If you have a website for your business, you’re probably interested in two things: increasing targeted traffic and increasing online conversion rates.
We know that targeted traffic is the desired demographic of people visiting your website, but what is a Conversion Rate?
In the context of a website, your conversion rate measures the number of customers that visit your website that end up purchasing your service or product- in other words, SALES.
For many business owners, a problem arises when you get traffic on your website but for some reason that traffic does not lead to a conversion.
Why is that?
Chances are, your website is not optimized for conversions the way it needs to be.
There are several factors that play into the success of your conversions that are obvious, and there are even more factors that are not so obvious.
The most common first steps would be the addition of the following items to your website.
- “Call to Action” button: Someone clicks on it and hopefully they move through the sales process.
- Contact (or Lead) Capture Forms: Collect their information and get back to them at a later date.
- Phone Number: Get your phone ringing through Digital Media Marketing
- Email/ Newsletters: Sign-ups can be very beneficial to keep people updated on your services and current events if they aren’t ready for an immediate purchase.
These are the most common “beginner” essentials for conversion, but there may be more that’s keeping your viewers from purchasing your goods.
A deeper look into the following website elements may be the key to your success.
Web Design
A major mistake that many business owners make is focusing too much on targeted traffic without any attention to optimizing their web design. They think that as long as people are visiting the website, potential customers are bound to buy their product.
Web design is much more than just creating a page that looks cool. A page can be as aesthetically pleasing as you want, but if it doesn’t inform visitors about your brand, or is difficult to navigate, there will be major problems when it comes to conversion rates.
Ideally, you want your web design to:
First Impressions
First impressions matter. If you have a social media account for your business, make sure that your website has a similar design that is easily identifiable as your brand – this builds trust.
If your website looks nothing like your social media outposts, people may get confused and leave your page thinking it’s not your website.
In terms of the look and feel of your website, be sure to make your web design aesthetically pleasing to the customer while also staying on brand. The website should be simple yet professional, and the transitions from page to page should be uniform and easy to maneuver throughout.
Which leads us to….
Your Landing Page
Your website’s landing page is extremely important, as it serves as an introduction to what your company is all about. It should be clear and informative right off the bat but also, include elements that draw visitors in. This is the first page they see- which is why the overall design and attractiveness is important.
When designing your landing page, some significant things to consider include:
- Landing pages should always be the highest quality.
- Headlines should be compelling and include your Keywords
- The content of the landing page should be straight and to the point.
- Make sure that your content makes sense to your intended audience.
- Make sure the design is attractive, simple and clean. AVOID CLUTTER!!!
Design Continuity Amongst Web Pages
It may be tempting to construct each page with a different color scheme, but this is extremely harmful to your website’s trustworthiness. Professional websites stick with a theme that is easily translatable with recognizable patterns.
If you can keep the redirection and changing templates on each page to a minimum, more people will likely stay longer on your website.
Your website should give visitors the feeling that you are a reputable, trustworthy company. Color schemes that are consistent throughout your site, along with any fonts and other styling details, help establish that professionalism.
Let’s say you are incredibly happy with your web design, yet you are still not generating conversions. This may be because your website is not optimized with the keywords targeting your desired purchasing clients.
You may be getting traffic, but maybe Google is sending you the wrong traffic.
Optimized Keywords
If you want to increase the traffic to your website, the most important thing to consider when creating content for your pages are the keywords that you use.
Here are some important things to remember when choosing your keywords.
- Make sure that the keywords are relevant, so that your intended audience will be able to think of these words when searching the internet.
- Remember to group and organize your keywords. Specific keyword groupings of a relevant nature will increase the chances of your website showing up in a search.
If you are an ecommerce business, a great way to both build trust and utilize keyword optimization is through your product pages and lets be honest, this is where you want most visitors to land anyway. Product pages mean possible conversions.
Building Trust for eCommerce
People want to see what they are purchasing, and they want as many details as possible. Social media platforms usually provide an opportunity for you to post photos of your products, but these photos also need to be displayed on your website.
Make use of the product pages to showcase your products. Include detailed descriptions, specs, sizes, colors and more. Don’t forget to provide a link to customer reviews as well, as consumers rely on these types of social proof.
Include pricing that is easy to see and understand. You can also include promotions that will drive sales by displaying discounts and other specials in an easily accessible location. Finally, make sure that your customers feel secure when making a purchase by providing the necessary information and security measures to assure them that their data is protected.
By creating an enjoyable shopping experience on your website, you can build trust with potential customers and increase conversions in the process.
