Web Design for ROI – Review
I recently got my hands on a copy of the book Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads. Overall I have to say it was a very good book, it really explained a lot of the key concepts in web conversions at a high level (sales conversions, lead conversions, etc.). For example I know our site isn’t perfect, and we already have a lot of work planned towards this end, but what I really liked is that most of the “enhancements” we’re planning for the future are described in this book. At least at a high level. This book is not about the details of the implementation, but it’s a high level description of what needs to be done and why.
Which is the key thing to remember about this book, it’s written at a high level, meaning it’s aimed at people who are newer to the concepts of website conversions (sales, leads, etc.). Therefore if you’re already well seasoned on concepts such as sales conversions it won’t be as exciting for you. It’s not as detailed or thorough as books like Call to Action, but it’s still very good. This book will be especially interesting for you if you’ve been mainly focusing your attention on traffic generation and ignoring any efforts on items such as sales conversions, etc..
I’d highly recommend this book for anyone who has a website where they’d like to increase their conversions, be it sales, leads, etc. It’s a good introduction and will get you going. What I really appreciated was the “Digging Deeper” chapter at the end. The authors really hand picked the best books and websites on the market to recommend as further resources to investigate. Personally I’ve almost read every single book they recommended, as well as follow most of the websites they recommended. Some examples of the books they recommended (which I’ve recommended – even reviewed – before here on my blog) include: Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. And some examples of the websites they recommend include: Marketing Sherpa, Guy Kawasaki’s website and blog,
Overall I recommend this book, especially if you’re just starting to get into the market of increasing the performance of your website. It’s not as advanced as some of the other books out there, but that’s not it’s intention. It’s a great book to start with and build up from. Well worth the purchase.
· May 12th, 2008 · 9:00 am · Permalink
I second the recommendation. It’s a great book, and in fact I liked it a lot better than “Call to Action”, which I felt was a noncontiguous glob of teaser articles repackaged as a book.
I think the best usage of the book for more experienced web retailers would be to use some of the ideas as starting points for A/B or multivariate tests.
· May 12th, 2008 · 7:12 pm · Permalink
Hi Nick,
It is a great book. You are correct that Call to Action didn’t flow as well as Web Design for ROI. I just found that the information was more advanced (detailed) and immediately applicable in Call to Action. This one is great from an understanding perspective, it’s just weaker in terms of an implementation perspective. But than that wasn’t the book’s goal, it was to teach you about the concepts and not get you overwhelmed and distracted in the details which I really appreciated!
I also absolutely agree with you on A/B and multivariate testing. I know it’s something we’re lacking here at LandlordMax ourselves. We do perform some testing, but not as much as I’d like. With time I hope to increase this kind of testing, it really does make a difference.