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How many visitors to your website take favourable actions? That’s your conversion rate. As easy as it sounds, it’s often a hard nut to crack.
Traffic. This is one of the most commonly used words by online marketers. The sales you desire are from traffic. But having visitors flood your site, and exit without taking favourable action is much ado about nothing.
Traffic doesn’t always generate revenue. It has to convert to be useful. An increase in traffic and a reduction in conversation rate is a red flag. You stand the risk of reaching the majority of prospects in your niche, making you run out of potential customers.
Here are five ways to increase your conversion rate:
1. Create an irresistible value proposition
The outcome of your conversation largely depends on its value proposition. Visitors don’t take favorable actions online just because they want to. It’s an offshoot of their judgment of your product or service.
The buying journey is filled with concerns about the usefulness of a product. Is this product good enough? Consumers fail to get value for their money if acquired products don’t meet their expectations afterward.
Customers want to be sure that they aren’t making a bad buying decision. You may not be physically present to give them the assurance they need, but you can do that with your words. If your copy doesn’t sound 100% confident, you give them reasons to back out halfway, adding to the 75.6% cart abandonment rate found in a SaleCycle Report.
Monopoly is fast becoming a textbook phenomenon. Competition is very much present in today’s market. Several brands offer similar products and services. You need to always remember that customers can get the same product or service you offer elsewhere. And with many businesses fighting for their attention on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), you can’t afford to lose them when they arrive on your site.
Time is of the essence. Imagine the customer asking: why should I buy from you? Giving the perfect answer to this question is only half of it. Make it short and precise. Think of it as an elevator pitch, but this time, it’s shorter.
Aim to eliminate doubt
Don’t just sell your product; sell its value. The product is a means to an end. The visitor is interested in buying because of the benefits they stand to gain from using it. Don’t give a running commentary about the product. Introduce it in a few words, and focus on the value it gives to users.
How does it enhance users’ lives?
In a bid to wow customers, sellers often use puffery to exaggerate their products. Desist from this as it’d cause damage to your brand in the long run. In today’s social media era where visitors are quick to air their grievances about brands online, a call-out is inevitable if you toe that line. According to research, 79% of consumers consider online reviews in their buying decision. A single negative review can cost you many sales opportunities.
2. Set up a sales funnel
You want the sale to happen immediately. Every marketer wants that too. But sometimes, being in a haste to close the deal ruins everything.
Not everyone online is looking to buy something right away. Sometimes, people are just browsing – basically passing time. Persuading a visitor who is just looking around to buy upfront is a turn-off, making them leave sooner than planned.
A sales funnel enables you to take visitors on a refreshing journey by satisfying their needs at each stage of the funnel down to the point where they are convinced to buy from you.
What happens between your landing page and the point of purchase is very important?
In a report by Fast Company, a retailer increased its sales by 45% ($300 million) after making it optional for visitors to sign up for an account during checkout. Take out unnecessary procedures. Visitors who are interested in buying don’t want to waste time.
There are four basic stages in a sales funnel: awareness, interest, decision, and action.
- Awareness: This is the point of discovery. The visitor has a need and is looking for ways to meet it. Provide the necessary information they need, particularly how your product can meet their need.
- Interest: The visitor gets to this point if they were satisfied with the information found at the awareness stage. They are beginning to see prospects in your product. They might sign up for your newsletter or follow you on social media for more information.
- Decision: The visitor is considering getting your product. But they need to be convinced it’s a good offer. They are comparing your offers with those of competitors they have come across. You need to convince them that yours is the best deal.
- Action: This is the part you’ve been waiting for. The visitor closes the deal by either buying your product or signing up for your offer.
Visitors might need help at any stages of your sales funnel. A little confusion could make them leave. Don’t let them go. Be proactive by providing all-around customer support.
Using live chat alone isn’t sufficient; they may not be able to follow your instructions correctly. A more engaging support tool like Co-browsing is very handy. It allows the visitor and support agent to share the same screen, giving the agent access to the visitor’s webpage in real time. The agent sees exactly what the challenge is, and proceeds to solve it while the visitor watches.
3. Write a killer call-to-action
Copies aren’t written for the sole aim of converting. They educate, entertain and inspire the audience. If you want people to react in a particular way after reading your copy, you need to say so. Just ask.
A call-to-action is simply what it is – a call to take favorable action. Your copy has done the talking, don’t elongate it. Go straight to the point.
You want visitors to do something, there’s no better word suitable, to begin with than a verb i.e an action word. If you run an e-commerce website, start with verbs like “order,” “buy,” “shop.”
If you are promoting a white paper or newsletter, using the same words mentioned above might not be apt as you aren’t directly selling a product. Instead, ask your targets to “subscribe” or “download” depending on your offers. Emails with a call-to-action increases sales by 1617%.
Take it a step further by creating excitement in your prospects. Asking them to just “Buy Now” is basic. Everybody says that. Why should they buy now? What do they stand to gain? That extra factor will be the motivator to buy. For example: “Buy Now for Free Shipping.” You have clearly asked them to buy and promised them something. In order to benefit from your promise, the majority of them will proceed to buy.
4. Perfect your landing page
It’s called landing page for a reason; it’s the first point of contact on your site. The efficacy of your landing page is proportional to your source of traffic.
What drives visitors to your site?
According to a KPI Report 2019, organic traffic accounts for 42% of all traffic on e-commerce sites. If the reason visitors click through to your site is justified when they arrive, they are most likely to convert. It becomes a problem when there’s a disparity between both elements.
Pay attention to your keywords and offers.
For instance, an online user searches for “best energy supplements” on search engines, and your page shows up on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). If they click through arriving on your landing page, and your offers are about “weight loss,” chances of conversion are very low as you have failed to deliver on your promise.
Clickbait is bad for conversion. Luring visitors to your site with attractive keywords in the hopes that they’d be drawn to your offers isn’t a good idea. They had a need before going online. An attractive offer that doesn’t align with their need isn’t going to solve their problem.
Details on your landing page should align with your keywords. An effective landing page does three major things:
- Succinctly informs visitors of your offers: Reiterate your offering in your keywords, and assure them that they are in the right hands.
- Stirs interest by projecting Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Imagine you are up against your competitors in a debate, what would you say about your brand to convince the judges? But remember, this isn’t an actual debate, you don’t have much time. State your claims in a few words.
- Create easy navigation: Having convinced visitors to get your product, make the buying process easy for them by holding them by the hand and walking them through with clear directions on how to move around your site.
5. Carry out A/B testing
The increased conversion rate you seek is feasible when you constantly improve your system.
A/B testing is the process of displaying two variations of the same page to different segments of visitors at the same time. The idea is to compare both variations and figure out the one that generates more conversions.
* Do your research
Leverage analytics tools like Google Analytics to get data on your website behavior. Check the metrics. Where’s the loophole in your conversion funnel? Why are visitors not converting?
- Form hypothesis
Use data from your research above to build a hypothesis for your next line of action. - Create another variationUse your hypothesis to create a new variation of your webpage. Test it against your current variation.
- Run test
Begin the test, and allow it to run for an adequate stipulated time. - Analyses
Analyze results from data of both variations. If the new variation performed better, implement it.
Conclusion
Conversion is the end-game of online marketing. You want to make your audiences dance to your rhythm. You want them to buy or sign up for your offers. Failure to do this leads to a low return on investment (ROI).
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