Nurture your users by personalizing the content they see. If you have it, pull information such as name, location, referral source, etc. from your database or link appends, and dynamically insert it into your page or email copy. For example, let’s imagine we have a job board with a headline that reads, “Companies are hiring people like you:”. If we know where they’re searching, we can personalize the headline with dynamic fields. It then becomes, “Companies in Cleveland are hiring people like you”. This adds to the user experience by speaking more specifically to each user’s needs. Of course, you might not always have the information to dynamically insert for every user, so always be sure to set a default entry, such as “in your area”, or word the content in a way so that the dynamic fields can simply be left out, as we did in the example above.
Add trust logos or badges
Trust logos or badges can help you add an element of trust to your website or landing page, boosting your overall conversion rate. If you’re a member of a business organization, were the recipient of an award, a stellar rating, or hold other accolades, show them off by including the logos or badges on your page. Examples include anything from Rotary membership badges or Better Business Bureau ratings to the logos of well known clients who have trusted your work. Try including them in close proximity to known anxiety-producing elements, such as lead forms or transactional buttons. By displaying trust badges, you can help reassure your users of your good reputation and that they won’t be cheated or scammed.
Focus on a single call to action
Multiple offers confuse the user and confused users means lower conversions. Determine which single call to action is most important and make it the focus of your page. Make all other options clearly secondary. Create an obvious hierarchy. All links are not equally important. Attempts to be all-inclusive can create leaks in your sales funnel by distracting users ready to commit with unnecessary information.
What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?
You can attract all the website traffic in the world, but traffic means nothing if your users aren’t taking any action. Every website has a goal. How efficient your website is at “converting” traffic into leads or customers (the typical goal) is the second half of the battle. Lets say your website gets 1,000 visitors over a month long period. The percentage of those visitors who purchased your product or filled out a lead form is the conversion rate. Let’s say you already have a fairly typical conversion rate of about 5%. That means only 50 people out of those 1,000 visitors actually buy anything! So how can you sell more products? You could spend more money on advertising and increase the number of visitors to your site (95% of which still wouldn’t even buy your product)- or you could better utilize more of the traffic that you already worked so hard to get.
Visitors are leaving your site empty handed for a reason. But, through a little testing and analytics, you can begin to see what your customers’ expectations are and how to cater to them. How can you persuade them to stay and make a purchase or fill out a lead form? What if you tried writing a more convincing headline and 2 more people out of the 1,000 already visiting your site made a purchase? Maybe you tried changing the color of your “add to cart” button and 3 more of those people made purchases. What if you found enough tweaks to gain 50 more sales and doubled your income?!… Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is that process. It’s the culmination of all the little tweaks that together translate into big results. It’s figuring out how to get more of your users from point A to point B more efficiently. And ultimately, making more, with less.
Get started by analyzing your website. Google Analytics is free and easy to get basic tracking up and running. Visit my resources page for links to analytic and split testing solutions.