Below are five steps I recommend following to effectively plan and manage your work week.

5 Steps to Plan Your Work Week

Step 1: Plan Ahead

When it comes to planning out your work week, it helps to start early. I recommend planning out your upcoming work week on the Friday before. This will help set you up to be able to jump right into your first priority on Monday, and give you a clear picture of what to expect for the upcoming week. It will also help ensure that you stay ahead of your deadlines or identify any dependencies or required inputs from your other team members. You’ll also be able to enjoy your weekend without wondering or worrying about what may lie in the week ahead.

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To plan your week, identify a tool that you like using to keep track of your to do list. Personally, I use Evernote to plan my work week. The Apple Notes app is another good alternative. There are many different tools that you can use to plan your week, so find the one that works best for you!

To start planning, I create a new note in my app with a heading for each date in the upcoming week, as shown here:

Step 2: Review Calendar Meetings

The first thing I do when planning for the week is review the meetings on my calendar for the following week. As you are reviewing your calendar, ensure that all of the meetings scheduled are still relevant and timely. If any meetings need to be added, rescheduled, or canceled, reach out to the meeting owner to discuss. For every meeting on your calendar, create a to-do item on your list to prepare for the meeting the day before and a to-do item to follow up from the meeting the day it occurs.

These to-dos are very helpful in ensuring that meetings are more valuable for the whole team. When preparing for the meeting, be sure you have an understanding of the goal of the meeting and agenda that will be reviewed. If there are any agenda items that you are responsible for, make sure you are prepared to have a meaningful discussion on these items with the group.

In most cases, a meaningful meeting will result in some follow-up or action items. Use your follow-up to-do as a reminder to ensure that all actions items have been recorded and followed up on. This will guarantee nothing falls through the cracks, and for meetings that may be recurring, that future meetings are more valuable.

Here’s an example what my work week to-do list looks like after I’ve reviewed the meetings on my calendar:

Keep in mind that some meetings may be scheduled once your week begins. Be sure to add or rearrange these throughout the week to keep up to date with your schedule!

Step 3: Review Priority Deadlines and Recurring Tasks

After you’ve reviewed all of your meetings for the week, take stock of any high-priority items you know need to get done next week. For example, if you have promised a client or stakeholder a deliverable by Thursday of next week, be sure to add that to your list so it can be completed on time.

Additionally, are there any tasks that you routinely complete every week? For example, I have a weekly report I deliver to a client every Monday, and on Fridays I always have a to-do to plan out my next week.

This step will help you prioritize timely and recurring items that you need to complete by a certain day of the week.

Step 4: Consider Upcoming Assigned Work

Now that you have planned all of your time-sensitive activities for the week, your meetings, deadlines, and recurring responsibilities, it’s time to plan out the rest of your work.

Most likely, you will have some form of tasks or projects assigned for you to complete in a given week. At Go Fish Digital, for example, we use Basecamp as our project management tool to assign and coordinate individual tasks. At this point in your planning, review all of the remaining tasks or projects on your calendar that you need to work on for the next week.

Then, begin to plan out which days you will work on each task to ensure that your workload is spread out evenly. In my Evernote example above, it looks like we anticipate Thursday to be a busy day with two meetings to follow up on, one meeting to prepare for, and one client deliverable deadline. Therefore, we may want to plan less work for Thursday, and more task work on a day like Tuesday, where we only have one meeting.

Another recommendation is to group similar tasks together, for example, do you have multiple tasks for one project that you need to work on next week? Schedule these to knock them out at the same time and save fixed cost of setup time or acclimating yourself to the project. Here’s how your week might look now:

Step 5: Tackle the Work Week

Now you have planned out your work week! You have a sense of what meetings you’ll be preparing for, attending, and following up on. You’ve mapped out important deadlines, and you know what work you’ll try to accomplish each day. You’ve also made sure that your work week will be well balanced, to avoid burnout or boredom from a day with too much or too little work.

Now, it’s time to tackle the week. In the same way you plan for each week on the Friday before, try to review your plan for each day the day before and ensure that you have set a realistic plan for yourself. I like to start off each workday with a quick task, something that you can accomplish within the first hour of your day. This will allow you to build momentum in your list early on and continue chipping away at your overall work for the day.

