In the movie Monsters vs Aliens, the President has two big red buttons…

The one on the left launches every nuclear weapon in the country; the one on the right makes a latte.

The President asks, “Who designed this ridiculous system?”

His colleagues reply, “You did.”

Throughout the movie, he keeps almost pressing the wrong button, by accident. Whenever he leans towards it, everyone screams hysterically.

Now, if you have ever carried out a usability test, you’ll know this feeling well. You’ll regularly find yourself screaming, “No!”, (though you have to do so internally), when the participant is about to make a “conversion-killing” mistake. Some website elements are effectively “Nuke Buttons”. In other words, they are “traps” that reduce the likelihood of conversion.

Does your own website contain any “Nuke Buttons”?

Here’s how to find out if you’re making the same mistake as the President did: look at one of your mission-critical webpages—such as your homepage or one of your landing pages—then look at each link and button, one at a time, and answer the following two questions:

Question 1: “If a visitor clicks on this button, what will they see next?” (Open the link in a separate tab, just to check.)

Question 2: “Will clicking on this increase—or decrease—the likelihood of the visitor taking the action we want them to take?”

You may be surprised by what you discover.

Types of Nuke Button

Here are some of the most common types of Nuke Button:

Nuke Button Type 1: The “Empty Cart” button. The internet is riddled with shopping carts that have “Empty Cart” buttons in them. Can you imagine a supermarket in which half of the checkouts are “trap” ones, at which a member of staff would grab your shopping cart and put all the items back on the shelves? An “Empty Cart” feature would never exist in the offline world.

But, online, they are commonplace. Here’s an example of one:

Notice how this “Empty Cart” button is identical in appearance to the Place Order” button. It’s even located on the right-hand side, where you might imagine the “Place Order” button to be. One false click and the order is nuked.

Nuke Button Type 2: The “Reset Form” button. Strangely, it’s hard to even imagine a scenario in which a “Clear Form” button would ever be needed. It’s not like you’d ever fill out your name and address, and then think, “No, wait, that’s not me!” Perhaps “Reset Form” buttons are designed to safeguard people who are in witness protection programs.

Here’s an example of a “Reset Form” button, waiting to catch its next victim.

Nuke Button Type 3: the “Too-Easy-To-Click-Accidentally” button. Hotmail’s “Sign Out” button is tiny, and sits beneath a much larger Nuke Button that jeopardizes the user experience. In the image below, you might expect that the arrow is hovering over the “Sign Out” button.

In fact, when clicked, it opens up a dropdown box for the much larger “Karl” button that’s immediately above the “Sign Out” button.

As a result, it’s surprisingly difficult to work out how to sign out of Hotmail, or to change user.

This usability error isn’t trivial. Many Hotmail users access their email from public computers. Failing to sign out could result in identity theft.

Nuke Button Type 4: The “Your Session Has Expired” feature. Some shopping carts spontaneously destroy the visitor’s data after a certain time period. Why?

Clearly, in some situations, it makes sense to expire a session after a certain period of inactivity, for security reasons. But in those cases, it’s essential that the session be automatically saved for next time, otherwise the visitor’s hard work is destroyed.

The “Your Session Has Expired” Nuke isn’t a button at all, but it has the same self-destruct power of any Nuke Button. It’s really a “time bomb” version of the “Reset Form” or “Empty Cart” Nuke Buttons.

In a way, it’s more destructive, because it doesn’t even require a click; it can be triggered off by a bathroom break.

Nuke Button 5: The “Irrelevant Link”. This one is perhaps the most common of all. It sounds obvious, but a link shouldn’t be on a page unless you want at least some of the visitors to click it. Many links cause the visitor to veer off to an obscure part of the website—or to another website—never to return.

An obvious example of an “irrelevant link” is found in websites that have banner ads on their shopping cart pages. If a customer is about to place an order, do you really want them to see a distracting banner ad like this one?:

“The Nuke Button Hall Of Shame”

We thought it would be fun to have a little game: we want you to scour the Internet for examples of buttons—or links—that kill conversions. Copy the URLs, then add them to the comments below (or screenshot them and email them to us). Then, we’ll incorporate them into this blog post.

