It’s frustrating when you spend money on advertising and driving people to your website, only for them to just leave without purchasing. As a business owner, you want your website to convert to sales! If you’re finding that you’re getting a lot of traffic, but not many sales, perhaps you need to evaluate whether your website is optimised for conversions. Here are 9 easy ways to optimise your website to get you started!
1. Get rid of distractions
The more choice we’re given, the harder it is to choose. In fact, more choice makes us unhappy.
On your sales pages, make sure you have little, or even better, no distractions. Don’t tempt that website visitor away from that sales page.
Your checkout page should have a clear call to action (e.g. PLACE ORDER) and contain nothing that could interest the consumer to click elsewhere. No ads, no unnecessary links.
2. Engage with your website visitors and build trust
In many cases, particularly for expensive products, people need time to make a purchase decision.
Instead of trying to make a sale straight away, aim to engage with them and collect their email address so that you can capture them as a lead which you can then more effectively sell to. You can use popups, lead magnets and proactive live chat software to help you to do this.
It’s usually unlikely that someone will buy something expensive on their first visit to a website. By collecting their email address, you can send them helpful advice, prove your expertise and get them to trust and like you. They’ll be much more likely to buy after a relationship has been built.
How do I get their email address, you may be thinking? A good way is by offering something of value in exchange for their email address. For example, maybe you can send them a coupon code or a free PDF packed with helpful content – this is called a lead magnet which can be used as part of a more advanced sales funnel. From there, send regular emails offering further valuable information which aims to build trust and a positive feeling towards your brand.
3. Urgency
Offer a time-limited incentive! Creating urgency can be an effective technique in getting someone to click that buy button.
You can create urgency by stressing that something will be selling out soon, that a discount offer will be ending soon or that there’s a deadline approaching (it’s almost mother’s day)! Do ensure that the urgency is genuine though – don’t say there’s limited stock if there isn’t, or people could lose trust in you.
4. Improve your website loading speed
If your website takes a long time to load, it’s likely that potential customers won’t bother to wait. A study by Amazon found that for every 0.1 seconds a website took to load, there was a 1% decrease in sales. You can use Google’s Page Speed Insights to check the speed of your website. This tool will suggest steps you can take to improve it, perhaps by compressing images or minifying your HTML.
It’s also important to have a super fast hosting provider. We recently moved over to WP Engine and found that it massively improved the speed of our website.
5. Ensure your website is responsive
More and more people are using their mobile devices to browse the web and do online shopping. If your website isn’t responsive, and consequently looks terrible on smaller screens, you’re losing customers.
You can check your website is responsive by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.
6. Improve usability
The usability of a website is so important. If it’s complicated or annoying to use, it’s likely that visitors will just click off rather than bother trying to work it out. Ensure your website is easy to navigate and that the checkout process is easy to follow.
7. Use social proof
Humans are social animals with an inherent need to fit in and conform to the actions of others. In other words, if several people recommend a product, people will be more likely to trust that the product is worth purchasing.
Testimonials are a great way to do this. For maximum effect, use full names and photos in your testimonials. “Really great product!” – Amanda, London, does not sound as legitimate or trustworthy.
8. Ensure your copy is effective
Most people scan websites for the information they need. Ensure it’s easy for them to do this by breaking up your copy into small, bite-sized chunks or perhaps even use bullet points. Using bold text for important phrases is also a great idea as it will stand out within a paragraph that’s being scanned.
You should also ensure that you stay away from jargon – use simple, clear and concise language that’s easy to read and understand.
9. Proactive live chat
Many consumers land on a website and simply click off when they don’t feel confident in going ahead with a purchase.
With proactive live chat, you can pop up to the website visitor and ask if they need help. Chat is easy, convenient and immediate, so many website visitors will ask those questions as it’s usually preferable to picking up the phone or sending an email.
The chat agent can help the website visitor to feel positive about the brand and alleviate those concerns that are preventing them from purchasing. So much so, that Intuit increased their conversion rate by 211% just by using proactive live chat.
We hope you found these tips on optimising your website for conversion to be useful. Please leave your own tips in the comments below!