User Experience & Conversion Rate Optimization

“User experience” (often abbreviated to UX) is a term used to describe, assess, and optimize the experience that an individual has of something that has been designed for them. Broadly speaking, this may be an application, a website, a product or service, or even an event. In this case, by sparing you endless scrolling through unnecessary lead-in paragraphs and simply offering you a plain English definition of this concept, we’ve optimized your experience of this page as a source of information. You’re welcome!

When popularized in the early-mid ’90s by Apple User Experience Architect Don Norman, the concept of UX typically encompassed the relationship between a user and a computer. With the evolution of the internet, web and software design, mobile technology, and digital marketing, it’s come to refer to a far broader range of interactions. Today it’s a highly practical concept for business owners like you to better understand and improve the way people engage with your business, but your website is by far one of the most important.

Every good entrepreneur is constantly on the lookout for sophisticated & effective ways to keep their audiences and customers engaged, happy, and loyal. In our Web-driven world, a site that prioritizes strong UX design is essential to this. Your website determines the presentation and appeal of your products and services, the way you communicate yourself as a brand, the principles that guide your business, and so much more. As a result, how you approach UX design can mean the difference between growth and stagnation for your business.

Consider, for instance, that video content can convince 73% of users to buy your products or services, that 94% of visitors stop trusting a site that has outdated web design, or that 47% of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. The vast majority of customers will go to a competitor due to a poor customer experience, and the expectations of your website are core to this dynamic. A company that takes the UX of its site seriously will benefit from much higher conversion rates, better customer satisfaction and retention, and a more polished image.

What exactly separates a poor user experience from an excellent one? Let’s take design and functionality as primary examples. Your approach to UX is headed in the right direction when your site combines attractive, up-to-date design with maximum usability and readability. Distinctive yet tactful use of colour, geometry, images, and text formatting are major elements of this, but so is the way your site is navigated. First impressions of a website are design-related by a significant majority, with simplicity and ease of navigation being key ingredients.

Those who understand UX also know that website design and functionality must be understood at the level of user and consumer psychology. How do you regulate a user’s attention and guide it in precisely the direction you want? What role does the degree of simplicity or complexity of information play in sustaining user engagement? What subconscious expectations does the average user have about how a site should look and feel? These are questions that any business owner should ask about the experience they’re providing for their web visitors.

In addition to the influence that design and functionality have on the overall experience offered by your site, it’s crucial to consider how you create and utilize content. UX has played an increasingly important role in content marketing over the years, and it’s a testament to how dynamic this concept can be. A user’s experience is not only about how aesthetically pleasing your site is or how intuitively they can use and understand it on a functional level. It’s also about how engaging and useful the information on it is, and how that information made them feel.

A strong content strategy not only lends value and usefulness to your site as a resource—it adds the kind of flair and variety that a positive user experience requires. A well-written and consistently updated blog, engaging video content, eye-catching infographics, and downloadable content like case studies & white papers are just a few of a vast spectrum of possibilities. Truly understanding UX means appreciating just how much your business website depends on great content. Without it, even the fanciest site can fall flat as an experience.

It’s impossible to overstate just how influential mobile technology has been in shaping the way we use the web and engage with businesses. It has radically streamlined our ability to discover, research, and select between the brands that compete for our attention. Unsurprisingly, then, the close bond between mobile-centric design and UX is one that shouldn’t be ignored. The quality of the experience that your site offers — and in effect, how well it converts and retains customers — depends hugely on the degree of attention you devote to mobile-optimization.

Mobile users, which comprise roughly half of internet traffic today, are 5 times more likely to abandon a task when using a site that isn’t mobile-friendly. A poor mobile experience will make 52% of users less likely to engage with a business overall. If your site doesn’t load in 3 seconds or under, 53% of users will leave. The reason for all of this is quite plain — expectations for a mobile-based experience are high when it comes to immediacy, clarity, and convenience. A UX strategy that doesn’t properly account for mobile is therefore hardly a UX strategy at all.

User experience can be quite technical in nature, but it also requires a deep and intuitive understanding of how the human mind operates. Even with a well-designed, mobile-friendly site that’s loaded with distinctive and engaging content, the ideal user experience isn’t quite there. UX encompasses not just a set of perceptions, but a relationship, and that relationship won’t take shape properly if visitors feel that they’re interacting with a mechanical or impersonal entity.

Your site and its users should therefore be interacting with one another in a reciprocal, fulfilling way. Customer surveys and feedback, live chat, and targeted landing pages are all examples of how this sense of reciprocity can manifest. Want someone to sign up to your email list? Give them a valuable resource in exchange for a completed subscription form. Want to spark confidence in your products or services? Use your site to offer free trials or consultations.