By creating this “Nuke Button Hall Of Shame”, we’ll be assembling a library of pitfalls for marketers to avoid. It’ll be entertaining too.

And, who knows, maybe we’ll get sued by DreamWorks for adopting the phrase.

Here are the ones we’ve received so far

1. WashingtonPost.com’s search box: The first person to respond to our call for Nuke Buttons was a visitor called Marisa, who described her frustration with the search box on WashingtonPost.com’s website:

The area above the search box is a “Too-Easy-To-Click-Accidentally” button. As Marisa says, “If you move your mouse up a little too far, the hover drop-down menu of Politics, Opinions or Business appears.

“If you then click, as you normally do when arriving at a search box, you hit the menu accidentally, and end up on a page you never wanted to visit. I can’t tell you how annoying that is, when you have a word/idea that you are actively searching for.”

Marisa also correctly spotted that the Comments feature on our blog has a flaw: it went haywire because she did not enter an email address, and she consequently lost her carefully written comment. Aargh! Already, we’re in our own Hall of Shame! It’s like a scene from Being John Malkovich! Sorry Marisa—we’ll get it fixed.

Send us more examples of Nuke Buttons!

So, Nuke Button Spotters…here’s your mission: we want you to send us examples of buttons—or links—that kill conversions. Copy the URLs, then add them to the comments below (or screenshot them and email them to us). Then, we’ll incorporate them into this blog post.

Together, we can disarm the web.

Right, let’s have a latte.

P.S. We update this post every time someone submits a new Nuke Button to us—so bookmark this page on Delicious!

Here’s a handy tool for capturing ideas from your customers: UserVoice.com. It’s effectively an “ideas box”, into which your website’s visitors can suggest ideas for improving your website and business. They can also vote on which ideas they like most.

It has a lot of similarities with Kampyle, but with a social aspect. If you give it a try, please leave a comment below and let us know how you benefit from it.

And, if you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to read our free report, “Tools That Reveal Why People Abandon Your Website”. These tools tell you exactly why many of your visitors aren’t ordering, so you don’t have to guess at how to persuade them. They provide a brilliantly reliable way of increasing your website’s profits.

Would it help to meet us, face to face? We’ve been asked to speak at several events over the next few months: two in the US, one in the UK, one in Australia, and two in the Netherlands. Come along and say “hello”!

If time permits, we can give you a free website critique.

We highly recommend all of these events. Each has its own strengths.

1. Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York, USA

When: March 23–27, 2009 (that’s next week). We’re speaking on Thursday March 26 at 10:30 a.m..

Why you should attend: It’s one of the world’s biggest and best search marketing conferences.

Our talk: Our Chairman, Karl Blanks, will be speaking in the session entitled “Extreme Makeover: Live Ad Copy and Continuity Clinic”, during which he will examine ads and landing pages offered up by volunteers from the audience, and suggest changes to improve click-through and conversion.

Plus, get a free website critique, one-on-one: Throughout Wednesday 25, Karl will be offering free website critiques at Google’s Website Optimizer stand. He’ll be there between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., and between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.. To avoid disappointment, visit early to sign up for a time slot.

How to register: Visit SearchEngineStrategies.com to get the full conference agenda, speakers list, and event information.

2. The System Seminar, Chicago, USA

When: March 27–29, 2009 (that’s next Friday)

Why you should attend: It’s one of the best web marketing conferences for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

If we were given the challenge of training someone, from scratch, to make money from the web, we’d start by sending him or her to The System Seminar.

Last year, we recommended the London System Seminar to our subscribers—and those who attended loved it. The Chicago event will be much bigger, and has some excellent speakers, including

• Perry Marshall, who’s an AdWords expert and a brilliant all-round direct marketer.
• Google Website Optimizer manager Trevor Claiborne.
• ROI Revolution’s Timothy Seward (ROI are fantastic at getting valuable results from Google Analytics).

Some of the attendees are beginners, and many are owners and employees of small- to medium-sized businesses, who are looking to learn every aspect of web marketing. That makes it a fantastic hands-on training in marketing and entrepreneurship. There’s some really sophisticated stuff going on too; some of these guys have sales funnels that are much more sophisticated than the average corporate website.

