Many businesses only focus on social media marketing and hiring content writing services to rank higher on search engines. That’s great, but it’s only half the battle. The key is getting those people towards website conversion. Maybe it’s making a purchase, or signing up for weekly updates and newsletters, or becoming a member.
The bottom line is website conversion or conversion rate optimization is converting the traffic you get to your website via SEO, blog posts, social media marketing, and other efforts into paying customers.
1. Time is money
Time is really important when trying to get the attention of the visitors on your website. If you’ve been working hard on improving traffic to your website and you are getting visitors to your website, that’s just the first step. Keeping them there to browse your products and/or services is a whole other ballgame. Keeping visitors on your website long enough for them to make a purchase can be even harder.
According to research, 92% of visitors to your website don’t have any intentions to buy. What’s even more alarming is that most users will leave your website after 10 to 20 seconds.
So, what should you do?
This is where having a clear value proposition can draw in the attention of your audience.
Most visitors are ready to click away, even if they had initially clicked on your link with the intention to buy. So the best way to stop your visitors from clicking away at this crucial stage is to give them an offer they just can’t refuse.
This can be in the form of a discounted price, a free how-to guide for when they do purchase the product or a promise of delivering them the best quality product or service available. That last part will have to be backed up by proof, whether it’s social proof from past customers or independent reviewers of your product or service. The idea is to give the potential customer something to be glad they even considered clicking on your site and not the ten million other options out there.
2. What do your visitors see?
Take a good, hard look at your website. How does it look and feel to you? Is it appealing? Does it provide you with the information you need? And more importantly, does it have a clear call-to-action (CTA) or a request a quote form?
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes to get an answer.
The websites that have the best website conversion are ones who nailed the following
- Simplicity – They don’t use gaudy and bright colors to distract the reader.
- Navigability – They have drop down menus that are simple to navigate.
- Hierarchy – The most important information comes first.
- Consistency – All the pages appear uniform and pages should appear the same as possible on mobile, tablet, laptop, and PC screens.
- User Centric – Don’t beat around the bush. Be clear to your audience, and they’ll appreciate it.
If the web page contains multiple products – no problem. Allow visitors to filter through the products according to size, color, style, using AJAX-enabled side navigation. Bottom line: your website should be coherent and lightning-fast.
So does your website meet these goals?
3. Add a request for proposal (RFP)
A request for proposal (RFP) or request a quote, should be an easy way for a prospective customer to inquire about your services. This is a great way for a business to outline your services and get the ball rolling with a prospective client.
While designing the RFP for your website, it can be tempting to include just about everything on the form from the get-go. Don’t do it!
Your RFP should be short and to the point. Asking anything other than the person’s name, company name, phone, email address, website, and the services required is not only inappropriate (during this initial step), but is also time-consuming, and will only push away even a prospective customer who just wants to avoid going through a long, drawn-out process.
The idea is to make the RFP forms you use as simple as possible for the visitors to fill and submit. Also, the positioning of the RFP form is another major factor in improving conversion rates. You will want to make sure the visitors to your website are greeted with an RFP form as soon as they reach your page (and don’t have to scroll down for it).
According to research, RFP forms are most effective when they are placed on the top half of a web page – preferably on the left-hand side. This is mostly where people look when they click on a website.
4. The checkout process
For a better conversion rate, you need to shorten the checkout process. We already know that the average load time of a website should not be more than two seconds. It has been found that conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% with each additional second.
But, that’s just the time it should take for your website to appear out of nothingness on the user’s screen of choice.
The checkout process are the steps that every buyer takes from getting on your product page to completing a paid transaction.
Needless to say, your visitors who have an intention to buy a product will want a simple in and out procedure that doesn’t waste their time. So, the shorter the checkout funnel is, the more likely it is to convert a potential buyer into a paying customer.
For improved website conversion, you need to keep the buying process as fluid as possible by requesting minimal information. Once they become a recurring customer, you can always ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, at which point, they’ll be glad to.
Ideally, this is what a checkout form should look like
- Simple layout
- Multiple payment options
- No redirecting to another website to make the payment
5. Get with the Virtual Assistant scene
Chatbots are completely changing the way everyday business processes are carried out on your website. They allow visitors to get the information they need on the fly. This is far more efficient than writing an email and waiting for days for a reply or even making a phone call, where the chances of anyone picking up normally depends on multiple factors.
Chatbots offer customers the information they need regardless of the time of day or holidays.
Chatbots are great for website conversion because they do not need lunch or bathroom breaks, or need to take the day off. This means your visitors get the information they are searching for in real-time, 24X7.
This alone is enough to give your visitors a nudge in the right direction.
6. Wording and positioning of your CTA
A call to action (CTA) that’s easily visible and easy to read prompts the visitor to take a particular action. Whether that’s to make a purchase or subscribe to your newsletter. This CTA needs to be clear in its intent.
Placement
The CTA needs to be placed at the top of the fold. This is the place where the visitor can easily read it without having to scroll down. CTA’s that are placed front and center are far more effective as compared to those that are below the fold.
Shape and color
The shape and color of the CTA also matter. For instance, in the name of consistency, many businesses make the mistake of designing their CTAs using the same color and font size as the rest of their website. This only blends the CTA in with the rest of the text on the page, making it even harder for it to catch the attention of your visitors.
Being benefit-centric
All too often, we read CTAs that are just poorly written. Bad copy is like putting a gun to the head of your website or landing page… and squeezing the trigger. Bad CTA copy looks something like “buy here”, “click here”, “download”. All of these CTAs do not perform well because they are vague and not action-oriented.
To encourage the visitor to take action, you need CTA copy that is beneficial to them such as offers the visitor something in return for their action, and not just a promise of what might happen.
7. Be Honest. Always.
An important factor while building a converting website is to remember that getting people to buy from you is all about creating trust. Think about it. You wouldn’t want to invest in a company if you didn’t know where it was based, nor would you lend money to a stranger.
For the customer, buying online is pretty much the same thing. They want reassurance. They want to know where you’re based, your authority in a niche, and even more importantly, that you’re not going to sell them a lemon. Since people tend to rationalize a purchase based on emotion, you need to make them remember that you’re a real person, and your website is legit.
The best way of doing that is by providing your contact information, whether it’s a physical address, phone number, or email address or all three. Your customers need to know that they will have somebody to talk to if there’s a problem. That’s their main concern. So, address it.
Conclusion
Hopefully, these tips will help you get off to a good start with your website conversation rate optimization. You can always find ways of tweaking your landing pages and web pages for better conversion using the right combination of A/B testing and industry best practices.
