richpage75

Hey guys - so I'm doing some research on the current state of conversion rate for small business websites.

What is your conversion rate (either for leads or sales)? Or maybe you don't know what it is? Or maybe you don't know how to calculate it?

I would love to get your feedback by replying to this thread. And if you have time, it would awesome if you could respond to this survey so I can gather more research:
Small Business Website Conversion Survey 2014

I will be publishing the results in a few months for all to see and learn from.

Thanks guys!

Rich Page
http://www.rich-page.com | Twitter: @richpage
Author of 'Website Optimization: An Hour a Day'

comodo427

As soon as I test an offer I will let you know what kind of sales conversions I get.

Great post but no one seems to be replying for some reason.

savidge4

Rich,

Anywhere from the 3% range up to a site that I have in the 40% range. My soccer site ( you looked at ) is in the 3% range. I have a Halloween site that's the 40%er and my mid line technology based sites - UHD and UHD TV's are in the 15%ish area.

comodo427

Are you refering to the optin rate conversion or sales conversion? I'm personally more interested in the sales conversion.

savidge4

That would be conversion rates for me. Opt in rates are a whole different thing

Alex Leizerovich

optin rate 30%-75% from my squeeze pages, i use only squeeze pages.
Sales thats a different thing, working on improving now.

comodo427

40% sales conversion is really impressive.

savidge4

Not a whole lot of traffic... in the off season ( 10.5 months out of the year ) but when season kicks WATCH OUT! haha Just simple super targeted traffic.

SEO Power

Mine is just above 5% for sales. Conversion rates differ a lot depending on the traffic source, landing page, price of product, etc.

ONE HOUR INDEXING - STOP WASTING MONEY ON LINKS GOOGLE NEVER FINDS

dburk

Hi richpage75,

I don't get the point of your question, it seems a bit like asking "how long is a piece of string?"

Conversion rates for me range from 0% to 100%, even higher at times. What typically makes the greatest difference is the traffic source.

Anyone looking at a single (average) conversion rate for their website as a meaningful metric for their marketing plan is only fooling themselves. A key fundamental concept of marketing strategy is market segmentation.

Looking at average conversion rates from a group of unrelated websites is even less useful, average rates by industry niche might be a bit more useful, but only if you understand the traffic source breakdowns and specific data for each market segment.

This survey of yours smells an awful lot like a gimmick, nothing of value to participants, just a way to gather prospects for your business.

* Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management |
* Don Burk Advertising & Marketing - www.donburk.com

richpage75

Hi Dburk- thanks for your comments, but please refrain from being so negative/insulting. It was just a simple question that you overly criticized. I was just trying to ask how people are doing with their conversion rate? What is wrong with that? And what is wrong if I get a few clients out of it? That's business.

And what did you expect to 'get out' of my survey (or any for that matter)? I'm going to publish the results - showing correlations to determine which CRO activities have most impact on higher conversion rates, and to find out what areas websites need most help with to help educate them. And many survey respondents have expressed interest in seeing this kind of research results. And so what if I do manage to get a few clients out of it? Would be a nice bonus - but it certainly wasn't my sole reason for doing it.

And in terms of conversion rates, sorry, but I know my stuff. I've written books on this, and been doing this for over 5 years - and its certainly impossible to get over 100% conversion rate. And if your website conversion rate changes that much, its a sure fire indicator that you haven't optimized it very well.

And while I agree traffic source has a very big impact on conversion rates, if you don't have a well optimized and tested website with CRO best practices, you are simply wasting money on driving traffic to it.

I do agree its important to segment conversion rates by traffic source and visitor group - but that is more of an advanced CRO topic that many people on here won't really be able to easily analyze and work on.

I'm all for constructive criticism, and I appreciate it, but please don't be so negative in the future, to me, or other members.

Rich Page
http://www.rich-page.com | Twitter: @richpage
Author of 'Website Optimization: An Hour a Day'

peekay

Didn't realize this was "The Rich Page".
Great book Rich!

Find out free how CRO can double or triple your conversions, sales & profits in the next 60 to 90 days...

wa35

16% with average commission of $100. All I have on it is 2 - 3 short paragraphs + 1 image.
Traffic source is Google CH.

dburk

Hi richpage75,

Sorry, if you took my comments to be "so negative", as that was not the tone I intended. I did intend to caution readers about focusing on average conversion rates as that is one of the common mistakes I see newbies making.

While there are certainly folks on this forum that are new to CRO, there are also plenty of veteran marketers here as well. Some of us are here to help, so we do not feel compelled to refrain from giving sound advice, even when the OP might have a different opinion. That's how public forums work.

If you want to start a forum thread that borders on what some might consider a promotion of your a survey based lead generation landing page, you have to expect someone might point that out. Thanks, by the way, for confirming that it is in fact a lead generating survey form. I think most folks here will admire the cleverness of your promotion and won't report it as spam, I certainly did not.

In fact, I took this as an opportunity to point out this as an example of your cleverness. It might work for other Warriors, and in this forum it seemed like an appropriate place to discuss it. I do hope that you come back later to update the readers of this thread with a full report of the conversion rate you were able to achieve, again it seems appropriate for this forum.

A sales call.

That's a good idea, it should go along way to improving your conversion rate for the survey lead page.

I have to admit that I once made a similar assertion to a fellow here on the Warrior forum.

That fellow was smart enough to PM me with his landing page and data from his campaigns. And after reviewing and testing the concept myself I replied back to the thread publicly apologizing for doubting him, as he had indeed found a way to generate very high conversion rates that often exceeded 100%.

Maybe... or... maybe I have learn how to do extensive and highly granular market segmentation that generates a wide range of conversion rates, all of which contribute to profitability.

Do you mean only if "you haven't optimized it very well", or even if you have?

Unless, of course you are making a profit, right?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it is a good idea to start with best practices, which includes testing, and letting the data guide you to what works best, even if it strays far from traditional best practices. Agree?

Just to be clear... I was referring to analyzing conversion rates by market segment, which is often much more granular than by "traffic source" alone. What you seem to be calling advanced, I call fundamental. Not just for CRO but for any kind of marketing in general. Perhaps CRO is itself considered an advanced topic, but certainly no more advanced than market segmentation, IMHO.

Again, my intent was never to be "so negative", or to insult you in any way, my intent was simply to inform the readers. I will try to remove all insults, or belligerent, statements from my thread if you will kindly point them out to me.

Now, back to my point about averages. Here are a few links from places that I consider to be credible 3rd parties, that also warn about the danger of making decisions based on averages:

Website Averages Lie: Here
When Acquiring Customers, Remember This: Averages Lie. « iMediaConnection Blog
Web Analytics Segments: 3 Key Category Recommendations
3 Ways PPC Averages Lie - SEW
Averages Lie: A Guide To Understanding Increments & Bid Simulator
Averages Lie | The Analytics and Site Intelligence Blog @ MoreVisibility
Averages lie: Using smart segmentation to find growth | McKinsey on Marketing & Sales
Averages lie
Mobile Data Consumption, the Average Truth? the Average Lie? | techneconomyblog
Average Isn't Good Enough: Segment or Die! | ClickZ

* Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management |
* Don Burk Advertising & Marketing - www.donburk.com