There’s also a real enthusiasm about the event; the conversations in the hotel bar tend to go on till after midnight.

The System’s organizer, Ken McCarthy, is an excellent teacher of online marketing and persuasive copywriting. Back in 1994, he organized the first-ever conference to discuss the commercial potential of the internet. Ken has introduced us to some really valuable resources over the last few years.

We’ll be giving two talks:

Talk 1.) Our Chairman (and company rocket scientist), Karl Blanks, will be giving a talk entitled “Internet marketing is NOT rocket science—YOU can do this.”

Talk 2.) Our CEO, Ben Jesson, will be speaking on “How to use the Internet to get to know your customers intimately”.

And, of course, during the breaks, we’ll be doing whatever we can to help as many businesses as possible.

How to get in for half-price: Visit TheSystemSeminar.com to get the full conference agenda, speakers list, and event information. That’s an affiliate link but we don’t want to profit from it, so, if you order via the link, we’ll forward the affiliate payment to you, which is 50% of the price you pay.

3. SMX Sydney, Australia

When: April 2–3, 2009

Why you should attend: SMX conferences tend to attract the same type of visitor as the SES conferences do (see above). The SMX conferences are organized by Search Engine Land, which is one of the world’s best authorities on search marketing. (Get their fantastic email newsletter, SearchCap, here.)

Our talk: Our CRO® Consultant Stephen Pavlovich will be revealing “23 Proven Techniques For Increasing Your Conversion Rate”.

How to register: Visit SearchMarketingExpo.com.au to get the full conference agenda, speakers list, and event information.

4. a4uexpo Amsterdam, Netherlands

When: April 28–29th, 2009

Why you should attend: Affiliate marketers live or die based on the quality of their conversions, so they care passionately about “marketing that works”. a4uexpo has grown incredibly quickly, and this is the first a4uexpo event outside of the UK.

We’ll also be offering free eyetracking reviews from the Conversion Rate Experts exhibition stand (learn more about this on the a4uexpo blog).

We’ll be leading two sessions:

Session 1.) Conversion Clinic: ‘Recession Proofing’ your Landing Pages. This is your chance to have your web pages analyzed and critiqued by the Conversion Rate Experts team. During this session, three of our staff—Karl Blanks, Ben Jesson, and Stephen Pavlovich—will critique your web pages, giving direct suggestions as to what should be done to improve their conversion rate, and giving you loads of valuable techniques that you can immediately put to use on your own website.

Session 2.) Landing Page Success Story: How we Increased SEOmoz’s Sales by 170%. Over the past four months, Conversion Rate Experts have increased the sales of the web community SEOmoz by 170%. In fact, in January, a single split test grew the sales by 52%. During this session, we’ll show you the page before and after the test, and explain all the techniques that were used, and how you can apply them to your own business today.

How to register: Visit a4uexpo.com/europe/ to get the full conference agenda, speakers list, and event information.

5. eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, London, UK

When: May 18–19, 2009

Why you should attend: Two years ago, John Marshall (the brilliant guy behind the pioneering web analytics software ClickTracks), recommended that we should attend eMetrics, because, “the attendees understand the importance of measuring a website’s performance.” You’re one of those people—otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

Our talk: We’ll be running a “conversion clinic.” This is your chance to have your web pages analyzed and critiqued by our Chairman, Karl Blanks, who will be giving a Conversion Clinic about “making your landing pages ‘recession proof.’”

During this session, Karl will critique your web pages, giving direct suggestions as to what should be done to improve their conversion rate, and giving you loads of valuable techniques that you can immediately put to use on your own website.

How to register: Visit emetrics.org/london/ to get the full conference agenda, speakers list, and event information.

6. Design For Conversion, Amsterdam, Netherlands

When: June 12, 2009

Why you should attend: There aren’t many conferences that are focused specifically on conversion. Design for Conversion has an unusual format—it sounds great:

• First, our Chairman, Karl Blanks, will be giving a Keynote talk.
• Then, the attendees will split into groups of ten, and all groups will be given the same project to carry out.
• During the day, two other keynote talks will be given.
• Throughout the day, the three speakers will interact with the teams, giving them practical guidance.
• At the end of the day, a panel of judges will decide which group is the winner.

