How to turn website visitors into customers – conversion rate optimisation
“Hello, I’ve just been looking at your website and I’m interested in…”
Do you long for more conversations like that in your quest to get more customers?
As expert PAs I’m sure you wish for more opportunities to discuss your services with your website visitors.
If only you could explain how you can save them time and money and show them how you make their lives much easier then you would get so many more customers wouldn’t you?
If only you could somehow persuade your website visitors to pick up the phone to call you!
This is the first part of a 2 part post that will show you how to increase conversion rates and get more customers.
So how do you entice more of your website visitors to send you an enquiry email, pick up the phone, register for your newsletter and buy your services? You could threaten to ‘send the boys round’ but perhaps there are more acceptable ways of persuasion. This post will help you increase the conversion rate of your website.
Many invest in advertising or search engine optimisation to drive more visitors to the website in an attempt to increase sales. (Adding volume to the top of the funnel). Conversion rate optimisation is the process to maximise a websites ability to deliver a desired outcome. In other words get more customer enquiries without increasing the number of visitors. (Widening the bottom of the funnel).
What’s the point? – Goals, outcomes and actions
You have around 3 seconds to make the right impression with a first time visitor to your website. In that time they will make a decision to either stop and look around or hit the back button and go looking elsewhere.
That judgement is made largely on the visible portion of the screen, the part seen without scrolling, known as ‘above the fold’ – Think of a folded newspaper, the large headline that filled that space above the fold had one job only… to get you to buy and unfold that newspaper.
The top portion of your webpage has to work just as hard for you to entice your visitor to stick around, delve deeper and ‘buy’ or enquire. Bear in mind that visitors can land on any page of your site not just the home page, so for each page, decide what goal or outcome you want from a visitor landing on that page. Lets work backwards from there to work out what will trigger them to act and do what you want them to do.
Concentrate on the ‘above the fold’ part of each page. Is it’s purpose to make the visitor delve deeper and find out more about what you can do for them? Is it to pick up the phone and call you? Make sure that the desired action is clear and easy for them to follow.
A clear call to action uses action words like ‘Read more’, ‘Call <number> Now’, ‘Download the Free Newsletter’. Clickable text should be obvious – big buttons that stand out from the rest of the page can help considerably and try to position them ‘above the fold’.
Basecamp, a supplier of Project Management software tools, changed their home page to make it clear what action they expected the visitor to take.
The new design is cleaner, the arrow clearly pointing where the visitor should go next. The “See Plans and Pricing” call to action is on a prominent large button. The result: a 14% increase in conversions.
Why should I? – Benefits and value
Having established the purpose of the page, ask yourself, has the visitor good reason to take the action. This is where your benefits and value need to figure. Under the Base camp call to action button text it says “30 day free trial, sign up in 60 seconds”. That tells me I’ve nothing to lose and it’s an easy simple process, I have a couple of good reasons to click.
Bringing us back to the world of the PA, Emily Robe at emilyrobevirtualassistant has made a good job of communicating a value proposition on her benefits page. A bulleted list of benefits is easier to scan read rather than a block of text.
If the visitor can clearly see your value and benefit to them, they are more likely to act on your call to action. Make it clear and obvious with no doubt over the value and benefit you bring. Don’t assume that they should be able to work it out for themselves. If it involves effort, then you are inviting them to look elsewhere.
A newsletter can be a good way of generating leads for your business. Perhaps your newsletter contains time saving tips, reviews of software you use etc but why will anyone sign up for your newsletter unless they see value and benefit in doing so? We all get too many emails as it is so why would I choose to receive yours? Try to communicate the value perhaps giving a list of benefits and/or a sample of what they will receive next to your sign up button/form. More on this in part 2.
So now we have tied benefits and value to our desired action.
In part 2 we will identify a trigger that will connect with your visitors and start them on the journey to completing your desired action and increase the conversion rate of your website.