You don't always necessarily have to just be chasing more traffic, more traffic, more traffic. You can actually kind of sit back and say, okay, with the visitors that we're getting, let's turn more of them into customers. Yeah. Um, and that there is a kind of set methodology for doing that. There might not be kind of easy answers, but there is at least a kind of set and, and scientifically proven way of kind of getting to those answers.

David 00:26:00

That's right. So the process is, um, there are tools to help you with the process, which means you don't have to ruin any really good search rankings that you've already got, for example. So that's fine. So there are tools that let you run these experiments. They are in all likelihood, going to help you get more business from the website traffic that you're already getting.

Alex 00:26:27

Mhm.

David 00:26:28

Um, and I mean anything else really, I mean, is it.

Alex 00:26:32

No, I mean, I would just say that the longer you spend using tools like Hotjar and I know we kind of don't do it that much. But another thing I'm a really big fan of is kind of the whole idea of user testing, where you can get members of the public on a website and kind of watch them. You set them tasks and watch them kind of click around and narrate what they're doing. And it's, it's the time spent uncovering the problems that really brings the value in this process, I think. So the more time you can spend trying to diagnose what's going wrong on your page and coming up with theories as to how to fix it, the better your a B tests are going to be. Um, so yeah, if you're sat there thinking, okay, I'm going to go away and kind of like change sixty different things on this landing page and make it convert better, you're probably better spent, you know, sitting there for a couple of hours and working out what it is exactly. That's holding people up. Yeah.

David 00:27:15

Um, yeah. Otherwise you finish up and stating the obvious, but you'll finish up in a situation where you're not actually sure which change had had the effect that you were looking for, in which case.

Alex 00:27:24

Yeah.

David 00:27:25

You've then because if you uncover one simple thing, um, that can be, you know, that can be game changing.

Alex 00:27:32

It can. Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's really, really simple things, isn't it? Well, I mean, there's obvious things like not having a form on the page can like, you know, if you put a form on the page, suddenly your conversion rate shoots through the roof. But there's other really interesting examples, like you say, just changing the language of titles so that they kind of appeal to somebody kind of pain point or problem and that kind of thing where people find it.

David 00:27:49

Suddenly that sounded very markety.

Alex 00:27:51

It did. Yeah. If you can kind of directly address the issue that somebody's trying to solve when they were looking for whatever it is you're selling, and you can speak to them directly and kind of empathize with their problems, sometimes that can kind of triple or quadruple conversion rates. It's all just about trying to tap into what your audience wants to see, really, and what's going to kind of cut through the noise. Because ultimately, you know, there are probably a hundred websites selling what you're selling, or at least three or four, and it's just anything you can do to kind of stand out from that crowd really.

David 00:28:20

Mhm. So basically, if you're getting visitors to your website and specifically a web page, because we're not talking about conversion rate optimization being a site wide endeavor, it's like you pick a page. Yeah. So if you're getting visitors to a page and it's not generating any inquiries, there's a problem. Or if you're getting a lot of visitors to a page and it's not generating many inquiries. That's potentially a problem. Depends. You know, if the page is a page, which is information that people would be looking for when they're at the very early stages of making a.

Alex 00:28:53

Purchase.

David 00:28:54

You wouldn't expect it to convert. So you wouldn't waste time on CRO conversion rate optimization on a page, which is really just there to give people a some very simple advice. You might get some conversions at that point, but you're not going to. Whereas if you've got a page which is, you know, once people have. You've created for people who are probably at the point of making a purchasing decision, then you definitely want to spend some time getting that one working better.

Alex 00:29:20

Yeah, definitely. Now, I wanted to start talking about funnels then, but I think that's a discussion for a different day, isn't it? Yeah.

David 00:29:26

That's right. Whether it's a sales funnel or whether it's the cyclonic buyer journey or whatever it is that people have come up with, you know, it's basically giving people the information they need to take them, you know, through a process of deciding that you might be good guys to do business with, isn't it?

Alex 00:29:41

It does touch on an interesting point, though, that we should probably cover in another podcast, which is just about kind of setting expectations, because I'm sure a lot of people will be sat here listening to this and thinking, well, you know, how am I supposed to know how many people should be converting on my page? You know, how am I supposed to know what is normal or expected for a page? And I guess, yeah, without going into too much detail, is exactly like Dave says, you have to think about what kind of people are landing on your page and what stage of the process they're in really.

David 00:30:07

Um, but yeah.

Alex 00:30:08

Generally pick a page that you think should be converting. Lots of people play around with it. And then I guess just going back to what you did say though, about it just being for one page, I will say that you can always take the things you find on that one page and apply them across the site. You know, if you find out that people only really care about your products, if there's a picture of a smiling person at the top of the page, that's I mean, that's something that you can kind of use on every page of your website for sure.

David 00:30:31

Yeah. That's right. You're actually looking for trends. You're looking for, um, information that's going to help you All across the site in, you know, in a wider context. That's absolutely the case. If you, um, are thinking that maybe your website isn't generating as much business from the traffic that you're currently getting and you'd like, um, an audit, then feel free to get in touch with us. You can go on to the contacts page. If you've got any questions about conversion rate optimization or any aspect of digital marketing, and you want us to do a podcast on that subject, fill in the form and we'll record something. If you want to come on the show and talk about some aspect of digital marketing, whether you work in another agency or you work for a business and you want to come and talk to us, that's also that something that would be great. In the meantime, anything else to add on the CRO podcast?

Alex 00:31:18

I don't think so.

David 00:31:19

Okay. All right.

David 00:31:20

It's ta-ra from me. And apparently not Tara.

Alex 00:31:25

Is also ta-ra from me.