A lot of website owners work tirelessly at increasing their
traffic. They submit to FFA pages and classified sites. They
participate in startup programs and pop under exchanges. There
is no end to the gimmicks they will try, all in the hopes that
they’ll get more customers.
If you’re one of these website owners, there is an easier way to
increase your sales! By improving your conversion rate you’ll be
able to make more money from the visitors you’re already
getting. What is a conversion rate you ask? Well, quite simply,
it’s the percentage of visitors that you’re converting into
customers. Most websites have a conversion rate of 1% - 2% on
average. That means that out of 100 visitors only 1 - 2 are
turned into customers. You can see the benefit of increasing
that number. If you can get a conversion rate of 3% you’re now
making more sales without having to do any extra work or spend
any more money to get traffic.
So how do you improve your conversion rate? Here are 11 steps
you can take right now…
1. Make sure the traffic visiting your site is targeted and
looking to buy. The key point here is “looking to buy”. There
are a lot of services that offer targeted traffic but the
visitors have no intention of buying. If the person isn’t
interested in purchasing then you’re wasting time and money
showing them your ad.
2. Make sure that when people land at your website from an ad
there is a correlation. Far too often people click on an ad that
is discussing one topic and are taken to the home page of the
company. Instead of taking the time to search for the
information they read about in the ad, they leave. Avoid this
problem by sending people to a specific page within your site
that discusses the same products you mentioned in your ad – if
such a page doesn’t exist then create a mini-site.
3. Have a professionally designed site and copy that is written
to sell. A good sales letter includes benefits for the user (not
just a features list), testimonials and action statements that
encourage the reader to take the next step.
4. Offer more value. With each product offer free eBooks,
reports, consulting, or whatever else your visitors would find
valuable - These items don’t cost you anything and there is a
perceived value that can encourage someone who’s on the fence to
take the leap and buy.
5. Offer a free trial or money back guarantee. People are
naturally sceptical, especially on the Internet where they can’t
see a live person and decide for themselves whether they’re
trustworthy. A great way to encourage them to trust you is by
showing them that you believe in your product so much that
you’re willing to let them try it free – or that you’ll give
them a full refund if they’re not satisfied.
6. Do everything possible to get the visitors name and email
address so you can follow-up. Do this by offering a great
newsletter, a special report, an autoresponder series, a free
eBook, a giveaway/contest, a free tool. There are endless ways
to get people to give their contact information – play around
with different offers on your site to see what works.
7. Offer multiple products. Offering products at different price
points and to different segments of your target market increases
your chances of making a sale. If you only have one product of
your own to sell, look into affiliate programs as another income
stream.
8. Upsell at the time of checkout. Once a customer has made the
decision to buy from you, you’ve already done the hardest part.
Before they leave you should encourage them to increase the size
of their order, this is known as “upselling”. To do this
effectively, recommend products that complement what they’ve
already decided to purchase.
9. Follow up on every inquiry you get. Excellent customer
service is something that is unfortunately lacking on the
Internet. Do yourself a favor and make it a priority to respond
to all inquiries by the end of the day. If you’re getting too
many to make this possible consider ways you can take off some
of the strain. Are there questions that alot of customers have?
If so, include them on your FAQ page. Are there processes you
can automate so you don't have to be contacted such as
unsubscribing from your newsletter? If all else fails consider
hiring someone to help you answer your inquiries.
10. Make the order process as easy as possible. Abandoned
shopping carts is a problem that continues to plague online
businesses. The reasons for this include: a cumbersome order
process that involves too many steps, asking for too much
information (you really don’t need to know they’re shoe size)
and additional fees being added on that weren’t mentioned
upfront. On many websites they never even mention the product
price or shipping costs until you’re half way through the order
process. By that point customers are feeling too frustrated to
purchase anything. Be upfront about exactly what customers can
expect during the order process and strive to make it as quick
and easy as possible.
11. Test, test, test! Finding the right mix of product, price
and sales tactic is very difficult – if it was easy the average
conversion rate would be a lot higher than 2%! Your best chance
for getting a mix that works is testing different scenarios. If
you don’t already know what split run testing is you need to
learn about it. In a nutshell it allows you to show different
pages to different visitors for the purposes of determining
which one performs best. Using split run testing you can try
different site layouts, sales letters, prices, special offers,
and many more scenarios to find what gets the most sales.
Now get out there and make some money!
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