Is Your Website Losing Money in an Effort to Save Money?
Before you answer that, ask if you can see yourself in any of the following scenarios:
- We just launched our site! I’ve moved on to our next project.
- Our site has been up for a while. No one is complaining and we get solid traffic. All good!
- Our site is a disaster. Bounce rate is through the roof. We aren’t converting to our newsletter. Sales are lower than we’d like. I don’t even know where to start.
- I know I have a major issue on my site, but I don’t have the team to fix it.
- I don’t have the time to properly examine any of this.
Chances are you have been one of these people, at one time or another. Over the past 20 years, ETR has found that even when there is potential value left on the table (e.g. sales revenue, registrations, customer service efficiency), concerns related to cost, time, manpower, and know-how prevent teams from capitalizing on the low-hanging fruit that exists in nearly all websites.
James Cole, CEO of Expand The Room, describes it this way: “Our clients have told us that there are a number of reasons that simple, high-ROI site improvements don’t happen. Often, it’s fear about the immediate cost or timeliness. In reality, in many cases a relatively small investment can pay off many times over. A quick analysis can usually highlight areas where revenue is being left on the table.”
Let us explain by way of examples:
Streamlining Site Architecture On a Legacy Site
Our non-profit client’s site was extremely content rich and had been live for many years. Over time, important information on the site had become buried and difficult to find. Load time issues had also cropped up, and there were inconsistencies with the navigation. ETR conducted a comprehensive nav study that provided guidance for improving the site’s information architecture.
See the Full Case Study for the Project, Which Resulted in a 50% Increase in Web Traffic
Improving the Flight Booking Process for a New York City Helicopter Tour Company
In a fiercely competitive tourism industry, HeliNY needed to stand out against the competition. ExpandTheRoom set out to increase conversions by streamlining the booking process for both customers and the people working behind the scenes.
See the Full Case Study for the Project, Which Resulted in a 20% Lift in Perception of Booking Ease
Delivering Positive Ecommerce ROI For Major Medical Table Manufacturer – One Year Ahead of Schedule.
Through a comprehensive SEO-focused content audit, ETR discovered huge opportunities to improve page rankings. Data showed that 8% of the pages on hilllabs.com accounted for 50% of the traffic. This indicated gaps and opportunities to improve the majority of the site.
See the Full Case Study for the Project, Which Resulted in 5X New Web Orders
“In each of the cases, we were able to use our process to quickly identify the places where value could be extracted. Our process and outside perspective often help us see things the client doesn’t. Fresh thinking is always a good thing when dealing with complex problems and businesses,” says Cole.
How Can Your Company Benefit?
ETR often works with new clients under an initial discovery and execution engagement where preliminary research is done to determine where the biggest benefits exist in your specific situation. We look at performance, conversion, UX, design, messaging, and so forth.
These engagements always start with research to identify key hypotheses. To validate, we then recommend an appropriate testing plan, which can take the form of A-B testing, site surveys, focus group usability tests, or other methodologies. Most importantly, we always build in an execution phase so that you’re getting more than just recommendations, you’re getting a tangible deliverable you can work with. These could be new registration page layouts, a new style guide for calls to action, or a new homepage design.
Depending on what you need, the ratio of research to testing to execution may change. In every case we’ll calibrate to your needs.
Here is an example of a standard introductory engagement:
- Expert Review (overview of SEO, brand messaging, design, UX, and other areas)
- Usability testing of your current site
- Readout and ranking of the issues to help prioritize efforts
- Phase 1 execution to attack the most critical items
ETR moves fast and can scale our services up and down to meet your budget and expected results. Often we’re able to start implementing critical fixes within a month to two. Short-term concerns are certainly valid, but the long-term benefits can be significant and easier to obtain than you expect.
More Insights
Data Insights Services — Measuring UX Impact and ROI
Data Insights help you go beyond assumptions about what the best solutions for your product are and instead create research-backed, measurable insights on what truly works and what can be improved. Watch or read the transcript on Kerrin McLaughlin’s presentation on how Data Insights can help your team level up.
Best UX Pattern for a Website Navigation With Dropdown Menus
Here at ExpandTheRoom we are constantly designing and reimagining information architectures and website navigation schemes for our clients. There are many different patterns and unique challenges to address with these projects. Those challenges often become a lot more complex than you realize at the surface level. One question that comes up often is “What is