9 Quick Ways to Increase Your Website Conversion Rate
21st January 2014
Are you suffering from a low conversion rate? Never fear, Xander Marketing has compiled 9 quick tips you can implement with ease to banish a high bounce rate.
1. Add forms to your homepage
On SaaS, make sure visitors can convert as soon as they’re convinced of your service. Make sure there is clear, easy access to an enquiry form wherever the visitor is on your site to ensure nothing stands between you and a high conversion rate. This is especially important on the homepage which is where many visitors will come to when they’re not sure how to proceed. Make certain that there’s a clear call to action pointing visitors right towards your form.
2. Remove navigation from conversion pages
Once you’ve successfully steered a visitor to the point of conversion, it’s time to shut down their options. This isn’t great UX (user experience) practice, so have a careful think before you implement this tip on your own website. However, removing excess navigational links from conversion pages can push visitors to seal the deal and convert.
3. Provide social proof
Testimonials and social additions like “X number of customers bought item A today” are very powerful conversion rate boosters. Buying online can feel impersonal and like a bit of a stab in the dark, so reassurance from real buyers can help turn a visitor into a customer or lead.
4. Don’t overcomplicate design
It can be tempting to think that bells, whistles, bright colours and fireworks will all attract a visitor’s attention and help to steer them down a buying journey. This is a big mistake.
Firstly, complicated colour schemes and graphics can prove to be visually confusing, making it difficult for visitors to steer their way through your website towards a conversion.
Secondly, this kind of tactic piles pressure on visitors and has the same effect as a pushy salesman in real life – sending interested customers running for the hills. Keep it clean, clear and simple and you’ll convert better. Think about Google’s homepage.
5. Perfect your pitch
Tailor each page’s copy and tone to suit the target buyer the page is aimed at. For example, your homepage is the gateway to your website and it will attract the widest range of visitors so keep the copy broad and general to keep the biggest possible audience engaged. On deeper, more specialised category or landing pages, think hard about the visitors likely to be clicking through and write the copy with their needs, interests and objections in mind. Creating insightful buyer personas is key to successful CRO (conversion rate optimisation).
6. Think fast
Site speed can have a big impact on your conversion rate. If a website fails to load within 8 seconds, its bounce rate will be sky high as frustrated visitors immediately exit. Heavy use of high quality images and lots of clunky code behind the scenes will result in slow load times. Make sure your developers address this, pronto!
7. Take it from the top
Make sure that your key messages all appear in the top 300px of your website. On average monitors and screen resolutions this will be the very first part of the page your visitors see, any further information and content will be below the ‘fold’ (the bottom of the screen). Research shows that fewer than 50% of visitors will scroll down to read further information if they can’t find what they need in the top segment. That’s why it’s important to make sure your key messages, CTAs and crucial ‘buying journey links’ are a top priority.
8. It’s all in the eyes
Including photographic images of people on your website has been shown to be a conversion booster as it lends a more human, personal touch. An even smarter way to use pictures of people is to have their eyes looking towards your call to action or form. Studies show that visitors naturally follow a human gaze, drawing attention to your crucial CTA.
9. Test, test and test again
The very best way to maximise your conversion rate is to keep on honing your website. CRO works best as an ongoing process.
Using A-B testing make one small tweak at a time and record the results. Once you know what works, compile all of the best conversion improvers into one dynamite, high-converting website. Don’t rest on your laurels though, there are always more improvements to be made!
Is your conversion rate not what it could be? Xander Marketing’s team of outsourced online marketing experts can help. We offer a free hour long consultation with no obligation – let’s talk about how to boost your conversions! Book your free consultation today.
