It takes more than just an IP address and clean landing page to grow your business on the web. These days, anybody with an idea or product to sell, and a beginner’s knowledge of web hosting and design, can launch a website—and effectively, a new business—in a few hours’ time.
With all the clutter and competition online, it is an unfortunate reality that not every visitor who comes to your site will end up as a customer.
Not to worry though, as there are steps you can take to ensure a greater percentage of them do end up making a purchase.
The following are seven ways that your website can better convert browsers into buyers.
Build user trust
Gaining the trust of your users through your website is incredibly important. According to Gartner, 65 percent of a company’s business comes from existing customers, and it costs 5 times more to attract new customers than it does to keep old ones.
Be engaging across multiple platforms
A 2015 study found that 46 percent of Internet users in Asia as well as 20 percent of Internet users in North America purchased a product via mobile device in the previous year. Ensuring that your website is optimized for mobile devices as well as for standard Internet users is a great way to increase traffic.
Provide appealing content
Content is a crucial component in bringing potential customers to your website and building user trust. White papers, cases studies, webinars, eBooks, blog posts, and infographics are just some of the various types of content that can improve your website.
Improve your page navigation
A website that is difficult to navigate is like a road with no traffic signs—most people won’t stick around long enough to figure things out, and those that do will be frustrated.
A recent joint study from the University of Northumbria and Sheffield University revealed that 94 percent of visitors’ first impressions of a website are design related. Slow load times, busy layouts, too much text, and boring designs are just some of the issues that can hurt your site.
Design with clarity in mind
The same study above found that navigation and visual appeal were far and away the most important influences on people’s first impressions of a website. Creating a clean and visually appealing website that knows what it wants to share with visitors is a great way to improve conversions.
Perform usability testing
Your business wouldn’t launch a new product or service without testing it first, and you should take the same approach with your web design.
According to research from Google, 79 percent of users who don’t like what they find on one site will leave and search for alternative options.
Track conversion metrics
Tracking and optimizing for the right metrics can go a long way towards converting visitors to your website into actual customers.
Returning visitors interact with your website differently than new visitors; identifying and improving the experience for both is a key part of making sure they come back.
The methods outlined above are a solid foundation and a great starting point for being proactive in improving your site’s conversion rate. Employing simple but effective tactics like these are integral in boosting the value of any site, and can ultimately mean the difference between a successful site and a failing one.