Our talks: Karl’s Keynote talk will be entitled, “A robust system for increasing any website’s conversion rate.”

How to register: This event does not have a website yet. If you’d like more details, contact us via our Contact Us page, and we’ll forward your details to the organizer.

Will you be at any of these events?

If you’ll be attending any of these events, let us know in the comments below, so we can keep an eye out for you!

We look forward to meeting you in person, and saying hello!

A few weeks ago, we gave you 5 reasons why you should get obsessed with conversion rate optimization in 2009.

Some companies will follow this advice, and thrive, and some will ignore it, and spiral downwards. Fortunately, you have an unfair advantage: the mere fact that you’re on this page means you’re in the top few percent of web marketers who understand the importance of conversion.

But if you’re still having difficulty persuading the rest of your company that you should be investing in conversion rate optimization, maybe you’d like to tell them about this:

Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies, has recently started working with Conversion Rate Experts to optimize its visitors’ online experience.

Why?

Kevin Woodberry, the Online Manager of Vodafone Specialist Communications, gave the following reason:

The big attraction of conversion rate optimization is that it benefits both ourselves and our customers. Working with Conversion Rate Experts has been an absolute eye-opener. Getting started is surprisingly simple. Google Website Optimizer tells you which of your pages your visitors prefer. Your website’s visitors get a better service that’s aimed at their exact needs, which is great for profits.

Follow Kevin. It needn’t cost anything, and there’s no better time to start putting the pressure on your competitors.

You can start today, at no cost, by implementing some of the techniques in our free reports, signing up to our newsletter, and getting your hands on Google Website Optimizer (a free tool for carrying out split tests on your website, which you really should be doing by now).

Eyetracking? If you recall, eyetracking was Number 9 in our list of techniques for improving your conversion rate.

Here’s how it works:

1. Fancy hardware is used to track a user’s eye movements as they look at a website. (So the user needs to be physically in front of a computer monitor that is set up with eyetracking hardware, which usually means they have to visit a usability lab.)

2. The data is then analyzed, revealing where the user clicked and looked. They are then asked questions about their experience.

3. Finally, the website owner gets an actionable report containing heat maps of where the users looked, where they clicked, and how much they scrolled. This gives valuable insights into how they can improve their website.

We’re currently carrying out some exciting eyetracking research with the team at Eyetools (who work with companies like The New York Times, American Express, Sprint and Yahoo!), and are looking for volunteers to take part in our study.

If you’ll be near downtown San Francisco (the financial district near Bart and parking) any time between Wednesday Feb 4 through Friday Feb 20, 2009, please sign up to participate in the tests or get a tour of the facility. You can sign up here. (Please note: you won’t be paid, which participants typically are, BUT you will get an “insider’s behind-the-scenes view.”)

What’s in it for you?

• you’ll get a tour of the Eyetools lab
• you’ll learn about the processes, technology and results that eyetracking achieves
• you’ll get a sneak preview of our research findings, before we tell the world

But here’s the main benefit: it’ll turn you into a better marketer. The first time we personally participated in eyetracking tests was in 2006, and we were amazed at how unaware we had previously been of how we interacted with websites.

For example, it turns out that we weren’t just blind to banner ads—we had developed a blindness to Flash animations. This was much to the disappointment of one website owner, who had just spent most of his budget on creating a beautiful Flash animation in the center of the screen…which we completely ignored.

If you are able to volunteer to take part in this research, then please sign up here to book your appointment.

If you can’t get to downtown San Francisco between Wednesday Feb 4 and Friday Feb 20, 2009, don’t worry. We’ll let you know the results of our exciting research when it’s ready.

Here’s another fantastic tool for increasing your website’s conversion rate: It’s called UserTesting.com. If you haven’t used it before, you should—it’s great. It tells you why people leave your website (and loads of other interesting things).

UserTesting.com provides you with a video recording of how visitors are interacting with your website. This is done by capturing the browsing session of an anonymous usability tester and recording their spoken commentary. The video and a written summary of the tester’s views can be with you within hours. It takes less than ten minutes to commission a test…and all for just $19.

