This is a really broad question - and it could be answered 100 different ways that would all be right.

I'll focus on something very specific - and that's to reverse up your funnel and look at your traffic first and foremost. Rather than thinking about how you can convert the traffic that is showing up - make sure you know who they are and what are after. Across the thousands of companies we work with every year, one of the main factors for poor conversion is that they are trying to optimize conversion on the wrong traffic.

Make sure you first optimize your traffic - working hard to attract your core customer segment, or you run the risk of "optimizing" for the wrong users simply by catering to the folks who are showing up. Unless you are a brick and mortar - you aren't constrained by the composition of the "foot traffic". Of course, you want to serve up what the market demands - but make sure you are talking to the right market before you start "optimizing" yourself away from your true customers.

I'll posit that only after you've validated that you are doing everything you can to attract the right traffic - does the process of conversion optimization becomes worthwhile.

As a highly actionable tip for doing this - talk to the people who show up - find a way to make contact with them by phone - you learn so much from talking to people that you can't learn by looking at aggregate data. If you want to understand your funnel - take a swim in it - don't hide behind it.

Cheers,

Ryan Rutan
CIO - Startups.co