Introducing the most valuable new features of Conversion Rate Experts

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 article 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.)