Picture this: you spend a lot of time and money to make sure your website looks good. Maybe you even go through our posts and website reviews here, to make sure you avoid all the most common mistakes (like the Big 3, for example).
You look at the result of your work: the website looks stylish and professionally designed. Typography is on point. You have a dedicated homepage, an active blog, the whole lot.
And yet... you're still not getting much traction and conversion rates are low. At this point, it's fair to wonder: what the heck is going on here?!
In today's website review, we'll find out.​
More...
What's Your Take?
The website featured in today's video is Nutriciously.
What's your take on the site and our review of it? What's the takeaway that you'll apply to your own site?
Let us know by leaving a comment below!​
P.S.: If you'd like us to consider your website for a future review, you can submit it here.
As always: spot on Shane! Thanks! I’m glad by the way to see you on video again, because it seems like a while ago!
Thanks, Harry! Indeed there’s been a bit of a gap since the last video. But fear not: we’ve got many more queued up already. 🙂
Really those are practical tips but what you think about it – “should one use a dark or colorful email subscription form below post”.
Won’t that drive more conversion?
Hello Maya,
This is an example of something that can’t be predicted reliably. Sure, a more colorful opt-in form will likely draw more attention and that will likely be a good thing for your conversion rates. But it could also be the other way around and the only way to really find out is to test.
Is this a Thrive Theme? If so, which one?
Hello Randi,
No, this theme was not created by us.
I think that the personality is a part of this. I also think it needs to target a specific person. It looks like it is trying to market to everyone. It needs to market to a 35 year old woman with 2 children or a 50 year old male with a medical problem. I also think the offer needs more pizzazz. And the sign up should be on the first page. I don’t want to have to click then click again to fill something out. The ebook can be “Moms Create 37 Smoothies In 17 Minutes that your husband and children will love” or “Seniors Make 63 Smoothies That Will Help You Loose 20 Pounds and Reduce The Risk of Diabetes in 2 Months”
Those are some great suggestions, Rich! I agree that going after a smaller, more specific target market could really help here, especially when it comes to specific products.
I’d say that if the overall site has a more general appeal, that can still work as long as there’s more personality and edge to it. But products such as opt-in offers, ebooks etc. should have a much more specific focus, like the examples you gave.
Ad copy is weak. Needs to be more focused.
Needs a happy face or two.
They’ve done great job. Just a few tweaks and it’ll be great.
Thanks for your comment, Mike!
Funny thing Shane. Towards the end of this video you either had a watch on or something reflecting which was a bit distracting. Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a review!
Very good points on the site though. I see what you are saying about impact. There is no sense of urgency or enticement. I’ve made many of these same mistakes and sometimes still do! Just have to review your own site in the eyes of your target audience.
Thanks!
Thanks for your comment, Rob. Yes, I noticed that too. And the camera was refocusing a couple of times, which annoys me to no end… 🙂
Thank you, Shane! Branding and positioning is huge.
Thanks, Michael. Glad you liked the video.
You are providing amazing value, Shane! Thank you! Great critique. I also had thought that the free 6 week course magnet was maybe a bit too cumbersome to think about. I have heard from many digital marketers that having something more immediately accessible and bit-size could attract more conversions.
Also, to comment on someone else’s feedback about a headline stating specific outcomes of the smoothies, I think this is where marketers can become misleading and just plain unethical. Unless the creators of the smoothie did a series od independently funded studies on the effects of the smoothie, we actually have absolutely no idea if this will help with Diabetes and blood sugar in the way it’s proposed. I only mention this because we have to be truthful yet persuasive with the truth we have.
Great points, Matt!
I agree about health claims, for sure (as well as any other kind of claim). I think it’s fine to advertise something as “solution to X” as long as that claimed can be backed up to a reasonable degree. I don’t think you’d have to do your own studies. If you can point to good studies that show certain ingredients to have certain effects, I think it’s fair enough to say that if you add those ingredients to a smoothie, it will probably be beneficial. The promise should just be in line with the amount of evidence that backs it up.
YESSS! Doc Melaugh, you’ve done it again!
Thanks, Steve!
I completely agree with RichJ! In addition to more personality and uniqueness as, Shane detailed, this website is in a HUGE market dominated by some HUGE companies. Niching down to a more specific target audience as RichJ shared would help a lot! IMHO.
Thanks for your comment, Jeffrey!
Great idea Shane to be reviewing a real life example website, helps us see whats missing and pushes us to develop and improve websites as ongoing project. agree with your advice, beautiful but bland. This website is like a beautiful woman with no personality, add a great personality and you get someone three times more beautiful and engaging.
Nice metaphor! Very fitting for this example. 🙂
Love your insights. And what perfect timing since I am working on this for my own stuff right now. Thanks.
Glad to know this came at the right time for you, Kalista!
