Site Design

Test Number: #112501-SD

Word Count: 3675+

Focus: 10 Questions

1. How does home page design impact the visitor penetration ratio?
2. How does the visitor penetration ratio affect site revenue?
3. How does featuring a product on the home page impact its sales volume?
4. Is your site focused around one, clear objective?
5. Has a clear problem/solution process been communicated?
6. Does your home page have a strong enough “hook” to seize a prospect’s attention within five seconds?
7. Is there a sufficient incentive for every action you are asking the prospect to take?
8. Are you offering successive degrees of involvement for a prospect who is not yet committed to the full process?
9. Have credibility indicators been subtly placed throughout the site?
10. Does the tone of your site’s sales copy imply integrity and accuracy?

Credits:

1. Writer – Flint McGlaughlin
2. HTML Designer – Cliff Rainer

TEST SUMMARY

We analyzed 4 different web sites to determine how to produce the most results with the design of your home page.

Test Product

SITE A – Women’s Wear
SITE B – Electronics
SITE C – Swimsuits
SITE D – Closeout Specials

Test Costs

Data Analysis (Labor) = $4500

Learn how we partnered with one of our readers and grew their volume by 750%. You can get real HELP with your SITE DESIGN and MARKETING efforts. Team up with the staff at the Journal, help us conduct our experiments, and grow your company at the same time. Click here.

Once upon a time, there was a Humble Internet Merchant who built a lovely store (TEST SITE C), complete with flashing headlines, and 14 scantily dressed models. The site was ever so popular; within just a few days, more than 15,000 pilgrims clicked their way through the digital forest to peruse his offering.

The merchant was delighted. That is… he was delighted until he carefully reviewed his site statistics. For therein he discovered, much to his chagrin, the true yield per visit of his burgeoning new enterprise:

Our Humble Internet Merchant was perplexed. How could his expensive, attractive site produce such dismal results? His products were of exceptional quality, he had exclusive distribution rights, he had a superb domain name, and he was a third generation retailer.

So what was the problem?

The answer was, at first, difficult to discern, but the weary retailer eventually zeroed in on this stat:

This number belies a common malady among web merchants — Anemic Home Page Syndrome. SITE C failed to capture the attention of more than 88% of its visitors. Most of its traffic “peeked through the window”, but never went inside. Its best marketing efforts could only generate a lousy 2 cents per visit.

Researchers at the Marketing Experiments Journal have spent 6 long months carefully studying home page/landing page design. Along the way, three points have grown imminently clear:

• In this carnivorous economy marketers cannot afford an ineffectual home page.
• If your home page is not producing its maximum yield, you could be wasting up to 85% of your marketing budget.(*1)
• Home page design is a function of marketing; it should not be left to the mercy of programmers, graphic artists, or product managers.

Our studies have helped us to develop a 16 Step Site Diagnostic that we will discuss later in this report. But first, let’s examine the hard data.

How does home page design impact the visitor penetration ratio?

The visitor penetration ratio refers to the percentage of visitors who actually click into a site’s infrastructure.

We suspect that 95% of commercial home pages are failing to fully engage many of their potential prospects.

A comparison of the page view stats for SITES C and D amplifies the problems that SITE C experienced.

What you need to UNDERSTAND: Of 22,273 visits to the home page, there were at least 13,787 visits to the top three most popular pages. That is a ratio of 62%.

What you need to UNDERSTAND: Of 15,808 visits to the home page, there were at least 5,550 visits to the top three most popular pages. That is a ratio of (just) 35%.

While 62% of SITE D’s visitors “stepped inside the web store” to explore its more popular pages, only 35% of SITE C’s visitors did the same.

Most home pages can’t generate money themselves. They exist for at least two reasons:

1. To capture the visitor’s attention – You’ve got less than 5 seconds to STOP a web surfer from “moving on.”
2. To entice the visitor to click on a strategic link – The link may be a product description, an order button, a form submission, or some other key element.

How does the visitor penetration ratio affect site revenue?