Anyway, last week, we recommended UserTesting.com to one of our new clients. This morning we reviewed the feedback, which you may find interesting:

Our client asked the following question to five usability testers: “What would have caused you to leave this website?”

Here are three of the responses:

“The site seemed kind of amateurish. There was a feeling that the company did not take the website seriously.”

“In general, I think the home page needs a refresh to make it more attractive – it is now more like a virtual storefront than one from a company as well established as [company name].”

“It was unprofessional and amateur looking and hard to find the correct link to use. Regardless of what size company you may be, a website can make you look as though you are the largest company in the UK…in any industry.”

Comments like this are surprisingly common—we see them regularly.

A success story—how graphic design gave an overnight 7.4% improvement

In response to similar feedback, another of our clients carried out a very simple page re-design. They didn’t change a word of copy, nor did they change which elements were on the page, or their position. In fact, they just redesigned a few of the page elements, to give the page a more consistent design.

Here are the results:

The test results show a 7.4% increase in conversion. If that doesn’t sound like a lot to you, imagine what you’d need to pay a salesperson to increase your business by 7.4% indefinitely!

So, our message for today is, “If your visitors are concerned about the appearance or professionalism of your site, you could get a serious measurable improvement by redesigning it.”

Experience has shown us the far-reaching power that graphic design can have on a business. Until recently, we have only offered our graphic design services to clients of our performance-based consulting program, but, as a result of customer demand, we’re about to start making our design service openly available (subject to availability, of course). So, if you like the appearance of our website, and you’d like our in-house team to do the graphic design—or re-design—of your webpages, contact us now.

On a similar theme, if you’d like us to redesign the logo for one of your products—or for your business—you might like to see our logo portfolio, and our opinionated views on the importance of having a good logo.

In the current economic climate, your website’s conversion rate is more important than ever. Here are five reasons why conversion rate optimization should be your top priority.

Reason 1: The obvious one—you get more customers, free

The obvious reason to improve your conversion rate is because you want more customers without having to spend a penny more on advertising. But there are other, even better, reasons…

Reason 2: The “slight edge” phenomenon

In many competitions, “the winner takes all” (or at least “the winner takes most”). This is particularly true of internet marketing.

This has an important implication: if you want to be twice as profitable as your competitors, you don’t have to be twice as good as them. You just have to be slightly better than them. This phenomenon is sometimes called the slight edge.

The horse on the right has the slight edge:

In particular, you need to have a higher profit-per-visitor than they do. Small increases to your profit-per-visitor can have enormous knock-on effects to your business’s profitability and success.

A word of warning: this is no reason for complacency. Once you have the slight edge over your competitors, you need to make sure you stay ahead.

Reason 3: Conversion rate optimization makes financial sense—because your profit is surprisingly sensitive to your conversion rate

The following diagram shows how a modest increase in conversion rate—say 50%—can have an enormous effect on a company’s profit:

An increase in conversion rate of just 50% can result in a 500% increase in your profits.

That’s because the profit from the additional conversions goes straight onto your bottom line. In fact, a 10% change in conversion rate can mean the difference between making a profit and making a loss.

Reason 4: Conversion rate optimization makes your business more robust

When your conversion rate increases, suddenly you can afford to advertise in other media (online and offline)…which makes your company much more robust.

This can create a “virtuous circle”* of benefits for your company, and a vicious circle for your competitors.

* by the way, a virtuous circle is a “vicious circle in a good way”.

Reason 5: The first-mover advantage

Here’s a final reason why you should be taking action now to improve your conversion rate: because if your competitors aren’t doing it already, they will be soon. And there’s an enormous advantage to being in the lead rather than lagging behind. Once you’re ahead, you gain money; if you’re always playing catch-up, you’re losing money.

Does your business depend on “free traffic” or “SEO”?

If so, here’s a special note for you:

If your web business depends on “free traffic” from Google or other search engines, here are the benefits you’ll get from improving your conversion rate:

• The obvious benefit: You can generate more money “out of thin air” from your existing rankings.
• Your customers will like you more, so there’s more chance of them staying with you for longer.
• Your increased conversion rate will mean you can profitably advertise in different media—such as PPC, affiliate marketing or offline—which means your business will be much more stable. You’ll no longer be “hooked” on free traffic, and no longer at the whim of a Google algorithm change.
• If you do it right, increasing your conversion rate will make your website more appealing to visitors, so other sites are more likely to link to it.

