Small changes that make a big difference
There are many tips for increasing your website conversion rate. Actually, some are industry specific and others work for all businesses. The key to determining what works and what doesn’t, is to test and track all the changes you make. Proper split testing is one of the more important skills any online marketing company needs to have.
If the page you are sending traffic to doesn’t convert, then your campaign is going to fail. You can have great traffic campaigns. You can get lots of visitors to your website but if you don’t have pages that convert then you will be wasting your ad budget. However, sometimes it doesn’t matter how optimized the page is for your product and service; you may still experience low conversion rates.
I have worked with a client who spent thousands on digital marketing campaigns but didn’t see the lift they were expecting. After further investigation, their products were priced completely out of the market. Their competitors sold the exact same product for much less. In that case, split testing pages wouldn’t provide much help.
Assuming you are priced properly and other factors are in line, having effective landing pages will increase your conversion rates. Effective landing pages are developed by constantly focusing on what you can do to increase conversion. If you can double the conversion rate on a landing page, then you’ll cut your cost per lead in half. Effective traffic campaigns and high converting landing pages go hand in hand. The more you optimize your page the better your traffic campaigns are going to convert.
As a fellow Chicagoan, W. Clement Stone once said, “Big doors swing on little hinges.”
So here are a few small things that you can do that will make a big difference to increase your website conversion.
A few tips for increased conversion:
1. Optimize page load speed. You need to have a page that loads fast.
• A site that loads in 3 seconds experiences 22% fewer page views and a 50% higher bounce rate than a site that loads in 1 second. You should be shooting for sub 2 seconds load speed. • 57% of visitors will abandon a page that takes 3 seconds or more to load. That’s more than half of your visitors leaving immediately.
• If it doesn’t load fast enough you will lose those visitors.
• Nothing might be wrong with your traffic campaigns, you just need to speed up your site.
• Look in Google Analytics at page load speed for the site or look into load speed for specific pages.
2. Have a dedicated landing page. Create a landing page that has a specific message for the campaign you are running. Don’t just send traffic to your homepage. Ad landing pages should be congruent to the ad you are running.
• Use similar copy.
• Design should use similar color scheme.
• Keep main message and all calls to action above the fold.
3. Create a compelling and clear value proposition for your ad and landing page
• It should be different from your competitors’ offer.
• If it is similar you should have at least one extra or different element of value.
• The value should be promoted in terms of features and benefits.
• The offer on the landing page should be explained well.
• Try and minimize the choices on the page.
• Keep it very focused.
• Effectively use white space to draw the eye toward the call to action. Don’t over clutter your page.
4. Make the contact form as simple as possible. For example, some forms require both a phone number and an email address. Give the customer the option on how you communicate with them.
5. Many online shoppers will not provide their personal information in a contact form so consider adding a live chat option. Many shoppers feel this is a great way to communicate with the business and find out the information they need without providing their personal information.
6. Make your phone number “clickable” on all mobile devices. Many websites don’t allow the customer to click to call which dramatically reduces the amount of phone leads you will receive. Make the phone number very easy to find when visiting from a desktop or tablet.
7. Use videos to sell your company, products and services. Adding videos to your product landing pages will increase engagement and conversion.
8. Keep copy as short as possible. Long copy can work as long as it keeps the visitor reading the message.
9. Add a testimonial on the page about the product or service you are promoting to increase credibility and trust.
10. Customer reviews have always been important for businesses. Adding reviews can boost your conversion more.
Tony French - Modern Day Mad Man