Convert Every Click: Make More Money Online with Holistic Conversion Rate Optimization

Chapter Ten

Standard Website Strategies

Meet Mary. Mary has a traditional retail store. Someone told her a long time ago that she needed a website, so she had one created. It has a traditional navigation bar, with the usual pages like Home, About, Contact, and so on. But she would like it to bring in more money. Mary has what we call a standard website. When talking about standard sites in this book, I’m referring to websites that are more traditional in nature. They have a typical navigation menu at the top. They might even have a blog attached. Often standard websites couple nicely with landing pages for certain types of campaigns, but let’s just stay focused on standard website strategies for this chapter.

Standard websites are sometimes referred to as brochure websites, and there’s a reason for that. Standard websites are typically informational in nature. They act like electronic brochures. They generally define a product or a brand, and they may provide some credibility or provide information about products or services. Typically speaking, though, they don’t do a great job of selling. As websites became a standard (pun intended), people thought it was important to have a website, even though they didn’t understand why they needed one or what the revenue-generating possibilities were. So web development companies popped up all over the world, offering to build you a website you could be proud of. (Whether they delivered on that is another story.) Brochure sites are fine for ...