There are many, many, many lists of conversion optimization best practices. Some are sacrosanct:
- Sliders distract – you should get rid of them.
- Everything needs to be shorter – cut stuff out.
- Just make the button bigger!
These practices often come from broad trends observed over many experiments and they highlight what usually and typically works. Often, they’re tapping into a kernel of persuasion wisdom.
But there’s a problem: just because it usually and typically works, doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Websites have different target audiences, different marketing, positioning, pricing, product selection, seasonality. Your industry may be atypical.
I recently wrote about eight times that conversion optimization gospel failed to deliver and why for ConversionXL, read the full post.