5 simple things to lift the conversion rate of your website
Some of you may have seen this type of thing before but for others looking to CONVERT more of the traffic that reaches your website then this is for you!
People arrive at your website and in this day and age a savvy user expects more than just a basic online shop front (whether consumer focused or B2B service orientated). Having a simple brochure website, especially in a recession forcing everyone else to lift their game, may as well say "don't bother with us, we don't respect our online visitors so go look at another website that will be more use to you."
So to help here's a brief list of 5 things you really should add to your website (and other pages where possible) to take that visitor and make them believe in your business and what good you are going to do for them.
They really are real simple and can be implemented at next to no cost.
1) The Power of Calls to Action
You've sold your product or service, listing its features and benefits to enhance someone else's life so now you have to make the visitor to your site do something. What thing do you want them to do? Buy in? Download a white paper? Ask for more details from you?
You'd be surprised how many business websites let/make the user figure out where to go next, this is frustrating to some, even more so if your navigation system is awkward to use or figure out.
Some examples of calls to action:
FREE Download Here
Buy Now
Add to Basket/Cart
Contact us here for more info
Sign up here for even bigger savings
Buy Today - 50% OFF Click Here
These are great but next to useless if your site is heavily laced with text. What you'll need is to create some buttons to stand out from the page - try this free button generator here
Make sure the text leading upto the button really solidifies what it is you are trying to promote, to reinforce to the user they really should be getting ready to do something (that "thing" being in your favour and not lactually eaving the website).
2) The Power of Testimonials
I built my first ever commercial website way back in 2000 and advised the client a few testimonials would be great. He did one better and sent through 3 pages worth.
The more testimonials you can incorporate on a page, the better. I believe users buy in from third party comments, so ensure you place testimonials prominently on your website's pages. The more people see what others think of you the more they are prone to wanting in and taking up your product or service! Its really that simple.
3) The Power of the Return Visitor
You will need analytics software such as Google Analytics (its free to use and simple to deploy in a basic format) to understand how many people return to your website.
Why do you want return visitors?
Because they are easier to convert into new business, they already have visited your website so know what to expect to a degree, trust what they see and are beginning to trust you as a business with some potential integrity.
I solved a business owners website in a matter of minutes last year due to him only wishing to focus on new visitors to the website. Sure they are important but we had set up goals on analytics tracking percentage of spend and the following figures came out:
In one month £10,000 was spent online by visitors to his website.
Roughly 10,000 to 12,000 people visited his website. For ease of calculation lets be conservative and say average 10,000 visitors per month.
8000 visitors were new to the website.
2000 visitors returned to the website.
£8000 was generated by 2000 RETURN visitors to the site whereas only £2000 of sales was generated by new visitors. For months this business owner had targeted new visitors to the website, only wanting people to buy from him "without going elsewhere"... I advised he was wasting energy as his thoughts were not consistent with web usage patterns generally (i.e. comparison shopping).
By ensuring he used better calls to action (with time limits) and making regular use of offers to entice people back to the website, increased that sales figure even further. Yes, new visitors are important to your online venture but make their visit to your website a positive, memorable one. This will increase the likelihood of leading them back at some point in the future, increasing your chances of a sale or enquiry.
4) The Power of Sticky Content
How do you make sure people stick around your website when most people's attention spans are traditionally very low when surfing the web?
A few things you'll need to consider:
Other ways are to place offers on your web pages and keep your content updated. If possible announce that your website has new content and if you keep a list of emails to market to then let them know. You want an offer that will really get people talking. These days too many businesses seem to offer such mediocre offers that float no-one's boat so with a little creativity you will be able to stand out from the crowd.
News items are great but unless you are dedicated you soon will have a website looking out of date especially when your last news item is showing as posted over 4 months ago!
5) The Power of Social Media
Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Delicious and more like blogs such as Wordpress and Blogger... you can waste hours or even days on these types of Social Media websites however they need to be reviewed as potentially useful tools for your website to generate interest from the online public.
It's best that you start by building a up a network of like minded folk who can help you promote your pages from a third party basis and you'll need to take care as too much self promotion is frowned upon.
If you can think of a social aspect to your business and apply leverage in the correct manner (i.e useful information pages, blogging, interesting or funny images) this can all help increase overall exposure to your website (and the number of links to it).
In Conclusion
These 5 relatively simple things you can do will all bring dividends, whether direct sales, more phone enquries or even greater brand exposure (i.e. with users spending more time on site). The principle activity your website needs to consider is monetizing every visitor to your website.
Let us know how you get on!
