Increase the Conversion Rate of Your Website

If a low conversion rate is affecting your website’s profitability, you should first do a baseline measurement. If you are smart, you stay on top of your website conversions, and can assemble three months of data quickly.

Having this data before you start your analysis makes the process go much more smoothly. Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring your conversion rate, and they have a wonderful tutorial for helping you get set up for tracking on your own.

Alternately, you can measure your conversion rate manually. This means you will need to collect the following data:

Number of total unique visitors (those coming ion from three sources: search engines, direct and referral traffic).

Individual total sales for the month (data extracted from your online sales monitoring system).

Once you have the baseline measurement (suppose you have a 1.5 % conversion rate average for the entire three month period) you can move on to the next step.

Start with content. Ask yourself if you are really providing customers with something useful and engaging. You can have a fabulous hit rate and a sorry conversion rate and a high bounce rate if you are doing your marketing right but your content is second rate. Put yourself in your target demographic’s shoes. Do you see what you need on your site?

Check the following:

Do you have pictures of your product on your site – or at the very least, a testimonial or short bulleted list of your services?

Is your pricing up front and justified?

Is your site easily navigable? Is it secure? Are you legal?

How’s your transparency level? Customers hate a bait and switch. They should also be able to contact you easily by mail, visit your office (if you have one), ask questions and get answers immediately, or even see a talking spokesperson to make the experience more personal.

Is your information substantial and accurate, or fluffy and error ridden? Do you really tell your visitors how much they will get for the price they pay? Is there fine print?

Are your shipping information and shipping times accurate? Who can order – are there restrictions based on country or region? Are there terms and conditions?

Are you using a good font style and size? Don’t get so fancy that no-one can read your site.

Is your “BUY NOW” button obvious? Do customers have to jumpo through a lot of hoops to make a purchase?

Do you focus on your customers’ needs and wants, rather than how wonderful you are? The consumer doesn’t care if you have sold fifty thousand in the past six months – they want to know if you will sell them what they need right now.

Look back through customer related queries , complaints and kudos to see where you hit the mark and where you need to improve. Work on establishing yourself and your business as trusted names. Measure customer response to the way you explain your products, and do surveys and polls to see what kind of feedback you get.

Once your site’s overall content has improved, you should start seeing an increase in your conversion rates and a healthier site!