Growth Hacking Guide
This post briefly touches on a number of items from my checklist that I use in my projects. These methods will help you convert more visitors into users and customers, gain more positive brand experiences, and help you rank better in search engines.
In most cases all of these techniques have been proven to have a positive effect, however I advise you to always test in order to determine whether the change has the same positive effect on your product/business as it varies.
Use this as your pre-launch checklist and contribute to it in the comments at the end of this post — I will update the post with more techniques as I research and test them.
I hope you find this guide useful.
Call-to-Action Buttons
Regardless of what your website does for your business (sells products, gets leads, etc) you want people to easily see the call-to-action (CTA) buttons. These can be anything from “Buy Now”, to “Sign Me Up”, to “Upload”.
It has been proven that the slightest changes to these can have a significant impact on your conversion rate. Anything from basic size/color changes, to more complex, graphically interesting buttons — test to see what works best for you.
Keep in mind that the call-to-action has to say exactly what happens after the user clicks the button — this builds trust and reduces uncertainty.
Physical Address
Similar to the 1–800 number, a physical address creates more reassurance about your business. Make it easier for your users to see your location online by including a link to Bing/Google Maps.
Don’t lie about your location and make sure that people at that particular address know that you are running your business from there.
Paragraphs
Keep your paragraphs short and to-the-point. 2.5–4.5 lines per paragraph is the optimal length.
Present only one thought per paragraph because it makes it easier for users to comprehend and make a conclusion.
Checkout Product Thumbnails
Product thumbnails in the checkout page increase conversion rates. This is due to the fact that people can actually see a visual reference of what they are buying which creates reassurance.
Test this out on your website and see if you notice any difference in conversion/checkout rate. Play around with thumbnail sizes to make them more legible.
Follow Up With Potential Customers
This is the easiest method of figuring out what ’ s wrong with your website.
If you own an eCommerce website, get in touch with people that have left their contact info, but have abandoned the cart — you never know, it might have been a glitch with your website and they are still willing to buy!
While you ’re at it, offer them a discount code just for coming back and shopping with you again (if you have a coupon code module installed… you should).
Email Signatures
Just like your website, your signature needs to be branded, too. Not only will this look more professional but it will also prevent the person from wondering whether they’ve received an email from the correct business.
Email signatures don’t have to be static and boring.
For example, we’re running an experiment right now where our signature is updated 2–4 times a month with latest news or projects that we’re currently working on. The ‘news’ part of the signature always stays consistent with everyone’s at the studio.
This shows that we’re staying current and gives our friends/clients more insight into what we’re up to. It’s almost like a mini-newsletter, except you get to send it a lot more than once a month.
Social Integration
First off, a few eye-widening facts:
- Nearly 2/3 of US Internet users regularly use a social network.
- 93% of US adult internet users are on Facebook.
- Facebook is now the most preferred way of sharing content — second only to email.
- US Internet users spend 3× more time on blogs and social networks than on email.
- Companies that use Twitter average 2× more leads per month than those that do not.
- Companies with 1000+ Twitter followers get 6× more traffic on their websites than those with fewer Twitter followers.
- 39% of B2B companies using Twitter have acquired new customers from it.
- 79% of US Twitter users are more likely to recommend the brands that they follow.
- More than 1/2 of active Twitter users follow companies, brands, or products on social networks.
A business that heavily relies on social marketing should at least have a Facebook page (among many others like: YouTube, Twitter, etc which might be required depending on what kind of business you run).
A lot of people make the mistake of using a personal profile instead of a Facebook page. This is wrong. Don’t do it.
Find out which networks will be the most beneficial for your business by closely monitoring the response rate for each one — only include social networks that are being managed on daily/weekly basis.
Also make sure that your users have access to your social networks from each page of your website. Give them 2 options of accessing your page. For example, some people like to check out the actual Facebook page before they “like” it (most likely to see how frequently it’s updated and what kind of content they can expect to see), while others should be able to “like” it with just a single click.
Don’t forget to have an attractive image preview for pages that your users are liking. Visit Facebook Debugger Tool to see how your pages are seen by Facebook.
Blog
This should be one of the most important sections of your website.
Besides the fact that having a blog will help your SEO in the long run, it will also get people coming back to your website (unless your content is boring).
Start interesting topics, ask questions and spark conversations — make your users feel like they are a part of something good.
Check out some interesting facts about Blogs:
- 65% of daily internet users read a blog.
- About 46% of daily internet users read more than one blog every day.
