Behind every great website’s strategy is the goal of converting traffic into actual paying customers. After all, if it doesn’t convert, it’s not working well.
Fortune 500 companies, SMEs, online entrepreneurs, and even freelancers are establishing their online presence to make a profitable business and reach a wider audience.
But traffic alone won’t cut it—visitors should also be influenced to perform certain actions.
By working on simple changes on your website, you’ll be able to convert traffic visiting your website into paying customers.
Clear messaging and navigation
Upon landing on your website, you’ll need to make your message clear. Make sure to immediately address why they are at your website in the first place. What are you offering? Would they benefit from it? If so, how?
Additionally, keeping your website simple and straightforward is the way to go. This allows your visitors to easily move around your website, which improves their experience, which in turn boosts your conversion rates.
Another deciding factor for your first-time visitors is your site’s UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) design. Factors such as usability, user engagement, and your key performance indicators (KPIs) play an important role in determining your conversion rates.
Call-to-actions
The main goal of your website is to monetise the traffic coming in, or at least move visitors closer to that goal. Obviously, you won’t be able to convert your visitors into paying customers unless they take specific actions, which is why you need to guide them on what to do next. That’s where your call-to-actions (CTAs) come in.
Clear and visible
Since there is a surplus of information available online, most of your visitors don’t get the chance to browse your pages thoroughly but instead skim through and look at the key elements.
Your CTAs are the important on-site elements that you’ll need to highlight on your website to push your conversion rates to a higher level. They can be in the form of buttons, images, or even videos – anything that drives people to take the next step. Most will be buttons or links.
There are a number of factors that come into play when creating your CTAs such as fonts, imagery, color, and your text copy, all of which you’ll need consider depending on your targeted audience. You can test how effective these are with A/B tests – see if a different colour or different word has more of an impact.
Next step
CTAs provide your visitors with the next logical step once they have engaged with your website. Once they’ve finished your blog post or video, it’s up to you to direct them on what to do next.
You can then use this opportunity to work them into your sales funnel or advance them in their own customer journey. By using action-oriented language, you can guide your visitors on the next action they could take within the bounds of your website. You can have them subscribe on your email list, download specific content, sign up for a webinar, or register for a free trial or demo.
Different CTAs for different pages
When it comes to your CTAs, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution. Depending on your page or the content your visitor is exposed to, you’ll need a different CTA to match their intent.
For example, lead generation types of CTAs are placed in pages with a high percentage of new visitors, like your landing pages. They may be placed at the end, as a floating banner in the corner, or even as a sidebar.
Social media sharing buttons may also be placed in pages where you encourage your visitors to share your content, like your blog content.
Purchase CTAs, which eventually close the sale, may be placed throughout your product pages, which visitors go to after they’ve done their initial research.
Accessibility
Another element you must consider when targeting a high conversion rate for your visitors is your website’s accessibility. After all, it’s the first step for your visitors to get to your website where you can engage, interact, and connect with them.
Clear contact details
Providing great content to your visitors will surely get their attention and it might convert them into loyal paying customers in the end as well. By doing that, you’ll need to be responsive to their queries and follow-up with them if necessary. A number of visitors might come into your website, appreciate your offer, and decide to contact you for a possible demo or trial. Which is why you need to make sure your contact details are accurate, accessible, and responsive.
Most websites have their contact details at the bottom or at the top of their pages, which makes perfect sense for both. When you place your contact details at the top, visitors who are already familiar with your business or product can avoid going through the blocks of text in your landing page and instead opt to just contact you directly.
There are also first-time visitors who go through the content on your landing or sales page. After that, they can be introduced to your contact details at the bottom, which gives them the opportunity to enquire for more information.
In both instances, however, you need to make sure that all your contact details are included, such as your phone number, email address, and even your social media profiles.
Easy to read
Having blocks of texts in your website without any page breaks will simply have your content ignored. Even if you do have the right information for your visitor’s problem, they won’t hesitate to look for another website with easier formatting of their content. Avoid this by breaking your content into several parts using sub-headings, bullet points, quotations, and even images.
