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Expert Answers to Biz Questions Listen in! Pick up some expert advice to a reader's question that we selected from CyberSchmooz.
How To Improve Your Website's Conversion Rate
If you use a website for marketing or to sell your products or services, you know that conversion rates are the vital signs of your website. They tell you how well your website is performing at converting prospects to leads, leads to opportunities, and opportunities to customers. When the conversion rates are up, and your website is getting decent traffic, you don't have to worry. But when your website fails to convert, you can't take that lightly. It shouldn't take a sharp drop to alarm you that there's something wrong, and even a slow and steady decline of conversion rates will affect the bottom line. And it's best that you act as soon as you notice it's happening. Take a Good, Long Look at Conversion Rate Data The way you diagnose problems with a website's conversion rate is by looking at all the related data. Not that you should wait for a noticeable drop in conversation rate to start monitoring data — it's something you should be doing all the time. But if you're looking to find out the reasons why your conversion rate is weak, data will let you know. Some of the things you can find during conversion rate data analysis include that some segments of website visitors are more likely to convert than others. Maybe the younger users, or the users who arrive at the website by clicking on ads, or the users who use desktop computers to access the website. You can use those insights to focus your marketing efforts and go after the types of visitors that are more likely to convert. Analytics can also help you discover if there's something wrong with the website. Maybe your visitors aren't converting because the forms on your website are just too long. They also might have trouble finding what they need on your website. Maybe the checkout procedure is too lengthy or complicated, leading to high abandonment rates. Analytics will help you discover the trouble spots and why they are there. Make the Design and Copy Work for You Graphic design can have a large impact on how your website performs. The same goes for the copy on your website. The visual and textual elements on your website need to work together to help the visitors on their way through the stages they pass on their way to becoming a customer. When visitors land on your website, they don't necessarily have a clear purchase intent. They can be just learning about what you offer and how it could help them. This is the awareness stage, and at this stage, you should get the visitors acquainted with your offer, and how it might help them or solve a problem. Once they're aware of what your offer, the visitors will start considering it. At this stage, it's important that your design and your copy demonstrate how valuable and beneficial your offer can be. At the next stage, the visitors will make a decision, and at that point, you need to provide all the relevant information about your offer. The design and the copy should be developed in a way that removes the barriers to sale. People won't convert if they don't trust your website. They won't convert if they don't need to or don't want to. They won't convert if they need to pay and they don't have the money. And they're less likely to convert if they don't feel they have to hurry to do it. Your copy and design elements can help with most, if not all, of those barriers. Make Sure There's Enough Traffic A high volume of traffic will not, by itself, increase your website's conversion rates. If your conversion rates are 9%, that means that nine out a hundred visitors perform an action. If you simply increase the number of visitors, it doesn't guarantee that a higher percentage of them will convert. And that's the number one reason why traffic improvements aren't usually found in lists of tips for conversion rates improvement. But it's important to remember that good conversion rates and healthy traffic come together to affect the bottom line. You can convert nine out of ten visitors and have a conversion rate of 90%, but if you need to convert a hundred visitors each month and you only get ten of them — the high conversion rate doesn't help. So, while you're working on improving your conversion rates, make sure that your website traffic is at a healthy volume. There are plenty of ways you can do it, and you can always hire companies such as those that provide SEO services to help you with it.
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