Low Hanging Fruit: Cherry Picker or Lettuce Picker?
Aug 20th, 2009 | By John Quarto-vonTivadar | Category: Featured, Headline, Landing Page Optimization, Optimization & Testing
When you think of a cherry picker, do you conjure up images of someone who only picks the easiest or ripest fruit? Or does it perhaps have some artisanal connotation, waiting until only the proper time before action is taken? Is that how you go about optimizing your web site?
Or are you a lettuce picker? The sort of person that toils for long hours in the field and accomplishes an honest day’s back-breaking labor of work that most white collar business execs would consider a less-than-optimal career.
That fact is, when it comes time to harvest, virtually the entire crop must be worked on at the same time. You don’t have time to cherry pick, and anyway the average business isn’t expert enough in how and what to optimize to know which portion of the crop should be cherry picked. Instead, when that crop is ripe, it’s time to get out there in the field and put in a 14-hour day getting it harvested.
Often when we speak wiith prospective clients, they have the impression that there is some magical formula that leads to higher conversion rates and that it can be achieved without any hard work or commitment. The reality, however, is that our most successful clients who enjoy on-going regular improvements of 40-80% in their conversion rates year after year are the ones who are implementing change on a regular basis. They’re lettuce pickers, and not so proud as to let hard work get in the way of increased revenue.
Are you a hard-working lettuce picker when it comes to your website? Are you guessing at what changes will improve your site? Or do you work diligently every week, every month, and every quarter to effect continuous improvement?
I am in OnTarget now, I thought I knew some things about conversion and website design, I even read ‘Call to Action’ book which I loved.
But once I got in the program and started getting recommendation, each new one I got was like a ‘V8′ moment.
Things I thought I was smart enough to see but was not. I do like the program pretty well and yes I was looking for a magic bullet solution that would double my conversion rate in one move. That did not happen, but I feel the improvements are coming along. So while the economy is a bit soft right now I am cruising along and I think OnTarget has helped and has been worth the money so far.
Rick, thanks for the nice commentary on your experience so far with OnTarget. Any chance you can give us permission to use your comment on our website?
Yes, you can use my comment.
Websites are like people. They are always changing and evolving. And like a person, a website that’s finished is dead.
Thanks for a great post.
Interesting stuff. SEO isn’t fun and it isn’t quick….if my business partner only understood! Now we’re able to continue link building, adding pages and working with on site optimization….but there won’t be a return for a while…
This is something that we have really taken on lately in terms of hard graft and putting in the hours to increase our website exposure and overall presence. I think for many its easy to think that you stick a website up pay some company a few quid because they claim they can get you first page listing (sound like a familiar email? lol) and it will make money but actually its hours and hours of good honest hard work to promote your site… get good listings.. AND stay there.
Joe
Any chance you can give us permission to use your comment on our website?
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