No parent relishes having “the talk” about conversion rates. No one wants to tell their kids: “Kids, conversion rates are still only around 2 percent” or tell them the naked truth about all the sites out there that were never optimized. Or point out that they’re hanging with the wrong crowd when it comes to web development and creation.

But if we don’t tell the kids about the benefits of hanging with fake people—called personas—who will? We have to just pick the right time and be ready to be vulnerable.

When confronted with a difficult question like “Daddy, should I put up a squeeze page?” we can just say: “I just don’t know. Let’s explore that together.”

As hard as this is, it’s better they learn about value propositions from you than off the street. Check out my article on Search Engine Land: 7 Things to Teach Your Children About Conversion to learn how to do this the right way.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.

After nine months of writing, fifteen chapters complete and dozens of columns supporting the effort, you’d think that the easiest thing to do would be to pick a name for my conversion marketing book.

As it turns out, this is difficult.

So why read a post about selecting a book title? Because, it’s all about conversion – not just the book, but the title is about converting book prospects into book readers.

The title of your book is key to maximizing conversions. It is like the subject line of your email, like the headline of your landing page, and like the value proposition of your home page. Get these wrong and your conversion rates will plummet. However the book title can’t be changed. Once chosen you are stuck with it until you write another.

It’s expensive to test titles, and this makes a Conversion Scientist very nervous.

I’ve considered a number of approaches. These approaches will also inform your online marketing.

Leverage something familiar

My first thought was to leverage something familiar, something that is already popular. This spawned several mockups including The Bourne Conversion, Eat, Pray, Convert, How to Win Friends and Convert People, and Conversions with God.

Unfortunately, copyright issues will prevent me from using any of these.

Ask your SEO person

The next thing I had to consider was how people might find the book on search engines. Phrases like “online sales conversion,” “analytics,” “conversion rates,” and “social media” are some of the most commonly searched phrases in the conversion marketing space. With this focus in mind, several titles were considered:

Online Sales Conversion: The Science of B2B, B2C, Online Services and Social Media Websites

The Well Managed Web Site: Conversion Strategy and Analytics in Simple Terms

Managing Websites to High Conversion Rates

Online Conversion Strategy

In my opinion, words like “conversion” and “analytics” are too clinical. Furthermore, these conversion terms don’t really get that much search traffic, so this strategy became less important to me.

Leverage your existing brand

I’ve been marketing Conversion Sciences and The Conversion Scientist pretty consistently for six years now through writing, speaking and training. The business is familiar to many online marketers and business owners, the two primary targets for my tome.

Playing on the science angle associated with the brand yielded several interesting titles, including the original working title, Get a Reaction.

Marketing + Science = Customers: Online Conversion Strategies to Transform Prospects into Buyers

Conversion Science: The Proven Formulas for Transforming Online Prospects into Customers

The Science of Reaction: Proven Conversion Formulas of Internet Based Companies

Own a word

I’ve always like one-word book titles that are provocative, like Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” and “Outliers.” I thought “REACTION” might be the word that sticks with people in my space.

REACTION: Getting visitors to take action on your website

Get a REACTION: Proven Strategies of the Conversion Scientist

The Science of REACTIONS: Websites that Convert Visitors to Leads and Sales

My feeling is that you have to have a large marketing budget to get a word to stick in the minds of potential readers. I didn’t get a multi-million dollar advance, unfortunately.

Surprise them

Seth Godin is great at naming books with unexpected titles, such as Purple Cow, All Marketers are Liars and Meatball Sundae. I thought the unexpected or absurd might work for my book as well.

It’s Raining Soup. Get a Bowl. How to turn Internet traffic into a delicious business.

Glad I Stopped By: Websites We Love to Do Business With

They Did What?! Unexpected Strategies of The Conversion Scientist

Marketing Backwards: Unexpected Strategies of The Conversion Scientist

The Website Genome Project: Proven Research of The Conversion Scientist

The truth is, I’m not Seth Godin. Darn it.

State your topic plainly

We often get too clever for our own good when we’re writing headlines, subject lines, and book titles. It’s a business book, after all.