As you work through the week, keep track of whether you’re able to accomplish everything you set out to. If you aren’t, you can easily roll items to the next day so they still get done (as long as they aren’t time-sensitive). If you are on track, that’s great! Keep track of what’s working well for you as you go (for example, grouping similar items together or getting a quick win at the beginning of the day).

Even the best-laid plans are subject to change, so as you work through the week, be sure to reprioritize or move items around as needed to stay on top of your week. If items come up throughout the week that don’t need to be tackled immediately, you can start a running list of to-dos for next week and plan them out when you work on next week’s schedule.

What are your top tips for planning out your week and staying organized? Share in the comments below and check out the Go Fish blog for more productivity tips and industry insights!

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Plan Your Work Week is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

If you are exploring opportunities for conversion rate optimization (CRO) on your site, it’s a good idea to start with your homepage. With the user’s experience top of mind, there are a variety of ways you can ensure that you are making a good first impression and providing your audience with the information and calls to action they need to further engage and convert on your site. Continue reading for five actionable ways you can improve your homepage.

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Five tips to build a homepage that converts users 

1. Put your most valuable call to action front and center.

Ask yourself – when a user lands on your site, what do you want them to do? Whether it’s purchasing a product, requesting a demo, making a reservation, or creating an account, call out this next step front and center in your homepage hero. You want to ensure that this call to action aligns with your primary business goals, as it will be one of the most visible calls to action on your site. Keep the text on your call to action straightforward to let the user know exactly what they should do next if they want to continue to engage with your site.

2. Add a clear call to action in your main navigation. 

Your main navigation should tell a clear story about the structure of your site and give the user an opportunity to browse based on what interests them. It should also offer a call to action that’s distinct in design from the rest of the navigation labels. This call to action can use the same or different offer from the homepage hero depending on your goals. This call to action will follow the user around the site, so it should be actionable and relevant no matter what page the user is on. Common calls to action for this placement would include a lower-funnel goal like Contact Us, Get My Free Trial, Checkout, or Sign Up. It’s also a good idea to consider keeping this call to action sticky on your mobile site’s header.

3. Offer multiple calls to action throughout the rest of the page. 

Ideally, you already have your most important calls to action above the fold. But, a user may interact with the page more before they are ready to convert. As the user continues to scroll down your homepage, offer natural opportunities to engage or go deeper into the site. Add a link, button or opportunity for a user to engage with you at each section of your homepage. For example, list all of your primary offerings on your homepage with links to dedicated internal pages that include more detail. Or, create a section that features your latest blog posts for users to read. Whatever you provide, give your audience ample opportunity to learn more about your service or product so they can make the most informed decision.

4. Offer social proof and trust signals early and often.

Users are much more likely to engage with your site if they trust you. As the most visible page of your site, your homepage needs to build trust to ensure users feel comfortable clicking and engaging with your calls to action. Two ways to do that are through social proof and trust signals. There are many ways to add social proof to your page including testimonials, reviews, and quantitative metrics about your product or services. Use as many of these as you can throughout your page, as they will work together to establish trust with your user. Trust signals can include items like logos of partners or associations of your business, awards you’ve won, or visual representations of your products or services. Each of these additions will strengthen your homepage and improve the first impression you leave on users.

5. Keep a final call to action opportunity at the bottom of your page. 

If a user has taken the time to scroll through your entire homepage, make sure you provide them with an opportunity to engage with you at the bottom, just as you did on the top. You can include the same call to action you used in your hero as a button in the footer, for easy access. It’s also great to add an email submission sign up. For users that aren’t willing to commit to a lower-funnel call to action, this can be an easy, low-risk way for them to stay in touch. Usually, they only have to provide one piece of information and you gain the ability to interact with them through email and retargeting campaigns. This builds a great funnel to keep users coming back to your site to convert on future visits.

If you need more help improving your homepage, reach out to our conversion rate optimization agency to learn how we can help!

How To Improve Your Homepage’s Conversion Rate is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Once a visitor lands on your site, is it clear what you want them to do next? 

Whether you’re collecting leads for your B2B product, selling products on your eCommerce site, or building a list for your editorial publication, each additional conversion action contributes to the value your website brings. 

