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Conversion rate optimisation is the structured process of working your way through pipeline stages on your website and making tested incremental changes to certain aspects that make it easier for a visitor to take action. Below are 16 conversion rate optimisation tips to help you get more leads from your website.
Many company websites are put together by web designers who have no training in conversion rate optimisation and many mistakes are often built into existing websites. A common mistake is trying to be all things to all people. This results in a plethora of choices on the home page. Often referred to as ‘choice paralysis’.
Choice paralysis is when a person feels overwhelmed by too many options. Too many choices can easily paralyse someone because they feel like they need to choose all of them before making a decision. This is a very common mistake on websites. Trying to tell visitors everything all at once, right at the top of the page.
If a visitor suffers from choice paralysis, then they are very unlikely to convert and most often leave the site without going any further to reduce their anxiety. Therefore lowering your conversion rate.
Below are 16 tips you can implement or work with your web design or digital agency to implement on your desktop and mobile website to improve your Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO).
How to Increase the Conversion Rate on your Website
- Reduce the number of questions on your forms
- Add social proof to your website
- Track & analyse how people use your site
- Use a chatbot to overcome hurdles
- Test your offers and promotions before going live
- Use A/B testing to see what works best (You’ll be surprised)
- Increase trust with your visitors
- Create an abandon basket email campaign (eCommerce only)
- Promote your value proposition first
- Use mixed media on your website pages
- Create converting CTA’s
- Focus on the one thing
- Deliver what your audience wants
- Make sure your website loads fast
- Optimise your mobile website
- Localise your content
16 tips on how to make incremental increases in your conversion rate on your website
1. Reduce the number of questions on your forms
Users don’t convert because there’s too much friction in completing too many questions. For example, if your website doesn’t have a clear call to action, visitors may not know why you are asking for the information you are asking for. If you’re selling something, you need to provide an easy way for them to buy. Don’t overcomplicate it with wanting to know everything about them straight away. Concentrate on the bare minimum you need.
You’re responsible for eliminating hesitation, not creating it. Shortening your forms will help you create trust among your audience, and it will also save them time filling out. Users are more likely to complete your form if it takes less time to complete and makes sense.
2. Add social proof to your website
Social Proof is when other people’s opinions about something influence our own opinion. Social proof is an important factor in influencing consumer behaviour. Consumers trust what others, like them, say about products and services. If someone else likes a product, then we’re likely to like it too. We tend to follow the crowd.
You can link to Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews, Trustpilot or other directory pages where customers have left reviews about you or your products.
You should also add testimonials and reviews on your site so visitors won’t have to go to another site. Make sure you label where they are from, so visitors understand they are genuine.
Your customers have enjoyed using your products or services. Make sure you have a process in place to gather that feedback. Using an existing tool (Google Reviews Facebook Reviews) or some other method.
3. Track & analyse how people use your site
You won’t be able to improve your conversion rate unless you understand how users interact with your site.
Website analytics tools allow you to see exactly what happens when someone visits your site. You can see what pages they visit, what links they click on, and even what they do after they leave your site. These tools help you understand why people are visiting your site, and what they’re doing once they get there.
It can help understand why people are not doing what you expect them to do, and where the bottlenecks are in your funnel.
Furthermore, these tools should include visualisations of your site, so that you can see which elements stand out and which draw the eye.
We use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, Google Optimise, TruConversion, SharpSpring and vBout to see what’s working and what needs improvement. These tools will show you your conversion rates and tell you why people aren’t converting on your website. You should also calculate how many conversions you get per visitor and analyse why people aren’t converting.
4. Use a chatbot to overcome hurdles
If a web visitor doesn’t click through further into your website, they might have a concern or question about your product or service, so be sure to make it easy to address any questions.
To avoid losing potential clients, you should consider adding a chatbot or a live chat feature to your site.
A chatbot can ask multiple choice questions and give further details and answers around a specific topic. They can be programmed in and can recognise customers from new visitors. this is a great 1 to-many solution when you get a lot of the same questions.
Live chat allows your customer service or sales team to address any concerns of potential customers who are on the fence about buying from you.
5. Test your offers and promotions before going live
Sometimes it feels like you’ve done everything right, what you think is a great offer, the graphics look spot on, but you’re not seeing any results.
