Usability and conversion rate optimization

In general, the more flawless the user experience (UX) is, the higher the conversion rate will be.  According to a report Jacob Nielson put out in 2008, when a page is redesigned with usability principles in mind, its average improvement rate is 83%. This is down from 135% in 2002, but then again people are generally better at creating nice looking and easy to use Websites these days (sort of). 

Nielson says, “we have now harvested most of the low-hanging fruit from the truly horrible websites that dominated the lost decade of Web usability. In those early years, Web design was abominable - think splash screens, search that didn’t find anything, bloated graphics everywhere…” 

It is really clear: those sites that have a great UX will have an advantage over those who do not. 

Great landing pages are on UX steroids. 

When devoid of bloopers like pop-ups and error messages, landing pages can provide the ultimate user experience. They are (or should be) conversion focused, and a high conversion rate almost always correlates to a great UX. 

Nielson says:

According to our survey, spending 10% of your development budget on usability should improve your conversion rate by 83%. You can probably double the conversion rate by spending less than 15% of your development budget. In most cases, it’s far cheaper to use 15% of your development budget than to more than double your advertising budget.  

For more information on landing page usability, check out Scott’s presentation from SMX East 2009.