What you need to do to improve your conversion rates
Driving all the website traffic in the world to your website means nothing for profits if no one is buying, which is why maximizing conversion rates is paramount. Follow these five crucial steps to increase conversions while leaving nothing to chance.
1. Eliminate website flaws.
If the road to your payment page is laden with errors and other annoyances, it will become the road less traveled. To pave the way for conversions, first ensure the page load time for your website is less than seven seconds. For every second of load time reduced between 15 seconds and seven, conversion rates increase by 3 percent, according to a study conducted by Intuit. In other words, if you can slash your website’s download time from 15 seconds to seven, you can increase your conversion rate by 24 percent!
To decrease page load time, reduce the file size of images with a tool like Riot. If using a WordPress theme, ensure it’s not weighed down by too many Flash elements and JavaScript. Your layout should be clear and easy to navigate. Also, do your research to make certain you have invested in a quality hosting provider. With some of the cheaper providers, you pay for it with slow download rates. In January 2014, mobile use officially surpassed PC use, as reported by Search Engine Watch, so be sure to optimize your website for mobile.
Finally, analyze your website with Google PageSpeed Insights to determine what areas may be slowing your download time.
2. Post content that sells.
The saying is tired but true: Content is king. Potential customers not only want quality content, but Google is forever improving its methods to give higher ranks to valuable websites and penalize subpar ones.
By providing interesting information, visitors will actually stay on your website. The more they read, the more they like and the more enticed they become to buy. Craft your content for your audience, rather than for increasing sales, by emphasizing your company’s or product’s benefits rather than its features.
Buyers like honest, informative product reviews, product comparisons (especially those in an easy-to-follow table), lists (such as those of the best tools or guides), narratives to personalize your message, and broad mentions of who your product/company benefits. Be careful not to exclude anyone, but if you can describe your target audience, they will respond by immediately identifying with your product or service.
3. Position your links wisely.
Thanks to banner-overuse, many users have “banner blindness,” so a large flashy banner at the top of your website leading to your purchase page will not likely be effective. That said, don’t be afraid to place a link to your purchase page “above the fold,” i.e. visible on your home page without requiring scrolling.
Purchase links placed within the body of your content should be extremely strategic. If the link seems out of place, it may actually deter your reader from buying. When explaining how to resolve an issue, place a purchase link to your product or service if it offers a solution.
Placing purchase links at the bottom of the page is helpful because readers expect to find them there. Plus, more cautious buyers will want to read the full article before deciding to buy.
4. Optimize your email marketing.
With visitors’ first visit, you should aim to earn a sale or gain another email subscriber for the extended sales pitch. Readers may not plan to revisit your website, but if they sign up for your newsletter, you can keep your business and product top-of-mind.
Create a landing page with your email opt-in form, and also place it on the side of content or below it on other pages. If you use a pop-up form, ensure it only appears once so as not to annoy your readers.
Sweeten the deal with an enticing free incentive, such as a free report, in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. In your description, stress the amazing benefits of the incentive and how it will help your prospective customer. Use inviting, friendly language and provide the incentive as quickly as possible to your subscribers.
As with your website, your newsletter should provide quality information while emphasizing the benefits to your customer, rather than the product’s features. Use a soft-sell approach in your first three to five correspondences, and then drive home the sale in the next with a hard sales pitch.
5. Always finish with a call to action.
Finishing content with a call to action provides a clear purpose. Readers don’t want to get to the bottom only to wonder what the purpose of the article was. Directing readers to your purchase page, as described in step three, is one type of call to action.
Welcoming prospective customers to sign up for your email newsletter, as explained in step four, is another terrific call to action. Some buyers may require more time and information before converting, which is especially true for larger purchases.
You can also encourage visitors to view another article or page on the topic. With their extended visit, you have improved your opportunity to build rapport and covert the reader into a paying customer.
Increasing conversions is as simple as evaluating and improving the download time of your website, posting quality content that emphasizes your product’s benefits, strategically placing links to your purchase page, developing an effective email marketing strategy, and always finishing with a call to action. Now I’ll follow my own advice and conclude with a call to action: to better understand conversion rate optimization and to learn what to do and what not to do, check out this Affilorama blog post on the topic.
