An issue many business owners face is how to generate more sales. Creating great content, improving your website’s domain authority, and engaging with social media channels are key elements to generating traffic and ultimately greater sales opportunities. Yet, it’s not enough to just focus on the number of visitors to your website. Of the many people that find themselves on your website, many will likely leave without taking action. But how to increase the number of website visitors that go on to become customers, a metric known as the conversion rate? The list below details eight steps you can take to improve your website’s online conversion rate.
1. Focus on Usability & Page Layout
Designing an intuitive and easy to use website can be the #1 determinate of your website’s success. A potential customer should be able to understand the purpose of your business within the first few seconds. A study conducted by Neilson Norman Group reveals that “the mean increase of conversion rates with usability optimization [is] 87%.” Consequently, making your website easy to navigate will positively impact on your website’s conversion rate.
Improving your website’s usability does not have to be difficult or time-consuming. The growth and proliferation of A/B testing has shed light on best practices with regards to usability design. Save yourself time and money by capitalizing on other people’s research and implement these best practices on your website. Websites such as www.Unbounce.com, www.SquareSpace.com and www.WebFlow.com do a great job of not only highlighting these best practices but also putting them into action with their easy to use, pre-designed templates.
2. Reduce the Number of Form Fields
Many companies generate leads when a visitor completes a form on their website. However, studies show that having a long form will detract customers. Best practices indicate that a conversion form should contain as few fields as possible. Consequently, streamlining your request form can greatly improve your website’s conversion rate.
Expedia, the online travel company, saw a significant surge in sales after removing a single field. After utilizing SAS analytics to figure out why a large number of customers never completed their transaction after clicking the “buy now” button, Expedia realized that many customers were confused by an additional field on the billing form that allowed customers to enter their company name instead of their own name. By simply removing this optional field, Expedia “saved about a million dollars a month in lost business.”
Another website owner’s A/B test also showed that removing a single form field proved to be effective. This simple action increased his website’s conversion rate by 26%.
3. Showcase Trust Symbols Relevant to Your Legal Focus
Differentiating your company from others in your industry is quite challenging. It may be difficult to convey to potential customers why they should trust and value your business model.
One simple way to convey trust and expertise through your website is with testimonials. In fact, testimonials are one of the fundamental elements to a high converting landing page. Providing relevant and meaningful customer reviews and media mentions is an effective way to solidify your reputation and convey your ability to provide a valuable service.
4. Highlight Your Unique Selling Point and Convey a Value Proposition
A meaningful value proposition is an important element that will help to separate your website from others in your industry. A value proposition is a promise that the customer will receive something significant, be it a product or service. The value proposition is generally presented in the form of a headline or supporting copy close to your conversion form. Key aspects of an effective value proposition include a clear description of your product or service and the unique benefits of using it.
Examples include “Sign up today for 15% of your first purchase” or “Complete the form and speak with an attorney today for free.”
5. Correlate Images and Headlines
Images are a fantastic way to improve communications with potential customers. Wisely choosing complementary images enables you to effectively strengthen the message in your headlines. Maintaining proper synergy between these key elements ensures that your visitors clearly understand the value your business offers immediately upon visiting your website. Studies show that incorporating images of people can have a drastic impact on your conversion rate. Moreover, tying in an image and headline with the text of your landing page is critical for seamless customer engagement and consequently, high conversion rates.
6. Call to Action Buttons
Call to action buttons direct visitor attention to your offered services, prompting the visitor to take such action as buying a product, downloading a white paper, or requesting information.
The exact text and placement of your call to action button can vastly affect your conversion rate. For example, placing the call to action buttons well above the fold to reduce the need to scroll may greatly improve website conversion rates.
The Expert Institute’s website design team devoted a lot of time and energy to testing the test and color of our call to action buttons. We’ve found that using colors that contrast with the themed colors of our site is extremely effective. Our brand colors are blue and white, so green call buttons visibly stand out against our layout and effectively draw visitor’s attention to them. Our tests also showed that personalized button copy can be very effective. Changing our call to action buttons to read “Find My Expert” boosted our conversion rates by 96%.
7. Stand by Your Product
Guarantees can be a great way to improve your website’s conversion rate. Like testimonials and media mentions, guarantees are trust signals that serve to eliminate the “risk factor” for first-time clients. Standing by your product indicates that you are invested in the client’s experience and that you are confident in the quality and value of the services you provide. Featuring a guarantee on the same page as your form field can greatly increase the number of people who request your services.
8. Improve Page Load Time
Gone are the days of dial-up Internet and slow webpage loading time. Studies show that most webpage users expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less. Moreover, 57% of visitors will abandon a page that takes 3 seconds or more to load. As a result, having a quick loading webpage can significantly impact your conversion rate.
Many free services allow you to test and analyze your websites page load time. For example, Google offers a free tool through Google Labs called Page Speed Online. This fantastic service pinpoints specific actions to take to improve your page load time. Pingdom and Yahoo! YSlow are also great tools.