- 36% of daily internet users read 5 to 10 blog posts per day.
- Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic and 70% more leads than those that don’t.
- B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those that do not.
- Businesses that blog at least 20 times per month generate 5× more traffic and 4× more leads than those that only blog a few times per month.
- Blog posts that were shared on Twitter and Facebook got 149% more inbound links than those that weren’t shared on social media at all.
- Blog posts shared on Twitter get 113% more inbound links than those that weren’t shared on social media at all.
Customer Feedback
Knowing what your customers have to say about your product or service is very important.
Provide a simple means of getting in touch, preferably live.
Reviews
Build an easy-to-use form where users can submit their product reviews. This will create more reassurance in shoppers, and if the reviews are mostly positive, will get more people buying.
Keep the form short and to-the-point. Create an easy to way for yourself to manage all the submission as well, since you will have to deal with a lot of spam — do not complicate the process for your users with complicated CAPTCHAs.
Backlinks
Backlinks are very important for SEO. The more quality links you have pointing to your website from other websites, the higher you rank online. Links from educational websites (.edu extension) are weighted more than other extensions (.com, .net.).
A/B and Multivariate Testing (Split Testing)
Split testing will help you optimize your website. A base idea is compared to several samples (ideas) that eventually help you determine which is the best performing. After you select the best candidate, you start optimizing it again to get even higher conversion rates — possibilities are endless.
Filters
Try and imagine your store as if it was a blog — you’re selling content. In order to find a certain post you either search for it or you use categories or blog tags.
Experiment with implementing these tags on your product pages — pay attention to your pages/visit as they will most likely go up because of this change.
If it’s possible, include a graphical representation for categories to go along with the text description — this will provide a better visual reference of what the category is about.
eBay also has a nice way to filter its automotive section, check it out.
Cross-Selling
Suggesting more items to users might get them to buy more from you, however do not make the mistake of suggesting items that are completely unrelated to what your users are looking for.
For example, you shouldn’t offer a calculator to someone who has just purchased a TV, instead, offer them some accessories like cables or batteries. They might need these in order to get everything set up, which in the end will result in a more positive opinion of your brand.
Toll Free Support Phone Number
It’s been proven that having a visible support number on every page of your website (top of the website usually works best) instills trust in users and reassures them that your business is willing to assist them at any time — all they have to do is call.
Tip: this might seem like a no-brainer, but you should always be there to answer your phone, especially if you do business globally.
In case you can only answer the phone during certain hours, make sure that the user knows what time zone you are located in and make it easy for them to convert it to their time (e.g.: offer a link to a time zone conversion website).
Google Analytics
First thing I do for clients before a project launch is set up Google Analytics account.
Not only can they follow how their new website is performing, but I can also learn from it and advise on ways to make it even better. This is a must-have tool for anyone who has a website.
Alt Tags
Close your eyes while looking at a website that contains images and try to describe all of them. Difficult, isn’t it? This is exactly what happens when you are a visually impaired user and all the Alt tags are missing.
Never stuff your alternative tags with useless keywords because you will get penalized by search engines. Describe the images as if you had to describe them to someone over the phone.
Fix Your Policies
Do you enjoy reading 40-page contracts written in “lawyer”? No? Neither do your users. Keep them simple, and to-the-point.
General Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Be sure to check out my quick start guide on search engine optimization (SEO).
- 60% of all organic clicks go to the top three organic search results.
- 75% of users never go further than the first page of search results. Compelling page descriptions can help you stand out.
- 89% of US internet users search online before they make a purchase, even when the purchase is made at a local business.
Use Google Keyword Tool to determine what keywords you can potentially rank for. Pay attention to how high your competition rate is to see if it’s even worthwhile to invest in ranking high for certain keywords in your position.
Experiment with adding local keywords to your SEO efforts, for a more direct, high-quality local traffic.
For example, instead of “web design”, you will have a better chance of raking higher for a more local search result such as “web design edmonton”, or “web design san francisco” (see what I did there? ;))
Benefits VS Features
Always start off with the benefits first when selling a product or a service. People are better guided by benefits, rather than features. Avoid confusion with too many options and make sure that a single recognizable goal is present throughout.
Best way to present this type of content is in a bullet list — bullet lists are easier for people to comprehend.
Using green color for bullet points has more of a subconscious impact on your users as green is believed to be “the color of correct”, reassuring them that they are making the right decision.
