Want to know how to increase conversions from your website? You need to ask yourself if your site is designed with conversion in mind, or simply for looks and vanity. We have all been taught to look the best and to communicatea through appearance that we are experts or have the highest quality. These notions aren’t wrong by any stretch, however, when designing a website or landing page for your business, you have to be tough on yourself and ask “are we motivated by having the best image, or by doing the most business?”.
Hopefully, your answer is the latter!
Questions You Can Ask to Increase Conversions
Put yourself in your customers shoes. There are two ways to do this. If your business sells to consumers, then imagine you’re at home on the couch surfing the web and shopping for something. If your business sells to other businesses (B2B) then pretend for a moment that you sell something entirely different than your actual product. This is important because you have to be able to step back and look at your own website without the pretense of already thinking that you are the best.
Now, Open up a web browser and navigate to your own website. Ask yourself these following questions:
1) Does Your Site Compel Action?
Be Clear. What do you want your potential customer to DO on your website. Read? Purchase? Download a whitepaper? You need to be very clear about what you want for your potential customer to take away or leave. Every single page of your website should be intentional in this way.
2) What Comes To Mind When You First Load Your Website?
This is very similar to designing a print ad or any other type of communication piece. The reader should get basic points instantly through well designed headlines, subheadings and bullet points. Give your site the 2 second test and be honest about what jumps out at you.
3) Is your Call to Action Clear?
Think baby steps! Do you take your reader through a very logical and purposeful sequence of actions or do you have little things scattered all over the place. Typically, you start with an attention grabber. Then, you communicate a few key features or benefits. You wrap up with a call to action and then lead the user to fill out a simple form or other method of engaging with or contacting your company? A good deal of hand-holding is typically appropriate here. Don’t patronize, but don’t be ambiguous either.
4) Is This a Bunch of BS?
Is your website content authoritative? Can you back up your claims? Who do these jokers think they are? That is NOT the impression you want a visitor to have when they visit your site. Make sure you are writing about things with which you have ample experience and qualifications. Your site needs to easily breeze by your audience’s BS filter.
Wrapping Up
To make money or generate leads online, you HAVE to increase conversions. Of course, all websites aren’t designed to make money. Some are designed to share information, build community or simply for recreation. However, you need to make sure that the design and execution of your site is aligned with your business goals. If your website isa designed to generate leads, then make sure the design hooks tour readers and moves them toward a contact or other engagement. I your wenatures more retail in nature, than make sure that your site is designed to convert visitors into customers and that your sales process is as easy and free of friction as possible.
There are more things to look at, certainly, but this is a good start. The art of selling has a lot more to do with adapting to your customers than it does talking about how great you are. By applying this advice to our websites, we can ensure that our customers are taking away something valuable from their visit, and not just feel like they’ve just witnessed an old-fashioned dog and pony show. Increase conversions today by going through these simple steps. There are some more great tips to Increase Conversions from Search Engine Watch.
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