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10 Ways
to Convert Visitors to Buyers
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An effective business web site is all about
converting browsers to paying customers. This is measured by the conversion
rate: a measure of how many web site visitors it takes to sell one item, or
capture one lead.
by Nach Maravilla
Publisher/CEO, PowerHomeBiz.com
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You work so hard to get visitors to your site. You spend money promoting
your site either through pay per click search, banner or other forms of
online advertising. You may also be spending countless hours optimizing your
website content for search engines, in the hope that your site will rank at
the top of the search engine results for your most important keywords. You
may also be using traditional marketing strategies to get visitors to come
to your site, such as press release submissions, public relations, newspaper
advertising, or word of mouth strategies.
But what happens when visitors finally come to your site? Are they buying
your products? Are they opting to receive your newsletter? Are they
subscribing to your members-only content? Finding a way to get qualified
prospects to come to your site is one thing; making them do what you want
them to do is another. Getting traffic is meaningless if you are not able to
keep your visitors and turn them into buyers.
An effective business web site is all about converting browsers to paying
customers. This is measured by the conversion rate: a measure of how many
web site visitors it takes to sell one item, or capture one lead. According
to a study done by e-tailing.com entitled "The Merchant Speaks," majority of
e-commerce executives who responded to the survey (42%) say that their
conversion rate (defined as the number of orders/number of visitors) is
about 1-3.9%. Your goal is to improve on that number and get a higher
conversion rate.
Why is conversion rate important? Conversion is the key to your business
success online. Improving conversion rate is a very cost effective way to
improve revenues dramatically without even attracting more visitors. In most
cases, it will be cheaper to make some changes to your own site to improve
the conversion rates than to pump more money into advertising and promotions
to attract more visitors.
Whether you are operating an e-commerce website or an information-based
site, below are 10 ways you can use to improve your conversion rate and turn
your visitors to buyers:
1. Provide quality products or content .
Good conversion rates start with quality and a great value proposition. The
key is to show what great value your product or service is, and to tell your
visitors how your product or service will make their lives better.
If you are operating an e-commerce website, you must offer quality
products at competitive prices. Or provide a breadth and depth of products,
that your site becomes a one-stop shopping destination for the niche you are
serving. For an information-based site, your content must be authoritative,
fresh and reliable.
2. Grab their attention immediately.
Put your most important and succinct statement of what your website offer
above the scroll. Never put anything important below the scroll. Your sales
pitch, site offering, even your order button should be seen above the
scroll. Your main products or top-selling items should be accessible from
your homepage. To achieve this, your site must be fast loading, with a fast
site search engine.
3. It’s about the customer, all the time.
People don’t care how good you are or your products than what you can do for
them. The “What’s in it for me?” mentality at work, visitors will respond to
your offer only if you can successfully make the case that your website
exists for them, to provide them what they need and offer a solution to
their problem.
It is important to remember that most visitors have a task in mind when
they come to your site -- whether looking for information, products or
services that are going to benefit themselves -- and your primary duty is to
deliver what they need. So you should help give them what they want: a
personalized experience with the content and specialization they’ve come
for.
4. Design your page specifically for your target
audience.
There is no hard-and-fast rule that every single visitor should come into
your website through your homepage. They can go straight to your site
offering or product pages. Or they can go to a specially created landing
page that is designed with the specific type of visitor in mind. Visitors
from Google’s Adword program may come to a specific page, but visitors from
your press releases may come in a different page. You need to provide
different types of visitors with the right content designed to make them
respond more to your offer, thereby increasing your chances for conversion.
5. Make it easy for them.
How you design your website can spell the difference – whether visitors are
turned off immediately and leaves, or they simply wander around your website
with no intention in mind, or you lead them to a clear path of purchase.
Avoid confusing navigational structures.
If you are selling products, make the ordering process easy. An indicator
of how well your process works is the ratio of abandoned shopping baskets to
total orders – if this is higher than 10 percent, then it indicates that the
online ordering process you have implemented is ineffective, or takes too
long.
6. Improve your site's copy .
More than a tool to inform users of what the site is all about, the best
type of web site copy explains to a visitor how your product will fulfill
their wants, needs and desires. Your copy must be compelling, interactive,
fresh, well written, concise, readable, and to the extent possible, tailored
to the individual’s needs. Avoid marketingspeak. Instead of focusing on your
product’s features, your copy must talk about the benefits the visitor will
get by buying your product, subscribing to your newsletter, or frequenting
your website on a regular basis. It is also important for your pages to have
a clear ‘call-to-action’ to get your visitors to take the next step.
7. Think active!
Use active voice to keep your customers motivated and fully engaged in the
sales process. Active voice is more dynamic, making the visitor feel that
you are speaking to them directly. They become more engaged, and you are
closer to a sale or a loyal customer.
8. Increase trust factor .
Trust is a key element of success on the Web. Visitors return only to
websites they trust. They purchase only from websites they know will
safeguard their information, provide them with quality service, and offer
them products that are value for their money.
Assure customers that you will maintain their privacy, so inform them
exactly what data you’re collecting and how you’re using them. Prominently
place a privacy policy on your site so your users feel comfortable
submitting their intimate data. Join regulatory organizations such as Truste
(www.truste.com) and BBBOnLine (www.bbbonline.com), and follow their
recommendations for maintaining customer privacy. If you are running an
e-commerce site, include as many ordering options as possible, i.e., e-mail,
fax, postal mail, toll-free and toll phone numbers.
9. Build customer loyalty.
Loyalty marketing is a proven technique to increase conversion rates and
improving bottom line. One possible way is to institute rewards program in
order to entice customers to invest more time on your site and give you more
data about themselves.
10. Study your metrics carefully.
You must have a set of key performance indicators that you can look at every
day to understand the pulse of your business. For example, an e-commerce
website should have information on the source of orders (e-mail, shopping
search, banners or organic), list of most popular products, daily unique
visitors, carts started/updated, checkouts started, orders, revenue, cart
creation rate, checkout rate, checkout conversion rate, average order size,
and revenue per customer. Information sites would do well to check out the
ratio of repeat visitors to total visitors, number of pages viewed by a
visitor, entry and exit pages, and where traffic is coming from.
Those who can analyze their site traffic in such depth, and then draw
conclusions based on the numbers, will not only allow their site to survive
as a viable business on the Web, but will reap huge profits along the way.
July 6, 2005
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