11 easy steps to boosting conversions on your website

Not all website traffic is created equal.

It’s a known fact that high website traffic is essential. However, having high traffic volume is worthless if people visit your website without engaging with what you have to offer.

Your website’s conversion rate is crucial to success because conversions equate to income.

Sometimes, boosting conversions is simple, while other times it will require some creativity and time on your part.

This year, you should make an effort to boost conversion rates like a boss, so that your competition can sit and wonder just how you launched into business excellence overnight.

Naturally, what is a conversion to you may not be a conversion to others. So, before you set forth to improve your conversion rate, sit down and decide what your “conversion” entails. Are you capturing emails? Trying to win proposals? Seeing who calls? Racking up the online purchases?

Once you have defined your conversion, you are ready to tackle these eleven steps for improving your numbers.

11 Steps to Boost Conversions on Your Website Now

1. Start With a Compelling Headline and Landing Page

Headlines are powerful stuff.

They are what capture the attention of your site’s visitor and ultimately get them interested in the rest of the content you offer.

So, you must wow them and add some zing to the headline. Sure, 80 percent of readers do not make it past the headline, but if you put some real effort into that headline, and make the words count, you can encourage them to read on.

According to Koechley, traffic can vary by as much as 500 percent just because of the headline — meaning there’s a ton of importance riding on those five to ten words.

5 Jumping Off Points for Better Headers:

• Ask a Question
• Use a Numbered List
• Address the Reader’s Concern or Need
• Use How-To Steps
• Focus on Something Relatable

2. Make Your Unique Value Proposition (USP) Clear as Day

The moment someone lands on your website, he or she should know what you do and the benefit of doing business with you over the other guys.

You must differentiate yourself from the pack and show off the “Why Me.”

Ask yourself about why someone should buy from you, then use that to advertise on your website. Do you offer free shipping? Are you the only company with a 100 percent money back guarantee?

3. Make Your Offer Too Good to Refuse

Part of your website optimization must focus on an offer that is worthwhile. This funnels into your USP, too, since a user must see the offer and know it is worth it to convert.

For example, adding a privacy policy statement to opt-in forms can elicit mixed feelings. In one study, it was found that adding a privacy policy statement decreased conversions by almost 19 percent. Other studies have stated that adding a policy statement improves email conversion rates. Regardless, testing both on your site might help increase your rates.

4. Exploit the Benefit Bullets

Users want to see the benefits of your products or services, but they do not want to hunt through your content to find them. You can exploit the advantages of bullet points to deliver the big selling points of your company.

If the bullet points express a clear benefit and promise to the reader, and they are promises that you can keep your word on, they could help improve conversions.

5. Boost Your Content with Images

Images help break up the content, but also show people what they are getting from your company. If you need them to convert to an eBook, show the eBook.

Also, adding images of people, preferably those smiling, can increase your conversion rate as well. Why? People tend to prefer to look at other people than generic images.

6. Prove the Credibility is There

If you have professional seals or those from organizations that you are a member of, consider adding them to your site to increase credibility. For example, Cars.com increased conversions by 2.7 percent with a security seal on their site.

7. Show Off Your Follower Counts and Subscriber Numbers

To help the new user trust your brand, add social sharing buttons that highlight how many followers you have on social media already. Also, if you collect subscribers, show how many people have already subscribed to your service or newsletter.

Adding customer testimonials could also increase conversions. However, you must do so cautiously. Ask existing customers to send in their testimonials and see if it helps your conversion rate. WikiJob used single quotes from clients and saw a 34 percent jump.

8. Get Rid of the Hype and Focus on What the Customer Gets for Converting

Today’s internet user is savvy, and they are not in the mood for hypes and gimmicks. Instead, they want straightforward information about your products. So, if you are transparent, you may see improved conversions automatically.

Try polishing your existing landing page content and removing the hype. Be straightforward, honest, and concise. Emphasize the benefits the product provides for the potential customer, rather than the features of the product itself.

9. Try Out Different CTA Buttons

Sometimes the content is great, the landing page is pristine, but the call-to-action button is decreasing your conversions.

Try making it stand out more with a soft popup after the page sits idle or include a “Buy Now” button above the fold. In these cases, you won’t have to risk (and hope) that they will scroll downward.

Bottom line, these buttons perform differently based on the color, how large they are, and where they are placed. So, try out a few variations, wait a few days (or weeks) to see their performance, and then stick to those that convert more effectively.

10. Determine the Specific Interests of  Your Target Audience By Using Dark Social Data:

RadiumOne recently reported that dark social accounts for 75 percent of consumer sharing online. What is “Dark Social?”

What is “Dark Social?” It’s when people share content through means which cannot be measured by social media analytics programs. This means it is done through the use of a private messaging app, such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, private email or text message.

For example, your friend sees a beautiful photo or hilarious meme on Instagram. Rather than liking and tagging you in it, she screenshots it and texts it to you. Or, you read an interesting article that you know your grandma is just going to love. She doesn’t have Facebook, so you copy and paste the link into an email and send it to her.

So, how do you track it if it isn’t trackable? Here are a few tips to help narrow it down:

• Prominently display social sharing buttons – make it as easy as possible in order to reduce the amount of dark social sharing on your content
• Create a segment in Google Analytics looking only at direct traffic from pages containing very long sub-folders. Why? Because these are ones people are highly unlikely to have typed out themselves when entering your site, indicating they were probably collected through dark social.

Take a close look at this data and to deeper understand what type of content your audience is sharing. The end goal is to drive conversions, so promoting the content shared through dark social channels is an important step in the process.

11. Charge Content with Emotional Button-Pushers

By including emotionally-charged content, you’ll connect to the reader on an emotional level. Why does this matter? Because emotion is much stronger than simply ‘liking’ something.”Liking’ something isn’t enough to make a purchase. But, if what’s being sold creates a strong emotional pull, by grasping at the heartstrings deep down inside someone’s soul… You’re winning.

To find the right pain point for your audience, you must first gain insight into your target market. You should know what will resonate with them, and what may turn them off. Pick an emotion you want to trigger, and be specific about it. Be sure the text and images used in your content reflect this emotion in the most compelling way. When you trigger the right emotion in the right way, the rest falls into place.

Need Help with Your Site’s Conversion Rate?

Even with these steps, sometimes something is missing.

If you need a big conversion rate optimization to revitalize your website, Thrive can help.

We are experts in content and SEO marketing, and we know how to polish up a landing page so that it does not just convert a few, it converts many.

Reach out to Thrive today for a free consultation at 866-908-4748 or contact us online.