Conversion Matters

Search Conversion or Captology or Usability Optimisation are phrases/terms for pretty much the same thing as far as I can tell. There is nothing on dictionary.com for any of those terms so do they even exist or have I just made them up?

Search Conversion

At Tamar.com they say search conversion is the process of:

“driving search traffic to websites - through natural and paid search and social media strategies - then converting more of those website visitors into buyers”

You could argue it’s just a marketing phrase to try and generate more business but I like the idea behind it.

Captology

According to cre8asite captology means the following:

“the degree to which a given web page persuades”

This sounds like designing with conversion in mind to persuade a user/customer to purchase your products or sign up for your newsletter etc.

Usability Optimisation

Again, this is from cre8asite:

“the theory that driving traffic to a client is a little pointless unless they can convert it”

Regardless of the terminology used - search conversion / captology / usability optimisation - it is all about creating usable sites which convert visitors. The theory goes that being highly ranked in the search engines is only half the battle. You have to actually have a decent website that people want to use and can use easily because they’ve been designed with the user in mind.

Here are a few pointers for creating more user friendly websites:

• Plan your site and your site’s structure before you build it
• Have clear and easy to use navigation system
• Have strong calls to action
• Have a clean, slick layout, that does not appear to be too ‘busy’
• Have a sitemap and search function to help the user navigate around you site

The best way to improve your sites usability is to have users use your site and tell you what they do and don’t like. Your guaranteed to find out interesting things about your website and ideas on how to improve it.

I’ve barely scratched the surface, usability and conversion-focused design is a massive topic but if you run websites you should try and learn as much about it as possible.