Guest Post by Lawrence Hall
Increasing your website conversion rate
So you have built your blog, e-commerce, or company website but you are not getting the results you expected. Perhaps you want people to call your company, buy a product, or simply click on a banner ad but they are not. This means that you have a low website conversion rate. Using some of the tips below can help you convert your websites traffic into actions to help boost your revenue.
Keep it Simple Simon
Tell the people what you offer and make it easy for them to understand your goals. The more steps that you send a user through the less likely they are to complete the action you want them too. For example if you want someone to fill out a form for future contact, place it on every page, and keep it short by asking the simplest questions that will lead you back to them. Just remember make it obvious and easy to do and results will follow.
Add testimonials from satisfied clients
Many people have encountered scams on the Internet, this makes most users skeptical of what they find here. Adding testimonials from past customers will help establish credibility, and begin breaking down the trust barrier. Much like in offline marketing, word of mouth is your best tool for marketing online too. Testimonials will show potential customers that other people have benefited from your product and ease them into working with you.
Add value to visitors
While visitors are on your website don’t be afraid to give away a little of what you offer. You have a captive audience for a limited time. Add value to customers by giving them help to guide their decisions in the way of tutorials, or tips in making a selection. By becoming an all encompassing guide on your given product you will be a go to source for potential customers, and really show your knowledge in a field. Remember if you are teaching them things they would like to know they are more likely to come to you as their expert.
Another way to add value on your site is by harnessing email and social media. When someone to registers their e-mail with your site send out informative emails and not just sales letters. Also use social media services such as Twitter and Facebook. These give visitors another way to stay in contact with you and receive current information about what you offer and what your business is currently doing. Properly using social media can turn a cold call into a warm call very quickly.
Can changing my sites design help?
Of course it can. The tips outlined above are based on marketing principles that can be applied across any medium. The following are a few that deal strictly with marketing on the web.
Make a sale above the fold – Your potential customers will have access to many sites that are competing directly with you. Many may not take the time to absorb all of your information so it is best to display what you are selling high up on the page.
Adjust your navigation – Highlight the pages that lead to your main goal on the site. Have links within the text that lead to a purchase page or form. Also don’t forget to place these links in easily recognized places.
Add whitespace – The addition of whitespace will make your pages feel less overwhelming. More white space will help add contrast to different sections on your page. By increasing the contrast on different sections you can literally make the content you want jump off the page and point out the most important actions on your site.
Lawrence Hall, community manager Go-gulf, a Sharjah web design company that provide web design and development solutions in Middle East
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Your post does help in captivating audience to a blog post or a website. Yes, Twitter and Face book help a lot in social networking and increasing traffic. Well, I didn’t really understand the importance of white space. Can you elaborate on this?
I know content is king when it comes to blogs but personally, I tend to stay more on websites that have better graphics and overall layout design. Most of the scam websites that or websites that do nothing but just try to sell you something are really poorly designed with too many words on a single page. Anyway, that’s just me, I can’t speak for everybody.
I think a lot of the idea behind white space is that, in many ways our eyes are simply accustomed to it. We read, mostly on white backgrounds. I’ve seen studies that show sites with dark type and light backgrounds convert significantly better (with the exact same text) as sites which have dark backgrounds and light text. I do think that feel and interest are what keeps a sites bounce rate low.
I think conversion rates are very important. It’s what bloggers ultimately aspire for, whether it be subscription rates or monetizing when you make a sale.
Useful tips you have stated there in this article. The tip to add testimonials from satisfied clients makes it simple for the visitors to get a detailed information on how the organization actually works. This in turn would allow the visitor to save time on reviewing about the products online and make it easily convincing to make a purchase. This marketing tip will definitely help the organization to grow the list of satisfied customers.
Nice tips, Usability is also important, If potential customers want to find out more before they buy that should be more easy. A site should be accessible, make sure it is usable, make your calls to action clear and unambiguous, and you should be in a position to start converting the people who want to buy.
Nice article, i’d heard of (and used) most of your points except the white space. Strange how simple white space gets overlooked as a design element but it did in my case. I will meet with our designer and suggest the use of white space to highlight our goal page.
Thanks!!!
.-= pThomas@The Auto Easy VOIP Auto Dialer´s last blog ..Our FaceBook Business Page =-.
Hey,
Well it seems that the hardest I work on my site the lowest the revenue gets. I am always trying to improve everything on my site but it looks like I am going nowhere fast. I really appreciate your post.
Thanks!
Warm wishes,
epagini
.-= epagini´s last blog ..Prison Break: The Conspiracy =-.
Yes visitors will convert if you give them what they want, being Relevant is important. When people land on your website they are most likely looking for something.
.-= Hafsoh @ UK Business forum´s last blog ..Dell shows off several mobile stunners – Inquirer — Date Posted: 22nd April 2010 13: =-.
Excellent tip that I personally need to implement on my own blogs. Each page that I want to convert I need to optimize for the best results. Sometimes I simply forget to do these things. We get so focused on writing that we end up forgetting our end goal.
Awesome article.
All the best,
Eren
.-= Eren Mckay´s last blog ..Inspirational Parenting – The Way I See My Calling as a Parent… =-.
Optimizing conversion rates is a complex process. It is rarely just one or two factors that affect whether people convert or not. Here are some other issues that you have not touched upon:
1) Color choice – specific colors automatically create emotions with people. It is not a coincidence that many top sites use similar color schemes. Also using certain colors for things like the ‘add to cart’ button or newsletter form can help draw the visitors’ eyes better.
2) Security – while this is gradually becoming less of a concern, many people are still wary about giving their personal data, especially credit info to a website. So be sure to include e a privacy policy and bring adequate attention to any SSL certificate or other certifications such as HackerSafe.
3) Product Images – if you are selling any products, be sure to provide the best quality images you can. When buying online, people want to see products in as much detail as possible. Better yet, include some product videos.
The simpler navigation the better because people will leave your site if it’s unfriendly and too complicated for aged people. Great tips!
It is so easy to forget about customer comments when you are already comfortable with the excellence of your work. Thank you; great article.
Testimonials aren’t just for selling products and services. They also help build your credibility and authority.
I have been meaning to extract all of the grateful and nice comments from my emails over the years to put together a kind of gratitude log for myself – for those dark moments when you wonder whether attempting to replace your wage-slavery for problogger stardom is worth it or indeed possible.
You have motivated me to develop the collection into a testimonials page and tailor it for future products/services. I’ll simply call it “Nice things people have said about me.” or something benign. Any ideas?
Somone@Thesis Theme HQ´s last [type] ..2 Different Ways to Create a Squeeze Page in Thesis
Well I used to think that just adding good content to the site is not going to help me convert my ads better. So, I have started to also add additional features, a bit of user interactivity and the results are showing up..
Stephan´s last [type] ..Fix Crash-Error in Mozilla Firefox Default Manager v22 Crash
It seems it is no longer only about good content. One also has to make sure the user finds the content very easily and the site focuses on the user not on search engines..
Steph