So what now?

We hope you found that useful. We look forward to hearing your thoughts. (Please post your comments below.)

If you’d like to be first to hear of the latest tools, tips and resources for “out-converting” your competitors, sign up to our RSS feed or (our newsletter).

If you want to learn more about conversion rate optimization, check out our free reports or contact us.

It took us two years, but here it is: the sequel to Conversion Rate Squirrel’s Google Website Optimizer report. The original report went “viral” around the web, and prompted Google to request us to partner with them.

As you know, we only publish something if we think it’ll be really valuable to you.

We’re excited about today’s report: it gives you the tools that tell you exactly why many of your visitors aren’t ordering. No more “guesswork”.

So buckle up, click this link, and enjoy…

Tools that reveal why people abandon your website

…oh, and please don’t forget to come back here and leave your comments.

If you could meet us, face to face, what would you ask us? Well now’s your chance. We’ve been asked to speak at several forthcoming events over the next few weeks: two in the UK, one in the US and one in Germany. If you’re nearby, come along and say hello!

Each of the events is excellent in its own way. If you want to learn more about increasing your website’s effectiveness, come and hear our all-new talks…

When: 14th–15th October 2008 (that’s next week). We’re speaking on Wednesday 15th at 12:30pm

Where: ExCeL, London, UK

Why it’s great: It’s the UK’s biggest conference of affiliates and merchants. Affiliate marketers live or die based on the quality of their conversions, so they care passionately about “marketing that works”.

How to register: Visit www.a4uexpo.com. Use this registration code to get a 10% discount!: CRE10. (That’s not an affiliate code, even though it looks like one; we don’t receive any kind of payment for getting you to sign up.)

a4uexpo is organized by ace affiliate marketer and all-round good guy Matthew Wood. It was our favourite web marketing conference of 2007. Many of our friends are affiliate marketers, and they usually meet in small invitation-only groups, so it’s great to have so many affiliate marketers in one place. This year’s event will have over 1000 international delegates. The speaker list is impressive too.

Last year, we didn’t have time to stick around for the evening’s networking event—the evening events tend to be the best part of any conference—but we were extremely happy with all the nice feedback our session received. (Some of it’s on our buzz page.)

This year, we’re giving an all-new talk entitled…

“How To Increase Conversions—A New Approach, Based On Psychological Methods”,

…which will be on Day 2 (Wednesday October 15th) at 12:30pm, in Room 3. We’re incredibly excited about it; we feel it’s the best thing we’ve ever done.

We look forward to meeting you in person, and saying hello!

When: 17th October 2008 (that’s next week too—sorry for the late notice).

Where: Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Germany

Why it’s great: Some of Europe’s top affiliate marketers will be attending this small gathering.

If you want to attend: Contact us

If you can get to Germany, and you can persuade WebGains to let you attend (tip: contact us to see if we can get you in) this one-day event promises to be fantastic.

Partly because our Chairman, Dr Karl Blanks, has been given two hours to teach as much as he can about conversion rate optimization.

And also because he’ll be sharing the stage with a world-class SEO. (We’ll not mention his name because we’re not sure whether it has been officially announced yet.)

When: 10th–11th November 2008

Where: Mountain View, California, USA

Why it’s great: It’ll be our only remaining visit to California this year.

If you want to meet up: Contact us for details

Our third event is a visit to the Googleplex, Google’s company headquarters. If you’re a Google-authorized consultant for Google Analytics or Website Optimizer, we look forward to catching up with you during the day.

If not, and you can get to Mountain View, California, let us know and we can meet up on the evening of Monday 10th.

When: 15th–16th November 2008

Where: Heathrow, London, UK

Why it’s great: It’s an intimate get-together with some direct marketing legends.

How to register: Visit this page. That is an affiliate link but we don’t want to profit from it, so we’ll forward the affiliate payment, which is just under $1000, to you.

