Does your website see tons of traffic? That’s great, but now you need to check if those visitors convert into paying customers. Otherwise, the amount of traffic means nothing.
At the end of the day, you earn not by counting how many people visit your site but by how many proceeded to hire your services or buy a product.
Not sure how to increase website conversion rate? We’ve got 9 tips right here to help you get started. Check out these important steps to boost conversion below:
1. Know Your Goals
You can’t plan a successful conversion plan or design efficient conversion funnels without knowing your goals. How can you improve your website conversion rates without knowing what the endgame is?
Prioritize realistic goals. Instead of stating you need millions of conversions, aim for something more specific. For example, you can aim to increase conversions by 30% in three months to test the efficiency of a new web design.
Now you can monitor your success rate. If you don’t hit that goal, it’s time to go back and check the metrics to determine what went wrong. Find out if the goal was too ambitious, if the method was wrong, or if there was a better approach you might’ve ignored.
Don’t hesitate to break big goals into smaller ones too. You might not reach your main objective until the end of the year. To guarantee you stay on track, break it down into smaller objectives that you can monitor every few months.
Is your main goal to generate enough conversions to see enough profit so you can quit your day job? Break it down into financial goals per quarter. This way you can gauge whether you’re on track every three months.
2. Monitor Your Conversion Funnels
You can break down the path a website visitor takes before they commit and purchase something. This is the conversion path. Each segment is a conversion funnel and you should expect to lose some people with each step.
For example, a basic funnel is for a person to find use keywords on Google to find a product they want. Do you offer it? Great, if your site appeared high on the SERP results, there’s a chance most people will click and land on your site.
However, landing on the homepage is a bad idea. Now they have to search again to find the exact product page. If they can’t, you already lost a percentage of potential conversions.
Do this analysis again to determine why people abandon their shopping carts or why they don’t click the Buy Now button even after showing interest in a product. Did they add it to their wishlist? Did they leave due to a confusing checkout process or because the shipping costs were too high?
Break down the conversion funnels and then check the metrics. Determine which steps lose the most potential conversions and then see if you can make any adjustments.
3. Using Heatmaps
Whenever you study user behavior on your website, make sure to use a heatmap.
If you’re unfamiliar with the tool, heatmaps give you a visual representation of user behavior. Red spots indicate portions of a page that people engage with the most while a white portion hints that few to none touch that part at all.
Yes, it only gives you a broad picture, which could lead to a false interpretation of the data. However, it’s still a good tool to identify which elements and segments of a page see the most user activities.
What should you look for with the heatmap?
First, check if your call-to-action elements garner any engagement. If your Buy Now, Subscribe, or Add to Cart buttons don’t see action, it’s time to determine why. Those are the buttons that should appear red so you know something’s wrong if they don’t.
Your CTA elements might appear too small or they might be under the fold (more on that below). Visitors might not notice them due to a cluttered page design or because of poor color and font choices.
4. Improve UX
Google prioritizes smooth user experiences. One strong deterrent to a successful conversion campaign is a messy site. People should be able to identify elements on a page with ease instead of wondering what each button or link would do.
Optimize your site for sales by prioritizing function over aesthetics. Keep in mind that a pretty website is different from a high-converting website.
Put more effort into making sure your site is easy and quick to navigate.
Focus on redesigning your website. Start by determining how difficult it is to find something on your site. If you don’t have an on-site search bar or if it takes more than 3-4 clicks to get to any page, you have a high risk of losing potential paying customers.
Why would they stick around if they can’t find what they want or need?
Page speed is an important element to prioritize. People might bounce out instead of proceeding to order something if pages won’t load quickly.
Another method to improve user experience is to provide a Back to Top button. It’s a simple addition but it quickens the experience for any visitor. It might also help a visitor who read lengthy reviews to go back up and click the Buy Now button!
5. Short and Quick Forms
Always put yourself in the shoes of your customers, especially when it comes to moments when you need to interrupt their shopping spree. Every time you present a customer with a form, make sure they can complete it in as little time as possible.
The longer and more tedious a form, the less likely people will stick around.
Remember to cut down forms to their simplest design. Don’t ask for unnecessary information. If you can boil it back down to simply asking for their name and email addresses, that’ll work since it’s quick and easy to complete.
