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8 Reasons Your Website Is Failing to Increase Your Conversion Rate

The Internet is a huge network of people, businesses, information, and services striving to attract the most visits to their respective websites. When you first launch your business website or service, the process of attracting potential customers can be overwhelming. Your website is probably one of many that offer similar products. Despite this, you can set yourself apart from competitors and increase your sales in two ways: attract more potential customers or increase the conversion rate of the customers already visiting your website.

Optimizing your website to increase conversion rates is therefore an important component of any online marketing strategy. A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your site that take the action you desire them to take, whether that means filling in their information to become a lead or buying a product or service to become a customer. Many factors contribute to successful conversion rates, and you can make a number of small changes to your website’s design, content, and accessibility to boost your lead conversions or sales. Maybe the number of visitors to your website has stagnated, or maybe it’s growing, but why aren’t those visitors turning into customers? Below are eight potential problems your website is facing and eight solutions that will help you optimize your website and increase the conversion rate of its visitors.

1. Your website design is outdated.

On average, it takes less than a second for a visitor to judge your website (and business) based on its design and overall aesthetic appeal. People are more likely to buy from a business that presents itself in a way that appeals to them visually. This is bad news if your design is outdated or unprofessional, with clashing color schemes, mismatched fonts, unprofessional images, or too much information crammed into a small space.

Solution: Simplify your design and choose an attractive and consistent color scheme that compliments your business and the aesthetic of the customers to whom you want to appeal. Create an attractive and obvious header image that showcases the name of your business so your customers know they are in the right place. Understand and use font hierarchy so the most important information you need a new visitor to know stands out from the smaller print. Avoid large blocks of text on your main pages. They can overwhelm visitors who are new to your product or service—leave the more substantial content for the blog posts, ebooks, and other great resources your website has to offer.

2. Your call to action (CTA) isn‘t the first thing your visitors see.

This step is crucial for increasing conversion rates. Is it clear what you are offering and how potential customers can obtain your product or service? Depending on your business, your call to action could be a free service quote, a subscription, a free trial, or a consultation. All these lead a potential customer to a purchase and should be among the most prominent elements of your website.

Solution: Be bold and make your CTA as obvious as you can. Create an attractive, easy-to-see button to advertise what you have to offer, and be sure to place it prominently.

3. Your website doesn‘t load quickly.

When more people can find your business’s website, you have more potential customers. Are your products and services easy to find? Customers who run into problems loading pages, face long wait times to see information, and encounter broken links or other errors are customers who will most likely go somewhere else with their business.

Solution: Optimizing your website for all browsers and mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, will naturally increase your conversion rate. Invest in a hosting service that ensures your information loads quickly. Make sure that all pages on your website load properly and that all links work.

4. Your website lacks great content about what you have to offer.

Your website is built and your product or service is available, but you are still having trouble attracting visitors and converting those visitors into leads or customers. People tend to buy from companies that not only have something to sell but also have knowledge to share.

Solution: A great way to attract visitors and convert them into customers is to create great content. Become an authority in your niche to increase your visitors’ confidence in your company and product. Consistently writing helpful articles and engaging content related to your business will help solidify your reputation as an online resource that people will return to again and again.

5. Your navigation is complicated.

Too many options can be overwhelming. Does your website do a great job of leading customers to the information they want to find? How navigation is addressed in your website design is one of the most important factors in increasing conversion rates. Visitors who can’t find what they need quickly and easily will most likely not turn into customers.

Solution: Check out how your competition handles website navigation. Often, certain types of businesses have a recognizable system that works efficiently to get visitors where they want to be. Keep menus simple and clean, and lead your customer to information by presenting it in a progressive and intuitive way.

6. Options to purchase aren‘t immediately clear.

A website for a product or service should make it easy to purchase that product or service. Navigating to products should be easy and intuitive with clearly defined menus. Once a visitor is viewing a particular product, it should be easy for that visitor to find the Add to Cart button and become a customer.

Solution: Make every effort to create an easy-to-use ecommerce system with visible “Buy” buttons and checkout options. Finding product categories or services on your main page should be quick and easy. Avoid complicated menus.