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In this blog post, we’ll review five common conversion rate optimization mistakes we’ve seen and share solutions to help you avoid them. No matter what industry you’re in, this checklist can be used to help ensure that you aren’t costing your site valuable conversions. 

Five Common Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Mistakes & Solutions to Avoid Them 

1. Mistake: Using ‘Click Here’ as your only call-to-action.

Solution: Make your call-to-actions descriptive.

This mistake is an easy fix, but one that I still see far too often. There’s almost never a case where I would recommend using ‘click here’ over a descriptive call-to-action, specifically because it tells the user exactly what they’ll be getting when clicking a certain link or button. 

For example ‘Click here to subscribe to our newsletter’ can be easily shortened to just ‘Subscribe to our newsletter.’ With the appropriate link or button styling, users will understand exactly where to click and what will happen when they do. This keeps your call-to-actions succinct and clear. 

Additionally, if you are using phrases such as, ‘To see more, click here’, replace the click here text with exactly what they will be seeing. On its own, ‘click here’ doesn’t give users (or search bots) any indication about where they are going, which can delay them from taking the next step. 

2. Mistake: Using too many call-to-actions. 

Solution: Focus on the most important action you want your users to take. 

Call-to-actions are necessary for conversion rates, but having too many call-to-actions can actually hurt your overall conversions. If you have multiple call-to-action buttons in your site’s hero, for example, you may be giving your users too many choices, which can cause them to take no action at all. 

Rather than offering multiple call-to-actions, place the focus on the most important action that a user can take. For example, if your ultimate goal is to get a user to book a demo for your product, make this the primary call to action on your product page. 

This is all about clearly featuring the call-to-action that is most relevant to your audience in that moment – one that they are prepared to take the next step for, and one that you know will lead them successfully through your conversion funnel. 

3. Mistake: Applying ‘best’ practices that may not be ‘best’ for your audience. 

Solution: Use data to get to know your audience. 

There are a lot of marketing and website best practices that you can apply on your site, including the ones I am sharing here. These best practices are a great start for your site, but they should not take the place of getting to know your audience. 

Getting to know your audience is essential to the continual improvement of your site’s CRO strategy. There are a lot of quantitative tools that can be used for this. I recommend starting with your Google Analytics data. Looking at demographics data in Google Analytics can tell you the age and gender breakdown of your site visitors. Engagement metrics, like bounce rate and time on site, can help you understand how users are interacting with your site. 

There are also tools like Hotjar which generate click maps and scroll maps of how users are moving around your pages. Finally, running A/B tests in tools like Google Optimize will provide insights and data specific to your audience. Qualitative research, like surveys and user testing, can be very helpful in understanding your audience and ensuring you’re building an experience suited for their needs. 

It’s important to keep taking the pulse of your audience and continue collecting and reviewing this data that can help keep your CRO strategy informed and fresh.

4. Mistake: Forgetting EAT (expertise, authority, trust).

Solution: Keep your trust signals top of mind.

Anytime you are asking for someone’s personal information, which is the case for most conversion actions, establishing expertise, authority, and trust is incredibly important.

If you’re asking for someone’s credit card information, you want to make sure that you’ve provided details on how the transaction will be encrypted and secured. If you’re asking for someone’s email address, they’ll want to understand who they are giving this information to and what you plan to do with it. 

In addition to providing very specific details at the time of conversion, keeping trust signals top of mind across your site will help provide users with an understanding of your organization that can lead to trust and confidence when they’re taking the next step. These trust signals could include things like awards you’ve won, organizations you are affiliated with, partnerships, or testimonials. If you don’t have these items present on your site, adding them to your homepage or within your footer is a great place to start. You want to show off these great accomplishments and they can have an important impact on your site’s value! 

5. Mistake: Leaving human behavior out of the equation.  

Solution: Leverage behavioral tactics in your offers and copy. 

Using behavioral insights to understand how certain messaging and tactics can influence decision making is very important as you are developing conversion offers and actions for your site. Behavioral tactics I’ve seen used effectively include messaging around urgency, scarcity, loss aversion, and social proof. Here are some examples of messaging that target each of these tactics. These can all be mixed, matched, and customized based on your offer. 