When you see an offer that doesn’t fit your audience, it’s time to review your content offers. Does it align with your audience? Is it creative and compelling? Does the offer make sense for the page it’s on? If not, then it’s time to change them.
Think about your current offerings and answer those questions. Is there room for improvement?
Offering a free trial or consultation isn’t very specific. You could offer something specific to the page they are on. It should be relevant if they are on that page looking at that service or product.
Offers that are tangible and compelling always outperform generic offers. You can improve conversions by analysing and testing your content offers using A/B testing
6. Use A/B testing to see what works best (you’ll be surprised)
A/B testing is an important tool for improving your website. You can test different versions of a page or just different sections of a page to see which performs best. There are tools available that let you do this and will automatically swap between the 2 options as visitors come to your website. They also remember who has seen which version so it doesn’t change for them halfway through browsing or when they return.
Use A/B testing to see what works best for your audience. Experiment with different button colours, text layouts, images and headlines until you find something that converts well.
For example, you could test an entirely new type of call-to-action (CTA) or completely change the format of your copy.
7. Increase trust with your visitors
If users don’t trust your brand, they won’t convert. They need to have the confidence you deliver what you say and promise.
So, how can you increase trust?
There are several ways to go about it. For example, update your site content regularly, avoid spammy links, use professional design and photography, and make the site easy to use and concise. Ooze confidence with your offering.
If you are selling directly on the site. Link directly to real-world reviews or you could offer a money-back guarantee.
If it looks like your blog hasn’t been updated for two years or if there are a lot of dead links, that’s friction and it causes distrust. It looks like you don’t care.
You can also include team bios so your audiences know who they’re getting information from. When they chat with them on the phone or live chat they can see the connection and it helps build trust.
8. Create an abandon basket email campaign (eCommerce only)
If you’ve had a customer abandon their cart, you should send them an email reminding them why they bought from you in the first place. Offer them a discount, maybe to encourage them to come back, or just remind them it’s there. There are many reasons people don’t check-out, sometimes it’s just the fact they got disturbed.
With this type of e-mail campaign, you’ll send an initial reminder to users about the products they’ve added to their carts, send a follow-up, and then follow up again. It’s amazing the difference between reminding them once or reminding them 3 times.
If you don’t send this email, you’re losing out on conversions.
The other thing to note here is to try and get early buy-in from a potential customer. Offer a discount on the first order via a code you email to them. That way you know more of the people who abandon their cart (as you already have their email address) and you increase your conversion rate.
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9. Promote your value proposition first
Firstly you need to know and understand your value proposition. What it is you do that puts you above and beyond your competitors? Your value proposition should be clear and concise. You need to understand who your audience is and why this matters to them.
Then make sure this comes across as clear and concise. It will attract the right people and defer those who aren’t. You then get to concentrate on the right people, nurturing them and converting them on your website.
You should also talk about the benefits of your product. These benefits will help your potential customers see themselves using your product. Features are easy to skim and skip, so you should focus on the benefits instead.
If you’re not converting, you should check how well your copy is written. You may need to rewrite parts of your copy if it isn’t clear enough. You can use A/B testing to see which version of a piece of copy works best.
10. Use mixed media on your website pages
Use images and videos on your web pages. Different people prefer different types of content. Depending on their situation and where they are viewing your web page a video may be best, or text and images may be best. Cover all the bases by having different types of content.
Add graphs, charts, bullet points, interactive graphics – whatever is needed to get across the value proposition of your service or product. Don’t waffle on the page, but do not be scared of putting different types of content on there. People will scroll and consume the bits that are best for them. Just make sure you break it up and make it easy to understand.
11. Create converting CTAs
Your call-to-action (CTA) is what you want visitors to do when they land on your website. It could be to sign up for a free trial, download an ebook, or buy something. You should always have a clear idea of what you want them to do on each page.
CTAs should be clear and easy to access. If you’re not sure what a CTA is, think about buttons like “Buy Now”, “Learn More” or “Sign Up”. These are all examples of CTAs.
