Do you want your website to generate more sales?

Increase website conversions.

Increasing your website conversion rates is absolutely necessary to expand your business and grow your revenue.

Many businesses focus on increasing website traffic. More traffic doesn’t equal more sales. More traffic could actually hurt your website unless you also increase your conversion at the same time. If you have a 1000 visitors a month with no sales, doubling the number of your visitors will not increase your sales. It will only increase your expenses, especially if you are paying for the traffic.

You can’t focus on traffic without also trying to increase website conversion.

There are many ways to increase your website conversions but we will go through a few different methods that are commonly used to increase sales.

Headlines

Your headline is what turns a website visitor into a reader. It is one of the first steps to convert a visitor into a prospect. The better the headline the more it will help you increase website conversion.

Here is what makes a great headline:

  • Include your target keyword in the headline. For example, if your target keyword is “web designer,” start your headline with “Web Designer…”
  • Numbers make headlines more effective.
  • Challenge convention. Can you surprise your readers? If you challenge convention, you will surprise your readers. You could create the headline “Why Building a Website Was The Worst Thing That I’ve Done For My Business.” You could write an article explaining the difference between the average website and a great business website.
  • Include action verbs such as grow, improve, increase, launch, drive, set up, reduce, and much more.
  • Test different headlines and check results.
  • Include the offer in the headline.
  • Offer something free. “Get Free shipping on orders over $75.”
  • Make the headline a question. “How to Improve Website Conversions in 5 Easy Steps?”

Content

A great headline will get people interested in your content. To keep visitors on your website, your website must have great content.

Here is what makes great website content:

  • For great conversions website, copy must provide answers to questions. What are problems your customers are facing?
  • Stories make great content. Readers relate to stories better than a list of facts or a bulleted list of facts.
  • List features and benefits.
  • Avoid jargon.
  • Evoke emotions.
  • Test different versions of website copy.

Call to Action

A call to action is important for several reasons:

  • Increase conversion rates.
  • Create focus on the web page.
  • Measure the effectiveness of a web page.
  • Give direction to site visitors.

Incredibly, many websites have no call to action. If you don’t tell your site visitors what to do they will never buy from you. Each web page should include a call to action.

If you want more sales, leads, prospects, phone calls, downloads, social shares, or email subscribers, you must create a call to action for each.

Tell exactly what you want people to do on your website. To find out what makes a great website call to action check out this article.

Build Credibility

People want to buy from those they trust. If you want to increase sales conversions, you must build trust.

Here is how to build trust on your website:

  • Show testimonials. Your future customers want to know that your current customers are happy with your business.
  • Show your product or service in multiple ways. Your could show videos about your product in action.
  • Publish reviews.
  • Support your claims with data.
  • Offer guarantees.

Live Chat

Live chat will help you increase website conversions. Many people prefer live chat over making a phone call. Live chat is faster and less of a commitment than making a phone call or writing an email. It is a quick way to get a question answered.

If you are going to have a live chat feature on your website, make sure that it is working. Many websites have the live chat feature. The problem is that the live chat is offline. There is no one on the other end to answer a question. If you don’t have the staff to work the live chat don’t install it on your website. It is a big turnoff to see an offline live chat. It frustrates visitors. It will hurt your credibility.

A/B Testing

A/B testing works by having two alternative versions of your page. With page A you would have one headline for example. Then, page B would have a different headline. Both pages would have some sort of call to action. That could be a buy button or an email list subscribe form. Then you would use an A/B testing software that directs half of the normal traffic to page A and the other half to page B. Then you should be able to look at the results and see which version actually converts higher.

From there you can continue to tweak the headline even further to get a laser targeted website or you could tweak other parts of your site. For example, you can try different page layouts, different color schemes, add video, different images or even a different offer.

Hire a web designer to help you set up an A/B test.

Use Simple Language

Often people will try to use fancy words in their sales pitch or throughout the website content in general. This is a mistake. Trying to sound tech-savvy or knowledgeable in a subject can actually turn off the viewer’s interest. If they cannot understand you without a dictionary in hand, then why would they want your services or your product?

It helps if you keep your website’s readability score below 9. The readability of this article is 7.1 according to the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula. You can check your web page’s readability score.

Show Clear Value In Your Product

Often businesses will miss the opportunity to sell or convert their website visitors. A great website starts the conversion from the first few seconds a visitor arrives. You need to show, and it better happen fast, how your service/product/email list will solve the problems of the visitor.

You can even start with a relevant question that might tug at the site visitor’s attention. Then follow up with how and what you are offering is exactly what they need.

If I asked you to explain the benefits of your offer in 10 words, what would you say? We are trying to make it clear as day why I need what you have.

How Easy Is Your Website to Navigate?

Websites that are confusing or have too much going on can turn away viewers fast. When a visitor navigates away from your website for any sort of reason your bounce and exit rates spike.

High bounce rates are bad for two reasons:

  1. It’s bad for your business because you lose the sale.
  2. It’s bad for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Search engines take notice and lower your rankings.

Due to the high bounce rate the credibility of your website suffers. The result is lower website conversions. The high bounce also tells the search engines that your website must not be interesting or the content of your website is not relevant to the visitor. Either way, high bounce rate is bad news for your website and your search ranking will suffer.

If you are in a highly competitive market, then you want the SEO of your site to be as good as possible. Lowering website bounces is very important.

There are different ways you can do this. It can be as easy as keeping a clean website. This basically means that there is not too much going on. This includes not giving the viewer too many choices.

People click off websites where they can’t figure out how to get what they want. Their time is limited. You have to help your visitors every step of the way to find what they need, fast.

Speaking of which, have you ever closed a website because it was loading too slowly? I know I have. Loading time because of several factors can also have a big impact on your bounce rates and conversion rates. Work with your web designer to improve the speed of your website.

Show the Value of your Offer

Why should I buy into whatever you are offering? This is one of the most important questions you should be asking yourself. Does your offer explain all benefits and show enough to actually convince someone that they need your product?

Your product should pop out at the visitor and this can be done many ways. Create a strong case to show everything your product offers. Show pictures and maybe even a demo video of your offer.

You can even create a sense of urgency by introducing a limited time offer. What this does is tell the viewer they need to act now or they could end up paying more later. You could have a timer where once the time runs out, either the price goes up or the offer is no longer available to buy.

This works with a set number of sales allowed such as one at this price. You can also offer a limited bonus product if you buy right now. This is sure to increase your conversion rates.

The fact is, you won’t know what works until you test it. To increase your sales, you have to test new ideas. See what increases your website sales. Always monitor your sales conversions and test new ways to improve it.

Traffic that does not convert is basically useless.

We want visitors to our site to become customers.

One of my favorite case studies is how Weather.com increased it’s Trial Subscriptions by 225%. They had premium services but were having trouble to get people to sign on. They began a huge campaign to increase conversions and it was no small task. They went from changing the website template to changing graphics to changing the copy and text found all throughout the site. They even went way beyond that and the results surprised them. They were hoping for 30% increase in conversions. 225% improvement was even better.

You can read about their whole case study.

Guest Checkout

Don’t require shoppers to create an account to checkout.

Conclusion

What are you going to do to increase your website’s conversion rate? Are you going to introduce a limited time offer? Are you going to make your website load faster? Are you going to improve your website navigation? Which of the above ideas will you test first to improve your website conversion?

 

photo credit: business diagram