Your website is more than an online storefront for your business. A well-designed and positioned website is your 24/7 salesperson.
Your content needs to not only attract a visitor, but also guide that visitor into becoming a lead or convert. Then, that lead needs to be nurtured into a sale.
Sure, there will be those who land on your site and buy right away. They found what they were looking for and went for it. Most everyone else will need a little more convincing.
Here are three simple actions you can take right now to drive conversions on your website.
1.Design—or Redesign—Your Website with Care
Your website needs to look good. We were all taught that it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover, but the reality is that people will click away from a website that doesn’t look professional. Not to mention one that loads slowly.
A well-designed website needs:
- A coherent color scheme that’s easy on the eyes and attractive to your target
- Easy-to-use navigation menus
- A simple, obvious way for a potential customer to contact you
- Mobile-responsiveness—it looks good and is navigable on smartphones and tablets as well as desktops
Keep your audience in mind when you choose the design. Make sure you’ve clearly defined your target market and you’ve done your research and created target market personas. Age matters! People over 40 prefer to use computers while folks under 40 are more mobile-centric
In addition to your audience, you also need to consider your top goals. What is the primary purpose of your website?
- To sell a product or products (ecommerce)?
- To offer a service?
- To generate leads and grow an email list?
Once you have that purpose clearly defined, look at all the elements of design from your visitor’s point of view. Does your design emphasize the most important elements of the site?
If you don’t give visitors enough direction, they won’t take the path you want them to, which means they won’t become leads or customers, no matter how engaged they are on the site.
Whether you’re working with a web designer or tackling the design yourself, make certain you’ve attended to these first-impression-making elements.
An amateurish site or one that takes too long to load will make visitors walk.
2. Provide High-Quality Content
You might have focused a lot of attention on your Home page and your services/product-description pages. Maybe you took the time to craft an About page that tells your story and shows your expertise. But what about the rest of the site? Your website is a place to woo readers.
People buy from people they know and trust.
Besides your company, product and/or services information, you need to blog or provide some sort of content that gives readers a chance to get to know you and your business.
This provides the opportunity to…
- Show you know your target market’s pain points
- Offer advice on how to relieve your audience's problems
- Tell stories – testimonials, “don’t let this happen to you” and user-generated content (UGC).
- Use videos on how to use your product; go “behind the scenes”; share useful information.
You can plan out your content strategy based on seasons, holidays, and the interests of your target market.
3. Capture Leads with Clear Calls to Action
Offer your potential customers a freebie like an ebook, a coupon/discount or a free trial. The visitor to your site has to provide their name and email in order to download the gift. You can ask them one or two questions to help segment your list.
Example: Say you provide online parenting classes and you have a free, short webinar you’d like them to watch. You want to segment the list by asking them the age of their children before they get access to the video. If they are under 10, then they’ll get offers of classes specifically for that age group. If they are 10-13, a different offer and yet another one for 13 and up – the idea is to personalize any subsequent communications to their particular needs.
Don’t ask more than 2 or 3 pertinent questions. Most people aren’t going to fill out an extensive form to download a freebie.
You need to have calls-to-actions everywhere on your site.
- At the end of every blog article
- At the bottom of every page or in the footer
- In the sidebar
Make sure they’re on your Home page and your blog page. Think of the different pages on your site as doors to your business. You want to have those irresistible “point-of-purchase” offers.
Make an Action Plan
It’s worth a little extra time or cost to optimize your website. After all, it’s a valued member of your business. Taking these three simple actions—clean design, good content, and calls to action—will increase the chances that your visitors stick around on your site long enough to become leads and then eventually customers.
What one action will you take on your website to optimize it for conversion? If you’re not sure what your next step should be, of if you don’t feel confident about implementing it yourself, contact SCORE today to set up a free, confidential session with our experienced mentors.
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