Do you need additional information? Leave a notification after they submit the form, reminding them that they can complete the rest later on.
This is especially important when you want visitors to make an account but don’t want to bug them for their address, credit card information, and contact number. You need that information for easier transactions but for now, the form should focus on only one thing first: getting visitors to sign up. You can get the rest by reminding customers they can now access a member page or account page and complete the rest of the form.
6. Above the Fold
Ever heard of the terms below or above the fold?
The “fold” refers to the portion of your page that divides what people can and can’t see before they have to scroll down. You can improve website conversion rates by keeping the most important CTA elements above that line.
Design your site by keeping the Buy Now, Add to Cart, and Signup buttons on the top of the page. However, you shouldn’t ignore the bottom half. You can either add a Back to Top button or feature similar buttons or links.
This type of page design prioritizes convenience but make sure your CTA buttons don’t get in the way. Gone are the days when it was fine to feature big red arrows pointing at a Buy Now button. That kind of design is too blatant and tacky.
It’s important to keep social media links away from the top half, however. Everything above the fold should focus on getting customers to buy something. If you add a link there to your Facebook business page or Instagram, there’s now a chance for people to abandon their cart and get lost on social media.
7. Highlight Testimonies and Reviews
Did you know most people trust online reviews even though they come from total strangers? Many retail sites don’t allow people to leave reviews unless they bought the product first, which credibility each testimony. Reviews with photos and videos are even more convincing.
Highlight reviews. Let people see that the products available work as advertised. If there are some issues, let people read about them so they can figure out on their own whether or not it’s worth pushing forward.
Negative reviews can seem scary at first but don’t try to hide them. Doing so will only look bad on your part. Instead, let people see that you’re willing to address those issues by responding positively and apologetically to negative testimonies.
Got products with hundreds of positive reviews?
Boost conversion rates by highlighting those products on the homepage. Let people see what sells and which products rate the highest. Generate buzz for these products and watch the sales rise.
After all, those products must be worthwhile if they sell that much and still garner good reviews!
8. Abandoned Cart Campaigns
Don’t feel discouraged when shoppers fill up their carts and then suddenly leave your site before completing their orders. Today’s shoppers abandon their carts more than ever before. Some of the reasons are simple to understand and fix:
- the checkout process is too tedious
- checking out requires making an account
- delivery takes too long
- limited payment options
A slow page can also cause someone to abandon their cart. It’s also possible that they couldn’t apply a discount voucher they had or a competitor site offered the same products for a lower price. You might have a confusing website design and they simply can’t navigate forward to complete their order, so they give up.
However, you shouldn’t let this be the end of the journey.
Instead, focus on getting those customers to come back and complete their orders. Use a plugin or tool that notifies returning visitors and reminds them about their cart. If the shopper is on your email list, make sure to send out messages to convince them to complete their order!
Don’t give too many incentives, however. Some people might keep items in their carts hoping you’d offer them discount vouchers to bring them back. Instead, send out emails right when the items they have in their carts go on limited discount sales.
9. Test Everything
Got a good plan to deal with abandoned carts? Did you redesign your site and go over all your conversion funnels? The next step now is to test everything.
However, the goal isn’t simply to test whether one plan works or not. To increase website conversion rate, it’s smarter to conduct A/B split tests. This is when you test not only one version of a plan or design but multiple ones, all at the same time.
Here’s how it works: say for example you altered the sign-up forms. One uses a landscape design and asks for a person’s name, email address, and credit card information for verification. A second design is more mobile-friendly and doesn’t require credit card details since the customer isn’t buying anything yet.
Now run a test involving a small sample of people, during days your site sees the most traffic. This will help you determine which design works better and by studying the metrics you can even find out why.
Of course, it’s a safer idea to hire SEO experts to run tests for you. They have the tools and training to better understand which options worked better and why.
Boost Website Conversion Rate Today
Now you know how to effectively boost website conversion rate. There is no one-solution-fits-all method so you’ll have to combine all of these steps to rework your site, UX, forms, and more. Only then will you be able to further push leads into paying customers.
Of course, improving your site’s conversion rate is only the start. If you need help with site design, SEO, or other marketing methods, we’re here to help. Don’t hesitate to give us a call today and allow us to pave the way for your business’s success.