7. Your content isn‘t honest and authentic.

If you’re the owner of a small online business, you’re responsible for many different things. You want to add content that attracts visitors and increases your conversion rates, but you’re not sure how to write it.

Solution: The key is to be transparent about who you are and what you do. People are more likely to buy from you if they recognize that real people are behind the online business. Try to convey this through your content in a way that makes your visitors more likely to connect with what you have to offer and become customers. Be open about your products and services and about the availability of both.

8. Your website isn‘t up front about purchasing or product information.

It can be hard to compete with other online businesses, some of which may have a much larger following than you. Reputation and word-of-mouth testimonials are just as important online as they are in real life. How do you go about building trust to convert more customers?

Solution: Building trust and a great reputation online can take time. Offer customer reviews so that first-time visitors can gain an idea of how previous customers feel about your product or service. Be transparent about your return policies and shipping fees, and make it easy for each customer to track their transactions so that they can see exactly where their purchase is.

 

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: conversion rate optimization, SEO

Writing Persuasive Web Copy (No Jedi Mind Tricks Required)

Star Wars. Responsible for inspiring the most popular Halloween costumes, inciting heated debates over who shot first, and turning chubby, lightsaber-wielding kids into overnight YouTube sensations. Among the Ewoks, droids, stormtroopers, and starships, one iconic image sums up the Star Wars empire (pun intended): Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader’s clashing green and red lightsabers, locked in a timeless struggle between good and evil.

Imagine what would have happened, then, if, instead of throwing himself down Cloud City’s air shaft in a final act of defiant heroics, Luke had accepted Vader’s offer to “rule the galaxy as father and son.” For all his mind tricks, persuasive powers, and paternal bullying, our dear asthmatic Sith Lord made a fatal error: he failed to read his audience, and thus didn’t speak to him effectively.

The same goes for writing persuasive web copy. A beautiful website design and a perfect SEO system may bring a Star Destroyer full of consumers to your webpage, but if your writing doesn’t resonate with your audience, it will fail to convert those visitors into leads. In short, you’ll be left hanging—just like Vader, hand outstretched—failing to make the sale. (Maybe he should have rethought that one—offering a hand right after chopping off Luke’s. Bit of a costly oversight there, Anakin.)

From Jedi mind tricks to dark side scare tactics, Star Wars can teach us a lot about writing persuasive web copy. Grab some popcorn and blue milk, tell your friends you’ll have to pick up power converters at Tosche Station another time, and settle in to learn a few things from the denizens of a galaxy far, far away.

Use positive language

“Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.”

Like the divide between the light and dark sides of the Force, the message here is about positive over negative language. How did Obi-Wan divert the stormtroopers who were searching for R2-D2 and C-3P0? Some Jedi mind tricks, to be sure, but also positive language. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for; you can go about your business. Move along.” Negative language has a tendency to be memorable in a bad way; the last thing you want is for your readers to develop a negative association with your content. You want them to feel empowered to tackle whatever problem they came to your website to solve. Another technique is to ask a question early on—a question you know the consumer will answer with a “yes.” Unless your readers are Toydarians, they’ll develop a habit of saying “yes” to other questions or offers you pose.

Use the active voice

“Do, or do not—there is no try.”

Write in the active voice. The active voice is direct, simple, and easy to understand. The passive voice removes the power of action from the subject and can quickly muddy your meaning with convoluted turns of phrase. The active voice is particularly important when writing headlines or titles, meta descriptions, image captions, and calls to action (CTAs). You want clear, effective language to draw users to your landing page and compel them to take the desired action. As much as we love Yoda, you should probably avoid his legendary speech patterns.

Be authentic and believable

Luke: “I can‘t believe it.“ Yoda: “That is why you fail.“

Consider your audience. If your content is not culturally relevant to your target group—or worse yet, not believable—your chances of gathering successful conversions are slim to none. Avoid salesy jargon and claims that sound too good to be true. Don’t hesitate to link to factual supporting evidence, research studies, testimonials, or other verifiable sources to demonstrate your credibility. If your users don’t believe you, they aren’t going to buy.

