August 8, 2010 24 Comments

10 Sources For Better Conversion

I went searching around inside Delicious. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to research, but wanted to know if I could find something of interest, and whether I could make a post out of it. What I looked up ended up being conversion, as in getting your site or blog to give you better results.

If conversion matters, here are 10 sources for information on better conversion:

21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites

21 Case Studies on Conversion

Lessons learned from 21 case studies in conversion rate optimization

eCommerce Platforms

A beginners guide to ecommerce shopping carts.

15 best free open source ecommerce platforms

WordPress simple shopping cart (documentation) (for a plugin).

Google Analytics ecommerce tracking (part 1).

More on Conversion

8 Tips to help your website convert.

101 Google Website Optimizer Tips

50 ways your website is discouraging conversion

Call-to-Action buttons: examples and best practices

Easy as That

The real experiment was to see what I could find online for easy-to-understand resources, and whether or not I could find some useful information for blogging. Now, every little bit of what I presented above is useful. In fact, I found several things I want to change in my own projects. But what I really found was that you can be just as useful to your community if you sometimes stop and find great information, and share it in a new way.

Original content is great, but sometimes, being helpful just requires doing a little digging, some thinking, and some sharing. When you’re pressed for time, or when you want to share the stage with others, this is one way to do it. Provided you’re being helpful, and sharing information that you think is useful, it’s a great way to extend the ways people interact with you.

Thoughts? Questions? Did any of the posts or the video above give you actionable ideas for your sites and projects?

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  • http://www.rasolved.com R. Anthony Solis

    This is perfect for me. I'm a new blogger with a new business. As much education, certifications and experience (other industries) I've obtained, I'm still working on…well everything. LOL. But, people appreciate that I can point them in the right direction or reference more proven sources.

    Thanks for the resources, I'll be busy reading them! :)

    - Anthony

  • http://eco-officegals.com/ Eco-Office Gals

    Has anyone used any of the free WP shopping cart plug ins? Either the one above or another, I'm looking for recommendations or pros and cons for an upcoming site. Needs to be seemless on a Studiopress theme. Thanks!

  • Preston Ehrler

    Instead of WP, have you looked at Shopify. We are working with it for one of our projects and it offers a lot for not very much (we have no affiliation with it at all.)

    Preston Ehrler
    Webvantix

  • http://www.retirepreneur.com Donna Kastner/Retirepreneur

    So I don't have to cook everything up for my blog myself? ;)

    Of the 10 Sources you listed, several of them were so busy design-wise that I left pretty quickly… is that because I'm a boomer with a short attention span, or are we zeroing in on some best practices as far as “how much stuff” we can present to new visitors without losing them?

  • http://eco-officegals.com/ Eco-Office Gals

    I'd prefer to stick with WordPress if possible, I'm not getting paid enough on the project to go through the learning curve of a new program and I don't think they want a monthly fee. Thanks though.

  • http://massagetherapyworld.com Kelli Wise

    This came at the perfect time. I'm putting the finishing touches on a website aimed at selling continuing education classes and the tips here are going to send me back to tweak the layouts and calls to action. Actionable items I took away: where to place my purchase buttons, giving clear call to action, tightening up the text and layout to lead to the purchase button.

    Awesome! I also love to share great information with my blog readers and give them places outside our small industry to look for business ideas. This sort of focused article is something I'll probably copy from in the future. Thanks Chris!

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    Super glad it worked, Kelli. : )

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    Might be. I can see how you felt that way. I just looked for the gems, and passed the right pieces off to the right others. Remember, sometimes we can't see the action, but we know the person who can, and we can link the info to who needs it.

  • http://www.bcsdigital.co.uk Rob Wilmot

    Wow. This is one of the most useful information rich blog posts that I've ever read. Great trust agent move Chris ;)

  • http://twitter.com/mikemcsharry mike mcsharry

    The 101 tips is actually 108, and it's proably the neatest single resource I've seen for a while. Right now, a lot of what is in there is way above my head, but the stuff that I can take advantage of is already giving me some great ideas. Mr Brogan hits the spot, yet again :)

  • http://www.andicrook.com Andrew Crook

    Thanks Chris some great gems here regarding “21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites” video isn't that what all offline businesses should have been doing in the past i.e. have a good strap line.

  • http://reallifemadman.blogspot.com Marjorie Clayman

    Hmm. My only concern with reading and/or writing posts like this is that there is so much information and I am so interested in learning that it almost intimidates me out of the post. I wonder if there would be a way to do a post like this but borrow from StumbleUpon's methodology a bit. You click on the first link and the blogger has it set up that if you want to go on to the next one, you could. I just overwhelmed by so many links and then having to click back and forth. It's possible I'm weird, however.

  • http://managingemployeeperformance.com Leon Noone

    G'Day Chris,
    Just wanted to say “Thanks” for so much useful information in one spot. Proof yet again that the more you know the more you realize you don't know.

    As John Wooden put it “It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.”Thanks again,

    Make sure you have fun

    Regards

    Leon

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V573NEA4VVQNCYWYPYJIGF2TLQ Xlcango Xlcango

    Just wanted to say “Thanks” for so much useful information

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  • Michael

    I think it is useful to share a good stuff. It is one the basic function of social media, to share stuff.

    That post still bring value to reader (at least to me).

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  • http://www.gameculturalist.com/ Game Culturalist

    Chris, this is an incredible post. You better believe I am implementing a ton of new stuff to my newest site, thanks to you. You rock as always.

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  • http://twitter.com/justincutroni Justin Cutroni

    Hi Chris,

    As a longtime reader, I was tickled to see a link to my site (Google Analytics Ecommerce) appear in the list! Thanks for the shout-out.

    Justin

  • http://www.blackfridayplanet.com/ William Hushburn

    Thanks for this one Chris.

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  • http://trustedexpertsreviews.com/best-ecommerce-platform eCommerce Enthusiast

    Great collection of links! Thanks a lot.