How to Improve Conversion Rates to Boost Your Business
When you are all done creating the website for your business, and you do all kinds of online marketing to improve traffic to your website, and you start getting traffic to your website, But that is not enough. You have to convert the traffic into transactions.
Getting traffic to your website does not necessarily mean that they produce revenue with your product. Only a portion of the traffic that comes to the website is actually converted into sales. To improve sales of the product, you have to improve the conversion rate of your website.
To increase the revenue from your online business you have to understand what is conversion rate and conversion funnel.
The conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who made a purchase or completed any other desired goal to the total number of visitors, expressed in percentage.
Lets understand this with a bit more clarity. Say, you have a website for an online business that sells a product. Your goal of the website is to sell a product. So if your website has a 100 visitors, and 10 of them purchase your product, then you have a conversion rate of 10%.
To improve the conversion rate the user has to complete the desired task. The task is what you define at a business. It could be the purchase of an item, downloading a software, subscribe to the newsletter, filling and submitting a form etc.
Based on these goals and the type of products, businesses measure their conversion rate differently.
What is Conversion Funnel?
The conversion funnel is a visual representation of the number and the path of the website visitors to the buying customers. The conversion funnel is wide at the top and narrows at the bottom representing the number of the customers to visit the website to be larger and the number of customers who make a purchase to be considerably less. In between is the path that leads the visitors down to the end of the funnel that is purchasing the product. The path is through the awareness, Interest, consideration, and conversion.
Awareness — The user is made aware of the product through different sources like external links to other websites, paid advertising campaigns, social media etc.
Interest — The user visits your website in response to the ad or performs an organic search in order to find out about your product. Generate interest in the visitor by providing all the information about your product.
Consideration — The user is now a potential buyer. The user will be comparing prices and visiting other websites to get the best value for their money. Present them the product in a way to lead them to the next step
Conversion — The user now performs the desired action or achieves the desired goal.
Why improve conversion rate?
In order for your business to grow, you need to keep track of the conversion rate and take actions to improve the conversion rate. This has the following benefits
Increased conversion rates mean increased revenue. Part of this revenue can be used for more advertising, that can help you get more visitors to your website.
With increased conversion rates you can attract more investors to invest in your business which can help you further grow your business.
Improving conversion rates have a huge impact on how your business grows. In fact, the conversion rate is one of the metric to measure the growth of your website.
So how can you improve the conversion rates of your website? This article will guide you on how can you improve the conversion rates.
Call to action is what you want your visitors to do. Buy your product, Sign up for a newsletter, create an account or anything else that you want the visitors of your website to do. These are the “add to cart” or “buy now” buttons that we see on websites.
The ultimate aim of call-to-action is to prompt the user to do something. In order to do that there are certain aspects that improve the chance of the user clicking that button.
Placement of the call-to-action button should be in plain sight.
It should be obvious to the user where to click to do what they want to do.
The color of the call to action contrasting and attention gathering from the surroundings.
Use text that encourages the user to perform the task. For example, “FInd out more” or “Try it out”.
If you have secondary call-to-action, emphasize them less than the primary call-to-action.
Repeat the call-to-action if the content is lengthy so that the user doesn’t have to scroll back to get back to the button.
A landing page is a page that a user ends up on when clicked on an online marketing call-to-action. It can be the homepage of your website or another dedicated page. The benefit of having a dedicated homepage is that it can load faster so that the user does not have to wait. If the landing page is the homepage of your website, it will take more time to load. So, it’s good to have a dedicated landing page that can be used to redirect to your website.
The design of the landing page has real effects on the conversion rate of your website. The content, layout, style, and functionality of the landing page are very important. The landing page should be precisely designed to tell the user what your business is all about. It should be in such a way that it encourages the user to know more.
Include only the necessary information — Do not bombard the user with information confusing the user what to make of it. Instead, present your website that with information only that will be needed by your target audience. And make sure to present them in clean and tidy visuals.