A landing page usually has one call to action, but may incorporate several calls to action on a single page. For example, a blog post might have an offer at the bottom of the post, a CTA in the intro paragraph, and another CTA that appears when you scroll down the page.
CTAs should be placed at the top of the page, not at the bottom. If you place them at the bottom, users may not scroll down far enough to see them.
The important point to note is that you should always offer a clear call to action. If you don’t, then you’re leaving money on the table. You need to communicate what you want the user to do, and if you don’t provide a clear call to action, then you’re leaving out an opportunity to convert.
12. Focus on the one thing
As per your CTAs, each page has a primary focus. It has a primary purpose in its existence on your website. Focus on the one thing that you want visitors to do on the page and make sure there is no friction to achieve this.
If you are wanting people to sign up for a newsletter, then make sure the content on the page gives them the reasons and value for doing so. Don’t dilute it with information trying to sell them a product. Concentrate on the 1 thing. This builds trust. If it’s not right for them, they can visit another page.
A cluttered or busy page is less likely to turn visitors into customers. You only have a short amount of time to convince them, and a page that is cluttered and wavers between content will discourage potential buyers from sticking around.
13. Deliver what your audience wants
After someone clicks on your site from Google or an ad, your landing page must follow through with relevant, useful and valuable content. It needs to be logically structured and easy to digest. Depending on your business it may need to be long or short. It all depends on what you’re selling, the knowledge of your visitor and the complexity of the product or service.
Make sure the content on the page answers the question they clicked on in the ad. A landing page should be designed to get users to take action. If a landing page doesn’t meet expectations, then users will not convert.
If a landing page doesn’t convert, review your social media post, google ad, remarketing ad and search engine description to see if you follow up on the promises you made in them.
14. Make sure your website loads fast
Page load speed is an important factor when it comes to conversions. A slow page will not only frustrate users but also cause them to leave your site before they even get to see what you have to offer.
Did you also know that 40% of users will leave your site if it takes longer than three seconds to load? That’s right, 40%. And on mobile specifically, a one-second delay in page response can reduce conversion rates by 7%.
Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool is a great place to start if you’re looking to optimise your website. You’ll get an overview of your page speed, both desktop and mobile, along with suggestions for improving it.
Implementing the suggestions can be easy and hard. Depending on the results you may need a specialist to help you.
15. Optimise your mobile website
Google has made mobile search more important than ever. Mobile users are becoming the majority of searches performed on Google. If you don’t make sure your website is optimised for mobile, your Google ranking could be impacted, which could lead to fewer conversions.
You may be wondering, “How can I optimise my site for smartphones?”
Before you start, it’s important to realise that mobile and desktop experiences differ.
Google’s Mobile Testing Tool will help you test whether your website is mobile-friendly. You’ll get recommendations for how you can improve your site’s mobile experience.
For example, you may need to increase your font size on mobile, compress your image files, or improve page speed to get better results.
16. Localise your content
Users who visit your site from mobile devices are usually looking for contact information, wanting to know your location, finding directions, or checking out reviews.
For local SEO optimisation, you need to add location pages to your website and manage your online directory listings. You also need to create local content. Show visitors, and local happy customers. Local projects you have completed, or pictures on site at well-known local landmarks or companies. This all depends on the services and products you provide, but people love to buy local and support their local businesses.
If you want to improve your mobile conversion rates by making sure your site performs well in local searches, consider localising your website with highly relevant and valuable local content.
Learn from your own shopping
We all use the internet to conduct research, look for products to solve our problems or look for companies to buy services from. When you’re looking, take note of what works for you. Try and think about why that work – what’s the mechanics behind it. then try and see if you can apply it to your own website.
There is no such thing as a brand new idea. Ideas and advances come from lots of failed trials and tweaking nearly successful experiments. This is not new. This is the way advances in science have happened for years.
Now try looking at your website through a customer’s eyes. Would you trust the information? Would you feel comfortable making a purchase? Does it fill you with trust?
XposureHUB FOR CONVERSION RATE OPTIMISATION
XposureHUB is our all-in-one marketing solution encompassing traffic generation, conversion rate optimisation and lead generation. Working together on your website every month to attract the right people and convert them into leads or sales. If you’d like to know more take a look on our XposureHUB page and please feel free to get in touch.
