I am a huge fan of website optimisation. Pre web build usability reviews and post build data analysis are both essential but nothing helps you tweak your website towards perfection better than live unbias website optimisation tests using tools such as Google Website Optimizer (free and good enough for most digital marketers).
While most people will test a few different images and the placement of calls-to-action, it is important not to forget that optimising your copy is just as important and nothing has made me realise this more than the book, ‘Nudge‘ by Thaler & Sunstein.
Nudge is about choice and influencing decisions and I recently read a chapter about human behaviour when faced with gains or losses, and ‘framing’. Consider this example as detailed in the book:
It is a far stronger nudge to say “if you do not use energy conservation methods, you could lose £300 a year”, than to say “if you use energy conservation methods, you could save £300 a year”.
Humans are typically loss adverse and will be far more attentive if told they could lose something (shock horror) than if they can gain something (yeah yeah). The framing of the statement also plays an important part in the nudge. Although the information is exactly the same, framing it a particular way is more likely to provoke a response.
With this in mind, review the copy and calls-to-action on your website to see how you can better influence your website’s users. As always, test the variances to find the optimum. Just because a book says it’s true, it doesn’t mean the same principals apply to your users.