Use “Conversion Funnel Analysis” to increase your website conversions

Why? Because increasing your website conversions is probably the most effective (and very likely the cheapest) way to increase Revenue, knowing how to measure and improve conversion is an essential tool that is simply necessary to deploy.

But first we have to define what types of funnels are available and I tend to look at the following three unique web behaviours, thus process’s to optimize:

• A Linear Path fixed funnel towards conversion
• A Linear non-Fixed funnel towards conversion
• A Non-Linear Path towards conversion

And with that said; let me try to define:

A Linear Path fixed funnel towards conversion

Definition: A set number of pages which have to be visited in a specific order without jumping out of the funnel in between them.

Example: A funnel starting at the last steps of a ecommerce cart; where you provide Payment and Delivery details. In this example you cannot provide half the payment and delivery details and come back later. Thus it is fixed and you optimize with this in mind.

A Linear non-Fixed funnel towards conversion

Definition: A set number of pages which have to be visited in a specific order, but one could jump out of the funnel and come back in later.

Example: A funnel starting from the SERP (An internal Search Engine Result page) going to the “added to Cart” page. Here one can do multiple searches and click back and forth between SERP and the chosen product page, before one move forward and later add a product to the Cart.

A Non-Linear Path towards conversion

Definition: An unplanned path by the visitor who can visit n number of non defined pages before ending up on a successful conversion page.

Example: A high value lead generation form where all we know is that the visitor typically have questions that needs to be resolved before a conversion can happen.

Using the above methods of course only makes sense at the time one start to apply segments and filters - whether that is as specific as a keyword or as broad as paid traffic in general – or with the use of custom fields, segmenting on your own business metrics, but that is of course an entirely different dialogue and blog post.

I hope this clarifies my attitude towards a subject that by itself is an entire book. I felt is was necessary to get these funnel types defined, so that we can come back to all three funnel types in individual posts; as I think they are equally valuable – used in the right context.