Tip: try using green check marks instead of rounded bullet points and no more than 5 points per list.
Newsletter
Let’s face it, email is here to stay for a while. Every single online service is based on emails, and chances are, once in a while a lot of you still use your first email address that you registered many years ago. These are just some of the reasons why email marketing has consistently proven itself as one of the best ways to engage with your current and future customers.
A few things to point out. I didn’t want to call this “email marketing” — that would make it look like you are trying to sell something — you need to avoid that. Truth is, most people hate being sold to. It’s in your own interest to include compelling content in your newsletter that will not make you look like a sleazy salesman trying to push a product/service onto his customers — make people genuinely interested in what you have to say/sell.
You should also find out how often your users expect to receive updates from you, or consider giving them several subscription options: monthly, bi-monthly, weekly, daily, etc. Consider influencing your users’ selection by specifying which one is either “Recommended” or “Most Popular” out of your subscription options.
“Continue Shopping” Links
If you own an eCommerce store, try and implement a visible “Continue to Shopping” link inside of the shopping cart. Chances are, some people will use it to purchase more products. Play around with positioning (e.g. closer to action buttons), colors and sizing.
Alternatively, if you already have this link present, remove it and test conversion rates with it gone. In some cases it might lead people away from completing the checkout process.
Google Webmaster Central
Heard of Google Webmaster Central? You should!
- This powerful tool can tell you who added a link to your website (think collaboration, advertising opportunities, etc),
- it gives you even more insight into your Google search data (things that are not shown in Google Analytics),
- updates you in case there are issues indexing your website and,
- lets you upload your custom sitemaps to guide Google along your website.
Landing Pages
- Businesses with 31 to 40 landing pages get 7× more leads than those with only 1 to 5.
- Businesses with more than 40 landing pages get 12× more leads than those with only a few landing pages.
Make sure that your landing page has resembling elements of the previous page/ad the user was on.
A good way to achieve this is to have the consistent looking banners/graphics/branding — this will reassure the user that they’ve landed on the correct website.
Different Payment Gateways
Offering your clients more than one way to pay might increase your conversion rates. On the other hand, if you give them too many options, they might get confused and will abandon the shopping cart.
Having the ability to pay with various credit cards (without leaving your website), as well as PayPal and Google Checkout is your best choice. Keep in mind that you will have to consider other 3rd party payment merchants depending on the country you are targeting (e.g. AsiaPay for Asian clients, etc).
Better Hosting
Did you know that Google actually penalizes you for having a slow website? This makes perfect sense — do you really enjoy browsing a slow-loading website? I don’t think so — neither do your users.
Hosting is fairly inexpensive nowadays and the reason for that is because it’s actually pretty low-grade.
If you expect your website to:
- have good up-time (your current host goes down a lot more than you think, you just don’t know it),
- good performance under high loads (a must for high traffic websites),
- all while maintaining higher than usual speeds…
… then you should be budgeting around $200 — $400 per month on hosting for start. This is a very small investment that has a substantial positive impact on your business.
Website Validation
Make sure you check your website for any errors and areas of improvement:
301 Redirect
Also known as “permanent”, or “hard” redirect.
Make sure that you point your “www.website.com” to go to “website.com” (or vice versa) as search engines see these as two separate websites containing identical content which in the end result in duplication of content and a penalty.
Online Security (SSL Certificates)
This should be your number one priority otherwise your website will not show to majority of potential customers.
There are several different kinds of these and most of them will cost you between $free — $300 per year.
Forms
The threshold of filling out a form decreases with each field — keep your forms as short as possible.
Make your form fields only as long as the expected text will be, otherwise users might think that they didn’t enter all of the required information, or worse, they will think that the form will take them too long to fill out and will just abandon it.
Accepted Payment Types
Experiment with making your payment methods visible on all the pages of your ecommerce website. This will make things easier for your potential customers.
Testimonials
Having testimonials on your website is very important, regardless of the type of business you are in, if you have clients — you should have testimonials.
Your customers see this is as an uninvolved third party input that will help them shape a better decision.
Tip: female testimonials sell about 20% better.
FAQ Pages
Help your potential customers with as much as you possibly can — including some of the frequently asked questions.
Get your friends to go through your website and ask you any questions they might have. Questions that get asked the most, would obviously be the ones you would include in your FAQ section.
This technique will also help you determine any early-stage “flaws” you might have with your website/product that you didn’t even realize existed!
