There are many elements that go into a website; design, brand, message, offers, most wanted response, usability, heck even coolness.

What about conversion and what is it? My definition of conversion is where the website, viewed as a marketing and especially sales tool, is effective!

I have expert internet marketer friends who would argue that, for the majority online, website conversion has never been found! Can’t really argue with the fact that many websites do not achieve much if anything, let alone an increase in business.

Others would say that they have always focused on and optimized their websites for conversion, “It’s the lifeblood of an online business, me boy-o!”

I think that for the most part, conversion has been an ignored factor in the creation of websites; especially in the small local business space. In my opinion, building a website without having conversion as “the” major focal point is a huge waste of time and money.

The components of creating a high converting website are well defined. They include elements such as: usability – does it do exactly what you expected; design – the look and feelings it evokes; site analytics and testing – tracking the results and continually refining.

Sidebar: Yep… continually. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in websites and internet marketing is: A Website is Never Done!

The best, most effective sites both grow and refine constantly, and that is why they double, triple sales and more!

In my experience, during the site planning and building stages, there are a couple other elements that 99% of sites completely ignore – these are creating a wireframe prototype and then user testing before launch. (I’ll get back to these later.)

There are global, critical questions to ask, that will ensure that you frame your website development around it being effective. These questions are:

1. Why am I building a website?
• Is it to get orders?
• Is it to get catalog or information requests, or to get the phone to ring?
• Is it to get email signups?

Each of these dictate a different conversion process. There can be different processes on different pages. Combining them on one page almost always doesn’t work and is what many sites try to do.

2. How does our customer see this?

Always, always, always look at the site from your customers point of view. The website is not for you… it’s for your customer and the more you can manifest that in the finished website, the more effective it will be!

3. What is the focus of the site and specifically this web page from my customers point of view?
• Buy Something?
• Give me information?
• Click deeper if I want to know more?

Another way of putting this is – What is the most wanted response?

4. Does our navigation scheme answer these below questions immediately?
• Where am I?
• Where can I go?
• Where have I been?

Ultimately, your navigation scheme must follow convention. It’s a mugs game to invent your own “cool” system. People spend most of their time somewhere else than on your site.

The #1 rule here is: Don’t make me think!

Your navigation must be obvious and unfortunately, the more familiar you are with your developing website, the more blind you become to the obvious and non-obvious. Here’s where user testing kicks butt!

You can test 5 people and catch 80% of your usability errors. Test 10 and you’ll see 95% of them. The key to this is simple; give them a task and then shut up and watch.

For example: “Sign up for our email list.” You’ll see where they get stuck. Save opinions and surveys until later… stand behind them and watch where they struggle and then ask them about what happened!

You will discover problems with how you’ve named things, organized and setup up the page layout, and with the expected sequence of your most wanted responses. These are gold because solving them means more effectiveness!