Having a high-converting website has been the main focus of every marketing team. If you think about it, the more people discover you, the more leads ...
Having a high-converting website has been the main focus of every marketing team. If you think about it, the more people discover you, the more leads you are going to get.
With the right value proposition and calls-to-action, your website can turn all those leads waiting for you in the corner into customers of your business.
However, getting your website from conversion zero to conversion hero requires a lot of hard work.
While increasing your conversion rate might sound like a difficult task at first, looking at this guide will help you understand what you need to do to boost your conversion rate and meet your sales KPIs.
Before we see what you need to do, let's take a look at a few technical things you need to know first.
Let's start!
Read more: How a fast-loading WordPress theme can help improve conversion rates
What is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
When we talk about website conversions we associate it with a very important system known as conversion rate optimization (CRO).
This system aims at increasing the number of visitors who take action on your website and convert into loyal customers of your business.
You can calculate your conversion rate through a specific formula that uses the number of conversions you have and the number of visits you got on your website.
Here's a simple depiction of the formula:
To optimize your website effectively, you need to design the perfect webpage that will attract new visitors and give them all the right reasons to take action.
How to Increase Your Website Conversions?
To increase your website conversion rate you need to pay attention to your website elements and the means you use to promote it.
Here are the best things you should do to have a high-converting website that will get you one step ahead of your competition:
1. Expand Your Mailing List
Unfortunately, consumers' short attention span can be a problem for your conversion rate optimization.
This means that if your visitors get distracted, they will leave your website without taking any action.
While this isn't the case with all of your visitors, finding a way to get your website abandoners back to your page is your secret to boost your CRO.
To do so, you need to create an effective form to capture your visitors' attention and, above all, their email address.
Here's a great example from Nike's website:
By collecting their addresses, you'll manage to segment your audience based on their preferences and engage them with your business.
Knowing your audience will allow you to deliver better, more relevant content that will pique their interest and make them click.
2. Create Effective Email Campaigns
Now that you captured your visitors' email address and made them part of your mailing list it's time to turn their attention to your website.
To do that, you need to leverage the power of email marketing to deliver an engaging campaign with an irresistible CTA.
Creating an effective email will help you target your subscribers with tailored content and show them how much you value them.
For instance, eCommerce businesses have used special offer emails to re-engage their audience with their store and buy more.
Similarly, every business can use email as an effective channel to increase your conversion rate optimization.
What you need to get started is a great email marketing platform to give you the right tools. For that, you can take advantage of the available free email marketing services to discover which is better for your business.
To ensure that your campaigns perform, you need to make your copy interesting enough, include stunning visuals and have straightforward subject lines to promote your email deliverability.
Here's an example from Under Armour:
3. Enhance Your Value Proposition
When your visitors decide to click on your website they already know what to expect from your business.
However, since there are numerous businesses with similar products like yours, visitors will look through numerous websites and brands to find the best one.
To attract their attention, you need a value proposition that will match their expectations.
Paying attention to the language you use will show your audience the importance of choosing you over your competitors.
Additionally, if you want to improve your proposition you need to be clear, use actionable language and deliver irresistible CTAs that will make your visitors see your products as the solution to their problems.
For instance, Dollar Shave Club has a unique value proposition that focuses on the benefit of their service rather than the features.
4. Invest In An Efficient Website Design
With the help of online tools and CMS like Joomla, website building has become easier without any technical expertise.
However, having the tools doesn't mean that everyone can design a website that will have the most conversions.
As user-friendliness has become one of the reasons why visitors pay less or more time on a website, you should pay attention to your website design more than ever.
Choosing website templates that don't keep up with the current design trends will lead them away from your site.
According to this study, most website critiques focus on website design rather than content. More specifically, 94% of the participants' feedback was about the layout, color, fonts, and pop-up advertisements.
Here's an example from Harry's:
5. Improve Your Website Speed
A responsive website with a beautiful design is your way to charm your new visitors and get them one step closer to conversion.
However, an aesthetically pleasing design alone won't work if your website loading time is slow.
If your visitors feel that your website takes ages to load, they will find a similar one that will load faster.
Having a responsive site isn't optional anymore but a necessity that will improve your first impression and website professionalism. Using tools like Sizzy can help you test your website on various devices and pinpoint certain design weaknesses.
According to statistics, loading time can increase page abandonment, as seen in the chart below.
So, what can you do to increase your website speed and, ultimately, your conversion rate optimization?
Remove Unnecessary Elements
If your website speed is low, you might have more elements than you actually need.
I'm talking about excessive high-quality images and videos that increase your website loading time.
You need to reduce your visual element size or remove some of them to have better loading speed.
Instead of giving them a plethora of high-quality visuals that will take ages to load, try to give them a few eye-catching images that will load faster than the Flash.
Here's a beautiful design from Nua Bikes:
While decreasing image size will improve your website, you should also consider reducing the plugins and web fonts you use.