People arrive at your website and in this day and age a savvy user expects more than just a basic online shop front (whether consumer focused or B2B service orientated). Having a simple brochure website, especially in a recession forcing everyone else to lift their game, may as well say "don't bother with us, we don't respect our online visitors so go look at another website that will be more use to you."
So to help here's a brief list of 5 things you really should add to your website (and other pages where possible) to take that visitor and make them believe in your business and what good you are going to do for them.
They really are real simple and can be implemented at next to no cost.
1) The Power of Calls to Action
You've sold your product or service, listing its features and benefits to enhance someone else's life so now you have to make the visitor to your site do something. What thing do you want them to do? Buy in? Download a white paper? Ask for more details from you?
You'd be surprised how many business websites let/make the user figure out where to go next, this is frustrating to some, even more so if your navigation system is awkward to use or figure out.
Some examples of calls to action:
FREE Download Here
Buy Now
Add to Basket/Cart
Contact us here for more info
Sign up here for even bigger savings
Buy Today - 50% OFF Click Here
These are great but next to useless if your site is heavily laced with text. What you'll need is to create some buttons to stand out from the page - try this free button generator here
Make sure the text leading upto the button really solidifies what it is you are trying to promote, to reinforce to the user they really should be getting ready to do something (that "thing" being in your favour and not lactually eaving the website).
2) The Power of Testimonials
I built my first ever commercial website way back in 2000 and advised the client a few testimonials would be great. He did one better and sent through 3 pages worth.
The more testimonials you can incorporate on a page, the better. I believe users buy in from third party comments, so ensure you place testimonials prominently on your website's pages. The more people see what others think of you the more they are prone to wanting in and taking up your product or service! Its really that simple.
3) The Power of the Return Visitor
You will need analytics software such as Google Analytics (its free to use and simple to deploy in a basic format) to understand how many people return to your website.
Why do you want return visitors?
Because they are easier to convert into new business, they already have visited your website so know what to expect to a degree, trust what they see and are beginning to trust you as a business with some potential integrity.
I solved a business owners website in a matter of minutes last year due to him only wishing to focus on new visitors to the website. Sure they are important but we had set up goals on analytics tracking percentage of spend and the following figures came out:
In one month £10,000 was spent online by visitors to his website.
Roughly 10,000 to 12,000 people visited his website. For ease of calculation lets be conservative and say average 10,000 visitors per month.
8000 visitors were new to the website.
2000 visitors returned to the website.
£8000 was generated by 2000 RETURN visitors to the site whereas only £2000 of sales was generated by new visitors. For months this business owner had targeted new visitors to the website, only wanting people to buy from him "without going elsewhere"... I advised he was wasting energy as his thoughts were not consistent with web usage patterns generally (i.e. comparison shopping).
By ensuring he used better calls to action (with time limits) and making regular use of offers to entice people back to the website, increased that sales figure even further. Yes, new visitors are important to your online venture but make their visit to your website a positive, memorable one. This will increase the likelihood of leading them back at some point in the future, increasing your chances of a sale or enquiry.
4) The Power of Sticky Content
How do you make sure people stick around your website when most people's attention spans are traditionally very low when surfing the web?
A few things you'll need to consider:
- Is your text too small to read?
- Is it too closely spaced together making it difficult to read?
- Is the content suitable for your audience's reading style?
- Do they want in-depth content or just an overview with the option to delve deeper into the website?
Other ways are to place offers on your web pages and keep your content updated. If possible announce that your website has new content and if you keep a list of emails to market to then let them know. You want an offer that will really get people talking. These days too many businesses seem to offer such mediocre offers that float no-one's boat so with a little creativity you will be able to stand out from the crowd.
News items are great but unless you are dedicated you soon will have a website looking out of date especially when your last news item is showing as posted over 4 months ago!
5) The Power of Social Media
Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Delicious and more like blogs such as Wordpress and Blogger... you can waste hours or even days on these types of Social Media websites however they need to be reviewed as potentially useful tools for your website to generate interest from the online public.
It's best that you start by building a up a network of like minded folk who can help you promote your pages from a third party basis and you'll need to take care as too much self promotion is frowned upon.
If you can think of a social aspect to your business and apply leverage in the correct manner (i.e useful information pages, blogging, interesting or funny images) this can all help increase overall exposure to your website (and the number of links to it).
In Conclusion
These 5 relatively simple things you can do will all bring dividends, whether direct sales, more phone enquries or even greater brand exposure (i.e. with users spending more time on site). The principle activity your website needs to consider is monetizing every visitor to your website.
Let us know how you get on!
posted by Darren Moloney at 1/20/2009 09:27:00 am
<< Home