Increasing conversions without increasing traffic
Traffic has been steady or maybe it’s even trending upward, but is your site greeting your visitors in a way that is conducive to their shopping or is it trying to shove content down their throat. Keep the following in mind in order to convert more of your hard earned visitors into customers.
Keep the content fresh
We expect nothing less than fresh ingredients when we’re shopping for produce or grabbing a sandwich from the local deli but somehow leaving a site untouched for the last seven years doesn’t throw up any red flags. Content may not be as quick to become stale as fresh bread but it definitely isn’t a set it and forget it exercise. Keep things fresh by addressing product evolutions, bringing attention to industry news, or showing community involvement. But why stop at freshening up the textual content? Updating your photos or layout from time to time can payoff in big ways too. If your site is stuck in the late ‘90s or worse, the early ‘90s, its high time for a refresh.
Be clear
Are your products or services hard to understand? Time is a commodity and providing understandable content that gets your point and distinguishing factors across in a clear manner is important. Displaying your content within large blocks of text is generally irresponsible no matter how technical your products may be. Cut your content into bite size pieces and even take the time to diagram especially hard to understand or complicated information. Digging through large chunks of content to figure out what sets your product apart from another’s is annoying and will generally result in a higher bounce rate on your site than is necessary. Try getting a third party perspective from someone outside your industry to make sure it’s not just you who understand.
Optimize for your users
This goes hand in hand with being clear but is important enough that it deserves its own section. If you have ever found yourself writing your content primarily for obtaining search engine rankings, you have likely failed your visitors in multiple ways. Though sometimes difficult, it will always pay off to strike a balance between optimizing for the search engines and for your users. Sure, if you want your page to be relevant for a particular type of product it makes sense to mention that product in your content. But please, please, do not stuff this product name in every other sentence with every instance bolded. It doesn’t read well and won’t magically make your site rank first.
Have clear calls to action
Do you have a sales pen full of rock stars? Can they sell ice to Eskimos? If your products are complicated and sales come primarily through phone calls, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have your phone number prominently displayed on every page of your site with a ‘call now’ type of call to action. If your goal is to generate requests for more information through a form fill, make it easy to find your form and refrain from requiring too many details – especially if you haven’t earned your visitor’s trust yet. Just because you have a contact us page in the navigation bar doesn’t mean you’re all set. Decrease the number of clicks required to take the next action and you will likely see your conversions increase.
How does your site stack up? You’ve likely thought about a number of these points but are you really putting these tips into practice? Take a look for yourself and you’ll likely find opportunities for improvement that will lead to a better user experience on your site.
