Go for the goal

Websites have different goals and a single website may have more than one goal.

With recruitment websites, there are some fairly obvious goals and some not so obvious ones. Obvious may be

• Candidate Registration
• Candidate Application
• Client contacting you or posting a job
• Someone filling int he contact form

Less obvious and more subtle goals exist though.  How about signing up for a free resource – like a newsletter, subscription to your RSS feed, signing up for email alerts or SMS alerts.  All of these are ‘conversions’ of one type or another.  Some have immediate and clear ‘value’ whilst others are more subtle, but can be just as valuable in the long term.

Based on the type of goal(s), website conversion can be broadly classified into three:

1. Informational Conversion: This type of conversion happens when the visitor finds the information he/she is looking for. Most government websites are information based and would achieve informational conversion. Such conversions are difficult to measure, however, average time spent on the site is considered to be an apt indicator.
2. Transformational Conversion: When a visitor subscribes to a free service such as a newsletter, transformational conversion is said to have happened. When someone subscribes to our newsletter/blog/article, we deem it as transformational conversion.
3. Transactional Conversion: When an actual transaction (application, CV submission, etc) happens or the business receives (or may receive) money or services from any other activity performed by the visitors, transactional conversion happens.  On an e-commerce site. sale of product is classified as transactional conversion. A sales enquiry, for us, is considered as transactional conversion.

Have you done much for your conversion chances lately?  What are you offering your website visitors that makes their visit more meaningful?  A hit is a hit.  It’s pretty worthless without some sort of conversion.