Back at the beginning of the year I was approached by a company who wanted new home page copy written. I looked over their site and asked if they were interested in improving conversions overall. Of course, they answered yes. I noted several glaring mistakes they were making in their conversion path and told them the cost for working out the kinks on several key pages. “We’ll just take the home page copy.” I agreed to write it, but told them that they needed to eventually have me or someone else fix the rest of the things that were surely hindering conversions. They said they would, but – here it is May – and they haven’t.
In cases like this, where there are problems other than copy, how do you know whether or not the copy is working unless you track the changes? The copy could be doing its job, but the other inherent problems with the conversion path may very well be counteracting the improvements.
For example, your home page copy could be performing by driving visitors to fill out a contact form. But a lengthy form with unnecessary fields, no security assurances or other common mistakes may sabotage any gains new copy might offer.
So how do you tell what’s working and what’s not? Look for mini-conversion points. In this case, the immediate conversion for the home page was one of two things: Call an agent or complete the online form. Focus just on those two tasks and track clicks to the form vs. completed forms filled out as well as how many leads phoned a live agent after visiting the website.
Once you determine whether the copy is working or not, move on to fix any additional issues such as poor telephone service or ill-designed forms. By taking it one step at the time, you’ll quickly see where the mistakes lie.
Karon Thackston is author of the Step by Step Copywriting Course and other SEO copywriting ebooks. Buy them online at https://www.marketingwords.com/copywriting-advantage/order.html. Don’t forget to subscribe to Karon’s copywriting blog at https://blog.marketingwords.com.
