Website Redesign Pulls in More Sales?

In an ear­lier blog post, I talked about the fact that lately I’ve been lean­ing a lot more towards test­ing the reduc­tion in bottlenecks.

Some of the results are staggering!

In short, the more I increase the sense of secu­rity and trust, bet­ter the flow and ease of order­ing, and project a more con­gru­ent and pro­fes­sional image, the more sales I make.

Since that post, some read­ers have asked me for some exam­ples. I pre­fer not to reveal mine as they are pro­pri­etary. But I can say this…

One of the things that I’m start­ing to really like are ecom­merce sites that are less “saleslet­ter­ish” — i.e., less long-​​scrolling copy in a direct-​​mail for­mat, and more clus­tered lay­outs that are reader-​​focused, commerce-​​centric, and action-​​driven.

They still use com­pelling copy and a solid response mech­a­nism. If the user needs more details, a “more info” link then sends them to a typ­i­cal, long copy saleslet­ter. But these sites’ front-​​end are more action-​​oriented than they are scrolling-​​oriented.

I’ve decided to test this with our main web­site at Suc­cess Chef. I still use long copy. But I’ve con­verted the front-​​end into an ecom­merce, multi-​​product, catalog-​​like format.

And the results are in…

Before I reveal them, let me explain some­thing. I’ve been pre­dict­ing the rise of such sites since The Death of The Saleslet­ter years ago. My argu­ment was and still is that the Inter­net is dif­fer­ent. Dif­fer­ent than TV, radio, and of course, direct mail.

When TV was first invented, we didn’t put direct-​​mail saleslet­ters on TV, forc­ing our eyes to squint to read direct-​​mail let­ters line-​​by-​​line. It would be fool­ish to do so. So instead, we put com­mer­cials and par­tic­u­larly infomer­cials on them. Why? Because we can.

Well, it’s ditto with the Internet.

When the Inter­net first began, it was easy to put up saleslet­ters online. The Inter­net was unlike TV. Text browsers with lim­ited graph­ics were the norm. The web was regarded as an elec­tronic ver­sion of the typ­i­cal, direct-​​response saleslet­ters we get in the mail.

But Web 2.0, mul­ti­me­dia, and social media have changed that, as they should.

The Inter­net is fast, dynamic, inter­ac­tive, and mul­ti­sen­so­r­ial. Sure, we can and should use long saleslet­ters, as this for­mat is more appro­pri­ate in some cases. Some­times, mul­ti­me­dia is bet­ter. Other times, long-​​scrolling text is bet­ter. But the dif­fer­ence is…

… The web is chang­ing the way we find, digest, and act upon sales messages.

Case in point. The other day, a reader pointed me to an amaz­ing weight­loss web­site. I imme­di­ately fell in love with it! It’s fresh, clean, pithy, and very action-​​focused. But while the design may be entic­ing, the ques­tion is, does this sucker sell?

Appar­ently, accord­ing to my stats and a lit­tle dig­ging, it does.

More and more Word­Press themes, for exam­ple, are com­ing out that have this prod­uct show­case fea­ture above the fold, with a more browse-​​and-​​buy look and feel. Take for exam­ple, this new theme from WooThemes​.com or “Adding­ton” from iThemes​.com.

Back to my results…

In less than a week after post­ing the new design and lay­out, with­out any adver­tis­ing, we’ve increased our con­ver­sions by nearly 400%. Granted, it’s still too early to tell. Plus, I’m still tweak­ing with the design and lay­out. Pre­ma­ture, but promis­ing nonetheless.

Now, don’t think for a moment I’m dis­count­ing the power of using long copy saleslet­ters, or sug­gest­ing that you should dump yours. Not at all. That wasn’t my intent with the “death of” white paper, and it cer­tainly isn’t with this blog post, either.

Keep in mind, I still have long-​​copy saleslet­ters for each indi­vid­ual prod­uct on sep­a­rate land­ing pages, which I pro­mote indi­vid­u­ally or if the user clicks on “more info.”

But this is the front page of the main web­site, which I’ve con­verted into a multi-​​product por­tal instead. And with it, I’m using this pithier, bullet-​​form, browse-​​and-​​buy ecom­merce for­mat with an above-​​the-​​fold show­case to fea­ture our flag­ship product.

I sim­ply wanted to share with you some cool ideas. The key is test­ing, because test­ing allows you to dis­cover what your mar­ket wants. Let your mar­ket tell you what’s best for them. Not me, and cer­tainly not you. They’ll tell you with their wal­lets, not their words.

What do you think? I’d love your feed­back. Click here to visit Suc­cess Chef University.

Sales are the best indi­ca­tors, of course. But in terms or read­abil­ity, com­pre­hen­sion, and flow, I want to know if you like the new for­mat. Does it con­fuse you or appeal to you? Is there some­thing that pushes you away or draws you in? I’m lis­ten­ing…

By the way, while I was typ­ing out this blog post, my beau­ti­ful wife, Sylvie Fortin, cre­ated this quick lit­tle video using this neat text-​​to-​​video web­site. It’s funny as heck! Enjoy…

If you can’t see the video, click here to go straight to the web­site instead.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
• Changes, Relaunches, and Extreme Makeovers
• Superior Value Equals Superior Sales

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