Comments about O'Reilly Media Conversion Optimization:

This time I am reviewing Conversion Optimization, written by Khalid Saleh and Ayat Shukairy. Conversion Optimization refers to the practice of converting page visitors to buyers, when talking about e-shops.
Most companies that own websites focus on driving visitors to their page, but a large number of visitors do not necessarily represent an increase in sales. Marketers noticed
this, and the practice of conversion optimization was born.
This book describes the Conversion Framework™, a process Khalid and Ayat developed in 2007 and have evolved since. The framework is built around eight principles: the first six principles cover how visitors interact with different websites and whether they are persuaded to stay or decide to leave. These principles are:
1. Getting to know your Customers through persona creation
2. Creating confidence and trust
3. Understanding the buying stages
4. FUDs (fears, uncertainties, and doubts)
5. Appealing with incentives
6. Engaging users
The seventh is about tesing
7. Testing the voice of visitors
And the eighth is about long-term commitment to conversion optimization, because it is not a process you do just once.
8. Be iterative.
In addition to these eight chapters, there are two introductory chapters talking about some basic concepts of Conversion Optimization, and analytics concepts and mathematical formulas behind conversion optimization.

The book is very analytical and detailed in the subject. Everything is explained, and supported by examples and case studies. Also there are a lot of photos and snapshots of real e-shops. It dedicates a lot of pages to personas and persona creation, being the important thing behind Conversion Optimization. The ability to create good personas, and the ability to "see" through the eyes of your personas, is the way to succeed in converting from visitors to buyers.

Although simple in language, detailed and good supported with real life examples, I found this title somewhat of boring. I felt like the book was talking about the same things over and over again. Maybe this is a good tactic for making you learn something, but on the other hand it is annoying for someone who wants to get an idea and put things in action soon.

As I said above, in the core concept of conversion optimization is the creation of good personas and the consistency of what you say and what you sell. Exercise your common sense and also commit to what you do, for succeeding in converting page visitors to buyers.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Conversion Optimization:

didn't really have any set expectations when reading this title. As a professional developer I continually strive to fill gaps in my knowledge and conversion optimization was (read: is no longer) something I didn't know much if anything about. At less than 300 pages the book is a pretty quick read, but is packed full of useful information, lessons learned from real world conversion optimization and plenty of case studies. I read the book over the course of a weekend and highly recommend it for anyone involved in ecommerce or lead generation websites – from developers and designers all the way to marketing and business folk. There is a health balance of descriptive and prescriptive guidance and I feel like I learned a lot while thoroughly enjoying the read.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Conversion Optimization:

I sat down on a plane yesterday evening with a two hour flight. I was tired and thought it might help me sleep. Then I read the book cover to cover! I did skim a few sections and finished when the Captain told us we were about to land. Kept me fully awake with a lot of very valuable insight and a well-crafted explanation. Congratulations I will be recommending your book to friends and colleagues.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Conversion Optimization:

Conversion Optimisation is an interesting book for me to review. I found it a good read, helping me to think about and understand some of the the ideas and concepts around helping people to give you money for a product or service on your website.

I read Conversion Optimisation after having been influenced by Seth Godin. I understand Seth to say, "build really good stuff and do an excellent job, and build a community around this". So when I was reading "Conversion Optimisation" I was consistently thinking that I had a great product, and that Conversion Optimisation is helping me to ensure that the right people get to use it.

WIth this type of thinking in mind, I found it a very interesting read. The thinking about communication was very helpful, and some of the decisions and analysis of data in the book also helped give some good ideas of how to analyse data when doing conversion optimisation. I'm not sure how the book would hit a marketing type, but for someone like me, it was a good read.

[this book was reviewed as a part of the O'Reilly Blogger Review Program]

Comments about O'Reilly Media Conversion Optimization:

Conversion Optimization is a very good and highly useful guide to setting up a successful website. Although the book has a bit of a scholarly feel to it, don't let that deter you. Conversion Optimization is best read as an overview of the purchase (or conversion) process, including the psychology behind how and why people choose to buy things online. It provides a great overview of the main aspects of designing a website for conversion - getting the viewer to take some kind of action. Entire books can (and likely have) been written on the subject matter of each individual chapter, but this book will give you a great overview. Recommended.