Have you ever thought about how much more money your website could make? If only more of your visitors would become paying customers.
What stops this from happening for some companies?
It begins with their mindset:
Site Visitors are interested, but they still need to be sold.
Visitors arrive at your site because they are interested.
The Mindset Mistake That Many Companies Make
That they believe, as soon as a visitor arrives on their site, they immediately want to hand over their money. And purchase their goods and services.
They assume that the battle for an online sale is won when they get somebody to visit their site.
You know what they say about assumption.
This is a fatal mistake and a mistake that costs many companies a lot of money.
A site visitor is interested in learning more about your products and services. And most importantly, whether they can help them find a solution to the problem they are trying to solve.
The Correct Mindset for a Company to Have
How can we prove that we are more able than anybody else to help our visitors? Do this. And site visitors will happily exchange money in return for their problems being solved.
Companies must remember that visitors are almost always certainly looking at their competitors' sites too.
How do they beat the completion?
It is simple. Not easy. Prove that they are better equipped to solve their visitor's problems than the competition. And this requires superior sales skills. They need to make their site as good as possible by combining sales skills, educational content, and conversion optimization. By successfully doing this, visitors will be more likely to take the action they want them to.
Can you make your site so good that every site visitor wants to buy from you?
You Cannot Please Everyone
It is impossible (and unprofitable) to be all things to all people. Every single company in the world will have a sales cycle where prospects( visitors in the case of a website) drop off as they progress along the sales cycle.
For example, a site will have 50 unique visitors, which will generate ten online inquiries, which will result in 5 sales. In this case, the conversion rate will be 10%.
There is nothing wrong with having prospects drop off as they progress along the sales cycle. It is entirely normal. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a company striving to make their conversion rate as high as possible.
Some visitors to your site will leave a company's sales cycle for reasons beyond their control. Others will leave because their goals and their own don't overlap. Some visitors companies will benefit by removing them from their sales cycle. Think the type of customer who constantly complains and wants enormous discounts. No company needs this type of customer.
The visitor's companies should worry about those whose goals overlap with their own. And there is a lot that could've been done to influence whether these visitors stay in the sales process or not.
You Can Influence Whether Most Visitors Buy from You
Most websites have meager conversion rates. And contain hundreds of opportunities. Where tiny tweaks to their conversion process. Can reward them with a bag full of money.
And the good news is:
Yes, your site probably has hundreds of opportunities for you to make more money with minimal effort. Probably enough for you to buy an excellent new watch or a holiday, and maybe even a nice new car. Let's start searching for money-making opportunities on your site. So you can make some extra money from your site as soon as possible.
Most websites lose potential customers within seconds of them arriving on their site. If visitors continue past your home page or landing page, they enter into your sales process. We want to maximize the number of visitors entering into your sales process.
Get Your Website Up Now and Go to Your Homepage.
Is there a headline that sends a clear message to the visitor?
It should include your unique selling proposition and tell your visitors what you can do for them.
Is There a Clear Call to Action?
For example, a granite worktop company might have two calls to action.
1. Granite Worktops
2. Quartz Worktops.
Each call to action links to the relevant page, providing the visitor with more information on the product they are interested in.
The idea here is to quickly direct visitors to the area of your site where they can get the information they need to realize you can help them solve their problem. The result is you increase the probability of converting them into a paying customer.
Is Your Homepage Easy to Read?
Make sure you check you this is true for both mobile and desktop devices. Ask somebody you trust too if they think it is easy to read.
Remember, the best message in the world will not get read if it is impossible to read.
P.S. If your homepage has an orange background with a pink italic font. Change it now. And get a refund from whoever designed your site.
Do you have a slideshow on your homepage?
These are distracting and do not help move a visitor closer to paying customers. Never have one of these on your homepage. You want to be directing visitors towards the information they want to see and not distracting them with a pretty slideshow.
Now: Go ahead and make all the changes you need to. Do not go any further. (If you have to. Make the changes as soon as you have finished reading.) Almost immediately, you will see improvements in your conversion rate.
So, what do you do after you have fixed these weak spots?
Warning: If you do not already have some analytics for your website. Make sure you do so before you continue. And it is probably best to come back in a month when you have some meaningful analytics data. I recommend Google Analytics. It is perfect for most sites and is completely free.
For Those of You Who Have an Analytics Package.
Go into your analytics control panel and check the bounce rate for each page that represents a step in your sales process.
A page with a high bounce rate shows that it is not engaging your visitors and persuading them to take the action you want.
What is a Reasonable Bounce Rate?
As a rough guide:
- 26-40% is an excellent bounce rate.
- 41-55% is an average bounce rate.
- 56-70% gives a lot of room for improvement.
However, for an accurate indication of how good your bounce rate is, you need to consider the industry you are in and the type of products or services you sell.
What Should You do Next?
Pick the page with the highest bounce rate. Please take a look at the page on your site, much like we did when looking at your homepage. And identify what you believe is the most likely cause of people leaving the sales process (and your site) when they go on to this page.
The usual suspects are:
- A confusing layout.
- Absence of/or a weak headline.
- Dull and/or unpersuasive copy.
- Absence of/or a weak call to action.
No headline.
Now that you have picked what you think is the most likely cause for people leaving the page, you have identified.
Record Your Current Bounce Rate for This Page.
Then make the improvements that you think will reduce your bounce rate. And wait for one month. Now compare the bounce rate for the last month with the previous bounce rate. The one you recorded at the start of the month.
If your bounce rate went down. (This is good) Keep the change. And pick another page of your site to improve. Then repeat the process we just went through.
However, if there was no improvement, you can try to improve the area again with a different change. Or tweak something else on the page you are trying to improve. And wait for another month. To see if your results are improving.
For maximum benefit, the above procedure should be carried out ongoing. There is always something on your website that can be improved.
Remember making only one change at a time.
I call this process test and tweak.
Over time, all your improvements will add up and put more money into your pocket.
It would be best if you stuck with it for the long term to receive the maximum benefit and, of course, money.
Key Takeaways
The deeper a site visitor goes into your site and sales process. The more likely they are to buy from you. The starting point of getting a visitor deep into your sales process is getting your homepage right. After this, you can move on. And make improvements to each page that makes up your online sales process.
Minor changes to your home and landing pages can quickly put money into your pocket. The results can be especially significant if you have never attempted to make such improvements to your site before.
Most sites (probably yours) have hundreds of tweaks that can almost instantly increase their sales. One of them is implementing advertisement videos into your website. Nowadays, animated video becomes must-have feature and could potentially significantly reduce bounce rate. Don't underestimate it!
Continuous Improvements using tests and tweaks will cause your conversion rate to keep improving. Imagine how much extra money you can get out of your site over the next year by trying this. It is more than you think.