Last year, we attended a conference in Chicago, called The System Seminar. If we were given the challenge of training someone, from scratch, to make money from the web, we’d start by sending him or her to The System Seminar. The attendees tend to be owners and employees of small- to medium-sized businesses, who are looking to learn every aspect of web marketing. That makes it a fantastic hands-on training in marketing and entrepreneurship.

The organizer of the System Seminar, Ken McCarthy, has now organized a one-off mini-System in London. Unlike the main seminar, this London event will be a much smaller get-together, with a lot of time for discussion in the corridors and in the bar.

One of the speakers is Drayton Bird, author of Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing. Drayton has decades of experience in direct response marketing. In fact, when the legendary adman David Ogilvy wanted to enter the UK market, the only way for him to do so was to acquire Drayton’s firm, which had become the largest, most dominant direct marketing agency in the country.

Ken McCarthy himself is an excellent teacher of online marketing and persuasive copywriting. Back in 1994, he organized the first-ever conference to discuss the commercial potential of the internet. One of the main reasons we’re attending is to listen to Ken speak.

And, of course, during our session—and during the breaks—we’ll be doing whatever we can to help as many businesses as possible. Our talk title will be along the same lines as the one we’re giving at a4uexpo, but because the audience will be smaller, we’ll be able to make it much more interactive.

Which other events should we attend?

If you’re unable to attend any of these events, use the comments box below to let us know which events you think we should attend.

Will you be at any of these events?

If you can make it to any of these events, let us know in the comments below, so we can look out for you! In fact, maybe we should develop a special code-sign for readers of our blog—a special handshake perhaps, or a cheeky wink—so we can pretend we’re all part of some exclusive club.

Leave it with us, we’ll work on that one.

At last, we’ve got a blog! And to celebrate we’re giving you loads of valuable stuff…

1. Updated today: Our free report on improving your conversion rate

In 2006, we wrote a quick-start guide for Google Website Optimizer. It immediately became Alexa’s 3rd-highest Mover and Shaker of the week, and prompted Google’s Tom Leung to invite us to partner with them.

Today we’re releasing an updated version for 2008. It contains some extra tools, a few more tips and loads of minor modifications to reflect our current thinking on how to maximize your website’s profits. You can get it here.

2. Great resources (part 1)

We fanatically consume information about conversion rate improvement. Over the next few months we’ll be listing all of our best discoveries on our Resources page. Today we’re beginning with a list of 10 “must-have” books (in our opinion) for web marketing.

3. Have a play with this tool, which allows you to “mind read” your visitors’ thoughts

Here’s a big problem with conversion rate optimization: To increase your website’s conversion rate, you need to find a way of persuading people who aren’t currently converting.

But those people arrive and leave without trace! How do you know what they wanted? How do you know what would have persuaded them to take action?

If you owned a real-life bricks-and-mortar store, this would be easy. You’d hear their objections. You’d be able to ask questions. You’d hear what they muttered as they headed for the door.

Capturing the voice-of-the-customer is more difficult with the web, but it can be done. One tool we’ve recently been trialing is called Kampyle. It lets you “mind read” your visitors thoughts (albeit in the most un-spectacular way possible: you allow them to give feedback via a form and, guess what, they are happy to do so!). We haven’t been using Kampyle for long, but so far we have been really impressed with it.

Perhaps the best way to understand how Kampyle works is to try it out. Once you have had a look around our site, click the button that says “GIVE US FEEDBACK”, which is hovering on the right-hand-side of this page (or click here). The Kampyle survey will then appear.

What you won’t see (unless you sign up for Kampyle) is that the website owner can then sign in to Kampyle’s website to see an interface for managing all of the feedback that has been received. (It feels a bit like an email client, having an inbox and folders.) If the visitor leaves their email address, you can easily inform them when you have responded to their feedback. Very handy.

4. What we’ve been doing for the last 2 years

If you’re new to conversion rate optimization and you want a quick introduction to “what it’s really all about” (and an explosion of some of the myths surrounding it) you might find our homepage guide to conversion rate optimization useful. It describes what we have been working on over the past two years.

5. Be first to hear about new tools

If you’d like to be first to hear of the latest tools, tips and resources for “out-converting” your competitors, sign up to our brand-new RSS feed or (our newsletter).

What do you reckon?

We hope you find that useful, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts. (Please post your comments below.)