Managing Your Website: Conversion Strategy and Analytics for the Managers and Business Owners

Online Conversion Strategies for Websites that Dominate Their Marketplace

The problem with these is that the reader is more likely to fall asleep before finishing the title.

Ask your personas

If you follow The Conversion Scientist, you know that I believe creating visitor personas is the best way to get high conversion rates on your website. The same applies to books, and I have developed several personas for this book.

With this guidance, I was able to choose a book title that combines the right ingredients… I hope. Here’s what I know about my personas.

Most of my personas have heard of The Conversion Scientist through my columns, blog posts and speaking. This tells me to leverage the familiar science angle.

One persona studies marketing, and they are reluctant to read a book that will give them same advice they’ve already heard. Therefore, the title should indicate that it is presenting a fresh way to look at online marketing. Use terms like “unexpected” or surprise titles like “marketing backwards.”

Finally, all of my personas are human, which means they respond to things like metaphors, rhyming and alliteration (the repeated use of a sound in a sentence or phrase). This tells me I should use these tools.

After reviewing these persona requirements, we settled on the following title:

The Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Formulas of The Conversion Scientist™

The alliteration and rhyming nature of the main title will help people remember the name. It has the important search terms “conversion,” and “customer” in it. The terms “equation” and “formulas” evoke the science theme of my brand.

Finally, the strategies are “unexpected,” and indeed the book contains advice contrary to what you have been told. This was a tough decision for me. One of our personas is trying to solve a specific marketing problem. Calling my recommendations “unexpected” may not appeal to her. She will want to know about “proven” strategies, and I did consider the subtitle “Proven Strategies of The Conversion Scientist.” Yet, I knew she would find value in being “cutting edge,” and “unexpected strategies” should appeal to her.

Did we pick the right title? Which would you prefer to read? Let us know in the comments.

You won’t be converting much of anything if you start with the wrong kind of website. Find out which of five conversion signatures your website should be following with a free video that introduces some key concepts from The Customer Creation Equation.

I got to attend my first Conversion Conference in October of last year and I am pleased to have been invited to speak at this year’s San Francisco conference.

First of all, I learned a LOT at last year’s conference. And I study this stuff all day long.

I don’t pay to attend many conferences, but I think I’m pretty good at picking those that give me information I can use “on Monday.” Conversion Conference is definitely one of those. Just look at some of the agenda items:

Biggest Usability Mistakes That You’re Probably Making

The Science of Shopping Cart Abandonment (I will never look at cart abandonment the same)

Rapid Fire: Lessons Learned from 30,000 Conversion Tests (These kinds of presentations are gold)

Merging SEO & Usability to Drive Conversion (I say “YeSEO”)

Creating Killer Conversion Copy – Email, Landing Pages, PPC Ads and More (This is mine. Never bore your visitors again)

Getting Smart About Conversion on Mobile Devices (We’re all going to have to deal with mobile sooner or later)

I can get you $100 off if you register now. Enjoy the savings , but come for the new leads and new sales you’ll be getting all year round.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.

The Iliad and The Odyssey, TV Sitcoms, your Website….what do they all have in common? The Hero’s Journey.

Recently I read that Dan Harmon, creator of the quirky TV show Community (NBC) uses the literary device of the Hero’s Journey to map out his episodes. They all involve taking someone from his comfort zone, through a process of seeking for something, finding it, paying a price, and coming away changed.

It’s a classic, universal theme every website can employ to connect with every visitor.

Think of it, all visitors to your site are on a quest. You need to make it possible for them to leave your website as heroes, having accomplished their objectives. Check out the map of this journey on my Search Engine Land article Eight Ways Landing Pages are Like a TV Sitcom.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.

At the start of 2011, I wrote about the poker hand, the winning strategy, the high cards that let you compete against every other site their customers will visit.

Creating and optimizing interesting content that helps visitors find what they need is a high card. Social media and attention to conversion metrics are cards that make you the Chris Moneymaker of the online world.

But while some companies got their hands in order in 2011, a lot of people still need to step up their game using the same strategies I suggested last year.

So welcome to 2012 and take a minute to check your hand on this ClickZ article, 11 Ways to Deal Yourself a Better Online Marketing Hand. You can even use this as a 2012 To Do list for your online presence. Happy New Year!

