Increasing your conversion rate is one of the most important things you can do as a business; conversion is the process of converting visitors to your website into customers.
Conversions aren’t just when your customers buy a product from you either. Your conversion rates can include customers filling out contact forms, subscribing to a mailing list, booking appointments, or requesting a quote.
Of course, we all want customers to convert, especially when it involves them spending money with your company. However, your conversion rate is also a fantastic tool for honing your business. A conversion rate can tell you which of your marketing methods are most effective, showing you where you should be investing your time and budget, as well as highlighting areas that need user experience improvements.
Increasing your conversion rate should be a goal for any business, big or small, but research indicates that only 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rates.
It can be hard to know where to start, and you can find that you’re missing easy opportunities to turn your sites visitors into customers. If you’re looking to increase your conversion rate, then here are our five top tips to get your customers converting.
1) Clear Call to Actions
One of the biggest factors in increasing your conversions is having clear calls to action (CTAs) – whether this is getting visitors to your site to sign up to your newsletter, get in contact with you, or purchase a product.
You can have your CTAs in more than one place on your page, giving your visitors plenty of opportunity to convert, however for maximum effectiveness, these calls should be to the same action.
CTAs shouldn’t just be on your website either. Every time you email send out an email to a customer you should include as CTA. And studies show that personalised CTAs are 202% more effective at getting users to convert, and email marketing is the perfect opportunity for this.
2) Get Creative with Commitments
Try asking for smaller commitments – ‘add to basket’ is a lot less intimidating to customers than ‘buy now’, so a small call to action can end up being more effective at getting customers to convert. The language we use is important, and this goes for Calls to Action too.
While your customers might be interested in your products, they might not be ready to commit to a purchase just yet. ‘Buy now’ is a lot more final than ‘add to basket’ – with the ‘add to basket’ option your customers have more chance to change their mind, putting them under much less pressure to purchase. By giving them the option to add an item to their basket, you can then also utilise remarketing by emailing them with basket reminders.
3) Work on User Experience
User Experience is one to the most important factors for your online business. In fact, research indicates that 88% of shoppers say they wouldn’t return to a website that provides them with bad user experience.
Giving your site visitors a positive first impression is essential, so it’s vital that you invest in good web design. Not only should your pages be visually appealing, but the navigation should be logical, making it easy for your users to move through your site and locate whatever product they’re looking for.
It is also important that your website loads fast, both on desktop and mobile. With more and more users browsing the web with their handheld devices, your website needs to be optimised for mobile to ensure that they aren’t put off from converting.
4) Show Off Your Products
If you’re an ecommerce website, your products need to be displayed clearly.
Unlike with traditional high street shopping, your customers don’t have the chance to physically inspect your products before they decide to purchase, so ensuring that you provide detailed images and descriptions can encourage them to convert.
You could also consider including videos of each product, demonstrating how they’re used. Of course, depending on how many different products you have on your site, this might not be practical. It’s important that you don’t interfere with your site’s speed – there’s no point having professional videos for your product if your customers give up waiting for your site to load before they even get the chance to view them.
5) Include Reviews and Testimonials
Social proof is another great way for you to increase conversions. Having reviews and testimonials on display from satisfied customers is a great way to encourage others to also convert.
In fact, research indicates that as many of 92% of potential customers trust reviews and recommendations more than any other form of advertising. If you can get testimonials from your customers, you’ll gain a cost-free way of creating move conversions.
Showing reviews for your products is a good way to help build trust in your brand and responding to any concerns that might be flagged by previous customers will demonstrate that you care about their opinion and custom.
Increasing conversions is important for any type of business, and when you boost your conversion rates, you’ll also boost your profits.
