Have you ever visited a website with the intention of buying something – only to discover that the actual process was extremely difficult?
You’re fully prepared to hand over your money. But completing the next step is close to impossible. Even contacting the company requires jumping through hurdles.
It happens all the time. In fact, the Internet is full of conversion-killing websites.
And believe it or not, your own site might be sabotaging sales as well.
If you’re having trouble converting visitors into customers, read on.
The key to website conversion optimization lies in providing visitors with a seamless user experience. That experience doesn’t start when they purchase. It begins the moment someone lands on your site.
And you don’t have a lot of time to spare.
According to Tribute Media, you have roughly 7 seconds to intrigue, instruct, and capture each visitor’s attention. That’s all you get to present the problem and outline your solution.
Time isn’t on your side. But with the strategies below, you can dramatically boost your chances of converting more visitors into actual sales.
Navigating your website should be as easy as 1-2-3. The user should be able to find whatever information they need with a few mouse clicks as possible. This is especially true of the main call-to-action. Visitors shouldn’t have to “search” for opportunities to sign-up, share, or purchase.
This rule also applies to menu options, contact forms, and useful resources (like your blog section).
If most of your pages are written with “we” or “our” – you’ve already lost the battle. Your site’s content should be about the users, their problems, and their needs. An effective website content strategy involves developing personas for your target market so that you can write in a language that they understand.
You can still highlight awards, mission statements, and achievements. But keep those for the “about us” page. The rest of your site should be devoted to helping readers solve whatever problems they’re facing.
If you'd like to talk about getting your website content up to speed, schedule a free consultation with us here.
The longer people stay on your site, the more likely they are to buy. And nothing boosts engagement better than multimedia.
Visitors might skim the written word, but they stare at pictures – particularly when those pictures are of other people. When you embed informative videos as well, users have even less reason to leave.
The relationship between conversions and multimedia is well-documented. Even simple headshots of your team can boost sales by as much as 20%. And as an added bonus, your search rankings might improve. That’s because Google factors “time spent on site” into its SEO algorithm (more on this in the next article).
In 2016, smartphones and tablets overtook desktops as the most popular way to browse. So if your site isn’t mobile-ready, you’re leaving money on the table.
You can use Google's free tool to determine how mobile-friendly your site is. But as a general rule:
However, the benefits of mobile-readiness go deeper.
As part of its improved ranking algorithm, Google will be crawling the mobile version of websites before visiting the desktop version in what they're calling their "Mobile-First Index." So if your site isn’t mobile-ready, your rankings will likely suffer.
Trust is an essential component of the conversion process. This is particularly true in an age where data breaches and online fraud have become so commonplace.
But how do you demonstrate to users that you take security and privacy seriously?
One simple solution is to invest in a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. With this security feature in place, the “http” component of your domain will have an extra “s” at the end (i.e. https). This SSL certificate signals to users that they’re browsing on a secure connection that follows all the latest PCI-compliant data standards.
Visitors can even see this security indicator in the search results before clicking on a site. In addition, most modern browsers now warn users not to fill out sensitive details if the connection isn’t secure.
Making the sale is already hard enough. Not having an SSL certificate merely adds unnecessary friction to the buying process.
While having a professional-looking design, quality content, and strong calls-to-action are important to generate sales, there are so many other factors that now come into play:
Following the tips outlined above can put you on the path to happier customers and more sales.
But if you’d like additional website conversion strategies, we’re here to help.
Want to talk more about how we can help you? Click the button below to book a time to talk with us, or give us a call at 916.608.8913
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