Some websites are littered with missed opportunities to convert visitors into customers, resulting in the website being nothing more than an online business card. Here are five tips to help you guide visitors through the conversion process.
Before you implement any of the tips below, be sure to determine what your goals are for the website and your marketing campaigns. Whether it is a purchase, lead generation, registration, or other action, plan it out before creating conversion opportunities.
5 Tips to Convert Website Visitors into Customers
1. Go over your marketing pages with a critical eye.
Visitors nowadays are well-informed and have a world of options at their fingertips. To keep them on your site, take a hard look at your product/services pages and ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the text written in a web-friendly format?
- Am I using high-quality, engaging images that accurately reflect what I am offering?
- Are the benefits of my products or services clear?
- Do I answer commonly asked questions?
- Is there evidence to back up my claims (i.e. testimonials, reviews, case studies)?
2. Create calls-to-action with prominent placement.
Various heatmap studies show that a reader’s eye naturally starts in the upper left-hand edge of the page and moves in a F-shaped pattern, ending at the bottom of the page. This is common for web pages that are text heavy.
Studies show that for pages with less text, like a home page or website with minimalist design, users’ eyes track in more of a Z-shaped pattern. Zapier has designed their home page with this in mind.
Regardless of your call-to-action, you will get better results by placing it near the top left or top right section of your web page. The lower you go, the less opportunity it will have to be seen. It is worth experimenting by placing your call-to-action in different places on different pages to see what kind of results you get.
3. Add pop-up, slide-in, or sticky offers.
Yes, they can be annoying if they are obnoxious or irrelevant because you are interrupting the visitor while they are absorbing content. However, they do work well when they are helpful to the visitor. For example, The Children’s Place has an offer that pops up immediately when you land on the home page. But if you are shopping for kid clothes, that $10 off coupon sounds pretty good.
4. Blog, blog, and blog some more.
This can’t be overstated. When looking at analytics for the websites we create in Boston and surrounding areas, one thing is clear… blogs can bring in serious website traffic.
Leverage your blog to promote a new campaign and to provide great information related to your industry. Add calls-to-action to link to related blog posts, new and special offers, and services related to your post. Did you just introduce a new menu item for your Boston restaurant? Write a blog post about it. And while you’re at it, how about adding a special offer or coupon CTA which requires a visitor’s email address?
5. Add text-based CTAs throughout your website.
Visitors have learned to tune out anything that looks like a banner ad. And can you blame them? Online banners are everywhere. Studies, like the one done by Pam Vaughan of HubSpot, show that visitors are much more likely to click on well-placed anchor text calls-to-action on a page than they are to click on something that looks like a banner ad. To make your offer stand out, use a heading font (h3 or h4). These are often used in blog posts to point a visitor to a related service or offer.