META Tags
This is a crucial step for the best organic search engine ranking. 3 of the most important META tags you must fill out are: the Title tag, the Description tag and the Keywords tag (though not as important as the first two). Take a look at my more in-depth SEO optimization guide.
Title tag is the shortest, most descriptive sentence you can come up with while describing what your page is about. Different pages should always have different titles. Never start your title tag with your company name first. Come up with meaningful titles because not only are they easier to understand, but also have higher conversion rates.
Description tag is a more descriptive, 150-characters-or-less explanation of the page. Make it too long, and it might get cut off in the search engine listing page.
It’s said that only a few search engines take these keywords into account — regardless, I always fill these in with very basic keywords that I could always use as tags for blog posts, and tags for services such as StumbleUpon.
Third Party Security Verification
At one point I was under impression that VeriSign Trust Seals were an absolute waste of money. Over the last few years they’ve become a necessity, and if you are not creating a sense of security online — you are not selling as much as you could.
At a tiny $30/month you can instill more trust in users by placing a VeriSign (or an alternative) seal on all the pages of your website.
Numbers don’t lie, in some cases they boost your conversions by 600%! Check out their website for more info.
Keep in mind that there are several other companies who offer a similar online trust services (TRUSTe, McAfee Secure Trustmark, GeoTrust, Trustwave, BBB, etc) so it would be best to have your website verified by a few of these, without it looking too overwhelming. Also make sure to try different placement. Do some research and find the most fitting ones for the type of the industry you are in.
Product Photography
Photography sells.
Make sure that your photos are of consistent high quality.
Show product details — this will increase confidence in your products’ quality.
Avoid using thumbnails that are too small in size — no one likes those.
No-Registration Checkout
Avoid creating an extra road block for your users, unless there is a good reason for having this.
Set up your cart in a way that automatically creates a user account upon email/order submission, and make sure to let your customers know about this after they’ve checked out — on the website and by sending them a followup email with account details.
List VS Grid
Experiment with alternating your product listing pages. In certain cases listing your items in a list format as opposed to the grid format increased conversion rates.
Free Shipping Offers
It’s a fact that most of the people will go with a merchant that offers free shipping. Any business should be able to offer free shipping regardless of their business model, however if you must charge something, try the following techniques:
- Offer free shipping after xx.xx dollars;
- Offer a smaller flat shipping rate, regardless of how much your customer purchases.
A lot of stores take the risk of offering free return shipping as well (Zappos.com), which seems to be working out quite well for them.
Mobile Website
Some facts on mobile usage:
- Roughly nine-in-ten American adults (92%) own a mobile phone of some kind.
- In 2021, 53.9 percent of all retail e-commerce is expected to be generated via m-commerce..
There are 2 main ways your mobile website can be built, both have cons and pros.
One of the ways is to build your website so it adapts to different devices and resolutions — it’s called adaptive/responsive design.
Pros:
- Only have to maintain a single website.
- Website will work on most of the mobile devices.
Cons:
- It’s difficult to control exactly how it adapts to different devices and their screen resolutions — I’ve yet to see a perfect adaptive design.
Another way would be to actually build a custom mobile website that gets called in once it detects that it’s being viewed on a mobile device.
Pros:
- Much more optimized website that is meant specifically for mobile devices (faster download times, etc).
Cons:
- Have to maintain several websites.
Research
If you are not constantly doing research, you are not improving.
- Usability testing
- Eye-tracking
- Market research
Animation
There’s much debate about whether animation increases conversion rates, so in order to be 100% sure you need to test this.
Don’t go overboard with animation and only use subtle changes/movements — no one wants to get a seizure.
You would normally apply animation to CTA (call to action) buttons and elements that are important for people to notice — do not use it just because “it looks cool”.
Title Attribute
Similar to Alt tags, the Title attribute is used to describe what the link is about before the user clicks it.
Describe your links only when the actual link text could be made more descriptive and/or beneficial for your users — do not repeat the same text as the link.
Example:
Learn more about the Title attribute.
Would look like this:
<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/global.html#adef-title" title="Link to W3C documentation on the "title" attribute" target="_blank">Learn more about the Title attribute</a>
Notes
- Keep in mind that at the end of the day you’re after a nice-looking, usable website/app. Once you’ve implemented and tested all of the above features, your goal is to make sure that all the info is presented in a very clean, easy-to-understand manner — without this you will not get the same effect.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please comment below. Thank you for your time!
Where to find me online:
I document quite a bit on my personal blog: www.yuriysklyar.com
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