Attracting visitors to your website is a great start. However, it is virtually useless if most of those people fail to purchase a product or service or sign up for your blog or newsletter. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to convert casual clickers into paying customers.
Write powerhouse headlines.
Typically, the headline is the first part of your website that people see. It needs to be unique, clear, brief, and descriptive. Ideally, it should issue a command, ask a question, give the solution to a problem, provide a direction, or offer a set of instructions. If it is too vague or is not placed properly, your headline’s punch will be lost.
Make your intentions clear.
In general, your website’s images and content should be clear. This seamless transparency should also be displayed via a call to action (CTA) that a user can readily understand and follow. If your potential customer is left to wander aimlessly on your site for too long without bright beacons, they are almost sure to click away to one of your competitors.
The placement of your CTA is just as important as its wording. The best ones usually appear not at the top of the page but right above the fold. CTAs can take the form of popups that quickly appear after a guest lands on the page, push notifications, or buttons featuring descriptive, action-prompting content.
Develop purposeful, intuitive navigation.
As stated above, clutter and vagueness on your site discourage conversions. Therefore, make it as easy as possible for visitors to understand your content and travel throughout your site.
There are several ways to enhance the navigability of your ecommerce site. They include customizing your menus, adding top links to your sidebar or anchor CTAs to guide traffic where you want it to go, and using buttons and arrows to drive users to your CTA statements.
Deliver fast loading speed.
Patience is a virtue that most of us don’t possess these days. If a website fails to load in the blink of an eye, many consumers are likely to click away out of frustration. Reducing the time it takes for your site and images to load is particularly important now that more and more consumers are browsing the net via their smartphones.
Employ the following techniques to increase your loading speed.
The average site loads in three to seven seconds. If yours requires more time than that, there are steps you can take to reduce page load times.
- Compress your pages to reduce bandwidth.
- Shrink your image sizes.
- Check for broken links and remove them.
- Allow browser caching. With this in place, your visitor’s browser can store specific copies of your page, allowing for easier downloading the next time.
- Identify and reduce redirects.
Once you enact these measures, you may be able to reduce user download times to as little as a single second.
Cultivate customer trust.
If a visitor gets the impression that your site is in some way shady or fly-by-night, you will have a very hard time convincing them to reveal contact information or make online payments. Fortunately, your site provides you with the perfect forum to sow seeds of positivity and trust in a short time.
This can be accomplished in several ways. You can offer incentives such as time-sensitive discounts or free shipping. Another effective rapport-builder is to prominently display trust symbols such as VeriSign, security verification tags, and the logos of the payment systems and credit cards you accept.
Create a sense of urgency.
Distractions abound in our daily lives and particularly online. Don’t let them get between your customer and the end goal of a conversion. One of the best ways to entice people to take that crucial step is to impose a deadline.
This can be accomplished in a couple of ways. You might try offering products at a specified price that only lasts for the next 24 hours. Another idea is to play on the consumer’s desire to have the product in their hands as soon as possible by providing information on when it will arrive at their door if they buy it now, as well as a countdown of how long that estimated delivery date will remain in effect.
Create a sense of scarcity.
Nothing transforms lurkers into buyers faster than the fear that procrastinating may lead to missing out on a particular product. Eliminate customer hesitation by letting browsers know up front how many items are in stock, particularly if there are only a few left.
Optimize for mobile.
You can no longer afford to miss out on the influx of new customers and profits that mobile phone shoppers can bring to your business. If your website is not already responsive and optimized for this crucial market, take steps to modernize your design right away.
If you’re unsure about your website’s compatibility with smartphones, test it out for yourself. If it takes too long to load on your mobile phone, is difficult to navigate, or makes product checkout confusing or too complicated, you have your answer.
Provide customer testimonials.
You might present the most brilliant and compelling sales copy in the world, but it won’t pack the same punch that a glowing review or testimonial will. That’s because people are more inclined to put their trust in the credibility of a peer they can identify with than in someone who is out to make a buck.
Ideally, provide photos or company logos to go along with your testimonials or reviews, and place them strategically throughout your website. If you have videos, prominently feature the most compelling, high-quality ones on your site.
Offer quality content.
Finally, never lose your focus on your site’s primary aim: To sell your products and/or services to your customers. To that end, all of your content should be rich with informative content whether that be offering how-to tips, demonstrating the solution to a problem, or describing relevant features. Also, remember that visitors might go to your blog without ever encountering your landing page, so always clearly describe who you are and what you do.
Once you put some or all of these strategies into practice, you are sure to notice the effects. Your website will be easier to access while offering more compelling content. Best of all, you will find that more of your first-time visitors become valued, long-term customers.
