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I've a product/website in Family/Relationships segment and so far it attracts 80% women and 20% men.

Mostly adults(age 25 to 55) actually pay for it. Younger users generally want it "free".

I'm looking for suggestions to improve my product/website and therefore improve conversion rates. Please help.

Update:

It seems like only women are looking for love/relationship advice and it makes sense to optimize things exclusively for them.

Yeah, so basically what should I change that would convince more females to pay for this site/application? Like should I experiment with colors or should I put up some images that might capture their attention???

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link please? Hard to give advice on a website we can't see. – Micah Oct 24 '09 at 2:13
I'm asking for general guidelines, once I've a starting point I could further research the concept. – Arpit Tambi Oct 24 '09 at 9:33

3 Answers

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You can't really stereotype all women and then expect it to work in all cases. Everybody is different. So you'll want to narrow "women" down even further. Sounds like you're doing a dating site, so specifically, you're targeting single women ages between 25 & 55. Do you care about education? Divorcees? With Kids? Employed? Or perhaps you want to target married women interested in a fling? Each specific case warrants different marketing techniques and targets and its tough to help you without specifics.

If I were to go for a general approach, I would make it easy for your users to share interesting or funny things. Make your product something anyone would like to share with friends. That's bound to be more effective than color scheme changes at this scale.

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Sharing stuff was a nice idea, they'll share what they like and capture attention of other like minded people and then we have a viral loop. – Arpit Tambi Oct 24 '09 at 20:57
up vote 1 down vote

How do you want to change it? Do you want more young people that are willing to pay, or a greater percentage of women, or more men to come (unlikely due to your title)?

If the market you are aiming for and the market you attract differ greatly then you may need to re-do your approach, but the first thing is to get an idea why those you want are not going to your site, or are not willing to pay for it?

But, this can be hard, depending on your approach.

For example, if I go to you and ask you if you like my application or site, odds are you will say no, if it is different than what you have seen.

But, if I ask: What should I change that would convince you to pay for this site/application? then I will get some potentially useful information, even if they tell me they would never pay for it.

You could start with finding an organization that is in your expected target market and see if you can give a talk that would be on-topic for them, and would enable you to introduce them to your site. This is to gather info, not to get more paying participants.

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yeah, I guess you are right. I should reach out to my product's audience and ask them. Thanks – Arpit Tambi Oct 24 '09 at 20:55
I think people forget the importance of informal polling, to see what people think of ideas and products. Good luck. – James Black Oct 24 '09 at 23:54
up vote 1 down vote

Why don't you form some focus groups and/or do A/B testing? Which competitive sites have you checked out?

Have you thought about whether younger users are more likely to be single and need dating advice? Do you NEED to monetize day 1 or can you focus on customer acquisition first?

In my opinion colors and images don't make someone more likely to pay. In general, I'd make it as easy to pay as possible from a UX standpoint and give them a "teaser" for what they'll ultimately pay for, so that they understand its value before committing. Hope that helps.

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