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In last few weeks, we have been asked multiple times this question that; what are the best practices for conversion rate optimization, and are there are any fundamental rules and framework that applies across different industry verticals so; I thought let's convert this in to a blog post and get the valuable feedback from my DAA fellow members:

I have been working on Conversion Optimization related initiatives for over 10 years now; and to be honest with you, there are no standard cookie-cutter best practices that apply across different industry verticals however, there are certain hygiene factors that we can consider while crafting out the conversion optimization roadmap for our organization.

First and foremost, whenever you are trying to identify the opportunities for optimizing your conversion rate on the website, start focusing on the LOW-HANGING-FRUITS which are at the bottom of the funnel and requires minor configurations from the content perspective. Any layout and workflow changes at the bottom of the funnel causes lot of friction and political challenges, which needs to be handled in an extremely controlled fashion. Since, we have entered in to the new financial year and it's the ending of the first quarter, you can audit the layout, content and workflows of your conversion funnel and plan out your optimization roadmap.

Secondly, whenever you have to identify the pages on the website for optimization, focus on those pages first, which are contributing significantly to your conversion process, gets a significant % of paid traffic and are less politically challenged because, testing is still considered as a pain-in-the-ass by most of the organizations, and its better to go after small wins first and gradually build that confidence. I typically recommend my clients to go after their Category, Sub-Category and Search Results Pages first instead of jumping on to their Home Page, Shopping Cart and Checkout Funnel.

Thirdly, having a decent sample size for your test page is extremely important, and we have struggled on this aspect multiple times where, you want to optimize an important page but, the sample size is so small that it takes hell lot of time to reach a respectable confidence level. I always recommend my clients to start with a decent traffic page and perform simple A/B tests to build your confidence before you go after significant layout, workflow or taxonomical changes.

Lastly, have the following tools deployed on your website before you pursue any optimization activity:

Having access to the qualitative consumer generated content data provides a lot of valuable context during your hypothesis building and in the absence of that; it's extremely difficult to enrich your quantitative analysis.