In this sense, the user experience should be thought of as a core component of the overall customer experience. Your website is the place where the two principles intersect and blend together. It should exemplify the strongest attributes of your business while serving as an indication of what it’s like to interact with your team. Trust and esteem must be earned, and we can help you do it by creating a user experience that is as human as it is professional.

With all of these ingredients in mind, does your website offer a fulfilling user experience? Is it converting and retaining to its utmost potential? Working with businesses across Calgary, we design not only great sites, but outstanding experiences. From mobile-friendly design to content strategy, in-depth testing, and user psychology, our knowledge of the many facets of UX will serve as one of your greatest assets. Contact us now to give your visitors nothing but the best!

Within a fraction of a second, the average visitor can establish an opinion on your site and decide whether or not to stay. That fraction of a second can make or break a sale. Opinions may be based on the aesthetics of the design, its load speed, its clarity and usability, its mobile-friendliness, and many other factors. Are these really more important than the quality of your products or services? Not necessarily, but no matter how good you are at what you do, we live in an age where your website is as much a salesperson as any actual person on your team.

When a lead forms an opinion of your business through your site, what are they looking for in terms of design? Simply put, a usable, readable, fast-loading, mobile-friendly site with an up-to-date look and all of the information they need. This may not be a checklist they have taped beside their computer, but these are the factors that shape today’s standards. The quality of the overall user experience is more important than ever in getting your conversions and sales where you want them to be.

The research makes all of this as clear as day. If your content or layout are unattractive, you can lose almost 40% of your visitors as customers. 69% of smartphone users (who will comprise an enormous portion of your traffic) are more likely to buy from companies whose mobile sites efficiently answer their questions. Sluggish load times alone can result in billions of lost retail sales globally per year.

Not all sales-influencing design traits are particularly conscious or obvious. A visitor probably won’t be thinking, “If this company’s site doesn’t have red CTA buttons then I’m outta here.” Yet, many businesses have seen significant increases in conversions after switching their CTA buttons to the right colour. When Bing opted for a certain blue in the design of its search pages, it ended up with an added $80 million in annual revenue. The sale is certainly in the details!

When considering its impact on your sales, it’s also important to understand the role that a strong business website plays in your marketing plan at large. SEO, PPC advertising, social media, content strategy, and CRO are all key processes that guide potential customers toward a sale. Your site is fundamental to the success of all of them.

Let’s say that, since you knew it could increase conversions by 86%, you put an excellent video on a landing page that a customer found through a Google ad. Or, since you know that the right content strategy can multiply your conversions by more than 5x, you consistently post engaging articles that keep your visitors engaged and interested in your products or services. Maybe, since you heard that 28% of searches for something “near me” result in a sale, you’ve even devoted ample attention to your local SEO efforts. These are all examples of how your site should work in concert with other aspects of your marketing plan to make sales happen.

Meanwhile, consider the brand image and voice of your business. From the visual style that people associate with your company to the way your content is written, this overall impression is a powerful motivator when it comes to both customer acquisition and retention. You can increase your revenue by up to 23% when your brand representation is consistent across all platforms. Since your site establishes your branding and leads the way for all other components of your online presence, its role in driving these sales shouldn’t be underestimated.

Of course, a business website can also be a versatile marketing tool beneath the surface. Through email list subscriptions, forms, and visitor behaviour analytics, your site is a potential treasure trove of information for your marketing automation efforts. When you nurture your leads properly, you can make 50% more sales at a 33% lower cost than if you don’t. Leveraging a website properly can transform the way you conduct market research, help you target your best leads, and create an experience that turns visits into sales.

A sale requires trust and confidence. 86% of customers will charge more for a good customer experience, and this is defined by a variety of traits that a good business website must secure. It is, after all, one of the primary means by which you communicate with potential and established clients, not to mention the jumping off point for countless customer support interactions. The visibility and accuracy of the contact information on your site is a key example. 50% of your visitors will be discouraged from choosing you if that information is outdated.

Meanwhile, there’s also a pretty good chance that sensitive information is going to flow through your site, whether it’s a lead’s full name and phone number or a customer’s credit card details. If your visitors feel the site is not secure, 84% of them will not make a purchase. This highlights the importance of SSL certification, trust symbols indicating safe payment processing and information security (such as from PayPal and McAfee), and an easy-to-find privacy policy.

You’ll also earn a considerable amount of trust with your site when you display testimonials, awards, and accreditation from organizations like the Better Business Bureau. These and other contributors to customer confidence should be just as important to you as the sales numbers themselves. Following these principles not only drives revenue and loyalty, it makes for greater entrepreneurial integrity and a happier community overall.