The previous two tables help us determine that SITE C has a low visitor penetration ratio, but just how important is this number? How does it correlate to the bottom line? How does it impact the all-important revenue per visit ratio?

More pointedly, how much money does poor home page design cost a web merchant?

To answer that question, we need to study the following two tables. If you are in a hurry, or if this long column of numbers make you nauseous, just skip down to the TOTAL.

But whatever you do… don’t put away this report, yet. The remaining information can help improve your site’s economic performance.

MERCHANT E – Revenue Per Visit (*2)
Referrer: http://search.shopping.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
31,894	565	$16083.49	$0.50
Referrer: http://order.store.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
4,595	1	$87.88	$0.02
Referrer: http://hits2you.hypermart.net/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
3,517	2,426	$14 456.69	$0.19
Referrer: http://store.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
2,426	14	$456.69	$0.19
Referrer: http://store.google.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
1,673	26	$847.70	$0.51
Referrer: http://www.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
1,415	63	$1754.97	$1.24
Referrer: http://products.search.shopping.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
811	12	$600.21	$1.74
Referrer: http://www.clearancecrazy.com
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
770	5	$118.89	$0.15
Referrer: http://www.womenfreeebies.com
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
419	2	$79.29	$0.19
Referrer: http://www.qksrv.net/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
403	4	$62.30	$0.15
Referrer: http://www.freakyfreddies.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
391	2	$222.96	$0.60
Referrer: http://www.corksculptures.org/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
187	1	$24.96	$0.13
Referrer: http://shopping.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
136	8	$163.33	$1.35
Referrer: http://www.haggle.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
53	1	$13.90	$0.26
Referrer: http://64.4.14.250/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
44	1	$39.90	$0.91
Referrer: http://64.4.16.250/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
37	1	$137.16	$3.71
Referrer: http://216.33.226.250/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
32	1	$51.80	$1.62
TOTALS
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
53,888	1336	$41,329	$0.77

What you need to UNDERSTAND: This site was able to capture 77 cents for every single person that visited.

MERCHANT D – Revenue Per Visit (*3)
Referrer: http://www.swimsuits.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
5,758	1	$75.72	$0.01
Referrer: http://search.shopping.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
2,248	0	0	0
Referrer: http://products.search.shopping.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
879	0	0	0
Revenue: http://www.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
733	0	0	0
Referrer: http://shopping.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
588	0	0	0
Referrer: http://store.yahoo.net/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
532	0	0	0
Referrer: http://dir.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
447	0	0	0
Referrer: http://www.msn.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
291	0	0	0
Referrer: http://order.store.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
222	0	0	0
Referrer: http://edit.store.yahoo.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
183	0	0	0
Referrer: http://search.msn.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
171	0	0	0
Referrer: http://www.google.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
95	0	0	0
Referrer: http://aolsearch.aol.com/
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
85	0	0	0
Referrer: unknown
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
79	2	$154.72	0
TOTALS
Visits	Orders	Revenue	Revenue per Visit
15,808	3	$220.44	0.02

What you need to UNDERSTAND: This site was only able to capture 2 cents for every single person that visited.

If SITE C would have re-designed its home page, so that it achieved the same revenue per visit as SITE D, it would have captured $12,172 instead of a discouraging $220.

How does featuring a product on the home page impact its sales volume?

There are at least 22 questions you need to answer to determine if your home page is under-performing. For example if you are a retailer, you may want to ask if you have products featured on your home page. Here is why:

HOME PAGE VS. INTERIOR PAGES
	Number Of Visits to Home Page Popular	Number Of Visits To Most Interior Page
SITE A	22,776	11,112
SITE B	27,650	11,359
SITE C	15,808	2,106
SITE D	22,627	5,679

What you need to UNDERSTAND: On average, the home page received 66% more visits than the most popular interior page. That means that the home pages of these sites were seen by (at least) twice as many people.

So how does this ratio impact revenue?

Here is one example: products featured on the home page of SITE A outsold items featured elsewhere by 250%. (*4)

Section 2 (Continue…)