Converting Your Website Visitors

How to convert visitors into customers, and then into repeat customers!

How can you boost website strength, optimise landing pages, and position a powerful call-to-action perfectly on your web page so visitors actually take action and buy your products or use your services.

Converting Visitors into Customers is a Universal Problem

The reality is that most websites only turn 2 per cent of their visitors into customers.

Whether your website is purely informational and your objective is to build a contactable readership through converting visitors into e-newsletter subscribers or you are looking to sell products online, whatever your objective, conversion is all about getting people to take action there and then, while you've got their attention, before they tell themselves: 'Interesting. Maybe I'll come back later and subscribe.'

There are a number of things you can immediately do to convert visitors into customers. What's more, making those critical improvements need not be expensive.

Taking the Process Further

Getting users to your site is only the start. Surprisingly, thousands of online businesses successfully attract visitors to their site (using effective search engine optimisation techniques or 'SEO') (to find out more read: Building SEO into Your Website and Guide to Search Engine Optimisation), but then sit back and wait, assuming the rest will follow.

Not so.

If you want to improve your customer conversion rate, using powerful SEO to optimise landing pages and increase traffic to your website is essential. But it is only Step 1 of the process:

1. SEO
(Search Engine Optimisation)

2. CRO
(Conversion Rate Optimisation)

3. TRACKING RESULTS
(Analysing your site's traffic data and marketing effectiveness using a stats analysis program)

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Conversion Rate Optimisation is a way of enhancing your site's chances of converting visitors to customers. The core principle of CRO is that for your site to sell more, you need to:

Convert visitors into prospects - prospects into customers - customers into repeat (or returning) customers.

How do you do this?

By building a relationship with your customers over time.

But first, you need to 'become the customer'. Put yourself in their shoes and ensure that visitors to your site can find the information they need and in the case of an ecommerce site your shopping process is easy-to-follow from start to finish.

For most websites, a few small changes might be all it takes to start converting visitors into customers in increasing numbers.

Identifying the 'Roadblocks' (Dissuasive Elements)

Offering an online experience with no unnecessary diversions or 'roadblocks' is critical in the converting-visitors-into-customers process. Many of these 'roadblocks' are the same for brochure and ecommerce websites.

Remember your site visitor has a range of options (other sites) to go to that sell the same product or service (or similar), all at the click of a mouse.

Types of roadblocks [that will have visitors clicking off your site in droves] include:

Confusing navigation.
Broken links.
Contact details not being clearly visible (or even not there at all).
Products or services being wrongly categorised.
Incomplete product or service information
Spelling mistakes in product or service descriptions, pricing, terms of sale...
Too much text or text in long paragraphs.
Vague or unreasonable return policies
The testimonials/customer feedback on the site over-claims (and therefore seems fake).
Images (especially product images) are small or blurred.
The website is simply not visibly attractive.

Replacing the Roadblocks (Persuasive Elements)

Give your visitors a rewarding online experience from start to finish. This can be achieved through the following:

Check your navigation - Simple to follow navigation allow site visitors to find the information they require without having to 'hunt around'.
Make sure all your landing pages are keyword-specific - For example, if your online shop sells baby clothes, when a user types a search query into Google looking specifically for, say, baby grows, ensure your baby grows page has been separately optimised for that particular search term (by identifying and including the right keyword phrases, code etc., for that page). The user will then land directly onto the right page of your site (instead of landing on your home page, and then having to navigate to the baby grows page from there). The same applies to services e.g. if you are a company which deals with office refurbishment have separate pages that deal with each of your services and optimise the content on each page to ensure they are keyword rich.
Have multiple calls-to-action throughout your pages - Don't just put Call Us Now, Buy Now or Find Out More about Our Services as a link at the foot of the page. Give potential customers several opportunities to contact you or purchase products and services as the visitor scrolls down.
If your site sells a range of products, ensure all product images are clear and of a reasonable size (and that they correspond correctly with product descriptions).
Ensure every transaction at your site is 100 per cent secure - If visitors are in no doubt that your online shop is a safe place to shop, they will return to buy from you again and again. They will also recommend your site to others as a place where they can buy with confidence. All this will help you to forge a solid and trustworthy reputation.
Offer Free Trials - Allow visitors to experience your products through demos or free trials.
Offer Discounts and Special Offers - People love a bargain. Special offers and discounts will help foster an affective commitment towards your site and your brand overall.
Include reviews of your site - Ensure they give a positive but balanced review, because honesty fosters trust. And trust results in sales!
Offer free postage and packing (and shipping) if you can - This way, customers will have just one price to consider.
Return policies - That are fair and easy to understand. If your site visitor knows they can return an item if there is a problem they are more likely to buy. Honour your return policies.
Always be contactable - As well as an e-mail link, ensure you have a telephone number clearly displayed on your site. Get back to customers promptly even if it's just to acknowledge receipt of their e-mail or phone message.
Check your site links - Go through the links on your site to ensure they work.
XML Sitemap - Build an XML Sitemap of your site (shows the links to all of the pages on your site), upload it to your hosting server and submit it to the search engines. The search engines use Sitemaps to index your site pages. There are a number of FREE tools available which will allow you to do this: G Site Crawler or XML Sitemaps.

And finally:

Welcome feedback - Encourage it. Ask for it. Find out what your customers like and don't like. Then make the necessary changes quickly.

Tracking Results

It's important that you take time out to analyse your site's traffic data and marketing effectiveness using a stats analysis program. In this way you can continue to identify where to improve your CRO.

Where to Start?

If your website is losing business; if demand for your services badly needs a boost; or if the key messages on your website simply aren't reaching as many people as you'd like, a sensible first step towards addressing these issues is to have a website review carried out which will allow you to pinpoint where the immediate problems are on your site and begin the process of improving / correcting any site issues you may have.

The longer you wait, the more conversions you'll lose!

Web Dandy is a web design agency which specialises in SEO and customer conversion. Contact us for more information.