Did you know that the average website only converts about 1% of the traffic it receives into leads or sales?
Pretty scary isn’t it! So, it probably makes more sense to improve the conversion rate from your website before increasing the traffic to it. Here’s why:
If you wanted to double your online business you may logically start by doubling the traffic to your website. Generally speaking you can do this through any combination of Google AdWords (pay-per-click advertising), Search Engine Optimisation activity or social networking. However, whichever you choose you’ll probably end up spending a fair bit of time and money doing it. BUT, you’ll still only be converting 1 in every 100 visitors into customers.
If you’re already getting any decent volume of traffic to your website it makes more sense to focus on increasing the conversion rate rather than traffic especially as it costs you next to nothing to improve your website (assuming you have a decent Content Management System).
In other words you can double, treble, quadruple your profits simply by making a few tweaks to your website (at next to zero cost).
So, let’s take a look at 3 Profit Fixes that can immediately help you increase your conversion rate.
Profit Fix # 1 – Make a Splash with Your Homepage
Statistics show that you’ve got about 8-15 seconds to impress your visitor before they leave. What’s on your homepage will entice your visitor to stay longer and get them take the action you want them to. Here are 5 things you can do to engage your visitor and compel them to stay:
- Have a clear, bold headline that makes them stop and think!
- List the key benefits of using your business
- Use the power of video to spark their interest
- Give away some free information to help them (10 Top Tips…, 7 Secrets of…, etc.)
- Collect their email address in exchange for this free information
Now take a quick look at your homepage and see how many of these 5 things you are already doing.
Profit Fix # 2 – Be Contactable
Make it easy for your customer to make contact with you. Put your telephone number on every single page of your website. (I appreciate that for some businesses not showing their phone number is a policy but it’s a bad one!) Add contact forms, call me back pages and even live chat. Employ every technique you can to get your prospect to make contact with your business so you can begin the sales process directly with them.
Profit Fix # 3 – Be Fresh and Current
What’s out of date on your website?
The biggest offender on most websites is the News page. Having a news, blog, articles section or Twitter/Facebook feed that stopped some months ago sends a message of staleness. However, if your website is updated regularly then your visitor will feel that they are engaging with fresh, useful information. It also delivers the message that you’re a vibrant, active company with something to say about itself and that can only strengthen your prospect’s perception of you.
Another thing to check is that any information with a date against it, is properly maintained. There’s nothing worse than visiting a website only to find that the pricelist is last year’s. The same principle also applies to special offers, sales and vouchers.
Next week I’ll show you three more super-simple techniques you can instantly employ to increase the numbers of visitors who convert to enquiries and sales.
Jed Wylie is the author of Make Your Website Sell and works for Morgan Wylie a web design and digital marketing agency in the Midlands.