No matter what kind of business you operate, whether it’s an e-commerce enterprise with purchases taking place entirely online or a small business with a website as its digital hub, that site is deeply intertwined with your sales. As such, it must be built with a precise, sales-driven approach that will help you meet and even exceed your goals for growth and profitability. This is our promise to you when you work with the CAYK team. Contact us to get started!

Designing and developing a business website involves a serious amount of decision-making on multiple scales, much of it directly affecting how successfully you land conversions. Even seemingly minute details, such as CTA button designs and simple word choices, can make or break conversion rates. So why open just one door and stick with it when another could potentially outperform it and give you better results? This is the beauty of A/B split testing. It can show you the way towards better customer acquisition and retention.

Anytime you need to determine the course of action that will most empower your website to convert, a split test can be carried out. During this process, the CAYK team will implement more than one option simultaneously and traffic will be directed to them through randomization. In a basic A/B test, the existing version is referred to as the control while the one you’re comparing it to is called the variant. A hypothesis is typically established to determine a variation that is worth testing and predict how it will improve results. Through skillful monitoring and analytics, we’ll settle on the version that performs best and is positioned to get you the most business.

You see the word “optimization” a lot in digital marketing. This is because your marketing strategy needs to be consistently fine-tuned on multiple levels to give you the profitability and growth that you’re looking for. Sharp optimization methods are essential to this fine-tuning process, especially when it comes to your conversion rates. Luckily, the CAYK team is here to help you not only understand conversion rate optimization, but to conquer it!

When we carry out split testing to strengthen your website, we’re not simply looking to find out whether something does or doesn’t work. We want to know why, and this means learning as much as you can about the behaviour of your visitors. It’s a crucial form of insight that the CAYK team can provide you with through effective A/B tests and the analytics that accompany them.

For instance, you may very well be getting plenty of traffic to a landing page thanks to a great social media post or ad campaign, but traffic does not guarantee a conversion. This is why bounce rate is one key metric that split testing will take into consideration, as it indicates how much of the traffic to a page is made up of visitors who simply navigate away from it rather than converting. A/B split testing with CAYK means zeroing in on the version of your landing page that will get you the lowest bounce rate possible.

Successful split testing should also reveal the precise ways in which visitors interact with the pages you depend on for conversions. This is often done through the use of heat maps, which offer detailed visual representations of click and scroll behaviour on the page you’re monitoring. giving you a closer look at precisely how visitors engage with what they’re given. When integrated into an A/B testing procedure, tools like these can be powerful assets in achieving the high conversion rates you need.

The short answer: Absolutely. But you don’t have to just take our word for it. There are plenty of real-world split tests to look towards as examples of what this process can reveal. In 2007, search specialist AJ Kohn ran an A/B split test between two nearly identical sets of ads in a Google Ads campaign. It revealed that ads using capitalization in their website name (www.WebsiteName.com) earned a 53% higher click through rate than those using lowercase.

Kitchen tool retail site Yuppiechef designed a landing page that encouraged visitors to sign up for an online wedding registry. With this conversion goal in mind, they hypothesized that removing the top navigation banner would minimize distractions for the visitor. By running an A/B split test comparing versions of the page with & without the banner, they found that removing it increased wedding registry sign-ups from 3% to 6%, a 100% boost in their conversion rate!

Not only is split testing a key part of the digital marketing landscape, it’s been instrumental in the way we assess and optimize countless aspects of our clients’ websites and marketing strategies. It has allowed us to provide businesses all over Calgary with far greater insight and precision into what their audiences and customers respond best to, and consequently what achieves the greatest ROI. It not only boosts conversions and revenue, it has earned the peace of mind and confidence of the business owners who count on us to empower them for success.

If you want to uncover powerful insights and keep your conversion rate optimization up to par with current standards, A/B split tests are an essential part of the journey. High conversion rates are like gold for a modern business, and they can often seem out of reach, but it’s simply a matter of working with the right team. At CAYK, we recognize the value of detailed, accurate, and consistent testing every step of the way. Speak with our experts to get started today!

You want website visitors to perform certain actions that indicate their interest in your company, guiding them on their journey towards a long-standing relationship with your business as a loyal customer. Such actions may include signing up to your mailing list, scheduling an appointment or consultation, or purchasing a product. Whatever it may be, in marketing lingo it’s called a conversion. Typically, it happens thanks to landing pages, which are the pages we design specifically to convert visitors.