Use High- Quality Images
Your product image is an advertisement. The image needs to be eye-catching yet tell the truth about your product. Make sure that the picture is a high- quality image that appeals to the eye.
Images that have different colors and angles can really boost your conversion rate. For some, they relate more and interpret more visually as opposed to reading text. Especially in a page dominated primarily by text, an image or two is a great way to break up content and keep visitors engaged.
You want to please both types of people by using quality images and clear text.
Detailed Product Descriptions
Product description is a crucial part in the customer’s decision making process, so don’t just fill the description pages of your site with useless information. Use these sections to highlight the features of your product in an easy-to-understand way.
Be sure to add a few images or videos to accompany the product descriptions as well. People are more likely to buy something if they can see it in action, so give them multiple perspectives on your product and how it works. Show off any unique features that make your product stand out from the competition.
Be Honest
Do not try to trick your customers. Display the prices and extra charges clearly for the customer to see. If a customer goes to pay for their item and realizes that shipping is way too much, then most likely they will leave that item in the shopping cart and go look somewhere else for the product.
If you take all of these techniques and apply them to your website, then there is no doubt that you will see a positive increase in your web conversions.
Consistency is Key
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again. Consistency is crucial to increasing conversions. Visually, consistency is comforting and reassuring- but sometimes visuals are not enough. You must also ensure that the copy on your page or content is consistent. Make sure that you are using the same language and brand messaging across all of your pages so that customers have a clear understanding of what they’re buying and what to expect.
Sometimes, the visitors on your website are not ready to make a purchase. They say it takes between 10 and 12 tries before sales are made. And this is why adding a call to action newsletter is essential to your conversion.
You may be asking, how does email marketing help with conversion? It may be a small component, but it has potential to be huge.
People go to your website for information first, the purchasing part happens after they’ve learned about your product. They may not be in a position to make a purchasing decision immediately, so it’s important you find ways to stay in front of them.
By offering an opportunity to join a newsletter or email list, you stay relevant to the visitor, while also not pressuring them. Get people to opt in to email newsletters and send emails to stay in front of them.
Social Media
Another powerful way to stay in front of people is through social media.
Put social media widgets on your homepage, and get people to connect with you. Getting that connection is much more powerful than just getting another page view on your website.
You want to bring people from social media websites to your own site. However, with Facebook it is different, in that studies have found that people don’t want to leave Facebook. Therefore, utilize the Facebook apps for closing sales. Include an enticing graphic on the app, or run ads that lead directly to the app and use those custom tabs to create conversions within Facebook.
An added bonus to social media is that it will improve the quality of inbound traffic. Your social media traffic consists of people who already know your brand, trust it and have confidence built up with you.
Leading people from social media outposts to your website requires using the right bait. In the book “How To Win Friends and Influence People”, author Dale Carnegie talks about how he loves strawberries and cream, but for some reason fish love worms. So when he goes fishing, instead of baiting his hook with strawberries and cream he would bait it with worms.
Basically, don’t be focused on what you want, think about what’s in it for your audience. What’s the incentive? What will get your ideal customer excited? Are they looking for discounts? Free webinars? Local providers? Figure out the right incentive that gets someone to move down the sales funnel.
Create compelling offers for your audience. A few ways of doing this are by incorporating the following tactics: scarcity, limited time availability, and consequences. Use an alarm-based marketing formula and your conversions will definitely go up.
Add a Call to Action
The other item you need to consider is the CTA (call to action). The CTA is part of both the landing page and the ads. CTA is important, because it asks the individual to take action. Here are some things to remember when considering the CTA.
- Keywords are important to creating good ads. These ads need to ask for a CTA, because this brings the customer further into the website.
- When creating the CTA for your landing page, remember that it needs to stand out.
- CTAs should be a focal point.
- CTAs need to be visually appealing.
- Most importantly, make sure that your CTA on your ad ties into the CTA on your landing page.
Have Easy to Find Contact Information
Questions and concerns often arise during the decision making process of conversion. Your contact information should be easy to access and find. That way, if the customer has a specific question that gets answered by a customer service representative they are more likely to purchase from that website.
Try putting your contact form at the bottom of every page and see how it improves your conversion rates.
By incorporating and evaluating all of these steps, you’ll see that your conversion rates are easy to increase. At Social Eyes, we can help you with your
- Web Design
- Identifying Keywords for SEO Optimization
- Landing Pages
- Social Media Presence
Give us a call or fill out a form on our website for a free consultation on how we can get your conversions up!