Choose your titles wisely

“Don’t call me a mindless philosopher, you overweight glob of grease!”

Names are important. Put extra effort into names, titles, and headlines. Imagine if the Death Star had been called the Planet Zapper, or if Obi-Wan Kenobi had described Mos Eisley as a “wretched hive of icky people.” Doesn’t quite have the same zing, does it? Your titles and headlines need to draw users to your page and encourage them to keep reading. For tips and tricks, take a look at this guide for writing headlines more engaging than an Imperial tractor beam.

Tell a story

“I’m not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories.”

Emotional response can be the deciding factor in changing visitors to conversions. A fantastic way to make a connection with your reader and elicit emotion is through storytelling. While only a small part of the brain is triggered by facts and figures, stories can activate the entire brain, including emotions. This can be a powerful tool for swaying your audience. Need proof? C-3P0 wooed a whole civilization of Ewoks by telling them stories of the Rebel Alliance’s battles with the Galactic Empire, inspiring the Ewoks to fight beside the Rebels against the Imperial troops on Endor.

Get to your landing page

“Stay on target!”

Everything you write needs to maintain focus. Your ultimate goal is to get consumers to your landing page by convincing them that your product will solve their problems. There are many ways of doing this—showing empathy by acknowledging your own experience with their problem, providing testimonials for emotional relatability and positive assurance, or simply describing the benefits your product will bring to the user, as opposed to merely listing its features. Whatever approach you take, make absolutely sure your content relates directly to your audience and points toward a solution. If it doesn’t, cut it out.

Create scarcity

“Control, control, you must learn control!”

Take control of a user’s impulse to click away from an offer by creating the feeling of product scarcity. This is a tried-and-true aspect of writing persuasive web copy: you want your readers to feel as though they’ll miss out if they don’t act on your offer now. Marketing a product as available for a limited time only, or to a limited number of consumers—an ebook available free for just three days, for example, or a special discount for the first 100 buyers—can move someone who might otherwise wander off to “think about it” to jump on the limited opportunity instead.

Target Millennials

“Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.”

It’s time to acknowledge the new greatest power in the universe. It isn’t the Death Star anymore—it’s Millennials. These tech-savvy, Internet-dominating, information-processing machines are what drive online marketing success. They are your future consumers. So it’s time you learned to speak (and write) their language. Millennials value engaging, relatable content that can be skimmed quickly for key points. Break up your copy with visual aids (bolded headings, photos, embedded videos, graphical content) and divide large sections of text into manageable chunks with concise headings so that readers can find the information they need via a quick scan.

Never stop adapting

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

Internet technologies change, and they change fast. Effective online marketers extend their brand presence across a variety of web spaces, from product websites to social media networks. Your web copy should reflect the attitudes and behaviors of each platform. A Facebook post that directs users to your landing page, for example, requires language that is considerably more attention-grabbing and concise than the copy for your website’s homepage or a blog post.

To market in each space effectively, it’s important to stay on top of the trends. Relying on your knowledge of past Internet trends or writing styles is a mistake, as these become obsolete faster than the Millennium Falcon can complete the Kessel Run. You’ll also want to keep in mind changing social attitudes and needs when you consider the tone of your writing. In the wise words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” The buying cycles that marketers used in the past aren’t effective anymore, especially with Millennials. Writing to satisfy the conventions and buying patterns only of older groups won’t resonate with this now-dominant Internet generation and will result in lost conversions.

So you’ve soaked it all up? Great, kid. Don’t get cocky!

When writing persuasive web copy, it’s important to continuously remind yourself of the personas of your target consumers and their stages in the buyer’s journey. Creating a personalized experience that applies the right emotional triggers will enhance the likelihood of your users’ completing the action you’ve laid out for them. If Luke could feel comfortable flying the Death Star’s exhaust port corridor because it reminded him of shooting womp rats from his T-16 back home, you can certainly give your users the confidence to follow your CTAs by creating a positive, action-oriented, culturally relevant experience.

In the words of Jedi Master Yoda: mind what you have learned, and may the Force be with you.