1. Scarcity: “Only X spots left”
2. Urgency: “Sign-ups close in X days”
3. Loss aversion: “Save $X if you sign up today” 
4. Social proof: “XX members have already reserved their spot” 

Always keep your user’s best interests in mind when leveraging these behavioral insights. When used effectively, they can lead to impactful and improved conversion rates. 

Check Your Top Landing Pages for These Common CRO Mistakes

Are you guilty of making any of these five mistakes on your site? As a next step, I recommend opening your site’s homepage or top landing page to identify how many of these mistakes may be present. If you do notice any, brainstorm how you can apply the solutions I outlined above effectively to your page. You’re spending the time and money to get traffic to your site, so be sure that it’s converting once it’s there! 

Does your company need help with their conversion rates? If so, feel free to reach out today to learn how we can help!

Solutions To Avoid Five Common CRO Mistakes is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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It’s important to know when to consider running an A/B test so that when you come across these opportunities, you’re able to set up a test that will help you make a data-driven decision and create an experience that’s best for both your users and your goals. 

5 Instances When You Should Consider A/B Testing 

1. You’re implementing a change to your site and want to make sure you don’t hurt your conversion rate. Making changes to websites is pretty common, but if you want to ensure that this change won’t affect your conversion rate, running an A/B test is a great option. Before adding the new feature to your site, you can run an A/B test so 50% of users will see your site with the new feature and 50% will see the control version of your site. This way, you’ll be able to see how some of your audience interacts with the new feature. The best case is that it will actually help boost your conversion rate. A null result which happens if both versions perform similarly, is also successful, however, and will tell you that adding this new feature to your site will not detract from your primary goals. 
2. You want to boost your conversion rate. Let’s say that there’s a page on your website that’s getting a lot of traffic, but you’re not seeing the conversions or engagement you’d like to. If you run an A/B test, you’ll quickly get feedback on what impact small changes to the page can have. The great thing about identifying conversion rate opportunities for these high volume pages is that you’re able to get insightful data quickly, as you’re able to show each version of your page to a rather large sample size. Start by reviewing the user experience and identifying any areas of friction for users, then create a hypothesis to test how removing that friction might boost your conversion rate. You can also test small things like your call-to-action button color or text because sometimes these small changes make a big difference (more on that below). 
3. You have two ideas and you’re not sure which will work best. Perhaps you’ve mocked up a couple of options for a change on your site, but you’re not sure which will perform better. This is a great opportunity to run an A/B test and make a data-driven decision for which option you should add to your website. You’ll want to choose your primary metric of success for the test by identifying what you’re hoping this section of the page will do. Do you want them to click a button, stay on the page longer, fill out a form, or something else? Set up your test according to this metric and see which version of the page has more success, then you’ll be able to implement that version for all users.
4. Best practices may not apply to you. In digital marketing, it’s easy to rely on best practices to inform our decisions. Best practices can be a useful starting point, but it can also be dangerous to rely too much on them, as they aren’t necessarily one-size-fits-all. Running A/B tests can help you understand what works best for your specific audience and what they are looking for from your brand. For example, email marketing best practices will say to send your email on Tuesday morning. But, the best time to send an email could vary greatly based on if you’re email lists include work or personal email addresses. Running A/B tests allows you to identify how your audience interacts with your brand which, in turn, will help you confidently create what is best for your users. 
5. Small tweaks can make a big difference. As a digital marketer, you always want to improve upon your marketing efforts. And when it comes to these optimizations, small tweaks can have a big impact. Consistently running meaningful A/B tests on your site allows you to continue to optimize your site for your audience and goals. When thinking about what changes to test, they don’t have to be (and probably shouldn’t be) large. Small, easy changes, like changing your button copy from “Download Now” to “Get My Copy”, could have a meaningful impact on your most important metrics. 

Finding your next opportunity to A/B test

A/B testing allows you to feel more confident about the changes you’re implementing and gain a better understanding of your audience. So, the next time you find yourself in one of these five scenarios, we recommend that you consider running an A/B test to help you make better, more data-driven decisions for your site.   

Does your company need help with their conversion rates? If so, feel free to reach out today to learn how we can help!

When Should You Run An A/B Test? is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.