Conversions are all about ensuring a visitor to your website undertakes an action while engaging with your brand. That’s right. Conversion equals action, not sale. Despite common belief, “conversion” doesn’t directly reference the total number of sales that have occurred via your website. Instead, the conversion rate relates to any measureable action undertaken by a lead at any stage of engagement with your brand.
Prompts for a measurable action (often referred to as a call-to action (CTA)) can vary and often differ depending where they’re placed in the sales funnel. First time visitor, as we well know, are rarely ready to sign up, but they’re often willing to carry out a different action. They might be willing to: create an account, sign up for an email, or request to download information. Because of that, CTAs placed throughout a website should be relevant to the visitor at the exact moment in their buyer’s journey.
Instead of a benchmark for sales, conversion rates are a structured and systematic way to understand your website’s performance. Analyze the different actionable events on your website by tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your various CTAs to see if they meet your website’s unique objectives and KPIs. This data can then be used to plan improvements.
Now let’s increase those conversion rates
You can’t ensure that every website visitor will click on all the right links and take all the desired actions, but you can make it a whole lot easier to guide them in the right direction.
Make it nice and easy
You’ve heard of the saying ‘time is money’ and in this thriving competitive market we live in, it’s especially true when it comes to your website. The more steps it takes for a user to load a page and get to where they want to be, the more likely they are to abandon your website. Patience is not a virtue in the marketing world, it simply does not exist. If you want to ensure that users are not leaving your website before accomplishing one of your desired actions, then you need to ensure that the path to the desired action is smooth and simple.
Keep it simple
Many companies make the mistake of displaying too many offers in a way that causes confusion and reduces the overall effectiveness of each offer. You should be aiming to keep the prospect’s journey through your marketing sales funnel as straight forward and simple as possible.
The CTAs on your website should be clearly indicated and should feature an explicit and engaging message. If you’re displaying multiple CTAs on a single page, it should be obvious who they pertain to. It’s fine to offer something compelling to a first time visitor and something equally compelling to the person nearing the end of their purchasing journey, it just needs to be obvious which is which.
Streamline your site
Clutter and confusion often turn web visitors off. Is your Unique Value Proposition nice and clear? Do visitors understand the message you are trying to convey? Do prospects know what actions you’d like them to undertake? Are they getting all that within the first few seconds of their visit?
Potential clients always appreciate the simplicity of a clean webpage and a clear path to their goals. Adding irrelevant information and images confuses the eye and the message which you are trying to convey. Every page on your website should have its own unique goal and all aspects of the content within each page should point towards your actionable goal. We all know that first impressions are the most important. Minimizing the content on your homepage could increase your overall conversions.
Let the message speak for itself
Are you trying to be cute and clever with your content? Is your message suffering because of it? Might be time to reconsider your tactics. It’s important to focus on clarity when conveying a message. If you’re needlessly using funky jargon or a funny tone, you could be sacrificing the clarity of the message. Be clear, concise, and on brand. Funny isn’t bad, as long as it’s not at the detriment of your messaging.
Let’s be clear, we’re not asking you to assume your reader is an illiterate toddler; you don’t need to be condescending. But do be aware that not all of your prospects will understand industry buzzwords that are second nature to you and your team. Take a step back and try to see your website from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know what you’re offering. Would they understand it without needing to be walked through the concept? If the answer is no, it’s time to rethink the clarity of your messaging.
Make it instantly compelling
You have around 8 seconds to grab a visitor’s attention before they disappear from your website forever, so you want to provide a strong emotive message that will compel them to engage. When creating any type of content, always ask yourself if you are qualifying the audience, exploring the concept, and adding emotion, if you are, then you will effectively be pushing your reader towards the CTA that offers the solution to the question they need answered. By employing heuristics as you design your site, you’ll ensure you are attracting the right people for the right action and helping them engage as soon as they arrive.