With these in mind, you can avoid some of the rookiest website design mistakes and aim for higher conversion rates.
Find A Better Website Hosting Service
If your visitors experience slow loading, then it's time to find a better hosting service that will live up to its expectations.
Choosing the right hosting service is paramount to fast-loading websites that will convert more.
For instance, shared hosting is one of the most popular hosting types. This type allows you to share disk space and CPU with other users of the same server.
However, while shared hosting might be cheaper than virtual private servers (VPS) or dedicated servers, it can be significantly slower.
If you want to spend less and get the maximum loading time, you need to select the best shared hosting option.
6. Increase Your Credibility With Social Proof
Increasing your CRO relies on numerous factors. However, the most important one is how trustworthy your website will look.
Credibility and legitimacy play a significant part in how your visitors will interact with your website, especially when your website is new.
As you know, nobody wants to come across a fraudulent site that will steal their personal data or bank account information.
If you want to prevent that, you need to show your visitors that your website is trustworthy. To do so you need to leverage the power of social proof.
According to the definition, social proof is a psychological and social phenomenon where people assume that the actions of others are right.
For digital marketing, social proof takes, among others, the form of online reviews, testimonials, trust badges, star ratings and so on.
These trust indicators will show your new visitors that your website is a safe place to take action, clearing up any concerns of having their data stolen.
Here's an example from Shopify's homepage:
The number of trusted businesses will give Shopify's new visitors the feeling that it's a credible company.
And to make sure that these businesses are satisfied customers, Shopify also displays a testimonial from one of their successful customers' stories.
7. Leverage The Power of Paid Traffic
Increasing your organic traffic is time-consuming and requires a lot of dedication and effort.
To speed things up, businesses have taken advantage of paid traffic, a powerful marketing tool that will help you supercharge your website conversions.
Paid traffic is available through paid traffic services such as Facebook Ads or Google Ads.
Here's an example from Skillshare:
8. Create A Dedicated Landing Page
To get your new visitors to convert, you need to direct them to a dedicated landing page that will manage to convince them to take action.
Landing pages are different from your homepage since they have fewer distractions, a focused CTA, and an irresistible value proposition.
An effective landing page must have the right copy and visual combinations to incentivize your visitor to click.
To get the most out of your landing page, you should first link it back to an efficient social ad.
So, when your social media users click on it, they will land on a page that will give them all the right reasons to convert.
Here's a landing page example from Skillshare's Facebook ad:
With an amazing CTA that stands out and a value proposition that's hard to miss, Skillshare nails their paid traffic strategy by far.
9. Run A/B Tests
Unfortunately, finding the perfect elements to boost your CRO is a trial and error process.
To optimize your website, you need to get yourself familiar with the practice of A/B Testing.
When you run an A/B test, you need to create different versions of your initial website design.
Creating different variants of your "control" will allow you to see how your visitors respond to your elements.
For instance, testing different visuals will help you see what images draw your visitors' attention and what makes them convert.
Consequently, running an effective A/B test can help you understand your audience better and boost your CRO in the most efficient way.
As people say, there's always room for improvement, so when you come across A/B Testing you should embrace it and use it to promote your business development.
Wallmonkeys A/B Test
In a recent case study, Wallmonkeys put their homepage to the test to increase their clicks and conversions.
Here's the brand's homepage before running the split test:
To benefit from A/B Testing, the company leveraged the power of usability testing to discover how visitors interacted with the homepage.
Identifying user patterns through heatmaps will provide you with valuable data and show you which areas of your website receive the most attention.
For Wallmonkeys, the end result gave the company a 550% increase in its conversion rate.
Here's Wallmonkeys' new improved homepage after the test:
10. Provide Excellent Customer Service
Having the perfect customer experience is every customer and business owner's dream.
After all, consumers are now more interested in the experience with your products rather than the products themselves.
However, certain problems might interrupt this experience and turn it into a source of confusion, anger, and negative reviews.
For that, businesses have used live chat software to solve customer problems and provide good customer service.
Showing your visitors that you are there for them, offering help and suggestions before they even become your customers, will show them how much you value them.
Here's an amazing example from Happy Socks:
Helping your visitor realize the value of your business is important to attract their attention and improve your customer lifecycle marketing endeavors.
Time To Skyrocket Your Website Conversions
Creating a website is the first step to establishing your online presence and meeting your sales goals.
Optimizing it is your secret weapon to running an efficient business that will be profitable in the long term.
To get a high-converting website, you need to pay attention to your website elements and leverage some of the most powerful marketing channels to promote it.
If you want to go far, figure out what works best for your business, always run tests to discover the most optimal elements, show your potential customers the value of your business, and, in no time, you'll see your website conversions grow beyond expectations.
Author bio
Marilia Dimitriou is a Creative Writer working for email marketing automation software Moosend. Her passion for writing has made her find new ways to combine the art of Creative Writing with SEO Copywriting. You'll find her enthusing over marketing tech and automation when she's not writing articles.
