What Is a Funnel Used For in Web Optimization?
- Updated on: 2017-09-13
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You’ve likely been hearing about conversion funnels or have had the term shoved in front of your face all day long. There is a reason for this. An optimized conversion funnel is critical to your online marketing success and even if you think you don’t have one, you probably do especially if you sell a product or service online. If you just have a goal of getting your visitors to take a simple action such as signing up for a free newsletter, then you have a conversion funnel. Let’s back it up a bit…
A conversion funnel is an idea or way to comprehend the flow and conversion of potential customers into paying customers. Let’s look at this literally. Google defines the term “funnel” as a tube or pipe that is wide a the top and narrow at the bottom, and is used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. So when we’re looking at it from the web optimization perspective, a funnel is used to guide visitors or customers to the ultimate goal we’ve set up for them. According to Crazyegg, the steps a customer takes through the sales process looks like this:
Of course, your conversion funnel may be more complicated depending on what processes you want to analyze, this is just the basics. If you can understand the concept of a conversion funnel then you can take action to improve that flow.
Utilizing and analyzing your conversion funnel can improve user experience (UX) greatly. UX is how easy your site is to use, how fast it is, and how little friction there is when a visitor is trying to complete an action. The importance of UX cannot be overstated so you should jump at the chance to optimize it anytime the opportunity rises. Keep your users on task and moving through the funnel by giving them just enough information and options at every step in order to hook them. Qualaroo gives us two aspects of UX to focus on when it comes to funnel optimization efforts:
Achieve both user and your own business objectives by sketching out various flows that need to be designed. While the user may be looking for facts, to order a product, learn a skill, download a document, etc. you may be trying to get a lead, a subscriber, a buyer and so on. Kill two birds with one stone by designing your flow in a way that meets both your objectives and the users. While you do so, it’s important to account for the different traffic sources and levels of knowledge and engagement in your user base. Without neglecting your business objectives, map the in-bound user flows to conversion funnels that provide value to the user. Each individual user comes with his or her own needs, expectations and knowledge so simply staying aware of their objectives will keep you ahead of the game. If you’re looking to better understand how each unique visitor is traveling on your website, then a session recording tool like Inspectlet would be of major benefit to you.
