What indicator comes to one’s mind when we talk about a site’s efficiency? In most cases, this is traffic. It is the monthly number of Internet users that most of all considered the main indicator of Internet resources, and the traffic’s growth is the major purpose of the promotion, and in general, the solution to all problems.
It is not quite so. For information resources, where the main method of monetization is the advertising, the traffic really plays a key role, because apart from the visiting, we do not expect any other actions from the user. But for online stores, enterprise resources, promotional websites, landing pages and other web-projects, the purpose of which is to sell products or a service, it is more important not the number of page visits, but the result that they have given.
To estimate the efficiency of a selling site it is important to know the rate of its conversion, that is, the percentage of the visitors who have finally become your customers. In this article, we will talk about what the website’s conversion is.
Conversions are desired actions that users make on your site.
Namely:
- buying or adding items to the shopping cart;
- registration, authorization or subscription to news;
- a call to a manager;
- a review or comment.
The resource ability to convert is expressed by a conversion rate. To calculate it, you have to divide the number of visitors who have become the customers by the total number of visitors and multiply the result by 100%.
A visitor can convert himself into a buyer/client or a lead. In the former case, everything is simple enough: a visitor to your site makes a purchase or begins to partner with you.
In the latter case, everything is a little more complicated. A lead is a person who visited your site and showed interest in a product or the service that you provide but has not yet made an order. Depending on the degree of readiness for the order, leads are divided into the following categories:
- cold (I just watch);
- warm (tell me …);
- hot (shut up and take my money!).
In some niches, for example, with a high average check, it is practically impossible to convert visitors into customers in one contact. Therefore, marketing is based on a step-by-step conversion: from cold leads to customers.
How to increase the conversion rate
Involve your targeted traffic
Frequent reasons for a low conversion are the visitors who are not at all interested in the purchasing at all. Often, in chase of the traffic, inexperienced optimizers, advertising experts, or optimizers purposely use exaggerated profitable promises, which in the long run result only in non-targeted links.
To prevent this, check the semantic kernel. It should have no keys that mislead users. For example, these are key phrases using the words: “free”, “cheap”, “inexpensive” in cases where the cost of your product is practically no different than that of competitors. It also can be the product category that you have not or the names of cities where you do not provide services.
It is especially important to prevent from getting such keys into the description and the title since these are most often used to create snippets in the search results. Also, make sure that the snippets do not have false promises, and the text descriptions comply with the pages they are leading to.
If you use contextual or targeted advertising, make sure that the text of the ads does not contradict the content of the landing page where the user gets.
Why you should prevent from getting the untargeted traffic to your site
It is simple with advertising. Involving the untargeted traffic, you are wasting your budget on the links that come to naught. For SEO, it is undesirable because it worsens behavioral factors, and they strongly affect the position of pages in the search results.
Improve the usability
The usability is the user experience of the site. To improve it, it is necessary to provide clear navigation and the interface. Pay attention to the following aspects:
- the structure of the resource which is understandable for the user, where he can get to the desired page without unnecessary clicks;
- bread crumbs: these are elements that simplify the navigation on the site; they display the shortest path from the page “Home” to the page where the user is;
- the site search: this is important for large-scale Internet resources;
- screen tips for the buttons that explain in more detail what kind of action the user will make by clicking on them.
- an intuitive page structure;
- item filters for online stores and catalog sites.
It is very important to ensure resource usability for the users of smartphones and tablets. To display the site correctly on small screens, adaptive web design is needed. By using it, the resource interface is adjusted to the resolution of the user’s screen. The main requirements for the interface when viewing it from a mobile phone are as follows:
- a large text that is easy to read without the scaling;
- there should be no horizontal scrolling on the screen;
- give up Flash and Silverlight elements that are not supported by the most mobile devices.
- a recommended button size is at least 10 × 10 pixels;
- do not place buttons and links too close.
You can check the site for convenience for mobile devices using the Google Mobile-Friendly test. It also provides the main recommendations to optimize the resource for smartphones and tablets.
Optimize the landing page content
When creating text content, it is important to consider the following requirements:
- Structurize your content. Always divide the content into subsections and paragraphs. Nothing scares the reader as much as a long continuous blanket of the text. Use headings of different levels (H1-H6), as well as bulleted and enumerated lists. It makes it easier to find information quickly.1.
- Use no more than two types of fonts on the site: the first for the headings, offers and buttons; the second for the main content. This makes the reading easier since the user does not need to constantly get used to the different fonts on the page.2.
- Add Calls to Action (CTA). They are a reminder that encourages the user to make the target action.3.
- Do not use the language of officialdom. This style of speech is distinguished by many excessively complex phrases, long complicated sentences and the constant use of the passive voice. It can often be found in documents, which is why the language of officialdom is erroneously considered to collaboration reputable and respectable. An example of the officialese is the following: “We carried out works on the manufacturing of…” instead of “we manufactured …”.4.
- Use numbers in headlines and appeals. Compare two headings: “10 facts about our company” and “facts about our company”. Which one will you open more willingly?5.
- You can find more information on how to create the content that will be converted into our articles: “A fine content is a key to sales” and “How to write a selling text”.6.
Use social proof
A positive experience of the collaboration of the previous customers with the company greatly affects the confidence in it, and therefore, the conversion rate. For the potential customers the following social proofs are important:
- positive reviews, ratings, and comments;
- customer names (if these are other companies);
- examples of collaboration;
- awards and achievements.
It is important that such proofs look naturally. Reviews should describe real examples of collaboration; it is worth mentioning the maximum information about the author. The awards should confirm your competence and professionalism, and not testify to the achievements that are of a little interest to the potential client.
Return the customer to the site
Another way to increase the conversion is to provide additional contacts with the potential client after his leaving the site. The key tools for this are remarketing and email marketing.
Remarketing is a contextual advertising tool that allows you to customize ads impressions to the Internet users who have already visited your site. With it, you can return some part of the visitors who took interest in your offer, but for some reason have not made the target action.
Email marketing is necessary to “warm-up” leads and convert them into customers, as well as provide repeat sales. If a site visitor left you his contact information, you can gradually increase his interest in the items through the posting.
Conclusions
The conversion rate is one of the key metrics of the efficiency of the Internet resource. The payback of most marketing tools depends on it. Therefore, you should work on it since before you have started its full-scale promotion.
In this article we have mentioned only the main methods to increase the conversion. In fact, there are far more of them, and the efficiency of each of them depends on the type of resource, the target audience, and themes. We will return to this topic in our blog by more specific examples. We hope the article was useful to you.
If you want to increase the conversion of your own Internet resource, submit an application on the site. We will help you to make your project more effective.
