A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words… Or Is It?

The Ultimate Conversion Webpage Review webinar series starts by reviewing a number of websites to establish where many site owners go wrong when it comes to optimizing conversions. Conversion Optimization is a marketing technique that web owners use to convert casual visitors or traffic into paying customers. While it may sound simple, there are many pitfalls that most website owners fall into.

In this webinar series is hosted by Convert, in conjunction with Bobby of Creative Thirst, and involves the review of a blog that focuses on Indian recipes and other topics like Feng Shui, dry skin remedies, and so on. The site seems to have gotten it all wrong from the beginning, since it doesn’t even say what it’s all about – no tagline, no value proposition, nothing – neither does it say what one could do once they get there. If you want to view the complete presentation, you can watch the webinar here.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

One of the most notable aspects on this one is the preference to let the images do the all talking, that includes the explanations too. For example, the only thing that leads you to click on the featured popular choices is the image. This is the only thing the page is relying on to attract the reader’s attention, probably to feed their appetite.

[Tweet “The first impressions will determine how visitors perceive your site and your brand.”]

There’s also a list of the most viewed recipes, great call to actions, but they’re weak. But then again, they could work. However, this would be possible if the copy was compelling enough to prompt the reader to want to read more, in an attempt to quench their thirst on what a certain recipe entails. What if the snippets aren’t compelling enough to instigate some form of action? Then given what’s on the page, it’s your job to come up with a compelling call-to-action. For calls-to-action, these are key:

• Concise
• Consistent
• Prominent
• Color Contrasted

Almost everything on the blog under review relies on the images to do the talking. Same as the popular category, the rest of the site leaves the visitor to make their decision based on the images themselves. One isn’t sure what they’ll be getting when they click on the images, and there is no reason given as to why you should click on them. It’s like you are left to figure things out for yourself.

Assumptions, Assumptions…

The other categories such as Dry Skin category are no different. There are images of dry skin remedies but it’s not said if they are for the visitor to purchase, or if they are for the visitor to make given the fact that the site seems to be designed around the premise of preparing recipes and thus naturally, one would expect to find directions on how to cook this or that other Indian recipe. This is best described in Solomon Thimothy’s article – Top 5 Reasons Landing Pages Don’t Convert Visitors

You can’t always predict how visitors will respond. Don’t leave anything up to chance, personal taste or even professional intuition—test it, and trust the numbers

Looking at the site in general, a lot seems to have been left to chance. There’s nothing telling the user what they should expect and therefore have to assume everything you click is a detailed guide of how to prepare some recipe at home, or how to make some dry skin remedy that you could use. But is leaving things this way the most appropriate way to really go about it? Be the judge. For more about review, you can watch the full webinar here.