Also, your website visitors may not be familiar with all the technical terms and jargon in your industry, so you’ll need to use understandable language in order to connect with them.
Page Speed and mobile optimisation
Your web page’s loading time is also a critical factor in converting your visitors. As a matter of fact, you should optimise your website’s loading speed, as it has been determined that 40% of people will abandon your website if it does not load within 3 seconds or less.
In today’s market, most of the traffic that comes into your website comes from mobile. That means your users are purchasing through their phones, scanning texts on their tablets, and are engaging with your business through smaller screens. And since that’s the trend, it makes perfect sense for your site to be optimised to be both functional and comfortable to use across different mobile devices with varying screen sizes. A responsive website should automatically resize its elements depending on the device your visitor is accessing it from.
Trust factors
When your visitors have done their research and are now considering your product, they’ll be greatly influenced to proceed if they can see proof that your product or service is what you claim it to be. You need to showcase your authority and credibility in your industry.
Visitors now rely on peer-to-peer reviews more than ever prior to making a purchase as a way to determine whether or not to trust you.
Certifications
Showcasing your brand’s qualification, certifications, and awards on your website is a way for your visitors to recognise your expertise in your industry or niche. Showing your certifications, especially when they’re a fundamental part of your service, allows people to easily identify that you’re a valid source.
You should post these on your website and share them on your social profiles. You can even have a write-up of how and why you received the recognition.
Social proof
Social proof is the phenomenon where a person is likely influenced by a decision or recommendation of another when making the same purchase. In terms of marketing, there’s a goldmine of opportunities when your business properly makes use of the available social proof in your arsenal.
Several examples of social proof that you can include in your website may be in the forms of user testimonials, expert endorsements, ratings, and reviews. Third party rating sites add even more credibility.
Case Studies
One of the strongest forms of social proof that deserves a special mention is the case study. They are, by themselves, a vote of confidence in your ability to deliver services as promised.
Case studies take your audience through the journey of what the product can achieve. Use of this type of social proof explains how the product has helped a previous customer who had the same set of problems as your current visitor, which makes it an in-depth account of a customer’s experience.
Conversion opportunities
Lastly, the last element you’ll need to factor into your website to influence your conversion rates are the number of opportunities for conversion. In this area, you’ll need to be creative depending on your industry, niche, and target audience. Additionally, this is the part where you’ll need remove unnecessary elements in your website that may distract or close the window of opportunities in closing the sale.
For example, adding a pop-up to your website may do more harm than good when done incorrectly. But if you could deliver it in a non-intrusive and timely manner, it can catapult your conversion rate.
You also need to eliminate the unnecessary form fields, the tedious way of signing up, and the other distractions that negatively affect your conversion rate.
Other opportunities which open up lanes for your conversion include offering a money-back guarantee, adding a live chat to your site, or even offering a different set of your products.
Different types of conversion
Although most businesses measure their conversion rate based on their ability to make a sale, it’s not the only type of conversion you can measure to plan out your other marketing strategies.
Some conversion metrics do not necessarily involve a purchase and there are other conversions that are even made post-purchase. Your traffic involves different engagement levels, which includes different types of conversion per visitor. Here are several types of conversion your business could also aim for:
- Form submission
- Sign-up
- Clicking on CTA
- Account creation
- Content shares
- App installation
Conversion visibility
Lastly, most visitors are already familiar with your business or the product your offering. They’ve already done their research, have already decided on purchasing your product, and only coming through your site to implement the sale. Don’t make it any harder for them by hiding your purchase button. If you can have an opportunity to immediately close a sale with a visitor, give them an option of immediately finding where they can exactly do that.
If you’d like work with a business that can design a website that will maximize your conversions, then get in touch with our web design team in Bristol. Our Digital and Design teams work hand in hand to ensure a website that fits all your criteria and, ultimately, generates you new business.
