It is 2023 and every business has a website. In two seconds of Googling I was able to find a custom reed basket website that honestly looks really good. If your business is not present in some way online I have no idea how you even ended up on this blog post, but hurry up and get a damn website!
Even though everyone and their dog has one, they do not always have a website designed to meet their goals. This is actually very understandable. Once it becomes mandatory to have a website, everyone is going to have to make a website even if they do not have the skills or money to do so. Guess what? That is completely fine. Seriously! If you are satisfied with how your website functions and the overall performance of your business then stick with it. You know your situation better than I do and I am not here to beat you over the head with the #grindsetmindset.
That being said, some people do want to improve how their website functions as a business unit, and that's completely fine too! What can make it challenging is that despite interacting with the internet for nearly every part of our lives, most people do not know a whole lot about websites and methodologies for making them better.
In order to help with that, HIVE uses the CR/UX model. This is a system we think is effective for getting more out of your website through constant updates and testing focusing on two key areas Conversion Rates and User Experience. Before I talk more about how and why to use CR/UX, let's define these terms and why they matter.
Conversion rate
The first part of CR/UX is Conversion Rate. Your conversion rate at its basic level is the ratio of the number of people who enter your site vs how many of them perform a specific action. These actions can be almost anything on the site but the most common is someone visiting the site and filling out a form.
Conversion rates are incredibly important to keep track of because they determine the overall effectiveness of your website. You can have the most beautiful website with a flood of visitors but if you cannot convert them into customers they are effectively worthless. You have basically created a site for window shoppers that never has people come in.
Increasing your conversion rate is not always easy but it is possible by putting in the work. It also has a large impact on your revenue without having to move mountains to get there. Let's do some simple math to see where the benefit lies.
Mike went to the store and bought 72 watermelons... wait, that's the wrong kind of word problem.
Let's say your website gets 10,000 visitors a year and you convert them to customers at a 5% rate. This means that you acquire 500 customers over the course of the year. The new year comes and your CEO wants to focus on growth so they want to see 750 customers next year.
Tony Traffic suggests that you need by bringing as many users to the site as possible. If we run the numbers on that (75/.05) we see that you need to bring in 15,000 website visitors over the course of a year (~417 a month) to meet your goal. That is a large number of visitors to acquire and will require you to make a lot of changes in order to meet the goal. You also cannot guarantee that your marketing and sales teams are able to handle 417 new people a month.
When attacking the problem from the conversion rate side, the numbers become much more manageable. You can have the same impact as the above scenario by bringing your conversion rate from 5% to 7.5% you are able to get the deals that you need by "only" closing 21 more deals a month. While both methods require a 50% increase, an increased conversion rate needs fewer people to achieve that goal.
User Experience
User experience extends beyond web pages and into anything you do as a company. It is one of the most important aspects of running a successful business. To put it simply, User Experience is how easy it is for the user to interact with your website. This covers a broad range of topics like mobile responsiveness, ease of navigation, and even your buyer's journey. You have to constantly improve this part of your website in order to have happier visitors who will work with your company.
A great real-life example of this is Netflix. I am old enough to remember the good ole days of Netflix when every show ended up there because there was nothing else. It became a one-stop shop for all of your TV needs. It felt like everyone was on the platform and it was constantly being talked about. Piracy decreased, cable became less common, and we inched ever closer to our Star Trek post-scarcity utopia. Then content producers saw the money to be made and began to fragment the market like what happened with cable. Once shows began to spread out Netflix saw worse subscriber counts and utilization because the user had to spend money and work harder to get all of the content that they wanted.
You need to make sure that it is as simple and straightforward as possible to do anything on your site. The average time spent on a webpage is about one minute. This is a very short amount of time to prove your value to a potential customer and you have to do it in order to be successful. It is key that you make sure your site can make its case in that time and the user experience is what makes that happen.
So what exactly is CR/UX?
CR/UX is a methodology aimed at making the most of your website by maximizing both of these key aspects. Many people use their website as a brochure to describe their business. This leads to a cycle of large redesigns followed by periods of inactivity. That is a recipe for a site that cannot support your business. With CR/UX you make your website a powerful part of your business through consistent updates focused on identifying customers and closing deals.
Step 1: Understand where you are
To begin the process you meet with a growth expert to understand where your business is now. You establish the baseline for how your website operates and where your business is coming from. We do this through multiple methods like analyzing website analytics, reviewing heatmaps, and improving your buyer’s journey.
Step 2: Understand where you are going
Once you know what you have to work with it is time to determine where you are going. Your growth expert will work with you to establish realistic and achievable goals for your business. These goals will guide every action taken to improve your website.
Step 3: Make a plan
You will work with your growth expert to determine where the work gets done. This takes the form of a 90 day plan that will lay out the strategy for achieving our goals for the site.
Step 4: Start Testing
A plan is nothing without action. Once the strategy is set it is time to put the words into action. These actions will take the form of numerous tests on the content identified as key to achieving your goals. Each test will have clearly defined parameters, a hypothesis, and metrics that will determine success.
Step 5: Evaluate
After each test is completed it is vital to understand what happened and how it affected your goals. You will review the results of the tests run and determine if the hypothesis holds true. There is a reason the scientific method has been used for 100s of years… it works.
Step 6: REPEAT
This is the most important part of the process. No test is over after its results have been observed. We will review results and either apply it to further improve results or use it as the basis to improve another part of your website. By testing, understanding, and repeating we will work closer to meeting your goals and generating sales.
There you have it. CR/UX is a way for you to turn your website into your best salesperson. If you are wondering how your website can be improved using the CR/UX system, reach out to us. We are happy to hop on a call and discuss what your business can look like with a high performing website.