Present value and credibility of your product — adding testimonials of earlier customers can be very useful to the users and help them gain trust in your product. If there are other people using it and they find it good, new users will find it less risky to try out your product.Also, provide guarantee and refund policies where the user can see them which also helps in building trust on your product.
List all the benefits and focus less on features of your product — The one downside of online business is that the user can not actually see, touch, or know the product in person. So, you have to list all the benefits of your product. Don’t list all the features that won’t be important to the user. List only those features that are important or at least the ones that set you apart from your competitor
Show them the numbers — Show off the number of customers you have, or the number of downloads, or purchases or social media followers that your website has. This will increase the credibility of your product and gain the trust of the users.
#3 — Different Types of Visitors
With proper marketing, you can drive a lot of visitors to your website. But not all of them are potential buyers. To convert these visitors, you need to know the types of visitors that come to your website.
Organic visitors — visitors that come to your site performing an organic search. These can be potential buyers or might be comparing your product to a similar one.
Visitors from ads and other online marketing campaigns — These are the visitors that come to your website through the paid advertisements or other external links created in your online marketing campaigns.
Returning visitors — These are the revisiting users.
Make your customers feel valued — by updating them with the latest of your products, giving them exclusive offers, Thank them
Now take a look at why they come to your website.
Just to pay a visit — The user saw the link to your website and found it interesting enough to check out what it is.
To compare — These buyers are looking for a better value for their money. They would be looking for products with more features with less money. They should be looking for offers that can excite them. Your offer should be attractive than your competitors. Tell them why you are better than your competitors without sounding desperate.
To analyze — The users come to analyze the product. All they need is information about the product. provide as much information in the most efficient way.
To buy — Users that come to buy the product.
#4 — Make Your Customers Feel Valued
A simple thank you goes a long way when it comes to maintaining a good relationship with your customer. Every time a user does something on your website, not necessarily the desired goal of your website, like following you on social media, acknowledge that you value their action.
#5 — Out of Sight, Out of Mind
To turn normal visitors to returning visitors and potential buyers, occasionally keep reminding them of your product. Keep them updated with your latest release and keep them aware.
#6 — Provide Pre-purchase Support
This is another way to build a good relationship with potential customers. Provide all the details and attend to all the queries regarding your product that a visitor might have. This can increase the chance of people buying your product and thus improve the conversion rate.
#7 — Demo of Your Product
Since on online market your user can not know what the product is in person, give them a demo of the product and let them familiarise with the product.
Provide seasonal offers or sales that end after a certain period of time. This will make the user tempted to buy the products in that period. The offers should look attractive in the way they are presented and of course, should sound attractive as well.
Give some of your products away for free, or give free trials. This helps the user get the hang of the product and are more likely to pay for it the next time.
Also, give the existing customers offers if they refer your product to other potential customers.
#9 — Don’t Offer Too Many Options
Don’t overwhelm the user with too many options. It will affect their ability to take up a decision. If you really want to showcase all your product, categorize them so that it is easy for them to go through the products and select the one that they are looking for.
Continuously test and keep track of the conversion rate of your website. Test which design works better for your targeted audience so that you can make the improvements to improve the conversion rate.
Now, there are different types of testing that you can perform to improve the conversion rate of your website.
A/B Testing — A/B testing is also called split testing. There are two variants of the same website which are shown to different users. The variants only differ in the call-to-action like the color of the button or the text on the button. Now the conversion rate of each of the variants is tracked and evaluated. The version that produces greater conversion rate wins.
Multivariate Testing — Multivariate testing is like A/B testing. But in this type of testing multiple variables that make up the website sales are tested. This helps determine the negative and positive impact of each element and see which elements are causing a positive impact and which a negative to help optimize the website for better conversion rates.
So these are the list of things that can help you to increase your conversion rate or at least begin making a difference to your business.