In a world of instant gratification where Internet users have the answers to any question at the tips of their fingers—or perhaps just beyond the click of a mouse—it’s important to consider how visitors perceive your company’s website. The average page visit lasts less than a minute, so you have an extremely brief window to entice someone to stay and complete a conversion activity on your site. Read on for a few tips on how to increase your conversions while decreasing bounce rate.
Define Conversion
You can’t accomplish a goal without knowing what it is, which means your first task is to define the term “conversion” as it relates to your site. Perhaps your definition is strictly related to when a site visitor makes a purchase, or perhaps the conversion happens when visitors fill out a form or download an e-book. Regardless of the goal, you must clearly define it before you can achieve it.
Clarify your Goals
Now that you’ve defined conversion, you should set a clear and attainable objective for how many conversions you seek. Do you want 10 people a day to fill out your form? Do you hope to sell 50 of your specialized widgets in a month? Decide what your ideal numbers are and use them as a yardstick of your site’s success going forward. And of course, part of this process is making sure yours is a well-designed site with a user-friendly layout and reliable Web hosting to help you handle any growth you experience.
Adjust your Message
The wording of your content needs to make it clear to visitors that your company—and any products or services it provides—can solve a particular problem. If your content is more focused on features—the ins and outs of a shirt’s innovative material, say—instead of the benefits—wearing this shirt will keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer—your visitors may lose interest quickly. Focus on benefits, not features, to see greater conversion success.
Make it Easy
Visitors are unlikely to convert on your site if it’s not made immediately clear exactly how to do that. Your job is to make it easy on them: Place a call to action in plain sight, using simple language and with a link that leads them directly to the conversion page. On a retail site, that might mean placing your best-selling product on the home page, including a statement about its popularity, and linking directly from that photo to a shopping cart where visitors can purchase the item.
If your site’s conversion goal is to get visitors to fill out a form with an email address, place a link to that form directly on the homepage as well as on every other page on your site. And again, remember to focus on the benefits a visitor will receive from filling out your form; after all, “Receive invitations to exclusive sales events” is a lot more enticing than “Join our email list.”
Your business’s website should be a positive add-on to your sales funnel, not a hindrance to it. Follow the above tips to make sure your site and its content are making the most of each visitor’s time. Doing so will help increase conversions and will ultimately make a positive impact on your company’s bottom line.