When you calculate the percentage of traffic that ultimately completes a conversion (whether to a specific landing page or to your website overall), you have a conversion rate. This is one of the most important pieces of data in digital marketing. It’s a concrete indication of how well your site is generating business for you in proportion to how well it’s drawing in visitors. The contrast between these two factors speaks to the fact that high traffic in and of itself doesn’t not necessarily mean excellent sales. The CAYK team will use the sharpest CRO tools available to take that traffic and direct it towards precise customer decisions.

The concept of conversions may be simple enough, but the process of getting visitors to convert as often as you need is far from it. This is the often challenging mission of conversion rate optimization: to sharpen just the right aspects of your site in just the right ways to make conversions as likely as possible. When a visitor arrives, what do they see? Does the site speak to their specific needs? Does it swiftly and conveniently provide what they’re looking for? Does it offer a rewarding and engaging experience? The CAYK approach to CRO will ensure that the answer is always a resounding “yes!”

Because of its influence over a website’s ability to create new customers, business owners who adopt an effective CRO strategy have found it to be indispensable. When companies increase their number of conversion-optimized landing pages from 10 to 15, they can see a 55% increase in new leads. CRO has even been found to increase ROI by an average of 223%. Despite its track record, however, some entrepreneurs are slow to catch on to its potential. Over 20% of companies have admitted to not having an effective landing page testing strategy, so it’s no coincidence that 22% are dissatisfied with their conversion rates. With our CRO expertise, we’ll see to it that you’re never one of them.

Sure, we can go on and on about how wonderful CRO is for a business like yours, but what exactly does it involve? From the outset, good CRO is built on setting actionable goals and key performance indicators, not to mention understanding the relationship between these goals and the broader needs and aspirations of your company. This is why we strive to work closely with you in gaining a clear understanding of your business, your existing conversion rates, how they can be improved, and what factors will be most relevant in assessing your progress.

In addition to the influence that design and functionality have on the overall experience offered by your site, it’s crucial to consider how you create and utilize content. UX has played an increasingly important role in content marketing over the years, and it’s a testament to how dynamic this concept can be. A user’s experience is not only about how aesthetically pleasing your site is or how intuitively they can use and understand it on a functional level. It’s also about how engaging and useful the information on it is, and how that information made them feel.

Once you know where you want your CRO efforts to take you, carrying out skillful analytics and tracking will be another major step in getting there. The more you know about your visitors, the better you can optimize your site and its landing pages to convert them. Who are they? How and why did they arrive? What defines their behaviour and engagement? What causes them to leave the site rather than fill out that form, call your office, or complete that order? When it comes to CRO, we understand as well as anyone that knowledge is power.

This information should then be used to develop conversion-focused improvements to your site, administer A/B split tests to determine their success, and more. Are your CTAs not strong enough? Is it the layout of the page that needs improvement, or is it an overly-complex form with too many fields? A data-driven approach, one formulated meticulously by marketing experts with years of experience, will be most successful in helping you answer questions like these and continue to track and strengthen your CRO strategy.

While much of your quest for conversions will be focused on creating high-converting landing pages, it’s important to appreciate how complex a role your site plays in this journey. For one thing, even the smallest details can have a considerable effect on how well a page converts. Simplifying a contact form by reducing its number of fields from 11 to 4, for instance, can boost conversion rates by as much as 120%. This sense of detail is central to the way we do CRO.

The countless details that comprise your site don’t just affect the converting power of a specific page in a particular moment, they also contribute to an overall user experience. Page load time, aesthetic decisions, usability, mobile friendliness and the use of moderated live chat are all key factors. Even a 1-second delay in the speed of your site can reduce conversions by 7%. CAYK will keep your site strong on all fronts so that it can secure the conversions you need.

CRO will perform at its peak when it empowers and is empowered by all of the other marketing efforts you pursue. Organic traffic brought in with SEO will only get you so far if you can’t turn it into customers. Neither your PPC strategy nor your email campaigns will be able to do their job successfully if the landing pages they link to can’t convert. All that great content and social media link building will be in vain if users aren’t guided toward that converting action. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why our holistic marketing philosophy has served our clients so well!

Finally, one of our favourite aspects of CRO is how well it plays with marketing automation. Collecting and analyzing insights on visitors, understanding their behaviour, and maximizing the relevance of their experiences can all be quite painstaking and time consuming. Nevertheless, you can’t shortcut around them if you want to optimize for conversion. Marketing automation can be fused with these and other components of CRO to make them stunningly efficient.

When we customize these two powerful marketing tools to complement one another for your business, you’ll be able to segment your leads and customers, appeal to their individual needs and interests, and so much more, all through automated processes. It not only takes your conversions to another level, it streamlines and boosts customer retention by creating better relationships between you and the people who engage with your brand.

