By our guest author Ciocan-Muller Vlad.
I don’t plan on giving a technical essay on how to improve your lead generation or SEO. What I want you to do after reading the next paragraphs is to be able to gain more customers through your online website.
The scenario is that you are already gaining enough visitors through paid and organic search and have gained decent visibility on social media. Despite that, your website isn’t converting as it should. You feel like you are missing out on a substantial number of potential customers.
Here are my top 5 easiest ways of increasing your conversion rate:
Loading speed – the bare minimum
There are a lot of tools and infographics out there for site optimization techniques, and all of them talk about loading speed. Your website won’t reach its full potential without a decent loading speed.
Alex Bashinsky, from HubSpot, identifies loading speed as one of the main reasons for customer loss. According to Alex, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less and 40% abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
One of the main reasons for increased loading speed is image size. So that`s where you should start. Also, Google offers some great and easy to use tools for loading speed monitorization and optimization. You can find them all here.
Calls to action – just being there is not enough
You can not generate leads without proper calls to action. Whether it’s newsletter subscriptions, website registrations, free resources downloads or promotions, CTAs must be present on all pages. But that is just the first step.
Andrew Medal, from Entrepreneur, takes it a bit further and recommends multiple CTA usage per page. Customers are scrolling fast and looking for specific information, which means they’re going to miss some of your CTAs. But there’s more!
Plain call to action buttons just won’t cut it anymore. Andrew suggests using contrasting colors to highlight each call-out button. Furthermore, he advises the implementation of alternative phrases for CTA buttons, like “Discover More”, “Start Your Free Trial Now” or “Get Tips to Increase Your Sales”.
Testimonials – some are better than others
Testimonials are a great way to show social proof for your company, products or services success. Just showing in a separate section on your website or at the bottom of your homepage isn’t enough, according to Neil Patel from Quicksprout.
When using testimonials, make sure you sprinkle them across your whole site. From sales pages to checkout pages, use them on any page that can impact a sale, Neil Patel suggests.
Neil also encourages the usage of longer testimonials which tell a story and talk about the results achieved as opposed to simple “thank you, that was great” ones. Longer testimonials are more likely to hook you in.
Live chat – preventing customers from abandoning their purchase
The founder Web Profits, Sujan Patel talks on his blog about the importance live chat can have on your websites conversion rate. According to Sujan, live chat is an excellent tool for turning visitors into customers, primarily because it allows you to intervene before an undecided customer abandons their purchase.
Live chat allows you to help visitors along the way by answering any questions they might have. It also contributes to the overall UX and UI and can also help with lead generation.
Remarketing – because not every visit is a closed deal
Most first-time visitors won’t buy something from you. That is why you must find a way to bring them back to your website and help them make the decision to become a customer.
Steve Walsh talks in an article on Kissmetrics Blog about the importance of remarketing when it comes to conversion rates: “A customer steps into your shop inquires about a particular product, and then leaves without buying. You know there’s a potential sale, and there’s every chance that person will be buying a similar product sooner rather than later. How would you like to send some of your salespeople to follow that visitor, reminding them of your business wherever they go?” That would be impossible, of course. This is where remarketing comes to aid.
Remarketing works like any other paid ad, except it targets your website visitor with specific information about the products they were looking at. Through remarketing, you can also show additional information to help them decide on turning into your customers.
There are many ways and platforms for remarketing. Steve Walsh takes a look at some real-life examples in this blog post.
Conclusion
There are many other tools to help you with your Online Conversion Rate. Some might work better for you than others. It is important to test everything and find out what’s the best strategy for your business.
Author: Ciocan-Muller Vlad