Hi Shane! You gave me something to think about. I will check my call to actions right now. Do you have a youtube channel I can subscribe to?
Hello Ivalio,
Thanks for your comment! Yes, we have a YouTube channel here.
The problem with this site? You read an entire blog post without ONE internal link or URL to help bounce users around the site. That blog post should have had at least 3-4 links in it, if not more.
Get visitors acquainted with your brand
Hi John,
Thanks for your comment! That’s another valuable insight, yes. More internal linking is a great way to keep visitors on site.
Hi can you tell me what thrive theme was used for this site please?
Hello Joanna,
We’re using the Ignition theme. However, we’ve customized the theme quite heavily, over time. 🙂
I have great blog with good amount of clicks but very low conversions. Don’t know what is happening. I guess bad luck.
Hello Akshat,
That’s not a great way to look at it. There’s always a cause, but you can only find it if you don’t assume it’s just down to luck.
great one thanks
and thank a lot for your themes and content builder
just finish building my site with them
at sadnapil.co.il
I know wordpress for a long time and your developments are the best !
Thank you, Ofir!
If I was running this website, the first thing I’d want to find out is where my traffic is “in the funnel.”
I’d imagine that whoever opts in for the 6 week course knows the benefits of living a plant-based lifestyle, wants a blueprint to get started and is ready to jump in with both feet.
If people aren’t opting in then maybe they’re not ready for a 6-week course yet. They might need more information on what a plant-based lifestyle really means and proof that it can help with their specific problems such as high blood pressure, helping with sleep etc.
Once they realize they have that problem and that leading more of a plant-based lifestyle is the solution, THEN you can say “cool, here’s something to get you started.”
I’m sure the people behind this website know the benefits behind their information, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their visitors do 🙂
Thanks for sharing your input on this website!
Hi Shane. WoW. What a great opportunity for new fresh sites to be reviewed. And be able to fix most important things. I think site owners just cant be objective assessing their sites. Thanks a lot for this invaluable help.
Thanks for your comment, Alexander!
Hey guys, this is Lars and I’m the (co-)maker of the website nutriciously which is discussed here.
First of all: Big thanks to Shane for selecting my site and giving this valuable feedback, it means a lot.
We were going back and forth between thinking of having the opt in form right at the home page or on a dedicated page but settled for the latter.
It seems like you recorded this video quite a while ago because 3 weeks ago we already revamped our course landing page and did a lot of the things that you suggested: moving everything towards the top, better communication of what’s inside the course, and discussing the benefits. Conversion rate is at 35% so far (was at 43 before your blog post here was released 😛 ), which is alright I guess.
You’re absolutely right about the edginess and personality. We’re looking to incorporate more personal pictures on the homepage + blog sidebar in the future as soon as we get some of decent quality.
Our niche is specifically plant-based based eating or veganism in other words. I don’t even know if that came across or if it just seemed like another healthy eating site in general for you. Maybe we have to communicate this more clearly or work with the word veganism. We’re trying to attract both vegans and those who are interested in becoming vegan. I know, this is still a rather broad area, so we will surely brainstorm about ways to narrow down a little bit more.
As for the blog, it’s true that the opt in at the bottom of the blog posts converts pretty terribly. I guess we didn’t want to be too aggressive there, because people will get another popup on exit intent. But the copy is probably just bad, so this is something to work on.
We’re trying to incorporate more content upgrades and stuff to increase the opt in rate on blog posts as well. Here’s an example of that:
http://nutriciously.com/how-to-get-rid-of-bloating/
Opt in rate is around 5-6% which is already a great improvement.
Another comment here suggested that such a long course (it’s says 6-part, not 6-week by the way – it’s more like 2 weeks) is too cumbersome and I agree that this might keep some people from signing up but on the other hand, I do think that it provides amazing value and is a good way of reminding people of our website and what we do every couple of days.
Alright, thanks again Shane and everyone in the comments.
Cheers,
Lars
Hi Lars,
Thanks for your comment and thanks for submitting your site!
It’s great to know that you’ve already been experimenting and seeing improvements on the site. 🙂
What if you paid good money to subscribe to Thrive Themes and discovered they don’t support their product?
See my response to your other comment about this. You haven’t raised any tickets in our support forum, which is our support channel. Here’s how to raise a ticket to get product support:- https://thrivethemes.com/tkb_item/how-to-raise-a-forum-support-ticket/
Hello shane, thanks for a very useful share. I like the video very much. Thanks for explaining very clearly.
Is it okay to set landing page on a site which is already getting registered users? Will this help me to get more conversion?
I’m not sure I understand your question… you can replace any existing page with a landing page if you want. It’s basically the same as changing the design on a page. The visitors can still come to the page, they’ll just see something else than before. If the new page is better optimized, it will lead to more conversions. If not, it won’t. 🙂
Hey Shane,
Another awesome article, worth reading
thanks