We’ve recently heard two way-too-common stories about groups investing real resources in optimizing their websites in different ways, for different (but still very misguided) reasons.

Example #1: Make the navigation buttons on the slideshow viewer larger.

Optimizing For: Increased use of navigation buttons on a slideshow.

Will this strategy be successful? Certainly.

What’s wrong with it? We have zero evidence that increased use of slideshow navigation correlates with increased customer satisfaction or goal attainment, so why spend precious resources this way?

What’s a better choice? Work on optimizing for increased customer satisfaction and goal attainment, simple as.  What do they want? And how can we make it easier for them to get it? Answering those questions isn’t hard, but it’s a lot harder than increasing the size of a few buttons.

Example #2: Increase PPC advertising spending allowance.

Optimizing For: Increasing traffic to website.

Will this strategy be successful? Absolutely.

What’s wrong with it? The primary purpose for the landing page is to collect email newsletter subscriptions, but the conversion process proved to be highly ineffective prior to the increased ad spend. More people coming to the site did increase raw conversion numbers, but the percent of conversions per visitor remains very low.

What’s a better choice? The much cheaper solution is to optimize the form! Examine exit points to find out where people are exiting (or to try to diagnose why they never even begin) the subscription process.  Tweak and adjust, or start from scratch if necessary, to come up with a conversion process and form design that gets more conversions per visitor. Only once the form is converting at the highest possible rate should the budget be increased for driving traffic to it.

Two pretty glaring examples, but unfortunately, they’re not unique.  Anyone can avoid this mis-optimization by acting like a 3-year-old: Question everything.

Only by relentlessly asking, “why?” you can ensure that any strategy, any initiative, any change or tweak is motivated by a proper understanding of your website’s current reality and future goals.

Try it. Why? Because it will save you time and money.