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.

Photo by kalidevil

Will the holiday card we chose convert “Bah Humbug” into the “Love Bug?” Follow along as we express our gratitude to you and show you why we chose the holiday card we did.

 
We hope we’ve been able to make 2011 a great year for you, since you’ve made it a great year for us here at Conversion Sciences.

Look for us in 2012 as we continue to educate, optimize and have fun doing it.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.

Conversion is when the right customers land on your site and find what they’re looking for.

Google keeps tweaking its search algorithms to help them do just that. And you can help Google direct customers to your site by thinking like a blogcano.

What’s a blogcano?

It’s a site that spews lots of red-hot, relevant content the same way a volcano spews lava. People—and search engines–lose interest in a dormant volcano, just like a dormant site. But a volcano with lots of fireworks, pouring forth lots of lava is going to stay on Google’s radar, which will keep it on your customers’ radar.

Active volcanoes grow bigger. So do active websites. Treat your blog as a landing page, because that’s what it is: the place where conversion-ready customers land.

Read the complete story in Blogs, Volcanoes, & Your Conversion Rate Calculation.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the bookwhen its available.

This is a guest post by Susan Lahey of Fishpond Content.

Susan Lahey got a surprise when she saw how Google interpreted her About Page. Photo by mokra

Anybody who’s installed Google Analytics on his website can tout all the cool insights it provides: Who visited your site and how they wound up there; which pages they lingered on and which ones send them packing. It’s almost voyeuristic. Every morning with my coffee I troll my email, social media sites, and my Google Analytics religiously.

But yesterday I discovered another really crucial aspect of Google Analytics: It can tell you if net surfers think you’re a porn site.

It started like this: You know how you’re supposed to make your personality really clear in your content; how it’s important to brand yourself thoroughly, differentiate yourself and use strong language?

In the spirit of thorough branding, I wrote on my About page that, because I was trained as a journalist, I am really anal about deadlines, research, accuracy and making sure the content is sexy enough to land on the front page.

Potent language, right? It says I’m a professional and I write content people are almost irresistibly drawn to.

Then, I was doing my daily Google Analytics check to see where my content was performing well and where it could be strengthened, I clicked the link that shows what keywords people were using to find my site.

Guess which ones? Anal and sexy, and a few other, similar combinations.

Not exactly the branding message I was aiming for. Not really targeting the customer stream I was hoping for either. I’m sure the porn surfers were even more disappointed than I was.

So I rewrote my About page. But because I abhor boring content, I refused to make it milquetoast just to avoid a similar incident. Wonder what they’ll do with the word “badass?”

Editor’s Note: I’ll watch this page to see if I start getting the “wrong kind” of traffic.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the bookwhen its available.

Photo by mokra

Whatever you think of deals site leader Groupon, you can’t argue with their amazing success.

Since 2007, Groupon has built an email list of 50 million subscribers and have kept them enraptured even though they send an email almost every single day.

Is it the deals? I would argue that it is not. Groupon: Is it the Deals or the Copy?

Find out how the layout and copy of their daily inbox offering keep people on their lists and reading day after day.

Groupon: Is It the Deals or the Copy?

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.

Demographics can lie to you. In fact, they often do. This makes them very unreliable when you are trying to make decisions about what to put on your website.

How demographics mislead us and how analytics can set us on the right page again

The Content, headings, copy and images all impact the success of your site. Knowing how to develop these components for your particular audience is the key to higher and higher conversion rates.

In this on demand webinar, I guide you toward understanding your audience showing you:

1. An easy way to model your different buyers.
2. How demographics often mislead us.
3. How to find different buyers in your analytics.

Then you get to test your own knowledge in the Conversion Quiz: What to Test?!

Webinar: Accelerating Your Online Business by Optimizing for Buyer Personas

Watch it now.
Password maxscientist

http://vimeo.com/maxymiser/conversionwebinar
Password maxscientist

Thanks to Maxymiser for the opportunity to share this information with you.

I’m completing the chapters of my new book due out in this Spring. Find out how you can get a free copy of the book when its available.