Would you like to know why some websites succeed online and make a lot of money with a small amount of traffic, whereas others spend huge amounts of money to generate traffic yet end up with no sales and a massive bill? It all comes down to the Conversion Process.
What goes wrong for most companies that don't succeed online?
Their web design has an awful or non-existent conversion process. Conversion is the cornerstone of a successful website. A site with poor conversion is like a bucket with a hole. But in this case, think of the water pouring through the hole as thousands of pounds worth of lost sales. A very expensive hole.
To make matters worse, many companies in this situation will throw money at things like on-page SEO, Google Adwords, and Facebook Advertising to increase sales. Think of this as pouring more water into a leaky bucket.
So what should these companies do?
Ideally, build a new site with a good conversion process. Or at the very least patch up the poor conversion process in their existing site.
How do you build a good conversion process?
To succeed online, You Need to Understand your Sites Visitors. And have a clear idea of what you want them to do.
It would be best to have a clear, measurable goal for every website visitor.
Typical Goals Include a Visitor
Subscribing to your blog and making a telephone inquiry. Making an email inquiry. Or purchasing something directly from your site. If this goal is achieved, you have a successful conversion.
Just as you have goals about the action of your site visitors, they will have their own goals they want to achieve when they visit your site.
Always keep in mind the moment a site visitor thinks your site will not help them achieve their goal. They will leave your site. Conversion failed.
What causes a successful conversion?
Successful conversion occurs when the action you desire overlaps with the goals of one of your site's visitors.
The better your site achieves this, the higher your conversion rate will be.
What does conversion rate mean?
Conversion Rate = Visitors Taking the Desired Action / Unique Visitors to your website.
Your conversion rate keeps a score of how successfully your website converts visitors into taking the desired action. The higher the Conversion Rate, the better.
How to Improve the Conversion Rate of your Website
Here are five ways to improve your Conversion Rate to succeed in business and making money online.
1. Attract more Qualified Prospects to your site
You don't want random visitors to your site. You want to increase your visitors who are potential buyers. If you sell cigarettes, you don't want your visitors to be non-smokers. You want smokers.
2. Improve your Conversion Process
When a visitor comes to your website, the conversion process begins. Your web design needs to allow them to easily find the information they want while guiding them towards the action you want them to take.
3. Have better Headlines on your Landing Pages
Whether a visitor enters your website through your homepage or a landing page, the first thing they will see is your headline. If your headline catches their attention, they will continue reading the page.
If they continue reading, they have a chance of converting. If your headline doesn't persuade them to continue reading, their chances of converting are zero.
4. Have a Clear Call to Action
Your web design needs to come with clear calls to action throughout your site to have a successful online business. Without them, visitors will be confused about what to do and where to find the information they want.
Let's look at a quick example of a landing page for a joinery company. On the home page, we gave the visitor the option of selecting Windows, Doors, or Kitchens. When selected, this would take them to the relevant page.
Let's look at the conversion process in this situation. A visitor comes on to the joinery site wanting some new windows. They immediately see the windows option, click on it, and are taken to the windows page.
Here they are given a wealth of information about windows with the option which is another call to action to get in touch.
Compare this to a joinery site with a slideshow of their projects on the home page. What do you think will convert better?
5. Make your Site More Interesting
If your site has content that adds value to a visitor, the content will be interesting. And they will stay on your site. If your conversion process is designed correctly, this will result in your conversion rate improving.
How do you make your site interesting?
Provide your visitors with educational information about your products or services. A bonus is this will help you with SEO and number 1 on this list and is attracting more qualified prospects.
Key Takeaways on Conversion to Succeed Online
The key takeaways to make sure you have a website that converts are followed.
Make sure your web design has a conversion process built into it. If not, you have a leaky bucket, and you will lose out on potential sales.
And make sure you have a deep understanding of your sales process and what goes on in a buyer's head every step of the way. Understand this, then provide the information your visitors need at each step of the conversion process.