 

Filed Under: Content Writing Tagged With: conversion rate optimization, writing advice

What Your Competitors Can Teach You About Website Optimization

In 2010, Simon Sinek’s TED talk about the Golden Circle of marketing took intellectuals and business-minded Internet audiences by storm. Labeled like something out of Greek mythology and sounding at first like holistic cutesy talk, the Golden Circle is actually grounded in specific behavioral science, and it quickly transfixed audiences.

Sinek’s theory illustrates an approach to marketing that stems from the why as opposed to the what; in short, companies that appeal to our gut reactions are more successful than those that attempt to influence our decision making by telling us about their products. Consumers are more swayed by why a company / activist / organization does what it does than by what it actually does. The “gut reaction” function of the brain affects decision making far more effectively than rationalization does.

Now apply this to online marketing. Think about what gut reaction your company’s website may trigger. Researchers at the content marketing super-site HubSpot found that users judge the appearance of a website in 1/50th to 1/20th of a second. The concept of website optimization is nothing new, but it is still largely underestimated or underemployed by myriads of businesses and not-for-profit organizations alike.

Simple website analysis reveals that the most effectively optimized websites are those that follow the Golden Circle. They convince by relaying why the company does what it does. Their aesthetics trigger an instant positive reaction from visitors, and easy navigation and well-designed landing pages enable the swift conversion of why-inspired visitors.

Don’t be afraid to learn from your competitors. Here are a few examples of companies and organizations that have got this website optimization thing down.

1. Coin

The brilliance of Coin’s website happens as you scroll down. Granted, some visitors won’t bother to do so, but the overall spectacular design and eye-catching (without being distracting or obnoxious) animations encourage users to continue down the page. From there, this website truly embraces the Golden Circle method for website optimization. The best part? The call to action (CTA) of “Get Yours First” that allows newly convinced consumers to believe they’re jumping on board ahead of the crowd.

  • Changing custom background to target different user personalities
  • Visually interesting, interactive experience
  • Explains benefits and relates the product to real-life situations
  • CTAs at both the top and bottom of the page
  • Stellar CTA statement

2. ZURB

Simple, beautiful, and to the point, ZURB’s homepage lets you know who they are as a company and utilizes a truly brilliant CTA. In addition to its perfect use of color and design, “ZURB in 30 Seconds” is hard to pass up; who wouldn’t want all their questions answered in half a minute?

  • Phenomenal CTA
  • Direct message about who they are and what users have to gain
  • Easy navigation (as you scroll down) that provides clear answers to user questions

3. Panera Bread (mobile)

Most online consumers have experienced trying to access a website from a mobile device, only to discover awkward layouts, teeny-tiny fonts, and agonizingly slow load times. The reaction? An immediate backward swipe, especially when expensive data usage is at stake. Websites like Panera Bread, which employs unique optimization for both desktop and mobile devices, are very much ahead of the game. Panera Bread’s mobile site is attractive, functional, and—most importantly—user-friendly on a small screen.

  • Large, clear, easy-to-use navigation
  • Simple, attractive aesthetics
  • Designed to immediately meet user needs
  • Shareable on social media

4. You Need a Budget

Think about what a user probably asked Google: “How can I balance my budget?” comes to mind. You Need a Budget presents immediate answers to that and similar questions, minimizing user effort (crucial in today’s online culture of instant gratification).

  • Several clear, relevant CTAs
  • Talks about user benefits rather than products
  • Demonstrates the company’s driving beliefs to encourage trust
  • Visible free-product offer

Conclusion

When optimizing your website, remember the Golden Circle—demonstrate that your company is genuine, believes in what it does, and offers a great product. Trigger positive gut reactions from visitors by making your website a delight to look at and easy to navigate, and transform those same visitors into customers or donors with easy-to-find, direct, and inviting CTAs. Remember that first reactions to your website and user friendliness will do a huge chunk of your sales pitch for you. Once that gut instinct happens, visitors can use the additional pages of your informative, well-laid-out website to rationalize the affirmative decision they’ve already made.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: conversion rate optimization, writing advice

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