We'll start out by admitting that, as brilliant as he was, Albert Einstein never put out a theory specifically mentioning e-commerce conversion rate optimization. Still, he did devote a great deal of thought to a great number of topics, and his ideas and theories tended to be incredibly accurate and ahead of their time.
That's why it was such surprising news this week that a number of researchers think that the world's most famous physicist may have stumbled on some of his calculations. Specifically, the theory in question has to do with the unbreakable limit that exists at the speed of light.
So what does any of this have to do with conversion rate optimization? More than you might think. You see, as much of a genius as Albert Einstein was, the one person who would probably be least surprised at one of his theories being off would have been the man himself. That is, he was smart enough to know that human understanding is always changing in any field, and the ideas we hold onto most strongly often need to be changed or revised.
In other words, he was a proponent of always testing to find a better answer.
As online marketers and e-commerce site owners, we sometimes get too deep into our usual ways of thinking. We don't go far enough to challenge our own assumptions, and as a result, we miss out on opportunities to convert more visitors into buyers.
Here are three ways to follow Einstein's example and maximize conversions on your e-commerce site:
Always question assumptions. There are a lot of established ideas and rules of thumb that exist for good reason. A couple of times a year, however, there's nothing wrong with taking a day to completely rethink your online store and see if you can come up with some ideas that haven't been tried in the past, or could work now even though they weren't successful at an earlier time.
Always be testing. As any scientist can tell you, having a theory is wonderful, but only testing can tell you whether it's really worth much or not. The same goes for your marketing messages, landing pages, e-commerce promotions, etc. Test them all constantly to see if you can do better.
Get past the theory. By the same token, never get so stuck in developing ideas that you forget to try them out. Even the most brilliant e-commerce strategy isn't worth anything if you don't put it into play, so devote plenty of time to thinking, but even more of it to doing.
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