There are arguably as many opinions on conversion rate optimization as there are marketers. Conversion rates can be improved in a number of ways, but the best way is to simplify your sales pitch and reduce the number of choices that you present to your potential customer.
If you have too many choices of what they can do, or which products to buy, then they will likely become confused and not know what to do. They might leave your website because they get lost in a sea of possibilities.
The number of choices that people can comfortably make
The number of choices that people can comfortably make is very small. Research suggests that the sweet spot is between two to seven choices.
Even if you are presenting one product category only, when you present several different options for that category, it is the same thing as giving them many choices. You need to put yourself in their shoes and see things from their point of view when making decisions about your own landing page design for conversion optimization .
The example below shows two variations on how one online store presents its information. The first image has 9 options listed – there are 3 brands (from left to right) , 4 different sizes (from left to right) and 2 colors (from left to right). That is a total of 9 options, which far exceeds the number of choices that people can comfortably make.
It’s likely that when they have more than 3 or 4 options available, they will get confused and leave your site without buying anything. Conversion rates are often lower when there is a long list of different possible products – especially if the person surfing doesn’t understand what they are looking at.
Keep it simple
When you try to cram so much information onto one page, it becomes confusing for your visitor. The following image puts all this on one page , but now uses only 1 brand, 5 sizes and 3 colors. Because you don’t have as many options as in the first example it is easy for your visitor to understand what is on the page.
They might not know about some of the options that are available, but if they are interested in buying something from this website then the first example would have sent them away before they could buy anything because it was too confusing.
Less is More
The solution to improvement isn’t always to put more information or choices into the sales pitch . Sometimes you need to take things out and simplify it so that people can understand and find what they want faster.
Conversion rates tend to go up when you reduce choice because the potential customer has an easier time making a decision about which option they want. Even if they aren’t very familiar with all of your products, sometimes it’s better just to show one item at a
