Increasing Website Conversions
TweetThe following is a guest post on the topic of conversion optimization. Increasing conversions can significantly impact profits, which is why I recently released my Q&A Affiliate Formula. So, when Kevin inquired about writing a guest post on the topic, I happily accepted, knowing how relevant it would be. We’ll be talking more about conversion optimization in the future. For now, heeeere’s Kevin!
Every marketer that has a website has learned about bringing visitors to their site through SEO. He knows that a proper SEO campaign takes a lot of time and patience, but in the end, he’s rewarded with great rankings. Conversion optimization is also a patient task and is another never-ending process. But through constant testing, you’ll be able to dramatically improve your conversion rate.
If you offer a service of some sort this will more easily apply to you, but many of these techniques can be applied across the board no matter what kind of niche you are in. Conversion rate doesn’t only apply to selling a product or generating leads from a website. It can be applied to anything that you want a visitor to do when they get to your website/blog.
Perceived Authority and Trust
No one will use a service from someone they don’t trust. Building trust is crucial in getting a customer to complete a transaction. I’ve found (and many agree) that including customer testimonials, press mentions, secure website certificates, a physical address, and a picture, as well as maintaining a personal tone within your web content are all instant solidifiers in capturing the trust of an impatient web visitor. In order to complete the trust picture, you should make sure that you are keeping the search results clean with online reputation management.
Speed of Service
A potential customer doesn’t like wasting a lot of time, so don’t give them junk they don’t want or care about on a landing page. For example, when searching for [surety bonds], people want to get in and out as fast as possible so we keep a clean layout and short, concise content that gets to the point. If you run a fitness site, you may want to have a lengthy article that gets the reader emotional before deciding to buy your service/product. It all depends on your niche, so you’ll have to test to see which method works best. Either way, make sure to show your visitors what you want at the top of the site as you only have a few seconds to grab their attention to start them down the conversion process.
If you offer a service, be sure to have a fast follow-up. Through our bonding site and other experiences I’ve had, I’ve found that the more quickly we follow up with a web site contact, the more likely they are to turn into a completed transaction or customer. It’s important to immediately contact users whether through a live customer agent or even a simple email system to let them know that you received their info and will act on it shortly.
Testing, Testing, Testing
A major aspect of conversion rate optimization is testing. You need to find what works best and what just doesn’t make the cut. An easy way to do this is to use Google’s website optimizer. This allows you to send half of your traffic to one version of a page and the other half to a different version. Not sure if ‘Military Housing‘ converts better than ‘Military Homes‘? This will let you know. Then you can test it against a different phrase and keep the one that works the best. After repeating the test for a while, you will eventually find the phrase that always gives the best conversion.
Test form layouts, test different pictures, test everything. This is the biggest advice I would give people. You may not realize it, but a different picture or even a different background color can increase your conversion rate. With the proper dedication and a little time, you can turn visitors into customers.
This guest post was written by Kevin Kaiser of Surety Bond Co., a surety bonding agency.
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Tags: Conversion optimization, Conversion rate, Marketing, online reputation management, Search engine optimization
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An ebusiness coach, web developer, Internet Marketer, SEO, and all around web geek who makes her living from home doing all of the above.
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