The purpose of having a business website is to make it easier for you to sell your products or services. With three billion people connected to the internet worldwide, this could mean significantly more customers worldwide if your website is designed correctly. Your website’s ‘Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), which literally means boosting the percentage of visitors taking action on your website, then comes into play. Here are some things you may want to consider to boost the conversion rate on your website…
5 Seconds is all it takes
After a visitor lands on your site, they will leave again in approximately 5 seconds if they don’t connect with the content. When people leave your site without clicking around, this hurts your bounce rate and the search engine’s algorithm takes that as a site that’s not relevant to the search that brought the visitor in the first place and you won’t rank well for that search query any longer. Most website visitors only care about what is in it for them and you should be able to give them that information within 5 seconds.
Most visitors are not ready to buy
You have to consider that most people who research online are doing just that, research. That’s why blogs are essential. Releasing regular, helpful content will boost you on search engines and help build trust with your visitor. Also, by providing helpful content, they will feel more likely to give back to you. This is based on the concept of reciprocity. The consistent output of helpful information that does not make the customer feel like being sold results in customers who are willing to repay in kind the information given.
Have an offer
Most shopping sites, clearly splatter products on sale on their pages. Notice that the original and discounted prices are usually in big, red, bold letters. Making people feel that they won over you by buying something that used to be worth so much more is effective in making them decide that your product is a deal. Make a limited-time offer and sticking to it. Otherwise, you run the risk of being untrustworthy. Adding a free offer in return for an email address, like a free eBook, video course, checklist, coupon code, etc. will also boost conversion.
Make it Easy to Use
The best way to make it easy for customers is to have all the information they would need upfront. In case that is not possible, make sure that the necessary information like product details and calls to action are clearly visible on the page. Use contrasting colors to make sure they stand out.
It’s easy to take for granted what you know about using the web, but others may not. Test your site on a 5 or 85-year-old as they will give you feedback that you may not have thought about. Navigation around your website should be easy enough for people within those age groups.
Research & Keep Iterating
Try to remember your favorite websites. What did you like about them and why do you remember them now? You can list these down and see if any of these should work on your target market. Read everything about your target market even if your website is live. This is actually where you would have to start monitoring traffic patterns and visitor demos in order to figure out if what you have is effective or not.
People do not always succeed on the first try. The thing that sets you apart is the number of times you try again. Once a particular change leads to little or no change at all, go back to the drawing board and study your layout. Examine with heat maps and try to conclude where or what the glitch may be and how you can fix that.
Keep in mind that website conversion is always a work in progress, and be really efficient when executed effectively. It involves market intelligence, developing hypotheses, split testing, measuring results, web analytics, etc. Making sure that you know these gives you an advantage in stepping up your website conversions. Leave a comment below if this has been helpful!
