The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday
Many people invest time and money into getting visitors to their website. The sad fact – and what many online marketing consultants don’t let people know up front – is that statistically 95% of more of the people that visit your website will not do business with you. When you put it that way, it sounds unbelievable, but think about how you search the web. When you are searching online, how many times do you do business with the very first link you click on? Probably never, especially if you are doing research and wanting to find the best value for your dollar.
The percentage of website visitors that either purchase from you or contact you is referred to as the conversion rate. It is a measure of how many visitors are converted to prospects of customers. If you sell a product online, this will be easier to track because you can look at the number of visitors and the number of sales. If you have a service based company or do not sell online, this will require that you make sure to find out exactly how your customers found you.
There are several factors that determine whether or not someone considers your website to have what they are looking for. Most of all, your website should have a professional look and feel. If the site looks like an amateur designed it, that will certainly not give the customer a sense of confidence; especially if you are asking for their credit card information. This includes seemingly small things like having poor grammar or typographical errors. Another thing that gives consumers confidence is seeing reputable “seals” such as the BBB logo. Website usability (the science of understanding how your customer reacts to what they see) can be complex and my intention was not to discuss website usability.
Given that most people are not going to stay on your site or do business with you on the first visit, the simplest and most effective way to increase the percentage of people that do business with you is to capture their contact information (name and email) so you can follow up with them. Ideally, you should offer them something of value that will entice them to give you their information (such as a “how to” guide or a white paper) and this should be followed up by a series of follow up emails offering more information on your products or services. You might even throw in a coupon or special offer to entice them to act.
There are several systems that will allow you to simply integrate this functionality into your website. Here are the ones I recommend looking into:
- Aweber – First month only $1!
- iContact – Offers free trial account.
- InfusionSoft – Offers a free 15 day trial. AMAZING company and an AMAZING product (it is a total business automation system).
- MailChimp – Offer free entry level account.
- Constant Contact – Offers a free 60 day trial (no credit card required).
I am an affiliate for each of these companies, but only because I fully endorse them and use or have used them over the past several years. Even better, most of them offer free trials, so you at least owe it to yourself to at least take the next step. If you have any specific questions about any of them, I am happy to answer any questions. Simply leave your questions in the comments below or contact me directly.
In closing, I will you all a Blessed Easter and Passover season.
More From Anthony Kirlew
- How to Get Your Competition to Send Their Prospects to YOU
- How to Monetize Your Domain Names
- What You Need to Know about SEO (On Page SEO – Part 1 of 3) – Fueled Friday
Anthony Kirlew Recommends
- How to Increase How Often Google Crawls Your Website (StayOnSearch)
- How to Lower Your Bounce Rate Using Google Analytics (StayOnSearch)
- Quick Tricks to Checking Your Backlinks (StayOnSearch)
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
You make some good points, but I wanted to add that another way to get users to come back to your site is by using retargeting. For those unfamiliar with it, the way retargeting works is by placing a snippet of code on your site that captures user info and uses it to display your ads to them after they leave your site and surf the web. It’s effective enough that Google is now using it for AdWords, but it’s nothing new.
Just figured I’d add this info because not everyone is going to give their email address or sign up at your site before they leave, so retargeting gives you that extra opportunity to reel them back in.
[...] Tһе Simplest Way tο Increase Yουr Conversion Rates – Fueled Friday [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Anthony Kirlew. Anthony Kirlew said: The Simplest Way to Increase Your Conversion Rates – http://su.pr/1uvJ3T [...]
Thank you for this post. Conversion rates are one of the things I have found hardest to analyze. As a business we took the decision to focus on weddings and in particular self catering weddings. Having a fairly narrow focus it has been quite easy to get good placings in search engine results and year on year our web traffic has grown significantly. Our business has also doubled in the last 3 years so we know things are working.
However, webs hits far out way bookings or even enquiries. Why? On questioning those who have booked with us, one thing they all had in common was then when searching for a wedding venue they said we kept coming up, either through different searches or various directories. Then they got various friends and family to look at our site as well, and this seems to snowball. The result is lots of web hits all relating to 1 booking!
It makes it hard to track in a clear cut manor even though “gut feel” says conversion rates are good.
I like the idea of capturing information as you suggest and will look at this through the sites you list and also through our booking system (when we get it sorted).
@Rebecca – I am not an expert on retargeting, but I know that some cry “big brother” when they see Google ads related to what they are doing.
@Hargate – My initial reaction is that when people first visit your site, the imagery does not make them think of weddings. You don’t really have a lot of time to capture someone’s interest. I suggest having a usability specialist give you an analysis and it may shed lots of light. If you are getting traffic that is great – now you need to enhance the site to get the traffic to convert.
I find conversion rates so hard to measure. Being that i dont directly sell products on my Wedding Photography website how is it i should measure my conversions?