Doubling your website’s Conversion Rate has the same effect as doubling its traffic.

That’s the key message I tried to deliver a few weeks ago at a Silicon Halton event (slidedeck below).

A conversion is the action you want people to take on your website or landing page.

Conversions can be either “primary” or “secondary” and should speak to those at different stages of the buying cycle, for example:

Primary Conversion Goals

• Call a number
• Start a live chat
• Get a quote
• Request an appointment/call-back
• Start a free trial
• Make a purchase

Secondary Conversion Goals

• Download a white paper
• Subscribe to an email
• Attend a webinar
• Follow on Facebook/Twitter
• Share or subscribe to blog

The purpose of any conversion is to get users to take action so you can engage them.

And most websites fail pretty miserably at this.

According to Hubspot, the average site wastes 75% of its traffic due to lack of persuasion or “sales-ability”.  In other words, for a lack of “conversion”.

And so many businesses either underspend or outright ignore conversion (also known as Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO).

In fact, $92 is spent attracting visitors to a website for every $1 spent on converting them (Source: Redeye).

So How Do I Learn More About Optimizing My Website for Conversion?

There’s lots of great resources for learning about CRO.

A couple of my favourites include Unbounce, ContentVerve, Usability Geek, and Neuroscience Marketing.

Or, for those local to Toronto, there’s the upcoming Unbounce Conversion Roadtrip (note the special offer at bottom)…

About the Conversion Road Trip (by Unbounce)

Conversion Road Trip is a four-city conference series that brings together the best content from world class speakers in an intimate, theatre style venue. Learn about landing page campaigns, ppc, design, copywriting, conversion rate optimization, a/b testing and more from some of the most influential names in the business and walk away with actionable content to take back and implement into your marketing campaigns.

The jam-packed agenda  is enough to get any marketer excited, but if you still need convincing, we’re bringing our A-game with:

• World-class conversion experts – The speaker lineup has been curated verrrry carefully to bring you a perfect mix of topics. In just one-day you’ll learn about conversion rate optimization, growth, email, PPC, lead gen and of course high-converting landing pages.
• Extremely actionable content – We work closely with our speakers to make sure the content is something you can implement as soon as you get back to your desk.
• A streamlined, single-track event – Everyone is in the same room all day, so you have a common thread for discussion with your fellow marketers (no more awkward conversation starters).
• High return on your investment – Think about it. You’ll get to see 8-12 speakers at each event, low travel costs, facetime with speakers who don’t typically even offer private consulting, and a collection of original slide decks to take back to the office. For $299.

Cities & Dates:

• New York – Monday June 1
• Toronto – Wednesday June 3
• Chicago – Friday June 5
• Boston – Monday June 8