How to Optimize Your Site to Maximize Conversion Rates

Since your website first went live, you’ve worked hard to build a strong search engine presence and have watched your traffic grow at a steady rate. However, you haven’t seen the same kind of increase in the number of new clients or sales on your site, leaving you to wonder what you’re doing wrong. You may even be finding yourself asking if you can claim to have a “successful” site.

If this sounds familiar to you, the answer may lie in conversion optimization. But what does this mean exactly? In the most basic sense, this involves taking the time to go through the site and tweak it so that it does all the work for you, taking visitors all the way to the bottom of the sales funnel. If search engine optimization (SEO) is the cheese, conversion optimization is the mousetrap.

Ways To Improve Your Conversion Rates

Optimizing conversion rates is both an art and a science. To get the most out of your website, you need to monitor user behavior such as what they look at, what they click on, and how long they stay, then continually make site changes to drive your sales goals.

This can be a major undertaking for any business, especially those without a dedicated web development team. That is why many companies turn to an online marketing company to help them maximize their conversions. Below are some of the most common and efficient methods used to optimize conversion rates.

Provide Social Proof

As you have probably experienced personally, there can be some hesitation when it comes to buying goods or services online. This skepticism can be one of your biggest hurdles. The best way to overcome it is to provide social proof. This means providing things to support your legitimacy such as testimonials or reviews that make potential customers feel more at ease with the products or services that you are offering.

Feature Videos of Real People

Video testimonials go a step further than the standard written testimonials by showing that there are real people using your product. A video of a customer speaking about how your product or service helped them or solved their problem comes across as much more sincere and therefore can be incredibly compelling.

Make Your Content Brief

On average, you only have a limited amount of time to grab the attention of a potential customer. Additionally, no one likes to be bombarded by information and long, drawn-out paragraphs, which means that you need to keep your copy as concise as possible. Avoid stuffing your pages with unnecessary content. Most users visit a site to have their questions answered so be sure that what you have on your main site pages is clear and concise, giving customers the information they need without having to search for it.

Be Transparent with Pricing

Though many feel that listing pricing on a website can turn people away, real-world scenarios have shown that the opposite is true. This ties into answering the questions that customers have. Many visitors will come to your site with one main question in mind: how much? The glaring lack of this information can signal to the prospect that your products may not be legitimate or worse, that it is far outside of their price range.

For instance, if a website does not list the monthly pricing for an agency’s SEO services, a potential client may leave the site without contacting the company and instead go with a company that does list their SEO plan pricing, even if the cost is ultimately the same.

Provide Clear Contact Options

Customers are generally more comfortable purchasing products and services from companies that provide them with ways to contact a representative should they have any further questions or issues. Be sure to provide as many options for convenient contact as possible to better serve a broader range of customers. If you have a 24/7 live chat option, let them know! Is your team highly responsive to emails or standing by to answer calls? Be sure to make that known!

Use Descriptive Navigation

Ease of navigation is essential to the user experience. Adding an easy-to-use navigation bar has been shown to improve conversion rates. The ability to easily navigate your website can be the thing that makes or breaks the sale. Avoid using the standard navigation wording that every other website uses. Instead, work to use terms that are more descriptive in nature and are relevant to your business.

Make Your Buttons More Specific

Specificity is the backbone of conversions. People want to know what the outcome of completing an action will be. To be candid, everyone wants to know what’s in it for them. What will happen after they click this “Create Account” button? Will they be taken to a page where they can get started with your service? If so, making the small change of having the button read “Create Account & Get Started” can encourage more visitors to take that action.

Scale Down Form Fills

If your site uses form fills for any task, it’s time to take a closer look at them. Numerous case studies have shown that the more fields that the form requires, the fewer people that will take the time to complete them. Individuals are leery of giving out their personal information without knowing why it is needed or where the information will go.

Try to simplify your forms by removing any unnecessary fields and leaving only the bare minimum of information that is actually required. As a general rule of thumb, asking your prospects for their first name and email address should suffice.

Boost Your Conversion Rate with ClickReady

Increasing your site’s conversion rates can be tricky to accomplish on your own. The variables listed above are just a small handful of all of the possible elements that can influence conversion optimization. In addition, to ensure that you are getting everything you possibly can out of your site and making the most out of your changes, you will need to conduct A/B testing to fully discover how different layout, wording, and even colors are affecting how your potential customers are interacting with your site.

The sheer size of these tasks can discourage many companies from trying, leading to a loss of revenue. If you’ve found that your team simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to accomplish effective conversion optimization, ClickReady Marketing can help. Our knowledgeable team has provided top-rated SEO services to hundreds of clients from across the country.

ClickReady’s proven methods can boost your rankings and maximize your conversion rate with the help of practices such as our industry-changing live SEO sessions. Get in touch with us today to find out how our digital marketing services can aid your team and help your business grow!