By using the most sophisticated CRO tools available and combining them with top-of-the-line marketing automation, the CRO specialists at CAYK have helped countless Calgary entrepreneurs increase their sales and grow their businesses. We’ll never let your web traffic go to waste, and we’ll never leave you in the dark about how your site is performing. Through consistent checkups, conversion tracking implementation, and personalized reporting tools, you’ll have a direct vantage point for assessing and continuously improving the converting power of your business website. Contact us to get started today!

The quality of a company’s customer service is integral to its overall success. There’s very little getting around this and it’s been true for centuries. Still, a number of things have changed in recent decades. Not only have the tools and methods of customer care evolved, the expectations of the general public have as well. The rise of social media and review sites in particular have created a certain standard for both immediacy and empathy that every business must meet if it hopes to convert new clients and retain existing ones.

Today, customers are five times more likely to recommend you to a friend when they have a great experience, and unhappy customers will go out of their way to recommend against you. You don’t want to lose those referrals, as they’ll spend 200% more than the average customer. 82% of customers have been found to leave a company due to bad customer service, and killing retention means missing out on serious growth — a 5% increase in retention can boost profits as much as 95%. So how do you fortify your communication methods to keep people happy?

When CAYK sets up live chat on your business website, you’re giving your community the most direct online connection to your company. It’s a connection that fits seamlessly within the flow of brand discovery and research that both desktop and mobile-based consumers move through every day. It even allows them to multitask, which is a must-have for 51% of consumers. When this system is professionally monitored by our team of experts, your leads and customers gain the benefit of immediate engagement and high-quality support without outstretching the resources of your own people. It allows us to give you the best of both worlds.

Are people really into our moderated live chat system? Oh yes. Both the number of businesses adopting live chat and the number of consumers preferring it have risen sharply in recent years and continue to do so. According to eDigital Research, it even boasts a customer satisfaction rate of 73%, compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone. This isn’t much of a surprise when you consider that 53% of customers will abandon a potential purchase if they can’t get quick answers to their questions. People are expecting faster response times than ever, and our moderated live chat solution provides exactly that.

Live chat’s popularity is more than a matter of convenience, it’s about the nature of the exchange that takes place.It allows team members to engage with leads and customers more precisely and effectively, while the prompt back-and-forth nature of the conversation is also particularly satisfying for consumers. Meanwhile, any savvy business person knows that timing is everything. When you reach a person in a moment of need and provide exactly what they’re looking for, you’re far more likely to secure a sale, appointment booking, or other conversion.

The research certainly supports this. For 44% of customers, getting answers to questions while in the process of making a purchase is one of their highest priorities when it comes to website features. In the case of visitors who use chat prior to a purchase, a study from Forrester found that average order value can go up by 10%, while each chat hour can provide a 48% boost in revenue and a 40% conversion rate. Customers who have used chat are far more likely to make repeat purchases, and 38% of customers have attributed their purchase to the live chat itself.

There’s one aspect of a live chat system that many business owners overlook: It’s as much a way for you to learn about your leads and customers as it is for them to learn about you. Each time a visitor starts a chat on your site, they’ll probably ask a question about your products or services. Over time, if you’re utilizing this tool to its fullest extent, the questions you’re asked can provide you with many different forms of useful insight. In fact, the chat itself is a form of conversion that allows you to ascertain contact details such as email addresses.

Combined with what is learned about the visitor during the initial chat and any chats to follow, this information is crucial to lead nurturing, segmentation, and creating a more personalized experience. It can also highlight broader trends to take note of, as certain questions or needs may arise frequently from particular customer segments or at particular times of the year. It can even point to problem areas of your site where clarification or improvement of information is needed. All in all, live chat strengthens the utility of your business site as a marketing resource.

Of course, live chat alone is no substitute for the other elements that motivate people to choose your business. At CAYK, we believe in complementing it with a powerful, comprehensive marketing strategy to bring all those visitors to your site in the first place. We also ensure that your site lives up to today’s standards. Live chat itself is an increasingly important ally to mobile-friendly web design, for instance, as over 40% of customers accessed live chat via mobile in 2017. It’s also essential to maintain customer care practices that are high-quality at the human level, as empathetic human service is an even more important factor in customer satisfaction than speed.

No business should ignore with the popularity and stunning track record of moderated live chat. Ever since we integrated it into our range of services and our own site, it’s changed the way we and our clients engage with our communities. From Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5pm, we’ll help your brand connect instantly with leads and customers through a top-of-the-line live chat system, securing contact information and even booking meetings or consultations on your behalf. Get in touch with our team or give our live chat feature a try to see for yourself!